Standing Strong, Picking Wild Apples, and Angels Haircut

Friday August 30, 2024

Dear Diary,

I woke up at 6:30 AM. I wrote my blog until 7 AM. I got up, let the chickens out and made tea. Tracey sent me his morning gratitudes: Good morning beautiful ocean eyes🥰🌻🌞

I am grateful. I am grateful for having a vehicle. I am grateful for safe travels. I am grateful for feeling like I’m in junior high and have a crush on you. I am grateful for you enjoying your family. I am grateful for healthy food. I am grateful for music. I am grateful for time alone. I am grateful for our heartfelt goodbyes. I am grateful for meditations. I am grateful for clarity. I am grateful for an open heart. I am grateful for Cassie. I am grateful for holding hands. I am grateful for truck stops. I am grateful for health. I am grateful for life. I am grateful for you Victoria. I love and appreciate you. Thank you♾️💛💚🙏. I watched the sunrise and sent him my morning gratitudes: Good morning sparkly eyes, you’re welcome. I am grateful for family. I am grateful for mountains. I am grateful for inner guidance. I am grateful for walks. I am grateful for opportunities. I am grateful for being whole. I am grateful for Angel. I am grateful for mornings. I am grateful for friendship. I appreciate you Tracey and I appreciate you doing what’s best for you. I love you. 😁☀️🌙🌺⛰️. Angel woke up and I fed her honey bread. I texted a little with Tracey and then he asked me, did you break up with me?. I texted back, you broke up with me. He said, I didn’t, I just don’t belong by your side physically at this time. I responded, Ok, I must have misunderstood. He said, What do you  want? I completely value our connection even at a distance. I spent some time in prayer and meditation before responding. I wrote back with a really long text message letting him know what I did and did not want. A romantic relationship with him is not what I want right now. I desire to move forward focusing on my new life in Idaho. I will not be with someone who is constantly threatening to leave and packing up, whenever things become challenging. I do not deserve to have that kind of emotional roller coaster going on. That’s not what I want in a relationship. I require stability and someone who is secure in their love for themselves. Someone who has the ability to stay and allow space for each of us to gain clarity without threatening to leave. I had been allowing myself to be brought down because I was getting so little time to myself that I couldn’t receive clarity or gain new perspectives. I wasn’t following my inner guidance that was telling me to take time to myself. I was focused on making someone else happy which I know is impossible but I because confused with all the emotional ups and downs going on. 

I let Tracey know that friendship is all I am interested in with him. He said thank you for being honest with him and I said you’re welcome. I felt immense relief that I could now have as much alone time as I required without upsetting Tracey. I felt light and grateful for my experiences of straying from my inner guidance. I had fallen into people pleasing. It felt yucky to let someone else’s chaotic energy overpower my own. Through that though, I gained clarity on how to stand tall in my own energy once again. I feel even stronger now than before. Contrast is a beautiful gift. My experiences with Tracey have truly been a blessing to me and I wish nothing but great things for him. 

I vacuumed Missy’s house and scooped out the litter box. Then Angel and I got ready to go. I couldn’t find my glasses anywhere. Finally I asked Angel where they were. She said she had accidentally knocked down some glasses last night and they fell behind the hot water heater. Those were my glasses for sure, my arm was too thick to reach them but Angel was able to reach them with her skinny arm. Now that I had my glasses, we left to meet Brett at Trish’s to go pick wild apples and plums. I wasn’t going to make it on time and Brett doesn’t have a cell phone that works without wi-fi, so there wasn’t a way to let him know that I was 20 minutes behind. 

When I pulled up to Trish’s, Brett wasn’t there. I got out of the truck to go inside and he pulled up out front. Perfect! He had been running behind schedule too. Angel wanted to bring her bicycle to ride around while we picked apples. Brett loaded up her bicycle and we went to the coffee shop. I got a chai tea and Angel got a hot chocolate. On our way out of town we saw a rummage sale going on at the library. We stopped to check it out and I found a small bookshelf. I’d been looking for a bookshelf and this one was exactly what I wanted. There were books lined up against the wall in my room waiting for the perfect bookshelf. 

We dropped the bookshelf off at Trish’s and drove down a country road looking for wild apple and plum trees. We hadn’t gone far when we came across a wild apple tree. I parked on a side road and Angel road her bicycle around while we went down to the apple tree. We picked a whole bunch of apples and there was still a lot left on the tree for other people to pick or for the wildlife to enjoy. When we walked back up the embankment, a lady in a truck was driving by. She stopped and rolled down her window. I thought she was going to say something about me having Texas license plates. (Idahoans don’t like Texans because some rich Texas guys bought up 60,000 acres of land that had been open to the public and of course, they made it private, blocking off access roads and hiring armed guards. Needless to say, Idahoans didn’t like that. That’s not how people are up here.) The lady didn’t say anything about my plates, she was friendly and excited about the wild apples being ready to harvest. I told her there were plenty left on that tree and a lot more trees that haven’t been touched. She was happy to hear it. We drove down the road to another wild apple tree and did the same thing. We figured out if you shake the branches, then a bunch fall down. It’s much easier to pick them up off the ground rather than try to reach them. Here is a fun video I took: 

We now had plenty of apples. I planned on juicing most of them and Angel wanted an apple pie. We continued on down the road to find a wild plum tree. We never did find wild plums but we did find wild pears and we harvested some. While harvesting pears, a lady in a jeep pulled over to talk to us. Again, I thought she was going to say something about my Texas plates. She didn’t, instead she told us that there was a yard sale in town that had some fruit pickers in case we wanted to get them to use. We thanked her for letting us know. There were also elderberries everywhere but we didn’t harvest any of those. I will come back another day to get a bunch of those and juice them. As of now, I have more than enough fruit to make plenty of juice to last me a while. 

Trish was home for lunch when we got back from our foraging adventures. Brett left and went to the yard sale to buy a fruit picker. Angel went off to ride her bicycle with her friends. I helped Trish break down the cardboard boxes that I had brought my moving stuff in. We laid the cardboard out on one of her garden spaces and put the sprinkler on it to get it to lay flat. While we were doing this, I talked to Trish about Angel getting a dog. At first Trish had agreed to Angel getting a dog but from things she’d mentioned lately, I had a feeling she’d changed her mind. Trish said that she wanted to wait until spring for Angel to get a dog but agreed to letting her have an indoor/outdoor cat that would live in the motorhome after I move it there from Missy’s. I liked that idea because it would keep mice out of the motorhome. 

Trish went back to work. I cleaned the bookshelf I had gotten at the rummage sale and took it upstairs. All my books fit perfectly on it. I vacuumed the upstairs and walked a block away to the thrift store to find a clothes hamper for Angel and I to put our dirty laundry in. They had one for 50 cents. 

Angel and her friend Noah rode up to the house just as I got back. I asked Angel if she was ready to get her hair cut? She said, yes. I looked in my hair cutting kit and the scissors weren’t in there. So we walked to the store and bought some. (Earlier that morning, Angel had asked me if she could get her hair cut. I told her she could if she wanted. She said she wanted it cut to her shoulders. I asked her when she wanted it done and she said today.) I cut Angel’s hair while her friend Noah watched. It had been a while since I’d cut anyone’s hair and I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. It turned out looking nice though. I put a few layers in it to make it easier for her to manage. When her haircut was completed, I took pictures and Angel rode around with her friends some more. 

I sat and wrote some of my blog. Then I drove over to where Angel was playing with the kids and told her I was going up the road to the feed store and I would be right back. Council is a really small town with 950 people in it and all the businesses are all within a few blocks. The feed store didn’t have the 2 things I was looking for…mouse repellent and potting soil. I did have a fun conversation with the owner whose name is Ralph. I drove to the hardware store a few blocks away and talked to Kevin. They had mouse repellent but no potting soil. Kevin said the grocery store would have it. I drove to the grocery store and bought 3 bags of potting soil to lay on top of the cardboard Trish and I had laid down earlier.

Angel was still riding around with her friends when I got back. I put the bags of potting soil on top of the cardboard. Then I finished writing my blog and posted it. Angel came home and went upstairs to play. Trish got home from work and I talked to her a few minutes. Then I went upstairs to do school with Angel. We did a lesson on counting money and Angel read out loud a large stack of flash cards. Her reading has really improved quickly. She is definitely on or above grade level now. 

After school, Angel played a video game called Animal Crossing while I made an apple pie. It’s been a long time since I’d made a pie crust but it turned out well. I used organic whole wheat pastry flour. It took a while to peel and cut up the apples since they were small but I enjoyed the process and took my time. I made the filling with honey instead of processed sugar. 

While the pie was cooking, I called a friend in Texas and talked to her for quite a while. Then I hung out with Trish and talked to her until the pie was done. The pie cooled for a half hour and then we each had a piece. I ate the filling since starch doesn’t work well for me and it was really good. Yay! I was glad it had turned out. 

Angel stayed the night at Trish’s and I drove to Missy’s. I closed up the chickens and packed up some things. Tomorrow Missy would be back and I would be doing to do another pet sitting opportunity in Donnelly, ID. I brushed my teeth and went to bed. I wrote my blog and listened to a lady on YouTube:

I enjoyed what she had to say and I fell asleep at around 10 AM. 

Thank you for reading my blog and being a part of my life. I appreciate you. 

Love, Victoria 

P.S. this blog post was inspired by the Holy Spirit. 

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