Picture it.  Summer.  Spokane, 2013.  Me, in my flower-bed style vegetable garden. 

I have decided to harvest a gourd, with a mind to dry it, paint it, etc.

Since they’re small, I take two.    (This is a family joke.)

I bring them inside, whack away at them on the kitchen counter, and discover….

That they’re not gourds at all, but spaghetti squash, with a long way to go before they’re ripe.

So they wind up in the compost bin.

Like I said, you have to be smarter than the squash.

On another note, BIG SKY WEDDING is out today! 

There’s a lot about Mondays that I’m celebrating at the moment: it’s a fresh start, and I’m all about starting over.     I am one of those annoying people who truly believe in the old saying, “try, try again.”

Just recently, I realized I was on a slippery slope, headed for another cycle of depression.  The signs were always there, I suppose, but I’ve just begun learning to read them.  Here’s what happens:

One by one, I stop doing things that I KNOW are good for me–exercising, reading my devotionals in the morning, meditating–all these things are indications that I’m shutting