these links just made me relax...

i really am such a girl.

i randomly decided to type in 'what clothes to wear'....

i was then led to this neat place...

and then went here.  

how nice is it to have michelle obama as our first lady?  what a reilef, huh?

today i am wearing an old tshirt and overalls.  the sweater i first put on this morning was too baggy to go with the overalls, so i am going to switch to a tighter fitting sweater.

zhi is looking so cute in her tight jeans, as she called them, with the thin cottony, pink wrap around dress over them.  she told me that jeans are nice of they are tight.  she said they just feel better, and that loose jeans make her feel yucky, and she made a disgusting face to show me how yucky.   but then i said what a bout overalls....i said i like them to be loose.  luckily she agreed with me, and said tight overalls would be bad, and made the yucky face again.  

she really just gets these things.  i'm so glad.  

max is in a totally different world.  concerned only with wearing pjays, or short sleeve shirts, with a superhero on them.   i am lucky in that he will still wear the pants i make him though. 

olive is cool.  she likes to change her clothes at least 4 times a day cause it's just fun.

david. he pretty much has a new uniform, consisting only of  her tshirts.  i can't blame him, and i just noticed she now has organic tshirts.......david got me this one last summer, and i was folding it yesterday, and JUST realized what the picture is of.  this whole time i thought it was an abstract thing, just messy painting that ended up looking cool.  now i can't see how i never saw the horses.  i was always TERRIBLE at seeing the pictures incoded in the little dot drawings.  

the closet is getting lighter

i went through so many clothes in my closet and drawers yesterday  and just took some to sell and the rest to donate.  when i say some, i mean a lot.  3 big garbage bags full, and there's actually more to come.  i am a little freaked out, at the anxiety i felt saying goodbye to some of these clothes.  but i wanted to.  i want lighter closets and drawers, more than i want to keep everything i've ever worn, that sparks a memory.  i am appreciating the lesson in letting go this has been.  and my motivation is to achieve some more peace, simplicity, and change.    i want to be able to look at my shelves and feel peaceful at the 4 choices i have for the day....at the space in between each little folded stack of fiber.  i am not a simple person, is it possible for me to do this?  of course it is, what am i talking about?  if i want simple closets bad enough, i can definitely make it happen.  i am even wondering if i can slim it all down enough for us to be able to not need our chest of drawers anymore.  OF COURSE I CAN, IF I WANT IT BAD ENOUGH. 

but i just looked through my iphoto and came across a picture of me wearing a shirt that i just got rid of, and i felt some sadness that i will never see it again.  but i am so desperate to have this new sense of space and freedom that i have had to be ruthless in making the decision to let these clothes go.  my closets were HEAVY.  HEAVY.  HEAVY.  HEAVY.  but not anymore.  i am definitely more excited about this new feeling of clarity and easier choice, though, than i am about wearing that shirt ever again.  oh, the hardships of being sentimental.   

now i must go home and practice my guitar.  i have a lesson tonight and i want to feel warmed up for it.  

a passage...

far below, deep under the keel of a ship, a humpback whale sported and fed.  occasionaly, she yodelled to herself, a long undulating call of content.  when she found a series of sounds that pleased, she repeated them, wove them into a band of harmonious pulses.

from keri hulme's one whale singing

what i'm excited about

• the sky dumped an ocean on us this weekend.  the garden is so happy!  (we had no electricity or running water for 30 hours.  boiling snow was a highlight for everyone.)
• that the nettles are going to look like this in 2 weeks! 
• the humming birds are going to be here any day.  what?  i am going to be a responsible feeder.
• 70 degree weather for 3 more days, before the next spring snow arrives.
• this woman's research
• all the hummingbird photos i'm gonna get this spring and summer.  zoom lens, i feel you coming into my future.  i love these birds.

the max and zhi bandits

this is the best little poem i've come across in a while.  it stopped me while i was in the record store, looking to replace our record player which has almost died....(it still turns, and i've replaced the needle, but it sounds like the music is coming in from pluto or something.  i am really into using the record player these days.  maybe i just wore this new 'old' cheesy crossley player out.)   anyways,  i had to send myself a quick email so i'd be able to find the poem later online.  it may be just very personal to me, because it is so relevant to the growth process i'm in right now, and maybe that's why it feels so powerful and stopped me in my tracks.  but i've found that as a human family we are often doing similar work at the same time, unknowingly.     

i didn't get the record player yet, i feel like i need the man who speaks the language of stereo equipment much better than i do to be there.  but i am so excited for the sound that i love from records to be in our house again.

snow today.  lots of snow on this april 17th.  it's dumping.  i am being a very good and patient girl, waiting waiting so nicely with very few whines and complaints, reminding myself over and over how good all this moisture is.  it was 70 degrees 2 days ago and i got one day of flip flop wearing in.  that was fun.  waiting for summer dress weather is such an exercise in maturity and staying in the present moment, for me.   i guess i am growing up a lil bit.  but not too much.  just a tiny lil bit.   just enough that i can weather this late april snow like the black fox i saw today crossing the road as i was coming down the mountain.  he was so unphased, and obviously not sulking about the weather.  ooooo, i love the way a fox trots.  it is so slinky, and perky at the same time.  i've seen this guy twice this month now.  we are on the same time schedule or something.  he is so special to me.  the rare black fox.  i'm making a mental note to keep my old camera in the car so i can maybe get a picture of him now that he is all grown up.  here he is last year as pup, when i first saw him, had my camera, and learned that black foxes exist.....

4/15/9

 

I am crying and whining again over what?   (I love bullets)

 

Ø    Over my shyness, how it keeps me from so many things that I want.

Ø    My fear of being embarrassed, which I inevitably am almost every time I open my mouth when I feel nervous.  See, I could either stay quiet, which I am pretty good at, or I can just say whatever comes to mind and watch in horror as the dumbest most awkward things come out of my mouth.   Oh no!  I have to come to terms with this.  I have to learn to feel calm in big groups where I don’t know anyone very well, and talk to people just like I do my close friends and family.  What am I afraid of?  Being embarrassed.  And there you go.  I make it happen.  So I have to not really care if I embarrass myself.  Not care.  I have to  N O T   C A R E  if I say or do something totally back asswards.  I have to not take myself seriously.  Woah.  That will be a good day when I can do this even a little bit.  I have to be like pistol pete in the movie we  saw last weekend, I love you man.  We laughed A LOT.  I definitely recommend it if you are wanting to laugh.  

these are too cute

• life has been hard lately.  sometimes i am just baffled at everything.  all the demands on humans just to stay alive.  and then i feel like an IDIOT for having these kinds of feelings given that i am a member of the upper(?) middle class.  (although if you looked at our debt, we'd be under the lower class, whatever that is called. )   i am baffled at how i create stress for myself.  i have food for my family, and i am stressed.  it's just the design, somehow......for my particular life right now.  stresssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.  mmmm.  i hope i find a way to reframe my sobb stories.  sssssssssssssssss.  snake woman, transform it.
• but that soccer girl is CUTE.  CUTE.  CUTE.  
• chao xing tea is good.
• i like the bullet layout today.
• the on-the-go art bag is coming in handy right now.  stamping!
• i am starting to feel like i want more comments on this blog.  how do i make that happen? i guess i have to start commenting on other people's, huh?
• my meter is good till 9:47.
• those little chickens i am making for the preschool are so fun.  every time i turn one out, olive and i say bok bok bok, to welcome it in.   
• i am ready for 80 degree weather.  i am ansy for it.  wah.   
• i found moths in my closet yesterday, and they were eating through two wool coats.  FUCKERS.  target is on the list for more cedar.  zhi will be psyched.  target is her favorite place.  
• i found the most worn quilt i have ever seen yesterday, and i brought it home.  i am feeling like the worn aspect of it is very thought-provoking, and beautiful, and i might hang it on our living room wall, by the word ~relax~ that i haven't yet painted on there.  
• now water-colors are happening, thanks to the on-the-go art bag.  
• i am wearing my silver moon earrings everyday till i get my feminine strength back in balance.  i am also trying to teach my masculine a new way of protecting my feminine.  he has somehow thought the only way is of the military-boot-camp mindset.  (my dad was a marine, you see.)  i am telling him that he could be more of a superhero, than a drill sergeant.   it would be so much more fun, and less scary.  
• my therapist told me last week that i am a smart girl who thinks too much.  yeah.  what do i write about if it's not thoughts?  feelings?  i do that a lot but the thoughts always find their way in.  human brain.  what a piece of work.
• 
  

time

i can't stand the feeling of racing anymore.  i don't care if we're late.  i don't care if we get scolded.  i just want to relax.  i am going to paint on our living room wall the word relax.  SO BIG.  we will be the house of relax.  that sounds gross.  

i know the universe is expanding, and the earth is moving at 67, 062 miles per hour through space, around the sweet sitting sun of course.  ha!  the sun is circling the milky way at 486,000 miles per hour.  (where is the solar system taking us, by the way?  is this just a grand journey with no destination point, just constant travel?  is it just for the sake of moving?  is this journey all about change, and nothing else?  constant constant change?  never in the same place twice?) there is no such thing as still it seems.  and yet, there are the stillest places here on earth.  like the caverns under ground full of crystals and dust.  mmmmmmm, there are places like this inside of me, and everyone.  there are.  nice slow places.  o miles per hour.

i want to be connected to this still place while still present for the speedy speedy trip!  relaxed, in other words.

pretty please, angels of the universe, assist me in this.

failing, flailing, falling

my yesterday was a little different than yoozh.  i don't what was up with the stars, but they had me crying in the car at every song that came on.  as i drove the kids to school i was readjusting the rearview mirror so they couldn't see, not because i don't like them to see me cry, but because i just didn't want to talk about it.   especially not with them, not about the details of the hard work marriage can sometimes be.
i recently read somewhere, someone's quote about marriage, that it is 'legal quicksand.'  ummmmm, what the fuck cuck cuck fuck?

to me, it's an intense, fast paced opportunity for the best spiritual growth you'll ever do, next to parenting, and being parented.   shitty fuck damn, people.  that's all i can say.

but these pictures made me feel happy this morning, so i am mixing them in to my processing of yesterday.
this girl makes me smile so well.   they all do, really.  and i get confused, because sometimes i feel like i just take it all too seriously, but then sometimes it really does need to be taken seriously.  i am learning.  everyday, i hope i learn.  and i hope i teach them something about courage and living from your heart, everyday.