the beginning of winter....the last bit of december.....

ok. a post to remember what i want to remember from our little morning of magic, and the late night before from the sneaky mountain moglers.

david and i made up this story for the kids, about there being a magical mountain guy, who just started recently going back doing this thing he used to do many years ago. he was just like santa, magical and gift giving to little children. he has this magical ability to turn into a bird and come and see the children in the daytime, to see what they like to do so he can give them the gifts he knows they will love. the kids were so into the story.

i have a friend who reminded me this year what magical fun can be had when kids believe in santa. my friend reminded me that santa, the idea of santa, is still very real and alive within her. like an archetype. i am way into archetypes. when i looked at it that way, i realized i believe in santa too. i told david i was sad that we had told the kids a few years ago that santa wasn't real. david is so awesome. he came up with this idea of the crazy shaggy magical kind-of guy, the mountain mogler. oh my god, after we told them and saw that were taking to it and loving it, there were a few times where zhi broke down into tears because she was sure he had been watching us as a bird, and saw that our family wasn't behaving well enough for him to come to our house..... cuz we had also told them that he came to houses where the kids were kind. cheap shot. but we are desperate parents!!! each one of us in this family is still working on cultivating the kindness response so it comes up faster than the impatient angry response. mountain mogler could see that we are all working on it. we learned that as long as the family is working on becoming kinder and kinder, he will come. you just have to be getting better at it. that's all. you don't have to be perfect.

it's pronounced MOGULER. long O. i can't believe we did this sort-of. because we are right back where we used to be, with the kids, zhi in particular, believing so so so wholeheartedly in this story, that we are afraid of some serious SERIOUS heartbreak when she learns someday that her parents made it all up. but now, at least, i feel like the heartbreak, is not gonna offset the belief in wonderment and magic that is being cultivated in the kids for falling for the story. and we will be able to tell them, that we totally made it up for their joy. we felt they were missing out on the fun of santa. the fun we remember having with believing in santa, more than the heartbreak of finding out he wasn't real. i can't remember learning he was a tale. but i remember CLEARLY believing in him and looking out the window wondering when he was coming. i remember hearing the bells on his sleigh and running to my bed so he wouldn't be scared away by me watching.

we had so much fun. every one of us. the photos up there are of us late the night before christmas, writing the letter from the mountain mogler to the kids. i scribed for david. sometimes i have no creativity coming through. luckily he did that night. we were so tired. but it was so worth it to put all that work into getting the gifts just right and the letter just right. we had a magical day looking back on christmas day. i remember the magic way more than the little normal everyday spats and the stresses that occurred. to me the winter holiday is about remembering the magic and miracles of life. i want to cultivate more magic and i want to live wondering about magical beings like the mountain mogler way way way more. thank you friend for waking this up in us!!!!

putting up the dearly desired rooster weather vane.

using the much hoped for eyeshadow and makeup. mama only does her eyebrows these days, and the girls are way into doing their eyebrows too now. ha!

her delight at getting the pocketknife she wanted really really really bad. we have a new mantra in the house. a pocket knife is a tool, not a toy. well, we had it going for a couple days. she's being very responsible so far. loving having her tool at all the handy moments that a tool is called for.

his delight from seeing the instructions come out of the box that show how to put the weathervane together.

the littlest peeking under at the magical gifts that were brought by MM.

and here i am with my wrist all wrapped up and healing. i had the ganglion cyst cut out. i finally did. i had been struggling with it for three years. i had to stop yoga and guitar for it. i did everything i could to listen to its wisdom. i beat the shit out of it a dozen times. it would go away. it would come back. it was not budging. and it was becoming so painful everyday from no hand movement or use at all, that i was ready to ask a surgeon to cut it out. i am grateful to have the possibility now of living without pain in my wrist and to be able to play guitar again. fun. i want guitar fun. oh my gosh. it gets me all excited thinking of the possibility. we will see.......

my girl zhi picked this little finger puppet out for me for a gift when david took the kids to the pharmacy to pick up my pain meds. she then saw how much i loved it and how it kept my finger warm, and she sewed me a finger cover for another finger. oh my god i love it so much. maybe my favorite handmade thing ever.

and here. here is an interview i just read and FELL in love with. i wish it was available in its entirety but maybe it will be in january? or maybe you just need to go out now and buy the sun at your bookstore, before the december issue is gone. hurry!!!

i was healed by my kids....

as usual i was skippin around the house doing this and that this morning. this and that related to cooking and cleaning, i mean. my usual MO. i was loving hearing the kids playing together. when there is no school, dress up play happens a lot. i recently went through the dress up closet area and spiffed it up, clearing it out a bit, making it more accessible, so that they didn't have to climb over piles of my fabric stash to get to their costumes. geez mama with all your crazy fabric everywhere. they've been playing dress up more now. that's how that works. so, i was totally into my little clean~up mode, and then max says he doesn't want to get married to olive. hmmmmm. olive and zhi were all dressed and ready to go to a wedding. what to do? they plot in whispers their plan. olive comes up to me and so sweetly asks me if i will marry her. heart. heart love. you know it. even if i am twitchy and freaky because it is hard for me to stop what i'm doing and gracefully transition to marrying my daughter, i will still do it. i could not say no to that preciousness. zhi was all over me about getting on my dressiest dress. maybe my real wedding dress? hmmm. i remembered this black dress a friend passed on to me recently, that i thought would be good for dress up. yay! and it totally got me in the mood too. having just seen black swan, you know, me and my darkness, i was able to step into pretend world pretty easily once we zipped up the black dress. i realized that playing with my kids, or anybody's kids, to make it work, and make it real and fun for me, and not just something where i am faking my way through it not enjoying a bit of it, i have to find the place in me that feels playful and interesting. duh, right? but i mean, the place in me that is excited and wants to come out cuz she is often neglected....the black swan in me was the key for today. i must remember this. cuz it is often hard for me to get into their play. i have been going about all wrong. i was able to reel max in to the play, by asking him to be our photographer. he's so good!! so mamas, don't forget to have your own dress up stuff, dresses and wigs and accessories that you really love to play in.

one of my vows was to always make my queen nettles tea.

she was too shy to tell me her vows. ha.

zhi took care of details like this. rubber band rings.

the kiss. oh my god that's too sweet.

isn't max so good?

we went on to have a proper reception, with kletzmer music, mac and yogurt cheese, carrots, and yerba mate that we all passed around and sipped through the fancy straw.

i was pushing for a walk around the hood for our honeymoon, but nope. they'd moved on. to shrek. ha.

december 21st.

well.

i slept last night, only during the eclipse. ha! i've been going to bed at 8ish recent nights, but last night couldn't fall asleep till 11. then i woke up with max and a sick belly at 2:30. yep. dreaming away during the winter solstice eclipse.....must have been more important for me to sleep and dream during that neato magical time, than witnessing it with my eyeballs. i'm so into shadows. the earth's shadow. shit! i can't believe i missed seeing it now that i really think about it. oh well. earth shadow. i've got your number. you've got mine. you and me. we are not separate. no way no how.

and here comes the light, right back to us.

it was dark at 4:30 yesterday. that is extreme i say.

winter love. hello.

the tree. the sweet sweet beautiful tree.

we cut down our first self-cut christmas tree this year ........

then we did this popcorn stringing thing. it really is fun to sew with popcorn.

we did it.

now that is one cozy looking picture.

some saturday shots. that i labeled sunday shots in iphoto. it feels like a sunday. love it. i love sundays. so much so, that i have a good good friend named sunday that i've manifested into my life. thank goodness for the sunday vibe. the rhythm of the week is nice, really, i think. as long as you achieve the sunday thing. so, yeah. that's us today. loving being home. winter break. i am with you.

sometimes everything is black and white actually. here's proof. a post forest~fire forest with snow everywhere. i see a little brown on the cut trunks there. but let's just say, i could have zoomed in and then i'd have indisputable proof. sigh.

this is my new favorite photo. i'm about to put it on my header. the kids and i saw this scene coming home from school the other day, all these crows coming in for a sit. we pulled over and took pictures. brrrrrrr.

i think i might be weirding out with blogging right now. it is so weird. just gonna hang with it. but have to say. i love it, and it is weirding me out. i am weirding myself out.......weird weird weird. let's just all be weird and then it wouldn't be weird at all....

oh my love

wearing handwarmers while typing is fun. i look like i need to go work out. i mean, like that is what i dressed for today. ha. maybe i will.

i want to be amazing. why?? because i am. i want to be what i am. not what i am not. ( a teacher~friend recently reminded me how, one of the only ways to really know who we are, is to know who we are not. that's intense, right?)

i want all my hardwork to pay off.

i want to feel proud of what i did most days. that definitely means stepping out of depression once and for all. or once and for a while anyways. i am not exactly depressed right now. but maybe more like unfocused on creating new endeavors......i feel like i'm still wrapping up some old ones. i like me some closure. dodoodo. focus on the new will come. it will. i will will it to.

i keep thinking of a friend, who is about to have her feature film come out next month in the theaters. she wrote and directed it. i see her, and i just want to stare at her. study her. what kind of animal is she? a creative animal. a manifesting animal. a brave courageous pretty fearless animal. a deep animal with a story that she just had to tell. an animal who is not perfect and is sweet and honest in telling me about her personal struggles. an animal who has been willing to make a lot of sacrifices to make her dream erupt from the depths. an animal with a seriously supportive husband. an animal with a ton of energy. she kind-of feels like she is bouncing all the time. sort-of. an animal who i hope i will see at the oscars. what a rad thought.

dodooodo. why do i keep saying that? i keep wanting to change the subject. i get into something and then realize i want to change the direction. yep. how awesome that we can change directions.

i am addicted to colored pencils lately. i want these.

olive and i made her a little handle thing for her to hang her kitchen towel on that matches the big kitchen. we had one handle left from 9 years ago when we redid the cabinet handles in our kitchen, cuz the old ones had these edges on them that we kept snagging our clothes on, and banging and scraping our heads on. makes me laugh now. so funny. now that lone handle is in action, after a nine year sleep in the utility cabinet.

we hung some christmas lights up. now i must make room for a tree in this house. and get out the hanukah candles. is it even still hanukah? i am not the jewish one in this house, so don't look at me. i make him do hanukah, at least one of the nights every year. his voice is so pretty when he sings that song. i must share a real life hanukah moment i had a while ago....maybe another time....

that was all written last week.

now! this week. tuesday. i am now 34. trienta y quatro. woohoo. it was the hardest birthday by far in terms of feeling older. i've never had that problem before. now i understand what all my friends are saying when they say birthdays aren't really so easy anymore. well, i hope that was my one and only hard one. it wasn't all hard. just a bit. but still. i'm not used to that shit. i'm used to magical exciting birthdays with energy. this is my first year to stare at wrinkles. i'm hoping to be done with that now. got it out of the way. we all get them. whatever. i'm done. my mom gave me a photo of a mama and baby elephant from kenya. it was quite magical the effect it had on me as i looked it later on in the day. i saw so many wrinkles on that mama's body. and i knew she had never thought one thing about them. i knew i wanted to be more like that. i also know i won't stop with my skin care, but i know i want to be more like that mama, and i want to be more focused on my children, as opposed to the lines in my skin. hello!!!

and how appropriate to see black swan the night before my birthday.

birthday sky

birthday moon

magical melty delicious birthday bonbon my manlove made for us.

she liked them.

birthday.

a new old typewriter found its way to me. i wrote a list of goals for myself on it on my birthday. some had question marks. that just means there are a few things i am questioning. of course. i cleaned the typewriter pretty well. that was therapeutic.

last night, david and i finished watching into the wild. i hadn't read the book before, but david had. i am kind of shaky after watching it. we watched all the special features on the dvd after the movie was over. his story, i just can't write anything that feels right. i can say i feel really shaken up by it. we also just watched 127 hours the weekend before. these two stories of young men going out alone, not telling anyone where they were going, and getting trapped. getting trapped. fuck. my whole chest is just vibrating from feeling their stories. if i had been born a man, i wouldn't be surprised if i did something similar to what they did. maybe that's why i am shaking. as a woman, i did my own version sort-of. going across the world by myself when i was 20, to farm (wwoof) and travel with just my backpack and tent. and i had a grand adventure for three months. but a lot of what i did, the way i chose a new zealand and kept in communication, was because of me being a woman, or a girl, really, at that time. i did not have the testosterone to propel me into the wild. oh god i can't say anymore. except, this. i really fell in love with chris mccandless. i know a lot of people have romanticized his story. and i've read the opinions of some about how he was simply not using common sense to go in like that without a compass and a map, meat preserving skills, and emergency radio. but i get that that was his point. . and he might do it differently if he could do it again. i just really get how someone is driven to do stuff like that, and that is intense. it may be dumb to most of us, but i also get it.

we are all babies to some degree. right? i mean, we all have some way that we are just blind to some form of common sense. and hopefully, we have someone there with us to help us learn to identify and check our blind spots. god damn. well. what to say now.

alright. here i show you what a dork i am. displaying the record that is currently playing like that. it just happened. i didn't mean for it to. that is a really good record though. i like the song all the pretty little horses a lot.

rosemary witch

i am calling you in. we need some assistance from the devas. i just happen to have an abundance of rosemary right now. rosemary. help me. i have hit a wall. a mama wall. mmmmm. you smell good.

i want to get curiouser and curiouser ......i need that feeling bad. watching alice in wonderland while folding ten loads of laundry and drinking my 4th cup of black tea is maybe helping the wall come down. the dreaded wall of fear for our children's wellbeing that will knock any mama down in a heartbeat. yes. it will. my children are fine. there's just one who thinks acting out in inappropriate ways in any and every place he goes these days is an okay thing to do. and i've had three meetings with teachers and bus drivers, a sensei, and a meeting with the tutor is coming soon. oh my god. he is really messing with people. he is so powerful. i feel my heart opening as i write that. phew. oh alice just started skipping. bummer. library dvds do that a lot. wah. maybe it's time to go get more cat litter, and drop off another bag to the thrift.

today's mantra:

i'm feeling curiouser and curiouser.

curiouser.

curiouser.

i guess we didn't need to see that part of the movie. last load of laundry.

i feel a list of goals coming upon me soon. as they do when i am about to add a new year onto my age. oh damn, and a new wrinkle. i am just starting to come to terms with that part. but fuck it is hard. this wrinkle thing. i have really good eyesight. i need to not stand so close to the mirror.

they are really only obvious when i smile. so i will just keep my smiling to a minimum.

ha.

look at all those casts on that shelf above my head. that boy has been through a hell of a lot just to be able to fucking walk. remembering all that, and giving him some slack, while also keeping him in line, is a hard balancing act. a super super duper pooper hard high wire i walk on. but i can do it! yes i can. come on cheer team. or glee club. i watch glee now. i am addicted. thanks friend who pushed it on me. i like it and i have a little crush on the glee coach. i need my own glee coach. someone to push me and inspire me and teach me fun dance moves. where art thou? curiouser and curiouser.

this beautiful insane tapestry

holy.

love.

my best.

my worst.

but mostly my best.

will.

i have will.

i have power.

good will. and will power.

i get tired.

i make myself sit down. and then i pop back up again, usually before i am rested enough. but that's just how it is these days. i close my eyes now, for a few seconds. it feels so good.

this beautiful insane tapestry all around me, and within me. sometimes it looks so thought out and organized and comforting. other times, it looks so chaotic and insane and scary. i know that both ways, and the ones in between, are sacred. sacred. i KNOW this. i know that judging the insane part as not good, is a misjudgment. i KNOW this. but i have to tell myself over and over so that i don't forget this thing i KNOW. i KNOW it's all fodder. one is fodder for the other is fodder for the other is fodder for the other.

max and olive and i went on a lovely walk the other day. the fresh air shifted my whole perspective. before we went out, i really was seeing my house as a dirty pit and it was depressing me. when we got back, i saw our home as a bright creative place that inspired me. what the hell? the house didn't change at all. it was something in me. i don't know if a walk can always do that, but that was just crazy how radically i shifted. it makes me wonder if i should ever trust my thoughts if i haven't been outside and gotten fresh air recently. i also went on a hike with david on our date later that day. i am finally over the most recent cold, we are getting one after another over here, and it made me feel so good again, to be outside, moving. i think i have been starved from the outdoors lately.

so how is the prewalk, prefresh air my~house~is~a~pit thought sacred? well, you know, when we got back from our walk, i still did some cleaning. the kitchen, and a few random messes, but i was in love while i was cleaning them. not depressed. maybe it's the filter through which i'm looking, that tells me if the mess is to be loved or hated. but still, there's no denying, the place needed some attention. life is weird. having a mind is WEIRD!!!! having a heart, that i am pulsing from consciously is a GOOD feeling. a pretty tried and true mantra: get in my body, and i will connect with my heart. heart. red red heart.

rooster energy abounds. max cockadoodledoos all the time. ALL the time. it is so fascinating how seriously captivated he is by the rooster.

and then, after loving the outdoors effect, i am so drawn to these photos i took the other day, of places to sit.

my girl zhi and i went ice skating for a friend's birthday party. it was our very first time, for both of us. if i wasn't cramping so hard on this copper iud, i would have been tearing that place up! zhi did. i had to pull her away when it was time to go. cutie. she wants me to have an ice skating party for my birthday next weekend. or a party at bouncetown. she can't fathom why i wouldn't want to do either one of those things. what is wrong with me? i think she's right. maybe roller skating? shall i go that way? the kid way? if i'm smart.

i think it's so cute how these chickens like to huddle around our back door.