scared sacred

mouse. do tell all your mouse stories. the world is dependent on sweet mouse. mouse 'takes care of life's details and walks in humility,' says the medicine cards book. mouse has woken me up to some details i had been tuning out. now that i'm tuning in, it feels much better. like, my closet is now sprinkled with lavender flowers along the back wall to deter moths that found a strip of old wool carpeting and proliferated like nobody would ever want in their closet. my fun shoe collection is in the process of being organized out of the heap it has been kept in for the past few years. i still have some shoes from high school. they are well~made shoes i guess. anyhoo.

here are some of the sweet zinnias zhi and i planted that aphrodite told me to tend to.

i got real mad at zhi on sunday. then on monday i got real real mad at max. i needed to be mad and not try and downplay it. zhi's manners have been horrific. that can't be downplayed. max's incessant questioning for movies and computer games, completely drives me batty. crazy bat~ty. david told me i was scary and to go away when he came home from work yesterday. i did. but i know i wasn't scary like i could have been. i wasn't scaring myself. which i have done before. so it wasn't that bad. i think we scare each other most of all. he and i. when he starts to go over the edge, at least what i perceive to be his edge, he seems scary to me. parenting is scary. yep. part of it is. it just is. living is scary. part of it. trying to play around here with not being so black and white. i don't want to take any weight away from the scary stuff, cuz it needs to be processed. but i also don't want to lose sight of that little light that is so not scary. that little light that is so so bright of course it casts a shadow. and of course the mouse in me sees the shadow and sometimes freaks out over it, obsesses over it, stares at it like it's the only thing that exists anymore. but, that little light, my kids inspire me to wake up and let the shadow have its dance, and go mine for more light until the end of time. i do inspire myself as well, but, being responsible for children takes it a more urgent, serious, selfless level. and giving myself a few hours the past couple of days to honor some darkness i entered into, was transformative. tapping in just at the edge for just a bit, without harming others, at least i don't think i did, feels like it helped me to resource into some richness i wasn't getting before. some deep dark earthy matter that will help my green to grow stronger and longer. or something like that. i do wish i didn't yell at max as much as i did yesterday. mama went off. as he saw that i was building steam, after the first 20 seconds of loud firm talking to him, he switches off his orcas, aka hearing aids. while looking into my eyes. ha. beautiful. good on ye boy. i wish instead of railing on him for asking me 5000 times to watch tv on a day that is not for tv, as we've declared some days in our home just as a way to keep us all safe from overwatching, i wish i'd just gone a little more internal maybe, and just hissed at him or something. not in a fully creepy way, but in a way that meant 88% 'don't mess with me child', and 12% ' i love you and i am trying not to yell at you but i am pissed that you won't let it go and leave me alone about this and i am trying to not take this 100% seriously at the same time so this is my best effort at staying playful while feeling raging fucking pissed!' hisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

so there is my intention for next time. snake lady! i will be snake lady. i invoke the sweet serious snake. at the same time as the sweet mouse. how they play it all out, i'm not sure how that works internally. weird confusing~ness is how it often feels to identify with prey and predator at the same exact time. there's a mind~blowing effect too that is really good for me. having my mind blown out, takes me out of the i~have~to~figure~everything~out~and understand~every~single~happening mindset and leaves me in an open and curious state which i know is very very good for me. that rubber band is tight though, and i get flung back into the spinning of trying to understand what i cannot, pretty quickly. silly pattern that must serve some purpose, but in the interest of having a blown open mind, i will move along.

my intention for how to meet zhi, next time she lashes out with a statement like, 'you're a fuckin,' (yes she just says 'fuckin' like a noun) after i tell her that it's time to do something she doesn't want to do, is to go into the area around my heart, breathe, keep breathing, let my heart speak to how that felt to be talked to like that, and then maybe do a handstand. i could benefit from more handstands. i have no idea what will come of that, it's just what came to mind, but getting mad as all hell and giving her the silent treatment for 2 hours didn't feel good at all. not that my goal is to feel good in all horrible situations, it's just to improve. right? for sure. that's simple. it's surely not to do worse. just do better. do better snake lady mouse lady butterfly buffalo lady. spider lady.

go listen to this song, by reed foehl, now. you have to click on the play button triangle. or if that link doesn't work for you, just go get the song on itunes for 99 cents. you will not regret it. we went and saw him sunday night with the kids, a random late evening live music outing up in gold hill. reed's brother, stewart, was supposed to be opening for him, which is what motivated us to go, cuz stewart is an old friend and he doesn't live in town anymore. but irene kept him home bound on the east coast. so we rediscovered how amazing stewart's brother is, and man was that healing. i stopped my silent treatment to zhi after his soulful self sang to us. is that song, beautiful life, that i just insisted you to listen to, beautiful or what? makes me cry and feel sad and happy and crazy all at the same time. there are so many ways to interpret it you know? always so many.

here's another sweet song/video of reed.

and here is another local group, elephant revival, that i hadn't seen or heard or payed attention to, till a blogging friend in the northwest somewhere, of a blogging friend in northern cal posted about them and brought me full circle back to music in my own area. geez. i am so happy to have their music to brighten my days now. the girls and i listened to them sunday before going to hear reed and even though there was some darkness coming down, there was some good music to help us through. those elephant people are magic.

ok. stuff to do. details to attend to. time to be mouse for a bit. butterfly snakey foxy blog time has come to an end.

love.

love confusing love

besides my husband being sort-of upset that i made the decision for the mice without him, becuz he was just getting to another solution as i was fucking feeding them to the chickens, i have only been met with the sweetest support and understanding. david came around quickly after my sobbing, and just gently teased me yesterday that no way are we having more kids, cuz he'd be afraid it would want milk and i'd just lose it and feed it to the chickens too. yeah. we are not having more kids anyways, but he's always looking for a reason to make it even more etched.

i spoke with our vet last night. he told me a few things that make me sure i'll do it differently if ever given the chance. i'll go with my gut, which i didn't really do on tuesday. i went with my fear. my gut was to raise them and even possibly keep a couple as pets. there are tons of articles i found about getting wild mice as babies and raising them as pets. we love pets. we love mice. the vet said he has never seen a case of the hantavirus in our area. in southern colorado he hears of it sometimes, and it's usually from someone cleaning out an abandoned cabin or basement with tons of feces. this is a vet who does house calls only and treats with homeopathics whenever possible. i like him and feel so lucky to have him help us with our animals. i asked him if he would let his children hold a baby mouse. he said he would, but he said, maybe he shouldn't, he can't be positive that it's always safe, but that that virus is just not something he worries about around here. he said he's had mice in his house though, and after not being able to get them out without killing, he and his wife killed them. it's just the baby thing. i can't stop picturing them. little babies drinking milk with hands wrapped around a fucking dropper. hands. f. f. f. i'm so sorry. the vet said i'd probably get another chance. maybe i just a few weeks, given the rate mice reproduce.

thanks to my bloggy friends who wrote me the sweetest replies to that last post. i know it was intense to read. gravely intense. thanks for not looking away.

what is so weird to me, is that yesterday, the day after feeding them to the chickens, i ate meat twice. i wanted it. my body, the animal in me who has no reason for what she feels, she just feels, wanted to eat the meat of another animal. god it's so weird. reverence. so much reverence for the animals we eat. so so so much. and tears.

i just can't makes sense. has anyone ever made sense of this? do the whales understand what they're doing when they eat big beautiful fish? do the mountain lions and fox understand when they eat our beloved pet cats and dogs and deer? hmmmmm.

can i move on? i can. and i come back. i'm gonna move on. make myself for a bit. cuz i have all these other pictures of the life we've lived recently.

folk's festival fun:






i must tell you that max decided manning the trash compost recycling area, near where our chairs were, was the best fun, and he sat there helping the volunteers for 5 hours i think. we couldn't pull him away. it was precious and weird and totally fine. he caught on quick to what goes in which bin and told people like a pro. cutie.



i love my knitting these days. and the new magic knitting bag zhi thrifted for me with her grandma. three generations of thrifters. although i will say i taught my mom how to thrift. she used to shop at places she couldn't afford when i was growing up, and i remember the stress of all that. i wish i'd known sooner, cuz it wasn't till college that i became friends with thrifters. drifters. thrifters. we are family. one of my best friend's sons was with us yesterday as i was dropping off some donations to a thrift store. he said, what? what is this store? i said THRIFT STORE. he was like, WHAT? i said THRIFT. i had to tell him what a thrift store was. i couldn't believe it. his mom is not a thrifter. i hang with non thrifters too. but if i have the chance, i will teach!





we are deep in the process of helping the kids who inherited bed wetting genes, learn how to wake up to pee even in the middle of deep deep sleep. it is intense. we are using the bedwetting alarm. zhi got trained in 1 month. she is an over achiever. that is faster than average. max is currently working through the process. it is hard work. i feel like i have a newborn again. waking up so many times a night to help a child out of and into underwear and a pullup. i am a big fan of the bed wetting alarm so far. my fingers are crossed for max's successsssssssssssss.









i've been running and i'm getting stronger and it is feeling so good. partly because i love these toe shoes.

yesterday, olive was carrying around this can full of fake pearls from a necklace she cut and saved the beads in the can. she was shaking it. it flew open and a hundred or so pearls went everywhere on the sidewalk. we stopped calmly and picked every single one up. it was oddly fun. to stop. stop. and not be stressed about it.

and in other wildlife news: we had this baby bull snake come into our house last week. david caught him. looking back on it, the snake was probably smelling some baby mice in the shoe closet by the front door. david used to have a pet snake, so he's really comfortable handling them. this snake was a sweetheart. it seemed to like being held.









it went right back outside.

and here's one of the resident rats. joe.

so there are some fun photos.

and here i am. in olive's cape that she donned upon me. i am ready to do some serious good for the world.

dear ones

an email i wrote to a friend this morning:

thanks. i called this morning only to assume after listening to their message that they don't take mice. and cuz the humane society said they didn't think they would. i started to feel crazy having to care for 6 tiny mice, their mother being chased in the house by our cats. while i'm thinking, if they don't catch her, we'll have to set a trap, and the live ones never work fast enough. it could take weeks with them. we're gonna have to kill her. me having to upturn our root cellar to clear it of her mouse droppings, instead of spending quality time with max, while i had him one on one. so i fed the baby mice to the chickens. minutes later david calls me and tells me greenwood will take them, that they just yesterday released 4 back into the wild.

i am crying over and over. how hard is that? well, for me it was really hard. and i'm thinking i would do it differently for sure if i could go back. and i want to be a vegetarian forever now, but do you think i can keep up enough energy?

thanks.

she wrote me back an email that made me cry more. in a good way. and she said yes, she has enough energy as a vegetarian. thanks.

f. i am so spun out by what has happened with these mice who our cats brought to us, still with their eyes closed, that i don't feel like i can even write about it anymore. but i want to i guess. sometimes life on earth seems to be the most tragic experience over and over and over.

they eat them. and they eat them. and on down the line.

eat or be eaten.

watch out for hantavirus. i went through something similar a few years ago with black widows in the house. we were a little bit infested. i had to kill. i did not have to kill the mice today, but i chose to, because i couldn't find anyone who would take them and care for them, as far as i could tell. and because i am overwhelmed already. at first it was just one mouse for a few hours, till they brought the rest of them to us, and i was up for nursing one baby mouse. but then i freaked with six. and you just can't have mice running around your house. we killed about 16 or so right when we moved into this house. set some traps and caught that many in one night. it sucked. that was before we had cats. one of our cats caught a hummingbird this summer. we eat meat. but i have never thought so hard about it. and at the same time as saying that, i feel sure i will enjoy turkey bacon again. am i on the wrong planet? where is the warphole to the faeries, that eat only honey and flower petals? i embodied as a human and i'm not feeling cut out for it. i love all things baby. nursing those mice through a dropper yesterday and even this morning was so sweet. how could i turn and just feed them to vultures like i did? well, the state of the root cellar and the shoe closet is a big part of it. and the fear of the goddamn hantavirus which is rare as hell but deadly as hell too. and then the fear of anything else taking me away from my children. namely more cleaning.

after doing that, choosing to the kill them, which i chose against yesterday when we brought them to the humane society, we brought them there because the lady on the phone said 'YES! we take them and raise them and adopt them out, even if they are wild,' but then, once there with them in a box, someone else said, 'NO. we do not take mice that little. we will euthanize them if you leave them here,' i go and search for native american mice references. i read this one first. judging myself and my decision about as hard as i could. i called a friend, and she said, the main challenge for you is gonna be to not make yourself out as evil. yeah. what the ???? that was just rough. downright.

i get really triggered with vulnerable babies. i think from my own experience as a vulnerable baby, and then my first child's. the second i saw the first baby, the very second, my sister called. i answered it, not even saying hi, but beginning to panic and then because i knew she was there for me, i started crying pretty hard. just the sight of that little thing. all alone and so in need. she was so great talking me through what to do. but then there were six. and then and then and then. i fed them to the chickens. emdr please. i called my emdr therapist actually just an hour ago. i am taking this so freaking hard, part of me is anyways. the part that made that decision to give them back to the nature out the backdoor, which ii know a lot of folks see having chickens and cats as a good way to keep the rodent population down, that part of me feels okay, feels logical and smart and like she put her family first, which is her job. but what about the whole family on earth. all of us together. eating one another. on down the line. oh my god. how do we do this, as conscious feeling beings? i am tripping. just let me trip. how do we do this? consciously. i guess that's how. ideally. and then things change, and i wish i could do it differently, and yet still consciously. but that's not how it happened...

to the 6 baby mice:

hello sweet ones. i loved you. i fed you baby puppy milk, through a dropper, from the pet store and you were all so into it. then we had a friend who reminded me of the serious threat of germs some mice carry and i got really scared. i am a mommy. i tried so hard to take care of you. i fed you at midnight last night. then at 6 am. i thought about you all the whole time in between. and of my own children and the threat of that horrible virus. not able to sleep at all. then when i did drift a bit, i had visions of mice in cages and chickens in cages. and me in the middle. it wasn't until after i decided that i could not raise you all, and i totally put your vulnerable selves out on the ground for the chickens, that i recalled the dream. maybe it was all already written out. uuuuugh. i don't like that thought. i don't like any of this. you all were so sweet and precious and your mom wrecked our cellar. however i am not mad. i am grateful to have a serious reason to clean it out. it was getting too full and of course a mouse would want to go in there. we love rodents now so much in this house. the hardest part may be having to tell the children what happened to you. well, max was there and he seems to blame the chickens, not me, which is weird. we named you all despereaux. i can't really believe that i did this to you. i just turned, and decided it was not smart to keep you in our house. you all probably think humans are the strangest creatures. i fed you and loved you and said sweet things to you, and then i fed you to my chickens. that is fucking weird. they ate you up real fast. i heard you squeal, though. i cried for you and i'm so so sorry that i couldn't do better. really really so sorry and i am crying more tears for you now as write this. i hope you are okay now. moving along in your existences as sweethearts. i hope you can forgive me. i feel i did my best, given my circumstances. i am glad you did not all die slowly in the closet and that the cats brought you to us. i hope my part in your lives was righteous. your part in mine, in our family's, was certainly righteous.

please

thinking thinking thinking. squinting into the screen. scanning the airwaves for interesting conversations to spark my creative mind. i have some time!! time!! and there's nothing rumbling around my head, nothing in the forefront, i mean. there are plenty of nonsensical stressy things taking up way too much space of course, not sparking my spirit at all. just sparking my instinct to stall out. stall. stall. stall. false start. stall. i feel like people (my inner critics, so many of them!) are honking at me to go the fuck on. the light is green! i just keep stalling. i think i need a new clutch. that's no fun. maybe i need a new handbag?? i'm going to turn away from that gift my stressed out heather wants to give me, the multiple stalls and honks (why do we honk at ourselves like that?) and look for a gift that my spirited freeeeeeeeeeeee heather is holding out, being drowned out by the obnoxious horn noise of the stressy heathers. there are so many of me. at least it sounds like there are. maybe my critics are just exceptionally loud. tending to spirited heather is something i would be so smart to do more of.

duh.

sorry to be a broken record.

someday i'll get a new record.

you know who has the coolest record collection in the world? my sister. who is fast becoming a new yorker. i can hear it in her voice. no, she is not picking up a fake accent in 2 weeks. ha. i met a girl (from the usa) once who did that after going to new zealand for 2 months. she came back with the thickest new zealand accent. and she still has it. a decade later. i am totally making fun. but come on. if she was my friend, i'd call her on it, and make fun to her face. that is a funny thing to do. but no, my sister is not talking like a yankee, she's just getting herself all situated and doing things and calling me and telling me and it is so fun to hear about it all. makes me smile as i write this. i just wish she'd send me more pictures from her phone. hint hint. i want a picture of every professor. every new subway stop. every new juniper outfit. every new mama~goes~to~law~school~outfit, and all the new corners of her home as all the cute things find themselves out of all those boxes, some that i helped pack. you know what you might want to use that food processor for, the one you've never used yet, to make smoothies in! i used ours today to make a smoothie that i added a whole bunch of chard to, and the chard doesn't blend up in the blender very well, so i had to process it first in the processor. then we blended. and the kids got a big dose of fresh raw greens, and we felt a bit like super~humans after eating all that green goodness.




so, if i were to get a new record, toss the broken one, and play nice new sounds, instead of repeated honking, i would play a record that sounds like this today. we saw him last night. (he sounded so much better than that clip portrays. his magic was loud and clear in person, last night. the rainbow must have helped.) at a music festival with the kids. dancing to that song with olive in my arms was so fun. max was really into his beat boxing drum mouth sounds. zhi was into staring at him in the binoculars, and repeatedly asking me if 'we had this dude's disc?' the kids were all so into mr. sexton. he is magic. heart melting magic. with so much energy. as i watched him, i kept feeling like he is just a deep deep deep DEEP well. a well of high soulful creative energy and musical bliss. and sexiness. woohoo. we went in our raincoats. and still got soaked.


kids in raincoats are so good for photographs.

look at my new mom charms. charm me. please.

on our anniversary, david and i went to the botanic gardens like i said, and it was so cool, cuz on that day there was this rose show. i didn't even know about rose shows. i am so into it. talk about high vibrations! i swear i could feel it. it was very very fun. i am totally turning into an old lady. one of my favorite ideas of fun is now going to a rose show.


i grew that chard. the chard divas are really happy with our garden this year. i love it. i eat it raw a lot.

these peppers are from the csa. one of them is so hot, i cried for ten minutes after the tiniest bite. woah. it was very powerful. cleared me out like good therapy does. and then i called a friend who is a member of the same farm, and she said the same thing happened to her. crying crying crying. such sad peppers. transferring so many tears to people. i am wondering if the earth is making her peppers grow extra hot this year, to get us cleared out more? if we are clearer, we will be more focused on what we need to be focused on. yeah?

and talk about feeling like a failure. i made this pizza. it sucked. i put some pesto on it that was from last year, just out of the freezer. i guess i made it too bitter. nice. whole pizza went to the chickens practically, except for part of half which i put tomato sauce on instead. i told david i just feel like i am being given a message to just stop trying. i am not a natural born cook. i try sometimes. and when crap like that happens, it makes me feel like i'm barking up the wrong tree. just go sew. let your family eat the regular old simple meals that take no effort and involve no creativity. david says, well, i guess that's why you're not the entrepreneur. yeah. totally! at least not in the food business. i could edit my writing, or my quilt, or my garden all day. but making a pizza three times. not my thing.

but the thing is, i really want to get myself more inspired in the kitchen. i told the kids, next time i make a pizza, one, it will not be made with gluten free crust (i am over that for now), two, it will not have pesto on it unless i make sure it is delicious ( how did i not taste that first??) , and three, i don't know. i might need mr. miyagi if i'm ever gonna get into a kitchen flow. channel that guy.

you can do it!

hello. when's the last time you saw this song performed? hang in there and you'll recognize it after about 39 seconds. don't you love the lead singer's glasses. made me think of my lawyer sister. how fun is that to think of and write? we should sing this song to our kids as a lulliby. makes me feel like laughing, but the kids are falling asleep so i can't really.

i just love watching the main singer when they zoom in on him. and look how the two on the left (our left) kind of bop in synch together. and they all turn back and forth a little bit in synch too. if you watch the whole video, i swear it will transport you somewhere else. i'm not sure where, but somewhere very different. i think everyone needs to bookmark this. it ends abruptly. but that's ok.

now look how cool this cover is. i love his voice. so sweet.

i think i can is a mantra i keep telling max when he tries to draw lately. i replace his 'i can't do it', with 'i think i can,' like an involuntary reflex or something. i hope it gets in there. before he just tunes me out completely. i can't help it. maybe i'll toss that up with 'you can do magic,' here and there. hahaha. ok.. love.

buster

can't seem to find the feeling of doing stuff right today. and of course when i'm going into this fun place, i color the whole past summer with this feeling, or the whole past decade if i'm really getting into beating myself up. fun!!!

i am a failure. fail ure. or something. a loser. los er. uuuugh.

moving on.

so it seems my writing time has been squeezed out of me for a while now. the kind where i really go on a journey. instead i am using my octopus arms to tend to the children the house the stuff. seems i am being called elsewhere. hmmmmm. like bed. i keep trying to write. but no. sleep is what i need. time will come when i have hours to write. maybe not this year. it's looking to be a crazy busy school year. with me shuttling kids to three different schools. olive only twice a week. max only for three hours a day. zhi riding the bus a lot, but the bus didn't show up this afternoon. you never know what you're gonna be asked to do. but mostly for me these days, it involves driving.

i am not whining.

yes. yes i am i guess. but not really. yes really. oh. headache. i love you. i love you stick shift. i love you broken radio. i love you children learning learning learning. i love you olive my sassy sidekick.

i love you yarn that gives me something to do. i love you yarn store with nice ladies who helped me understand my pattern today. i love you tea with a friend. i love you huge bill for max's school. i love you tired eyes. i love you august. i love you sister so far away. i love you sleep. i love you run that i hope to take tomorrow. somehow. how? when? at 6 am. phew. i am getting disciplined here. disciplined. or crazy. or scared. or desperate! desperate to feel better. ha. i love you toe shoes. you make my calves sore. i love that. i love you chicken yard. i love you bee yard. i love you grace that will come and make me feel like i am not a failure. that i am a human girl busting it out, full of imperfections. i love you buster.

and i hate you too. ' the opposite of love is not hate. it is indifference.' steven pressfield, from the war of art book.

so hating is not so bad! hate all you want. if you feel indifferent though, uh oh.

ha.

i love you night time.

night night.

12 :: years :: of :: being :: married

when i sit down today, with my husband of 12 years, i feel gratitude.

there has been so much resistance for us. and there will be so much more.

as long as we find ourselves side by side, hearts connected, or boarded up, we will have work to do. doing our work is insane. and essential. and fodder. and really hard and scary. i have deep dark light high gratitude for you david. for the partnership you've given me in my adult life. as a woman. as a mother. as an artist.

and when we are getting a much welcomed break from the work, the laughter is the best. the love. the play. the dancing. the music. it actually does get better. all of it. matures and ripens and evolves into feelings that satisfy even more. because we do the work. not always right when it's clear that there is work to be done, often, we wait till the pain is screaming out, but still, we do eventually listen. i am a big fan of the work. and of having a partner who isn't afraid to do it with me.

yes.

this book, the war of art, is making me feel so brave and ready to dive in. to. my. stuff. to the place i go to create from. creating our own art, takes as much bravery, as staying in relationship. or leaving it, which i know is sometimes the most brave and aligned thing a person can do for themselves. this book is saying that where ever we feel resistance, that is the direction we need to go in. it's making me question the daily groove's advice. he, scott noelle, often says resistance is a sign that we are going in the wrong direction, especially when it comes to parenting....i'm guessssssssing he means we need to notice the resistance and do something to meet it, to get under it, through it, instead of just staying in it, or running away from it. yeah. so then, these two guys are not contradicting each other at all. pressfield is saying, when we come up against resistance, we are close to some action that is gonna be essential to our growth, our art's growth. go in the direction of the resistance. go go go. be brave and let your heart flip out. scary. he says being scared shitless is good. woohoo! isn't that great news! we get to continue feeling terrified of ourselves and everything and everyone else and that is a good thing. it means we are on the right path. ha. this is hilarious, yeah? constant pruning. constant reassessments. constant meeting. constant rising. constant mixing. constant brewing. constant facing. constant cycling. and there is that part of the cycle where we get to rest. the cocoon, the chrysalis phase. love that phase.

so. on i go. to the botanic gardens with this man i married. that i've worked with for 12 years. and learned about resistance and meeting and letting go and loving in ways i am endlessly grateful for. love.

she is so lovely

hello.

today:

saw queen of the sun today. the world is asking us to wake up. wake up. wake up. my children know the word pesticide so well now. they had a big lesson in school last spring, in their butterfly pavillion made in the class, when all the tomato hornworms died after eating on a tomato plant that wasn't organically grown. how telling for those kindergarteners, firsts and second graders. could the lesson be any clearer than that? they will not forget that. they raised those worms up! then had to see that. deep exhale. ......i am so in love with our bees still. after seeing that movie, i feel so so grateful to have some here on this land with us, that seem to be having a very good summer. fingers crossed for winter. sweet honey loves.

olive's tantrums weren't quite so piercing for me today. i found grace a couple times and felt so grateful each time. i am needing some grace.

enjoying reading this book, the tale of despereaux, to the kids SO much. andrea told me about it after seeing that there are rats in the house now. so grateful she did. oh my goodness. i just saw that a movie was made of this story too. the kids are gonna be so excited. oh i can hardly take it. we love books. a lot a lot a lot a lot. and we love movies a lot a lot a lot too.

i saw a license plate that said grattud. or something like that.

gratitude is coming. i am wondering if the turkey is helping me tune in. you know turkey medicine? here's a bit on turkey medicine i've never read before. oh there's so much sacred life in the world.

i want to wake up at 7 am tomorrow. eat a tiny bit. drink. go on a run. be back home and ready for a therapy appointment at 8:30am. that means. go to bed ms. h. night night.

look at this that zhi had the idea to make. we did it together. so beautiful. made me feel into the ocean which i loved. i don't do that enough. she is so lovely. zhi. and the ocean. but i meant zhi.

wander

i just read this article in yesterday's new york times. i almost almost almost went home and deleted this blog. oh my goddess. help! i was going to find a way to print the whole thing first, which i've looked into before and it's not so easy with such extensive archives. any body know an easy way to do that? just in case i freak out again?

today, though i'm feeling sort-of cool about the whole thing. if some creepy ex of mine, which would be impossible, cuz i don't have any creepy exes, is reading this and feeling like they're learning too much, then BACK OFF. go write your own blog. don't read something that makes you feel that way. only read it if you're a friend and you want to participate, even if just with your thoughts. but if it feels creepy, geez. just go the fuck away.

now that i got that out. i'm stumped for what i feel like writing down today.

i keep getting the urge to go shopping. i almost just chose going to anthropology for a stroll over writing time, with this solo time i've found in my lap this afternoon.... i couldn't decide, and i asked david to decide for me. he said trident. ha. he just doesn't want me to spend any of the money we don't really have to be spending in the first place. craving new pretty stuff. after riding this feeling out, i have been coming to a place, even after strolling through a store and not finding really anything i would want to buy anyways, of wanting to just go home and make something. that's sort-of cool. knowing how to make a dress that i'd want to wear is pretty handy. why don't i just get on that? not sure. lately, if it's not someone's birthday, i have such a hard time finding the inspiration that gets me to actually sit and sew. help? anyone?

my sister is gone. what the hell. it's hard to sit with my sadness over her being gone. once again, there's a lot of sadness going around. david has a good friend who is in a coma with a brain tumor. it's so hard. there's more with a family member that i just can't say yet. and now i feel like i'm exposing too much because of that god damn article. uggggh.

we had to give our baby boy rooster away last weekend cuz some uptight neighbors complained strongly about him. some uptight neighbors who we've complained strongly to about their barking dogs a bunch before, so it's sort-of a tit for tat. yuck. i offered them fresh eggs to say sorry for being such a bother at dawn. nope. not interested. jerks. the lady went off on me so hardcore my heart almost jumped out of my chest. it was nutty. i'm not a fighter. well, i am, but sometimes i freeze up and get nervous. i wish my fangs came out more easily in situations like that. roar.

sharpspear love bucket is gone now. and to make it up to max, we brought home two black boy ducks and 1 baby turkey that we don't know yet the sex of.

the ducks have a little kiddie pool pond. they sit in there a lot. sweet things.

a farming friend of mine just told me that turkeys can be hard to raise and she lost 80% of hers last year. she said she heard they do better on medicated feed. she wished me luck. thanks.

i can't even tell you how sad we were to say bye that sweet boy. we can't stop thinking of him. but this baby turkey is taking up a lot of attention and it is comforting.

you know honestly i haven't been enjoying my writing so much lately. what can i do to get more into it? it might be that i need to take some space? i've lost the rhythm, or the inspiration. the fun. i used to get off on writing. am i just so depressed? i don't know. but i guess i'll just keep on keepin on till i have a sure feeling on what the hell.

one thing i'm depressed about is how we don't have parties. like fun ones with friends like we used to. we had kids and then stopped being those people. i can be so self-concious. the black ducks are not party~ers. they hang back so far. i'm sort-of like that. and yet i'm not. oh my god. who am i?

who am i? a woman who wants to go shopping so bad. or just wants some time to sew. and get drunk. and hang out. and party.

i want my hair straightened. but the chemicals are too gross.

my sister said she thinks i'm going to get really into make-up. that we're going to see each other again and i'll be wearing make up. hmmmmm. i could see myself getting into eye make up maybe? that's like fun paint. smoky eyes. oooo. sexy. but i just put on some mascara for the first time in 8 months the other day, i guess it was old. i got two styes. ha. claire, the sister, said she's going to get into botox she predicts. she's only 28, but she's thinking ahead. hahaha. oooo, that reminds me of this article i read in a marie claire magazine while waiting for the kids and david to be done shooting hoops in the gym yesterday. the magazine was in the magazine rack, and i was having a hard time choosing between marie claire and martha stuart. in the spirit of my sis, i went with marie claire. thought i'd look at some make up techniques, just in case she's right.... there was this page on this jewelry maker, who chose to use lauren hutton as his model, because she has had no plastic surgery... he said he respects women who don't fall for the pressures of society. look at her! however. having said that. i have no qualms or judgements on ladies or guys who do plastic surgery type stuff. i understand. it's brave in a way to do that.

the ad for the bali bra on that last link makes me laugh a little. and makes me kind-of want one. who likes remembering to flex their tummy when they're feeling like looking hot? i need to do more sit-ups. i've been doing the kettle bell swing exercise with david a little lately. ever done that? we've been doing it like this. it's funny. we do it facing each other. we both laugh at some point when we look at each other. it's a good bonding thing to do. even when you're mad at each other. do it. it will give you a different perspective. i swear. or you'll kill each other with those heavy things. no don't do that. just swing, and pop, snap, tighten. like she said.

i'm not so into the new iron and wine. makes me sad how not into i am. whatever.

i am into animals healing powers.

and i am into the lonesome sisters. have been for a long time. since right after my grandma died to be precise. she guided me to finding them on itunes one magical day, after her death. it was so cool. i found their music and cried cried cried. i just LOVE them.

anyhoo. lost my loving feeling again. for writing. whatever. i lose if for everything at some point. but i know better than to just give up on it. i need to do some magic. a friend reminded me of that today. yep. that inspires me. put it out there, in my own way, that i am looking for some writing inspiration again. i want to find that loving feeling.

school starts next week. i'm not able to make sense of that. everyone i talk to says it feels wrong.

hmmmmmmm.

i'm ready for this low feeling to get higher feeling. just a little? do i know how to rock the low feelings or what?

a friend called me today and i should not have answered the phone. i'm sorry. i was not in a good space and i said all the wrong things. i know she forgives me. it's nice to know that. but i want to say sorry anyways.

shop. i want to shop. ok. going to go wander for a bit.

love.