anyhow

december

making forts lots and lots




december 2011

making cookies just once so far.  i am so over sugar.

max had an abscessed tooth two weeks ago.  it was simply pulled out of his mouth and i was told to be glad it was a baby tooth.  i have been a paranoid (?), or smart (?) freak about sugar since then.  and i've been physically sickened by it too.  weird.




winter break

i like breaks.





no school, no pressure, no alarms, so little driving

aaaaaaaaaaaah

i recovered these dining table chairs.  they needed to be recovered so badly.   like a year ago they were looking nasty.  the red and white fabric is some awesome vintageness i scored on ebay.  thick and gorgeous.  i hesitated using it on a chair that will get messy, but i went for it in the end, deciding the joy i am going to get from seeing it in use a few times each day will be worth the shorter life span.  right?

the teapot fabric is just divine.  i think i got from purlsoho.  can't remember now.  i've stashed it for a year or so now.  perfect use!!!




these chairs  below got covered in some thrifted pieces.

 



nice nice very nice.  listening to dan mangan still.  i love.


and here are some tiny pics from my phone from some things we did last week....

a little neighborhood bonfire and caroling

 caroling is so weird.  watching my jewish husband and neighbors sing about baby jesus is funny.  and fine.  i'm not in any place of judgement, just loving the weirdness and the oddity of it all.  i love it.  i hang back and photo and enjoy the randomness.  i sing a tiny bit.  like on the frosty song.

 at my mom's

 with my ninja hoody boy

a la casa de mi amiga mejor para xmas eve

 david played the box, after playing light my fire on the piano while max and i kind of tried to sing along.  ha!  max actually became obsessed with getting everyone else to sing the song.  shouting out, 'come on, sing it!'  to everyone like if they didn't they might get killed.  such intensity.  so funny.  it was a perform if you want to party.  so cute for all these kids, and then for these grown ups who can make some serious delicious music.

we had fun.  i am grateful to people who have parties.  someday we will have parties again.  i know it.  i know we will.  we will have rocking ragers!  our snooty neighbors who hate us for asking them to bring in their barking dogs will call the cops on us i bet.  we will rock it out.  maybe we will even invite those snootheads cuz i'm getting really into this forgiveness stuff.

anyhow.  zhi recently was reading an email over my shoulder as i wrote it.  i wrote 'anyhoo' in it.  she was like, 'anyhoo?'  she said 'don't you mean anyhow?'  i was like, 'yes.  yes i do.  thank you!'  and from now on, i doubt i will be writing anyhoo.  seeing it through the eyes of my 7 year old put it in perspective and i am just not an 'anyhoo' type writer anymore.  love that she woke me up to that!  so.  ANYHOW.  it's been pretty fun and mellow.  lot's of sinking in at home beyond those few outings.  yay.  sinking in at home rocks,  when it hasn't happened in a long while.  we watched the dark crystal yesterday.  awwwwww.  thanks to this girl, for reminding me of it the other day when i saw she'd made some gelfling concoction for her cold.  

 i am torn between scheduling times for the kids to play with friends, and just keeping us all in and going deeper into the home portal.  i will find a way to do both perhaps.  seek and you shall find.  

love.

oh.  and thanks to this girl for helping me make that new header photo the kind of black and white i was wanting.  thanks!!

give forgiveness

i enjoy decaf americanos.  and sometimes these days, i enjoy caffeine again too.  but what's different for now, is that i don't feel like i am missing out if i have decaf.  that is really different.  i can really enjoy some decaf drinks!!  making progress.

striving to keep it so so simple for these little munchkins.

look how much they like simple.  ha.  literally they are nuts online there in that photo.

time at a friend's house yesterday made me so inspired to come home and spiff our house a little.  not that hers made me feel like mine sucks, but it inspired me.  i love that about going to friends' homes that i haven't been to in a while.

can i come to yours next?

it is hard to think of my own home as being inspiring to others, though.  too often, i just see it as a pit.  i can take good photos of it here and there, but overall, it overwhelms.  want to reframe that.

my house is my house.  it is full of all aspects of myself and my children and my husband and quite a few pets.  all aspects.  perfectionism, and chaos.  creativity and banality.  books, and mud.  musical instruments, and dust.  a shower that was just cleaned and windows that are a joke at how dirty they are.  window cleaning party happening soon.

well.  i have been worrying about my boy a lot the past few days.  parenting a disabled child is very different from parenting a non-disabled child... however, it is not the only cause for worry,  cuz after focusing on max for a while,   i then start worrying about my biggest girl.  oh her shyness.  then olive flips out and acts like the most entitled prima donna ever, and i worry about her.   then i start in on myself.  will i ever find balance?  and then david.  is insomnia just his karma?  and then my sister.  can she please feel and find more support?  and then my friends.  is she gonna find her dream?  is she gonna relax into more honesty?  is she gonna ever keep a plan?  it's a train.  a train of worry that i seem to catch regularly.  oh, is it 11am?  it's time for the worry train.  i think it goes something like that. i have an annual pass to this train.  i commute daily from peaceville to worryville.  it's my job.

i want to quit my job.

i'm quitting.  or could i just get fired?  that would be cooler.  how could i get myself fired?

i'm stumped.  so i guess i'm gonna have to quit.

it's such an unconscious thing i do.  getting on that train.  and before i wake up and realize i'm on my way, the train is going at top speed and i can't get off.  i look around, and everyone seems to be scared shitless.  we hate this train.  but we keep getting on in our sleep.  it is so damn tricky to catch myself in the split second that i step on the train.  if i could, i would turn around.  i know i would.

don't worry.  i just read this post from almost two years ago...  don't worry.

i want to embroider that on a pillow too.

anyhoo.

i had a weird dream last night.  i somehow lost hold of my cell phone. i was standing near a huge dumpster full of fermenting compost.  the phone dropped into it.  i looked around wondering who might be able to help me.  i was NOT wanting to step into that dumpster.   i don't even know where i was.  then, out of the blue, my second stepdad appears.  this man who i've held a grudge against for some years now.  6 i guess.  he made me mad six years ago and i've taken all this time and space away from him in the name of anger mostly.  he just jumped right into that dumpster and grabbed my phone so easily, wiped it clean and handed it to me.  woah!  thank you michael.  that was very cool of you.

forgiveness is in the air.  a friend recently suggested we start a forgiveness group.  i am not in my old women's group anymore.  i am needing and wanting to find forgiveness in my heart for the women in that group who i am stuck in some place of anger with right now.  i wanted new members to join the group.  they did not.  i brought it up twice.  two different women.  over a span of six months or so.  each time the idea was rejected.  and it was complicated.  but also simple.  they said no.  so in the end, i said i'm leaving if you're seriously not going to reconsider and invite these other women into the group.  they said 'ok.  it's been nice having you, we hope you go on to find what you're looking for!'   and now i'm pissed!  i don't want to be pissed.  i want to be empathizing and have no qualm.  i had a lot to lose.  being in a womens' group is not something that you have an opportunity to do very often.  i started that one, and i could probably start another, but that's a lot of work and i'm not ready.  i have been invited to another just last week.  but the chemist in me wonders if it's the right formula.  i just want to forgive.  i have therapy tomorrow.  phew.  gonna go straight to work on worry and forgiveness.

i wish i could start a womens' group with some of my blogging womyn friends.  how dreamy does that sound folks?  can you all move to colorado?  we'll meet once a month.  in the middle somewhere.

okey dokey.   i need a worry mantra and a forgiveness mantra. stat!

those are the bee quiliting squares i won on ebay!  maybe the bees can help me with these emotional/spiritual hang ups i'm having.  i am loving the bees so much this winter.

chop chop

oh.

so sorry to be such a downer last time.  but you know i will lift myself back up again, right?  oh yes.  have faith ye dears.  have faith in the phoenix that i am.  in addition to being a phoenix, i am also just a not~yet~realized song-writer, and a lot of my songs are sad ones.  or the mellow kind.  not all.  but probably half.  like lots of song writers, right?  nothing wrong with that.  in fact, it's quite the opposite.  i am so grateful to all the songwriters of sad songs.  so so grateful.



this sweet song is making me and a friend i shared it with recently pretty happy, in that weird way that sort-of sad music makes us weird girls happy.    i bought their whole album on itunes and i am very glad i did.  sometimes david gets in the car and hears music i've been playing, and says it's basically like taking a razor to the wrist.  how opposite i feel it is.  he likes spazzy jazz though, which i feel is like putting my head in a vice grip while being forced to chew bubble gum, which i do not like the flavor of.  so there.  we are worlds apart in some ways.

my husband is going back east to visit his parents for two days today.  i miss him already.  isn't that magic how instantly we can miss someone when they've just left 5 minutes ago.  i notice i often do this with the kids.  i leave them with a babysitter, and all of a sudden i feel i can't take it how much i miss them, whereas just 1 hour before, i was pulling my hair out.

this morning, as i drove big o to preschool, i look in the rearview mirror, and see her thinking with a sweet look on her face.  i asked her what she was thinking about.  she said, 'i'm thinking of the wonderful dream i have been having.  i've had it lots of times.'  i say, 'can you tell me about it,  i love wonderful dreams.'  she says, 'well, it's not finished yet.  so i can't tell you about it.'  pause.     'actually it's not ever going to be finished. so can't tell you at all. ' and she is so dreamy as she says this.  it gives me goosebumps, and i stand in awe of this child.  i believe her.  oh yes.

i am challenging myself and some friends to stop using cell phones in any way whatsoever when we are driving.  even at red lights.  even at red lights.  that's right!  let's say it again.  even at red lights.  i like to be radical.  even at red lights.  red lights are the gateway i feel.  and they're making us too ADD.  i should speak for myself.  they're making me weirdly addicted to the looking at the phone during them.  actually i don't know if it's harmful to entertain myself while i'm at a red light, but i just want to feel what it used to feel like to have a little bit slower pace.  and this is a start, right?  i'm going to ponder what else could slow things down for me....

• repeating this mantra to myself, ' slow and steady as the turtle, will get me over the tricky hurdle.'  nah.  what about, 'i am a beautiful steady goddess.'  i would love to say that to myself more.

2 days later....

today i am being fed by this singer, dan mangan.  a super good friend gave me his cd.   that song i linked to first, is dreamy.  are we cool now?  are we cool now?  i want to embroider that on a pillow.   max and i loved this song  too on the way to school today.  listened to it twice.  this summer, we heard it for the first time at the folks fest.  the whole crowd was singing how 'robots need love too.'  i want to embroider that on a pillow as well.  i am a robot sometimes, and i need love when i am for sure.  more than anything.  

i am seeing how weridly hard it is to not use the cellphone in the car.  at stop lights in particular.  of course.  i knew it would be.   it's like my hand just goes to it at every stop.  it is weird and disturbing and funny and maddening as i try to stop.  i don't want these kids to grow up driving and texting.  or talking or reading or whatever.  how am i gonna expect they learn it's not the way to drive if i do it ALL THE TIME?  

my husband is home again.  it was a good short trip for him.  i feel like he will be making that trip quite a few times over the next few months, with us joining him a couple of those times i guess.  take it as it comes.  he did good though.  he made up a sweet dinner, and asked that only his siblings came, no sister inlaw, nieces, or granddogs were invited.  he made notes of memories and feelings he wanted to share, to start a vibe, and a roll for conversation, for the talk over the meal.   he said it was better than he hoped, how they all responded.  i find that so beautiful and visionary of him.  i know that his parents and his siblings are feeling so much gratitude for that time at the table together.


here are some photos that are making me happy:

in bright light, you see my sun spots.  i am vulnerable.


i just had this necklace restrung.  i wore it at our wedding.  it made me happy to wear it this morning.


for mary.  i told her i'd show her my altar if she'd show me hers.  so, i am showing you an altar of mine.  an altar that reminds me to honor the mountain lion.  to keep my fear of her in check with my reverence of her.  i tend to fear her more than anything.  she has cannabis leaves pressed into her face.  i like that.  i got her at the oregon country fair.  she is magic.  right?  duh.  there is sage.  a sweet faerie plant.  and a magnet board to put whatever i need on.  like a reminder to take a freakin bath when you don't know what else to do.  a little cleansing power corner i guess.


a journey to my mom's to saw a sweet fir tree down.  i am partial to them for christmas trees.



then the lights went up.  birds were let out of their cage.


we think we have a boy turkey now.  he has been posturing.  i am glad!  how interesting it is to watch.  he is so sweet.  and i think he's a good flyer.  it seems that yesterday he flew over the 8 foot fence.  i got him back in easily.  he seemed nervous when i found him out of the fence away from the rest of his bird family.   he was just standing on a big stone up against the fence as close as he could get to it.  cutie.  i am wondering if he's been trying to mate with the hens though.  something fishy seemed to be going on the other day.  i think we need to get him a lady turkey.

since the house is built into the earth on the back side, the birds run all over the roof.   it is pretty funny.





i planted us an amaryllis last night after the kids were asleep, and david wasn't quite home yet.  it was hard for some reason to get myself to plant it.  it felt like a chore.  but once i touched the dirt, it was so different.  what the hell.....resistance to things like that baffles me.


i de~stemmed some dried sage and rosemary from the summer.  i saved the stems and put them in that pot and the whole house smelled so good that morning.



olive's bird feeder she made at preschool.  it makes me really happy.  and those chickadees too.


the couch pee~er. i have totally forgiven her. i actually never held a grudge.  david did, but not me.  not this time.  not that i'm immune to grudges.  no way, unfortunately.  but in this case, i understood so well.  she was sad we were gone and not being met in a comforting enough way by our house sitter.  she was scared. and mad.  hello.  the couch seems to be coming around now.  nice.


while in baltimore that last time, when we all went, i had an ebay party one night.  i bid on maybe 7 or 8 things.  all vintage low priced fabrics.  i won a 5.  i should show you them all.  here is one.  it is our new curtain.  i am happy by it.


i have hoped the musicians will be bringing more music into our world.


more homemade music.


another little altar.  owls. a poisonous frog.  a turtle.  a tarot book.  a faerie plant.  a tiny buddha a friend gave my daughter.  photos of children.  a peek at some leaves in a bag that my soul sister mary sent me to aid in my creative block.  thanks again.  i appreciated that more than you know.



yay.  a mostly gratitude~filled happy post.

up down up down up down.  yin yang yang yin.  light shadow light shadow.  hmmmmm.

12/12 er

what was i doing that whole month, or was it two, that i couldn't knit.  i couldn't pick up the needles.  it would have been forcing something and i couldn't do it.  and now, that i am knitting again, because i want to so bad i can't not do it, i can't really understand why i couldn't do it before.  it makes me cry.  why couldn't i?  what was i doing instead?  i was feeling pain.  so much pain it was all i could do to be with it and only it.  and that makes me fucking sad.  my daughters went a few more months without their  sweaters, in their lives, they won't have them as long, because i had to sit and feel some pain.  god.  that sucks.  this life sucks ass so hard sometimes i just feel like i could do something so crazy and bad.  it's so sad sometimes.

well.  i don't know what to write now.  i have so many feelings..they run all over each other and make so many colors and it's so chaotic.  not always though, right?  but often, i can feel some hard horrible sadness, except for those random times that i laugh out loud, or that i am in that state of pure contemplation that feels so exquisite.  or when my kids grab my attention in that fresh way.  and it seems when those other feelings vanish,  that sadness is just there.  so there.  my baseline friend sadness.  how am i gong to explain this to my kids?  i don't want them to have to know sadness like i do.  i don't want that.   no thank you.  fuck this.  that's what i say.  i want to teach those kids to say FUCK THIS and get up and walk out of energy that is just too much to bear.  we can take it for a while and for some reason we seem to have to, but then after that while, like when you realize you've had a parasite sucking on you and you are just discovering it, you can get up, pull that fucker off, and get away from that energy.  right?  yes.

we just have to do what's good for us and no preaching.  david said that to me just after i wrote that all up there.   he saw me look up from the computer screen weeping, and i told him what was going through me.  he is cool.

2 days later.

today i be 35.

yeehaw.  i am psyched.

i am really really blessed and love living.  from the eagle's nest, it's all so lovely and magical and seems to almost make sense.  shadows aren't scary anymore.  they are so simple from up high.  i must visit this nest more regularly.

love.

i love.  i love.  i love.  i fear.  i grow.  i brave.  i cower.  i speak.  i hide.  i dance.  i beat.  i sing.  i whisper.  i be.  crazy.  simple.  crazy.  wild.

yah.

heat

that picture breaks my heart.  i love it so much.  david took it this morning.



i like plaiting up zhi's hair.

i want to clean up that corner of toys.



here is my oldest favorite sweater.  i bought it right after we got married.  some things you just remember.  i got it at a department store, which is pretty unlike me.  i just fell in love with it.  so weird.  i wore it for years and years and years.  and then it just wore out and shrunk and got a few holes and lost its shape.  waaaaaaaa.  isn't that what happens to all of us.  ha.  that just cracked me up.



i cut it up this morning.  i used the back and front to make a pillow.  a little car pillow.  do you know i am short in stature?  some of you may not know just how short.  i am 5 feet even.  driving a car has always been a little stretch for me.  often i can get the seat up close enough.  but it's come to my attention lately, that my body is not down with my posture when i drive.  so i need a driving pillow.  and today, i used it for the first time.  it felt so funny, and good.  i look normal and tall to other drivers.  woohoo.  i'm as tall as you are.  you think!

cute little pillow.  i love you old sweater.




and here is david taking ants on a log to new gourmet levels.  celery with almond butter and figs.

holy moly.  it was so good.  





i found this article in the nytimes  interesting today. and a little freaky of course.  i bounce back and forth between the ant's eye view, and the eagle's eye view. what the hell view is this, that we have such knowledge?  the neighboring galaxy's view?  the hubble view?  the space dragon view?  i don't know if i'm cut out for integrating that view?  aaa, i am.  who am i fooling?  i once had a dream, where i was looking from outer space, at the earth.  the earth looked back it me.  it became a big eyeball. just one big blue eyeball.

i'm going to go buy a new iron now.   my iron bit the dust yesterday.  it's headed for the largest black hole on earth.  the dump.  bye old iron.  we had such hot times together.  it always got so heated between us.  we had such burning chemistry.  it was intense.  love.

ratmice and a couch

one day last week,  i tried to drive her to the bus stop.  we slipped all the way down the one mile hill to be there on time.  we were.  the bus never came.  i forgot to check the website.  it had alerted us to the morning run being canceled.  won't forget that again on a snowy day i bet.  we went home,  just the two of us.  david had already left with max and olive for the morning.  it was a school day for olive, and a go-to-work-with-daddy-morning for max.  i made some hot tea, preparing for the drive up the mountain this time, for the 4 mile hill up to her school.  we got 2 miles up.  i  did not like what it was feeling like, at all, to drive up that hill on those roads.  i called it.  i heard a sigh of relief from her, and a huge relaxation come over her body, and mine,  the second i said, 'screw this, i'm turning around.'  it was a good feeling to call that, and feel her response.  i had an idea, as we were headed back down.  i remembered the gift my sister had given her for her birthday in july.  a felting kit, to make little felted mice.  (oh my, look at this one i just saw!!  and this one!!!)  once home, i asked her if she knew where that was?  she did!  right under her desk in the abyss of little girl stuff.  we parked it by the fire, for one hour, and started poking at wool, with a step by step guide of what to do.  it was really divine.  after that hour, it was time to go get the boy, have lunch, and then take him to school.  once he was at school however, we had 2.5 hours to spend, continuing on with our felting.  neither of us could wait to get back at it.  we went to the trident of course.  a friend came to visit with us while these cuties were being born, and acted as baby ratmouse doula, for she has much experience with needle felting, it turned out.  and another friend, the one who just happened to be there to doula both my girls' births, came to the trident at that same time.  a little synchronistic convening of birthing helpers.  thank goodness for that snow day i called!  thank goodness for intuitive gift givers like my sister.  thanks goodness for craft~loving little 7 year old girls.  and thank goodness for doulas and friends.  there are plans to make a slew of ratmice over the weekend, for the siblings and the parents.  at home. by the fire.  with tea.  and cookies.



tis now after the weekend.  two more little fuzz balls with long tails were born.

olive's lady mouse wanted to bow for the camera.

at first these were rats.  now they are mice, zhi has decided.


 look at that sweet face.  zhi is so crafty.  and morbid sometimes.


these mice get tucked into bed at night by their caretaker.  they are very loved and it melts my hard cold heart  (heh) to see how sweet she can be.....i am wondering if the mountain moguler might bring some of those other kits for this angel.




ummmm.  and here is our new couch.  we got it used at the consignment store.   so i can blog about it.  it's like it was thrifted, right?    our old one is gone.  gone into a higher state of being i hope.  it was too wrecked to even be donated anywhere.  it was a very good couch.  i'm wanting to honor it properly.  it was such a good brown couch.


we were gone for that thanksgiving week.  our sensitive cat, lily, apparently didn't like our house sitter this time.  she peed on the new couch twice.  it's so weird how strong smelling cat pee is.  david and i actually fought about this whole happening.  he started calling the cats vermin, which he does here and there when they're bugging him.  i couldn't stress out about a couch, and the fact that he was, sent me into a crazy place.  so i stressed about him stressing about it.  it's ok now, between us.  and i'm working on the couch.  this is my fourth attempt to get the smell out.  i used bac-out three times.  this time i put a baking soda paste on it.  it vacuumed off perfectly.  there is still a smell there.  but it smells like sweet bac-out and vinegar, which i put on too, i forgot.  it's gross, but better than cat pee.  it would be cool to air the couch out outside.....but it's snowy.

so,  i made a pillow to help cheer things along.  it's soft.  cashmere soft.  good for winter snuggling.  while you smell that gross smell.  mmmmmmmm.

at least it looks cute.

how crazy that we go and buy a new to us couch and then the cat just about ruins it.  david says he'll sit on it once a week, to see how it's coming along.  i might just hang a hammock in the living room.