mail

ummmm.  thank you friend.

soft soft soft.  how nice are you courtney?  making me the most caring thoughtful package a lady could ask for.  you are so talented.  and so giving.  i am really lucky to have connected with you.

this blog is sometimes weird for me.  as you can probably imagine.  but  another good blogging friend said last night, that the positives outweigh the negatives, and this is just true.  i mean, come on.  this love in the mail brightened my day like a double rainbow.  heh.   ok, maybe not exactly like that, but you know what i mean.  it made me really feel good.  and i have sweet gifts around my home reminding me of all the connections i've made through this weirdness that is blogging.  i'll remember that, and not the negative uncomfortable aspects that come with blogging too.  basic stuff, like exposure, and self~questioning, self~criticizing, low self esteem days, stuff like that.  k?  k.  i'm gonna try.  remember the love, h.  thank you courtney.


my new knitting journal, i've decided.


and  silver crane that is adorning a rock in the hallway now. zhi put it in just the right spot.


knitting pattern love.  created by the master herself.  and olive has claimed the sewing pattern and has picked out her first outfit from it.  she wants to bare some midriff.  alrighty.


my favorite is this spring chicken.  made by miss courtney.  i'd been coveting this for a while.  i feel so lucky to have it in my own hands now.


here i am saying thanks courtney.  your timing was magic like i said.

that was the most awesome spirit lifter, to arrive to me on the equinox, just as i came home with two hours to spare to myself.  i hung that sweet chicken up by my threads, and got right to sewing.  with joy.  a new dress for me.  it'll take a while like all crafty things do for me lately.  but it felt great to sit and sew.  not depressing like it often does.  (can you believe i said that?  not sure why really, but sitting to sew sometimes feels so sad to me that i just can't do it. )   i sat in quiet even.  i tried music.  i tried a shadow workshop disc on grief.  none of it was working.  quiet.  quiet was it.

  if i get to sewing a lot soon, i will be stoked.  that's sometimes a barometer for how i'm doing.

maybe i'll try doing some witchy stuff to invoke the sewing fairies and moths to come on and assist a girl.    that book is making me happy these past couple of days.  i just discovered it at the library.  i like to read about stuff like that.  sucks me right in.

and here's the first zhi zip in progress, pattern by courtney too.   zhi is so into it.  she's tried it on 5 times i think.  even though it is warming here.  i bet we'll get another few snows before the last frost.


i just spent 3 hours taking photos of the school play's dress rehearsal this morning.  holy crap.  that is hard work.  photographers are not messing around.  too bad i don't know what i'm doing.  i try though.  and i will be at it again tonight for the real deal.  school plays are awesome.  i love school plays, my newest bumper sticker idea.




a little sunset photo i took on the equinox here for ya.  we took a walk after dinner.  i'm so glad we did.

loveuloveu.

flabbergasted happenings

in a new world.  we here are in a brand new world.  while in the beginning of spring no less.  it is layer upon layer of new.  and i dreamt recently that david's dad was here.  he was telling us something he hadn't before.  telling us in a way he hadn't, that he was dying.  and giving us his dying wishes.  the main one i remember is that he wanted me to have a new car, a nice reliable new car, with pretty blue, personalized license plates.  he said that.  to get the pretty blue ones.  i did just get new plates, for the new reliable car,  but not the pretty blue ones.  hmmmmm.   he told me what he wanted them to say even:   everything is impossible.  he was filled with calm light and love.  and joy.  he loved us so much.  i can hardly take the grief when i feel our love for each other.   crying in the coffee shop as i write.  hope people don't look over.  what kind of aphorism is that, pawpaw?  everything is impossible?   when i felt into it in the dream, and right upon waking, i felt like he was saying that everything we wish for, that we want, often feels impossible at first.  AND even more, that everything that is, IS, is impossible at first.   but somehow the implication was that it's not impossible.  he wanted to give us the message that that is just the illusion of all great things. and small things.   the impossibility~ness that comes along for the beginning of the ride, the dream.  maybe it  even comes along for the whole ride right up to then end,  when the 'miracle' of manifestation occurs.   knowing him, and the kinds of impossible things he accomplished with his career in health care, in his state of residence, making it the most progressive state in the nation in terms of equal access to health care for all, i do not feel daunted by his statement in this dream.  everything is impossible.  i feel he's actually saying everything is possible.    that's how i felt it.  optimist much?

the new world we are in, here in this family, is a world i never would have guessed us to enter.  i would have said 'impossible!'  but the son of my father~in~law said otherwise.    he seems to do the impossible right and left , just as his father.  and in the lineage, then, comes max.  the master of the impossible.  cry.  i cry for the miracles i have witnessed and felt and seen by all these men.  it is all so beautiful sometimes.  so so beautiful.  and now, in the lineage of cohen boys, comes this new boy, leonard.  (and of course there was mac.  pawpaw's dad.  max was named after him.  david's granddad who i never met.  he sold toys.  owned a toy store.   he had a basement full of toys david told me.  how neat and magical is that?  pawpaw used to say that grandchild max reminded him of his dad.)

so.  leonard.  maybe i'm taking this too far, to stick leonard into the line of the human men in the cohen lineage.  i'm sorry if that is true.  taking things too far is just something we do sometimes i guess.  or something i do.   yes.  now that i think on it.  i certainly do that a lot.

david and olive went to seattle two weekends ago and came home with leonard.  a baby wallaby.   heart is aflutter thinking about him.  we've been connected to him since he was visible in his mom's pouch, about 7 months ago.  seeing him in photos since he was just a little bitty pink guy.  we contacted the breeder out there about a year ago and signed up to adopt.  well, david did.  this was his heart child.  i was involved of course, however, i simply stood by his side in support, as he followed his dream to live with wallabies.   it all happened after seeing a grown one, a year and a half ago, at a little feed store outside of denver where we went to fetch some chickens one sunday afternoon.  the sunday before the wildfire, which i will probably never forget.  very strange happenings.  very very strange.  i was following my gut, and on a whim, i went on craig's list and saw the only chicks available to buy on that sunday were a long drive away.  but we were up for it!  or i was, and i sweet talked david into it.  a sunday drive to the boonies outside of denver?  come on, i said!  and we all climbed in the car, hauled it out to some place an hour away that felt a lot lot arkansas country.  meaning, deep thick country town, deep thick country folk.  one of whom happened to have a wallaby living in a barn near the chickens she had for sale.



and now we are here?  the unpredictable paths we take are so mysterious to me.  the happenings.



 taking time to feel what i feel here, as i tune in to myself, as being one of leonard's guardians,  is what i am craving.

so:

i am feeling scared.  scared of the unknowns.  allowing myself to acknowledge that but also allowing myself not to dwell on all those endless unknowns.

i am feeling gratitude.  this is a very unusual experience to be having.  to be raising a baby wallaby.  i do love unusual.  this is a very precious experience.  nuzzling my face into his soft fur, kissing him and being kissed by him.  this is a rare lovely gift.

i am feeling like hiding.  i do not want to hear people's disapproving opinions on our choice to be guardians of this animal.  i am not wanting all the attention, even the good vibed attention, which is mostly all we get, that he brings when we are out in the world outside of home.  being unusual draws eyes.  i like to hide.  such a funny predicament.

i am feeling in love.  in love with the new life.  in love with the tenderness.  in love with the cuteness.  with the pouch that baby leonard sleeps in, hanging on our headboard.  between our heads.  in love with the idea of him someday lounging in the house,  comfortably existing with us.  with the idea of him hopping around the house to get from here to there.  in love with the idea of a very secure, fenced in area, for him someday when he is a bigger boy and ready to spend lots of time outside.  electric fencing.  layers and layers of fencing.  a fortress.  cement walls 60 feet high.  a 10 foot wide moat around the perimeter of the house.    in love with the idea of keeping him safe.  and happy.  in love with the idea of wallaby number two, who i feel we will get in another year.  he needs a bud you know.  i am liking the idea of naming the next one 'edit'.  or naming some animal that.  edit!  how awesome is that name?  in love with the idea of a barn for their outside time.  in love with the thought of them coming in our home to sleep with us at night.  i'm gonna dream here.  sleeping with grown wallabies in the house is a fine dream to have.  don't knock it.

and mostly right now, i am feeling flabbergasted.  this husband of mine has just manifested something very flabbergasting.  is this a midlife thing?  is it a way to keep me from going wacky at being cut off from child bearing anymore?  not sure.  all i know for sure is it is a soulful deal.

feeling flabbergasted  feels ungrounded.  kind-of a spring~like feeling too.  like the joy~panics i've been having.

the times the flabbergast goes into overwhelm is when i worry.  gotta work on the worrying.  i can hang with the flabbergast.  that kind of feels like flying, which for me is a little scary, but exhilarating and fun for sure.  worrying feels like looking down in fear instead of enjoying the ride.

to get myself out of a worry outlook, i can go into my heart.  that is a sure trick. little baby leonard is good at helping me to do that.  holy crap is he good at that!    other tricks for coming out of a worry black hole, are :  trust    and     prayer.          heart      trust      prayer.   repeat all day.

cry.  cry.  cry.  for the vulnerability, the precious ness of life.  the beautiful creatures this earth has mothered.  love.





(no, he did not travel in a suitcase.  david found a way to fly while carrying him in his pouch.)

 in terms of crafty related leonard happenings, i've made two pouches so far.  i have a feeling i'll make about 20 more.





more photos will come.   daily wallaby?  heh.


LOVE.
HOP.
SPRING.

flow not coming

ha.  that sounds dirty to me right now.

david is mad that the girls are still awake.

can't get the flow to come.

zhi and david both tried to get this well pumping.  it's the y2k well the previous owners of this house had put in.  flow no come easy.



when flow no come easy, i feel sad.
not so sad, in all places in my life.  but here.  blog place.  no flow.

i will just post on no flow.  friend told me tonight to go with the anti flow.  trying.

the anti flow tonight says don't go do sewing homework for the school play.  just fuck off and eat cereal and watch tv.  anti flow is actually fun all of a sudden!




maybe we will figure out what's wrong with it since it's 2012 now.

just kidding.  i am doing my best not to think the world is gonna fall apart soon.

watching some movie called thrive.  gonna go watch some more tonight.   new agey feeling thing.  but we are both curious.  feels like a cousin to the secret movie.

my own seat

love our warm respite.  love that child and her ways.

:::::::::::::::

how i feel:
fine actually.  thanks for asking. i love the weekends.  i can't decide if saturday or sunday is better.  they are such a team.  and what they do for me makes me like monday thru friday as much as is possible.


what i'm thinkin about:  mommy cultishness.  following along, and losing myself in the action of following.  just following is not my thing.  losing myself hurts.  i love finding myself.  i have been finding myself a bit lately.  where?  outside.  on little walks.  inside, with wool and needles, and a daughter.  finding myself.  yep.  in and out,  with long bouts of self reflection.  long periods of digesting painful feelings.  missing myself a whole lot through a lot of that time.  self-retrieval.  i hope that is what i've been doing.


 there was some real hide and seek going on here lately.  winding our ways through the days since david's dad has died, we have been deep in territory new to us.  new and dark and scary and sad.  and beautiful and heartheavy and endearing and lonely.  so much is questioned in this territory of feeling and contemplating death.  i obviously went off the deep end into my oldest wounds there a few weeks ago. had to do it.  no sweeping under the rug, thank you.  and i mean it, too.  thanks so much for being here for me and my choice to expose some story.

the give and take and the bending i've been doing for and with david these past two months, but actually these past 8 months or so, since we really knew hal was starting to die, all the emotions and the bending and all, it's been like doing yoga i guess.  emotional and spiritual yoga.  yoga is hard, you know?  i've been guided along by a few different therapists.  their guidance has been so helpful in how i traversed this rocky sloping very intense terrain.  i see a body worker every couple of months.  and then my psychotherapist i started talking with again recently.  oh how i love the way they help me wake up.  the way they help me open my heart and feel my own wisdom.  i have a sister who can feel what i'm feeling so well.  she cares so much.  and helps me to not feel alone.   i have a good good friend who can reflect for me in a very intuitive way, saying spot on what my soul is needing to hear to stay awake and on the path.  i am grateful for all the help i have in keeping me awake and open.  grateful to people who come here and connect with my words and photos.  so grateful!!!  thank you so much.

i might be in a place of acceptance.  i don't have a lot of close friends.  and i'm trying to realize that this is okay.  the friends i do have, that i choose to spend time with, i can fully relax with them.  it's a chemistry thing usually.  maybe i am a specific type of element, like in the elemental chart, that can only bond with a very select certain few other elements.  maybe this is why i have only a few good friends.  accepting that is very relaxing.  i have fought against it for a long time.  thinking, i must try harder.  i must break out of this shell and create a more happening social life for myself.  and then of course i don't.  and i feel like a failure.  accepting my social life as it is, accepting that i am a homebody, and all that that entails, is relaxing.  yay for relaxing.  my sister says i just need to relax.  like that's kind-of the only thing in my own way.  yeah.  pretty much.

crocus.  and my new clogs.  last time i got new clogs, was just before my dad died.  i wore them to his funeral they were so new and black and unscuffed.  i've always kind-of associated them with saying bye to my dad, and the period of my life since.  i've worn them a lot for the past 7 and a half years.  just after david's dad died, i got this feeling that it was time to get new clogs.  i like these new ones a lot.  and i still like my old ones a lot too.


little birds zhi and i began making sunday morning.  this morning.  i was itching to sit and write some words, and instead, i said, i can do that later.  this is the time to sit and be with my daughter.  thank goodness for that voice inside that tells me to tend to my babies.  that was some grounding felting we did.  made me feel better.  thank you zhi.



forsythia is just blooming

i am wearing all handmades here yesterday i realized.

dress by me, hat by me, little knitting bag by me, red sling bag by me.  ha!  show off much?  nah.  just the truth.  shoes and socks, not by me.  so there.  i haven't learned to knit socks yet.  nor to cobble.  david said to me yesterday that i needed a henna arm band tattoo and i'd be all set.  that i was looking like a magical creature.  that's definitely the kind of compliment that makes me smile.  he's got my number.  or i've got his.


so yeah.  the mommy cult thing.  (my digression is so huge sometimes.)   i love checking in to see if i am following blindly.  am i so distanced from myself, that i am looking to others to show me who i am?  or who i want to be?  maybe there's nothing wrong with doing that.  what i am saying, is that i like asking myself if that is what i am doing.

  about to head out on a date with this guy that made me smile so contentedly today as he put on roseanna very loud in the bedroom while he cleaned his laundry up.   yay.  love.

play

play.

to play around.  i feel i haven't been able to do that on this blog for so long.

what shall i play?

well, first i shall play with a friend!  this friend did something so kind and giving for me last week!  i commented that i liked her fingerless gloves pattern, and wondered how to size it down for zhi.  she's been wanting some, and i keep wanting to use one of courtney's patterns.  well, we had a little phone call, she got zhi's measurements, and now i have me a pattern named after miss zhi!  woohoo!  i'm so excited to make these little cuties.  using some handspun yarn i thrifted a while back.  a quick knit sounds perfect right now.  and i love that i'm following up my last post on zhi's sweet tooth challenges with this positive zhi inspired beauty.

we had a little bit of fun play time last weekend while my sis and niece were in town.  butterfly pavilion was pretty fun.

i am so grateful for this sister.  it was her birthday yesterday!  i saw a flock of wild turkeys in the morning.  my first sighting of wild turkeys here!  or anywhere.  loved that so much.  no camera handy.  but they were beautiful and many and healthy and they flew on over this barbed wire fence so easily and magically.   just like claire does when she is too close to barbed wire.  wild turkey sister.


zhi is a magic creature to walk around with in the butterfly pavilion.  and a dream for a mama with a camera.







ready to come out anyone?

yesterday's weather, and the sights of all the buds swelling around me on plants and trees, was seriously almost too much.  i felt like i was gonna have a panic attack from beauty and joy.  it was horrible!  can you believe that!?  a beauty and joy panic.  come on!

well, i have a cure for a joy and beauty panic attack.  look at cockroaches.  yep.  max is busy staring at them, but zhi and claire clearly can't take another second of the sight.  ha.  so funny!



sister just sent me a link to this crackin~me~up site.  have fun there!


alright.  what else?  how bout this.  love mr. sunshine.  our lone duck, since mr. good~day died, has been enjoying his baths lately.  this video might just make you smile.  this was his first bath of the season.  after a long 4 or so months of now bath.  you can feel the relief, yeah?

and.  we're going to see these magical music men tomorrow night.  family concert night with some friends.  sounds pretty fun.  download their cds truth and darkness, and windward if you are inclined.  we absolutely adore them.  including the kids.  the two brothers.  that's what max calls them, and now we all do.  the two brothers are so fun to see live.  big energy.

alright.  i'll leave you with that for now.   

love.

love bucket

thursday:

we have a child with a strong sweet tooth.

her teacher just yesterday, in our parent teacher conference,  shared that she's noticed middle child seems to lose all sense of manners when the class has earned access to sweet treats.  middle child rears up in ways atypical of her, and asks like an angry brute, when the treats will be given out.  teacher said she wasn't concerned really, just a little surprised and taken aback at this side of our normally pretty great mannered daughter, and  that she's noticed it, as pretty much the only thing that makes her think zhi has some aspect to her that isn't seemingly dreamy.  she's a dreamy student.  that acts in a surprisingly rude way when it's treat time.

oh boy.  what do we have on our hands?

i can freak myself out if i read into this.

i've noticed when i pick this child up at the bus stop in the afternoon, she asks me in a similar brutish monster like way, if i have a treat waiting for her in the car.  sometimes i have been known to.  she has translated that into, 'you should always have them waiting for me, and if you don't, i will be a horrid force to reckon with.'  aka bitch child.  veruca salt.

fun.

have a little homework cut out for me now, don't i?  david and i contemplated this morning sending her with a whole package of oreos in her lunch box.  wondering if that technique of no limits might get this weird sugar bug out of her system.  i have a friend who's done unschooling to some kind of extreme, i think,  and she's not limited any of the things we limit.  tv, sugar, bedtime, stuff like that.  i've always wondered if that would work for us.  it works for her.  she has no control freak inside her.  she trusts. how lovely that would be.

and on a side note,  i've heard people who crave sugar might be having a protein deficiency.   that is not the case here.  this is also the heaviest meat eater in the family.  that too can sound unhealthy.  i'm just saying, she gets enough protein.  and i'm a virgo moon.  me and limits are lovers i think.

this sweet child.  i heard myself as i said bye to her at school this morning, saying, 'bye sweet~thing,'  or something like that.  it was sweet~something that i said.  sweetie~pie?   i drove away wondering if i stop calling her sweet~this~and~that, if that might be a good start.  instead, maybe  i could call her miss manners.  or she~who~does~not~too~many~sweets.    something that at least sets the intention for one of the issues involved here.  or love~bucket.  i call her that sometimes and it feels good and whole.  a whole full bucket of love she is.  well,  there are three options i have to replace the sweety name thing.  i will start a list and work on that.  we had a nice simple random talk about manners this morning.  i kept it simple and non-accusatory, while also calling her on the rude language and manners.  just like pragmatically identifying it.  i am feeling hopeful.


saturday:

we had a blow out last night.  it was max and zhi and me.   (david and olive went away last weekend on an adventure that i will tell the tale of later, when i've settled more with it.  mmmmm, mystery!)

but, like i said before, sometimes i wonder if limiting the sugar / tv / gamesonphone / whatever~it~may~be~that~is~bad~in~large~doses, if the limiting is what the problem is.   ?    if actually,  they need to find their own stopping place on their own, their own internal desire to stop.  to say nah, i don't want anymore sugar.  mom, where are the  nuts?  so because i wonder that as often as i do, i let the reigns go yesterday.  they had a pretty sweet breakfast, pretty sweet granola and milk.  we had beans and rice and egg kinds of things for lunch.  huevos rancheros for max and i, and a brown rice and black bean/cheese burrito for zhi to be exact.  at dot's diner.    then i bring max to school and zhi and i go to a coffee shop together, while we pass the time max is at school,  and i say get what you want, basically.  whatever.  i feel relaxed about it today since it's friday afternoon...weekend time.  oh, i also let her play hooky.  my sister and her cousin were in town, they had just spent the night, and sending zhi off to school, after her dad and olive just left, and her favorite girls were in town, just didn't seem right.  so, she gets and italian soda and a (large) date bar.  she eats it all.  no big deal.  i had a rooibos tea.  with milk and honey.  and a few almonds.  cuz you all want to know what i had too, right?  then after we get max at school, we meet my sister and niece at the bakery.  i say have whatever you want again.   they split an izze soda, and each have a black bottom cupcake.  i have a ginger tea and an old b cookie. claire has an earl grey tea and a black bottom. juniper is asleep in the car.   then i take myself max and zhi to a movie.  claire and june go to another date they have planned.  we might have gotten pop corn at the movie, but i mixed the times up in my head for the lorax and the secret of arrietty, and get there just as the previews for arrietty are ending, so not enough time to get popcorn.  but it's 4:45 ish, so no big deal, to just eat dinner after.  after the movie, zhi asks if she can have a honey packet.  there are some at the concession stand she spots.  i say no.  we need to stop eating sweets now and get some dinner.  she gets really mad at me.  i get really mad at her for not being cooler about this.  we walk in silence to the car from the theater.  we get in the car, and i go on some rant about how hard it is to monitor their sugar, but if i don't they act like jerks and won't ever stop asking for it.  max had asked right as we got to the movies, if he could have a soda.  i said no, he had just had one that he had just finished 10 minutes ago.   i remind zhi how she will not feed her rats one tiny bit of anything with sugar in it, because we were told that sugar is very bad for rats.  i go on this rant and zhi cries.  max is just in a daze.  i drive us to the grocery store and say ok.  let's go in and get whatever you want.  and i am bitchy.  i say, you guys can get cake cookies ice cream whatever.  they won't get out of the car.  so we go home.  in silence pretty much.  we get home and i say just get in your pjays and we're going to bed now.  like i am totally not gonna make dinner.  i can't eat when i am mad anyways.  and i'm being a bad mom all around.  they get ready.  i get ready.  brush teeth. me and max.  zhi doesn't.  i notice this but don't say anything.  we all get in bed.  it's quiet and i'm tense.  zhi puts on her headlight and reads.  max just lays on his bed.  i lay down for 5 minutes and just swirl.  and then i guess i stop swirling.  i have this idea come.  i call them in to my room, on my bed, and to listen to something i want to tell them.  i have a hot water bottle on my bed that zhi notices and hugs to her belly.  we all sit down in a circle sort of way, and i tell them that i realized, after noticing what happened today, was that i like limiting their sugar.  that i did an experiment with them today by giving them almost as much as they asked for, and they acted like total assholes afterward, well, mostly zhi did.  AND they were still asking for more.  i said i am not gonna do that again anytime soon.  that i feel good about choosing to limit sugar.  and that i am gonna continue to do that.  they both seemed relieved.  we moved on and watched tom and jerry in bed together, and then they both slept with me.  slumber party in mama and papas bed.  just me m and z.  so nice.  i woke up at 2 am with zhi's foot in my face.  the blankets were more tangled than ever.  there were crumbs all over the sheets.  it was crazy and it was lovely.  i will do that again if given the chance.  slumber party with my kids after a fight in a grungy bed.  awesome.

i woke up the next morning and got my moon blood.  well that explained my horridness.  i can see now after writing that all out, that i am a full on control freak.  i just am.  take it or leave it.  it's a blessing and a curse.  i feel embarrassed to share the details of all that we ate on friday, because really it's not like they had that much sugar.  but they are sensitive.  i know these kids.  behavior goes down the tubes the more sugar they get.  they stop wanting to eat real food.  do i seem crazy?  sometimes i want to curse this society for targeting sweets to kids everywhere we go.  for blowing this culture's relationship with sugar into this huge obsessive unhealthy thing.  these little kids are so innocent.  that makes me crazy for sure.


sunday:

i asked zhi yesterday to tell me what i said to her after our fight friday night, in bed.  to remind me please, cuz i was curious how she remembered it.   she said, 'you said you did an experience and that it didn't work.'  she meant experiment.   then, i ask, 'how do you feel about  that, and about me feeling like limiting your sugar is the best idea? '  she says, 'i feel great about it.  i don't want to eat sugar all day.  doesn't feel good.'  and she's sincere.  and happy.  and connected as she says that to me.  looking me in the eye in a relaxed way.

mmmmmmmmmmm.  i want to say to her, then why do you ask for it all day long?  but i do not.  in a way, she's still just a baby, and this is a chance for me take care of her, and i'm glad it all went down the way it did.  she knows how much i care.  and she can say from experience, that she doesn't actually want to eat it all day.  she might just want to push up against me.  fine babe.  you can do that.  you can do that as much as you need.  i feel i am in such a better place with this.  before, i was questioning if i should be limiting them.  now i know, for me, for us, the answer is yes.   i doubted.  i lived.  and now i have faith in my decision....  for now.   ha.



monday:

limiting sugar intake is not fun.  even after my revelation, it is not fun.  i just wanted to say that after doing some limiting today.  limiting anything with children is not fun.  teaching them to night wean for example.  or to night pee in the potty.  limiting limiting limiting.  that part of parenting is not fun.  BUT.  knowing this is my way at the moment, helps.  it really helps a lot.  to not have the huge permanent question mark in my mind.  for now i know this works best for us.  and how lovely it is to have my girl affirm that too.  it's not gonna be easy breezy now, but it's better.  i love that we are talking about it.  that there's a dialogue happening that we can reference.  i like being relaxed.  i like setting boundaries.  i like having faith in the boundaries i set.  sometimes it takes a lot of work to find that faith.  worky work work work.

but listen.  this girl is just down right sweet.  look:



 everyone's wanted to kiss her sweetness since she was a baby.  love love love her.  just gotta find our balance.  hers as a kid, mine as a mama.  we are getting stronger and more balanced together.   another reason i get hung up in keeping my faith strong, is that scott noelle guy.  sometimes it takes me a while to find his daily groove.  he says nature follows the path of least resistance, and that parenting can too.  well sugar follows the path to tooth decay and ill health.  and if i don't resist it, i will be passively guiding my child to those outcomes.  however, i am not totally dumb.  i just space out here and there and can be very literal.   but when i go deeper to try and understand him, i feel like what he means, in relation to this situation, is that my path of least resistance is kind-of the one i ended up taking friday night after the fight.  talking.  in a circle.  calmly.  i wasn't resisting that and neither were my kids.  is that what he means?  wonder wonder.  figure figure.  i say yes!



and sew.  on to a little sewing report:

this love bucket has learned to use the sewing machine.

it is a pretty big deal.

those bee patch squares i got a while back on ebay?

she's sewing them into a patchwork something.  i think a pillow.  she's not fully decided yet.  it might be for her teacher who is a beekeeper.  i love that.  or her grandma who just had to say bye for this life to her husband.  i love that too.  she's so thoughtful.

she's a natural.   and i'm of course watching her every stitch right now, just about, being the spotter, controlling, virgo mama i am.

she's indefatigable with her sewing.


olive and i played memory match while zhi sewed.  she's a tricky player.  she likes to set the game up with some matches already in her mind.  such a cheater!  ha!   watch out.  and she DOES NOT LIKE IT when others get too many matches.  gotta take it slow with her.  however her memory is  better than most, but this child has not learned how to lose gracefully.  and you know, of course she hasn't.  we have to keep it fun and silly.  and us competitive adults, have to chill ourselves out and play at their level.  which is good for us.  so so good.  thanks babes.  you guys make me a better person every day.  thank you so much.




no wonder she wanted a honey packet.  but let's say we were bees.  as her sister bee, i'd have to teach her that we can't eat the honey stores all at once.  we have to regulate.  to make it through the winter.  and so we don't keel over from sugar overdose.  right?  oh.  the lovc bucket.  the love bucket of honey that she is.

really weird side note:  as a kid, i once ate from the honey bear until i threw up.  at about her age.  i was all alone in the house i guess, and just ate honey till i couldn't take any more.  i also did this with vitamins once.  sweet kids' vitamins.  when i was 5 maybe.   i probably can't see this all very clearly because i think i had a similar issue.  doing my best here.  yeah?  yeah.  dang.  so tricky!

shedder

the fun had this past weekend.

there was an impromptu feast with the dearest of friends on friday afternoon.  an early dinner at a dorky restaurant.  somehow it dawned on me afterward that it had the vibe of a feast.  the energy, the love, the children, 6 of them, the parents happily conversing with each other and the children in an unusual medley of harmony, not that typical feeling of constant interruption.  the shared margarita.  the early hour, so that when all was done, we got home and the kids to bed a fine early hour.  yay.

also, 

i made this ridiculous shirt.  i finished on saturday, just after the babysitter came.  i went over to the studio and hemmed it.  i like it and i am embarrassed by it.  but i've worn it three times now.  sometimes things are just flops.  this one rides the edge of flop so well, yet hangs onto the side of cute just enough that i can't decide.  i feel it is a shirt i will wear when i feel amazing.  when i feel i could wear anything and look cute cuz my energy is just that awesome.  and at those times, when i feel like a goddess incarnate, i may wear this shirt and give it some time to shine.  but if i'm feeling less than amazing,  i feel the shirt swallows me up and i look a little lost in it.  however.  both my girls really like it.  that might be all i need to know.  and my husband.  and another sewing friend  who i emailed a picture of it to, said she loves it and that i need to wear it out on the town....  ha!    however, in yesterday's out and aboutness, not one compliment on it.  hmmmm.  it's one of those, i~have~to~own~it pieces of clothing.  i was not owning it yesterday.  it's simplicity 1997.  i feel it coming in chambray too.

after finishing the silliness of that shirt, it was time to go.  dinner and a date with the husband,  ani and gregory.

dinner before going to hear the singers sing.  mmmmm.  it was very good.

there's ani down there.  all lit up.

(that's us waiting for the show to start.  i didn't bring my knitting.  i was fidgety.  but it was instant mesmerization once gregory started his set.  all the way through to ani's last song.  on the edge of my seat in love with spectating that girl.)

on sunday morning, the p90xworkout was the thing to do for david.  and he dragged me on into the experience.  it was pretty funny and fun.  the kids were very entertained by the whole deal.   they were swimming in the little pool david has in the studio.  peering out watching the weird adults.  the first 10 minutes were a yoga warm up.  then it got into martial arts/boxing types of exercises.  that's what was amusing to the babes.  mom and dad fake fighting with the air in front of them.  i am sore still, 2 days later.  mostly from the yoga.  haven't been doing that so much.  i like being sore.  it feels good.  

here are some of olive's colorings from lately.  i love her style.


she likes me to go through her coloring book and tell her which pictures are my favorite.

i chose these two yesterday.   not an easy choice.  i am noticing both my favorites have mushrooms.  hmmmmm.










the thread, of my last handful of posts continues on.  i feel that i am doing some serious spring cleaning.  of the shadows in my closet.  i LOVE doing shadow work.  it is so freeing.  all those stories, all those words, all these thoughts.  all these memories.  clearing.  healing.  accepting.  growing.   i say i love doing shadow work, and what i love is what i feel like afterward.  like a few days, or weeks afterward.  not right after.  right after is hard.  the integration of the new me, takes a bit of time.  you know, of course it does.  there's some vulnerability at first.  shedding skin.  that is an event.   the new skin is like a baby at first.  gotta cover it in mud for protection for a few days.  today, though, i begin to feel relief.  renewed.  regenerated.  for people who go through these experiences with me, you are warriors.  i couldn't do it without you.  you stay focused on the heart of the matter while i thrash.  that is not easy to do.  i do this for my loved ones too, i know it is not easy sometimes.

ok.  i feel the urge to move on.





ssssssss.


i was listening to the radio this morning and learned of story corps.  had a good cry driving max to his reading lesson.  i mean a good one, from listening to one of the stories.  i hope to listen to more soon.  and maybe read the book too?

love.