I'm just a big cliché

Cap has got the kids watching The Three Stooges.  I'm on my own.  I can share the room, just not that particular space.  I'm plugged into my tunes and thinking about what a big old cliché I am.

I'm not at "resolutions", but I am definitely thinking about process and continued opportunity as the new year, and yes, new decade, fast approaches.

I've got a new budget ready to go.  I designed a new accounting sheet and it's feeling sensical and doable though I know the doing is going to be difficult.  Decreasing spending by 20% is a sea change, really.  (I'm starting out at 16%...a wiser person would start at 10%, but I'm dreamy that way :-)

I'm going to start stretching and strengthening my will muscle.  It can't be too late.  I can't forever attribute my lack of will to my childhood/herstory/past.  Well, I can, but where's the awareness and growth and learning in that?

Again, another person would perhaps start with one area, but I'm jumping in.  Time outdoors, Qigong, and vegan eating.  Every day.  For a year.  Typing that leaves me quivery with anticipation and, I'll admit it, dread.  Th big cliché is setting yourself up for stunning failure by making such pronouncements on New Year's Eve ;-)

One thing I can't give up is my time on the computer/online.

As I come into more balance, that will work itself out.  No pressure and no worries.  As long as I am co-parenting and learning at home with these two kids, my time is going to be limited and in many ways, not mine.  It's critical that I feed my soul with nourishment, warmth and light when I can.

I love the energy that comes to me and rushes through my veins when I connect with a person, their words, their feelings, their truths, their laughter, their songs...and when I hook up my own connection by posting myself out there.  A lot of that happens fiber optically for me, it's really much more of a blessing than a curse.

Last year I made lists of knitting and books (fiction and non-fiction). 

I ain't doing that this year because I did not finish a single book from either book list...wow, talk about crash and burn.  I still would like to read those same books and I have about thirty other books I'd like to read in my virtual "book bag" in my online library account.

And, I'd like to do some more knitting.  I've got a number of projects on the needles and a number of projects-in-waiting...

January is going to be about the three daily "will" exercises mentioned above, mixed into a warm, nourishing soup of living more intentionally hewing to the new budget, renewing focus on the kids' learning styles, needs and interests, and continuing on creating a wonderful-to-breathe-in living space.

A very special ingredient will be added to the mix in mid-January.  The 14 year old daughter of a dear friend (a child I haven't seen since she was 4 :-) will be homestaying with us for a month.  I am excited and happy...we are all looking forward to her arrival.

So, it's a lot, but I am choosing these things...these practices and ways of being which will help me be clearer, more aware, and more happy.  Thank you for being with me as a part of the whole.  Know that I feel your warmth and support and love.

10 minutes left.  Happy new year :-)

Just another day

Keep breathing, keep moving.  The snow falling at the moment is inspiring.  Beautiful.

Plowed through lots of numbers yesterday...worked till about 1 am.  In the end it was scary.  Despite more awareness I managed to overspend (meaning spending over what was coming in) by $11K over the course of 12 months.

Today I will formulate a budget based on the categories and the type of spending that is our/my pattern/habit.  I am concerned to realize that our savings has been decimated...and that what's in the savings account now is quite "soft" since it is likely all going to the tax man.  I just hope we have enough for the tax man when the time comes.  Gulp.

I am not fearful.  There is a cleansing aspect to knowing the truth and facing it.  To changing your reality without judgment, but with purpose.

As you can see behind me (in the photo), there is some rearranging happening.  I had some visions for a new bedroom and Cap did the lifting, heavy and heavier.  It feels good in there and the potential for light and air and space in a different way makes me feel lighter.

There is work to be done.  Clearing out some old and making way for some new.

What I saw in Massachusetts

 1: I love the Cape in winter.
 2: Peanuts tree.
 3: Reading.
 4: Together.
 5: Going up.  (Anyone know where this is?)
 6: Walking on Mass Ave.
 7: Cambridge Common.
 8: Cambridge Common.
 9: Dinner @ Redbones.
10: Dessert @ Toscanini's.
11: Perch.
12: Giddy-up.
13: Bacon.

Wordless Wednesday

Will she nail the landing?

I will be coming home today after holiday-ing with family and friends in Massachusetts.  I will no doubt have enjoyed a lot of good food.  These truffles were a Christmas treat.  The pint of Ben and Jerry's Pistachio Pistachio found on Christmas Eve?  A Christmas miracle (that flavor is hard to come by).

I am looking forward to coming back to earth.  If I don't talk about feeling great because I'm practicing?  It's because I'm not.  The holiday whirl-and-swirl was fun and festive, but it did push aside Qigong and sleep.

Just one more holiday cover

Just one more Tracy Chapman song

I believe in mistakes and accidents
That the nature of life is chaos and confusion
That man's rules of law and order may not stand
I should be and be not afraid to reach for heaven

Another holiday cover

(Thanks to H.)

Another Tracy Chapman song

Holiday cover

Tracy Chapman song

If you knew that you would die today,
Saw the face of God and love,
Would you change?
Would you change?



She does have a most beautiful smile. I listened to her first album a lot in college. So glad to have some of her newer songs in my life.

Happy Christmas

The truth is that I wasn't as peaceful today as this photo might suggest.

But, it was a good day.  The happy aspects:

• the kids' total delight
• plenty of special chocolate just for me
• thoughtful and creative handmade gifts
• poring (and poring and poring) over my sister's (now mine!) iPod contents and...
• rediscovering Tracy Chapman
• a flurry of cooking and baking this evening (more candied pecans and Xmas dinner: ham and scallops and some loaves of bread)
• the headache seems to be receding
• soon I will sit in the red chair with a hot cup of tea and watch the last two episodes of this season's Dexter (it is a ripping season)
• feeling ready and excited about our trip to Massachusetts which starts tomorrow

My fave videos viewed in 2009

These are videos whose visual aspects stood out for me, strong impressions burned onto my retinal-brainy pathways. What were your favorites this year?

In no particular order:

No Surprises - Radiohead

Cartoons and Forever Plans - Maria Taylor



Quiet As A Mouse - Margot and The Nuclear So and So's



Be Good Or Be Gone - Fionn Regan

Oh Mandy - The Spinto Band

Funny, How? - Goodfellas Peanuts



Hibi No Neiro - Sour



100 Greatest Quotes - The Wire (Spoilers)



Why Do Anything - Nielsio



Ljósio - Ólafur Arnalds

Wordless Wednesday

And another thing

Another piece to my puzzle-self.

Cats. I am allergic to cats. Have been since late 1988/early 1989. And, as luck would have it, a number of people I love/love to spend time with, have cats.

Last Wednesday night I spent an overnight at a cat house. I medicated myself out of desperation that night and was out of it for two days (following being out of it before the medication, too...that's one of my reactions).

Then, Saturday, I spent the day at a cat house. I did not medicate myself. I was semi-out of it, but tend not to react strongly to my sister's cat.

This afternoon we went to B's house, another cat house.

Sometimes I am hyper vigilant about bringing cat hair/dander back into our house, but don't really have the energy to keep that up. So, I hug my cat people indiscriminately, ignore the cat hair/dander that tracks into my home via clothing and socks, I mostly am able to not think about the sheepskin insides of my slippers having cat stuff felted into them :-)

I am considering Vinny's suggestion of burning some cat fur and ingesting it as part of a tea. I would love to build a tolerance. I would love to thin out the cottony fuzziness of times like now in ways that I can.

In the meantime, I sniffle and snuffle and work harder to focus and attend than usual...

Turn

Yesterday, when this picture was taken, I was in my Air element.  (I took it because I thought my hair looked really good and realized it was probably because I had used an old Kiehl's conditioner sample because we're out of conditioner...sometimes you really do get what you pay for...though Cap saw no difference in how my hair looked...)

It's been slightly off, how I've been feeling.  Not uncomfortable, but ungrounded.  My attention to down-to-earth daily activity went out of focus and instead I flitted from one thing to another, out of routine and somewhat out of my body...out of my mind...I'll call it disruption between mind and body.

This morning,  I woke with my period starting.  I peed and shuffled into the kitchen (last night's Thai iced tea a not-quite-distant entity in my system...kept me up till 2) and took out ingredients for bread from the fridge and set them out on the table to warm to room temp.  I sat at my desk, looked out the window and saw faces on the houses I've been seeing not that way for years.  The children and Cap were up already and involved in (home) industry.

The Sun.  The Sun's light is bright and beautiful this morning.  The days are now beginning to grow.  I can feel it.  It feels good. I feel less Air-y. Grounded by the Sun's light and the Earth upon which I stand.

An excerpt from a Robert Wyatt's Sea Song:

You'll be different in the spring, I know
You're a seasonal beast like the starfish that drift in with the tide
So until your your blood runs to meet the next full moon
You're madness fits in nicely with my own
Your lunacy fits neatly with my own, my very own
We're not alone

Rocked it

This cold weather season's Target sweats have been pilling like crazy, the waistbands are beginning to lose their elasticity, and are overall already wearing thin (the economic downturn showing its face at Hanes...bought these items less than 2 months ago).

When I got the e-mail from Hanna Andersson this morning that their 60% off sale was starting I went online but my kids' sizes were sold out. D was up for it so we went to our newish local Hanna store with my two and her youngest.

The kids know what they like (and are pretty particular) and so it's actually easier to clothes shop with them than without. We went through the racks quickly and painlessly and left with 15 items (including a fleece hoodie, two pairs of snow pants and one down jacket) for $300 (all but a couple of things I bought were 60% or more off...the rest was 50% off).

They should now be all set thorough next winter. In lovely colors and designs and no pills or holes...unless of course Hanna A. has suffered from the downturn, as well. We shall see.

For now, it feels good to have been able to afford to buy quality items that look great :-)

Winter Solstice 09

A walk in the wintry woods with our friends L, A, S and R.  A wondrous way to welcome the new season.  Wishing you Love and Courage and Peace this Solstice, one and all.