Haircut!

Once in a blue moon, I feel like going short.  It is, as clichéd as it sounds, liberating.  Love my hairdresser, she is excellent at what she does.

Peace.

Friday's fibers

Sag made two portals today.  Here's me with one of them.  Our kids are creative/creating early and often, as the saying goes.  But, as with any art, I don't dig it all.  This, I love.

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Today, I drove.  Which I really don't like to do when the route/destination is not familiar.  But, the destination changed last minute to one I was somewhat familiar with which boosted my morale.  And, honestly, I love our new car so much, that I was driving Moomin boosted my mood.

It was nice to socialize a bit, hang out with a sweet dog and be out of the house.

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I've been asked: does your new car have GPS?  The Prius is high tech.  Or...more tech anyway.  And, yes, our model comes with a nifty "screen" package which includes a GPS.  I've been having trouble setting it up and this afternoon finally discovered the reason: our cell carrier is not a match for the necessary interface.

Annoyance.

Especially because our "Entune" account has been considered "activated" since the day I first went to the website to hook the system up, a month ago.  The day it didn't actually connect because as it turns out we don't have the proper cell carrier.  I wouldn't call that "activated".

I said, "well, that's not fair",  she said, "well, our system isn't set up to remedy that, but I can document your call"...I figured I wasn't going to get very far on the Friday afternoon of the three day weekend that kicks the Summer off.  

If we do decide to switch cell carriers so we can use the freakin' Entune (it's free for the first three years), they'll be hearing from me again to make our free period retroactive from when we actually are able to start using the service.

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Read See You At Harry's.  It was okay.  No great shakes.  It had some good moments.  For me, it suffered a little bit in that the protagonist was twelve and yet it felt and read like the narrator was much older.  The storytelling wasn't as transparent as I thought it was meant to be.

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Inspired by some chicken Donna made for common meal, I baked some pastured chicken legs for dinner tonight.  I seasoned them with garlic powder, ginger powder, salt and pepper.  Then marinated them in orange juice and olive oil.  Yummers.  Sag and I were all over the crunchy skin.

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Gem is not having any of his usual pre-birthday angst.  It is so wonderful and eerie at the same time.  I'm happy for him, but it's such a departure.  He still says he doesn't want to grow up/things to change...and I don't know for sure what's going through his mind because I'm in no rush to point out that he has, in fact, changed quite a bit in his pre-birthday mood...maybe he's resigned...or accepting in a new way...or just is in a different way.

12 in 16 days.

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I was floored to find out The Bloggess is coming to our very own local indie bookshop on her book tour!  I picked up "tickets" for Shannon and myself today.  Shannon is a fan, too.  At first I wasn't going to go because it's the night Cap is returning from Japan.  But, now that I'm out from under the dark cloud of a few days ago, I'm feeling like this is a really fun and genuine opportunity.

Funny aside.  I was confused about why the website didn't mention whether the event was free or not.  I didn't see a ticket price, but also didn't see the word "free".  I asked via Facebook whether the event was ticketed and one of the staff responded to say it was and I could drop by the store or go through the store website.

I'd had no luck figuring it out on the website so I dropped by the shop.  And there I learned that the "price" was buying a book through the store!  I don't know if things have changed or what, but I've never had that be a requirement for going to a reading.  What am I saying...  Things have changed.  The last book reading/signing I went to was probably Lousie Erdrich in Harvard Square in 1998 or so.  Before Amazon, before the war on independent booksellers.

Anyway, I'd already bought my copy, from the shop, weeks ago, which they knew.  I love having a neighborhood bookstore where they know my name.

The Bloggess!

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No crystal ball

I realized tonight there is something specific taking up valuable real estate in my mind that I haven't mentioned.  We may move this summer, after all.

The house has become more albatross than anything else for our landlord, this year.  His wife is sick and he does not have the time or energy to devote to dealing with the house (which was a stretch for him even before he got married a few years ago).

He was here the other day helping our downstairs neighbor with something (she is moving out July 1 after living here for 12 years!) and let it drop that he's considering putting the house on the market "as is" and seeing if he gets any interest.

We were seriously thinking about moving on up this Summer when our lease was up.  We would love just a bit more breathing room now that the kids are nearly as tall as we are.  They were 4 1/2 and 6 when we moved here.  As Gem would say, "le sigh".

But then, we bought the car.  And we got nervous about the double whammy on the budget: new car payment and bump in rent.  So we thought we'd stay put...and now the Universe seems to be suggesting we develop a plan B.

So, I have been looking at rental listings.  My late night scrolls through Trulia are engrossing.  Clicking through photographs, mapping out locations, chuckling at words like "cozy" and...chewing my lip when I see, again and again, how much nicer the apartments are once you leapfrog over our rent budget ceiling.

Le sigh.

I do not know what will happen.  I wish I had a crystal ball.  Not knowing is hard, but what's harder is not succumbing to useless worry about what might happen and how negatively that might impact the kids.

What I do know is that I really love this apartment.  It's too small, but it's our too small.  It's kind of dinghy and dilapidated, but it also has a lot of character.  This is the space the kids have lived the longest in their lives.  And for Cap and me, our time here falls just shy of the apartment we lived in the longest up till now (Sargent Street in Cambridge).

In a way, I can't imagine living anywhere else.  Which is dangerous for the heart.  And may explain some of the late night/off-Paleo shenanigans.

Peace and love...and feng shui.

crystal ball by jantsu18

Feeling protective

Curling up into a small ball today.  Dropping the honey and maple syrup, going deeper into sugar-free is proving to have its ups and downs.

When I went off white sugar and grains in August, it felt like being hit with a ton of bricks.  I was nearly immobile with aches and dullness and irritability for four straight days.  And then I was fine.

This time, going deeper, I am generally fine, but experiencing pockets of things that make me go hmm, here and there.

• Yesterday afternoon, Vinny noted that my neck and upper back were super tight (I hadn't realized).  It also turns out that sugar acts in concert with the stomach system to promote healthy digestive flow.  Things have definitely shifted in the poop department since going sugar- and grain-free.  Cutting out the honey and maple syrup has led to a wobbly balance being tipped to the negative.

• Last night I slept like a log...I woke fine.  Not bad, but not good.

• This morning I headed out to run errands with a shopping list in my hand for my new recipes.  While I sat in the car warming it up, I realized I couldn't go food shopping...there simply wasn't enough funds in the account in case our landlord decided to cash our rent check today.  This wasn't a big deal and I was grateful for the clarity.  Cap gets paid tomorrow.

• But, something about it still made me sad.  I ended up going to Ikea with Danielle and Leo, happy for their company.  It was actually liberating being in a store like that (lots of visual candy) knowing I couldn't spend any money.  And I got a free coffee, which I truly appreciated.

I think I'm going to uncurl just enough to pull in a book read this afternoon.  I want to protect myself during this time of change.  I know this will pass.  I surrender.

Alchemy

Day 2 of sugar-, honey- and maple syrup-free.  And grain-free.  And legume-free.

I guess my body is missing the sugars from honey and maple syrup because for the first time in months, I am craving grains!  I am drinking coconut water, which is Paleo approved, though for purposes of balance I am making an effort not to exceed a can per day.

Coffee with what's left of the milk has helped fill the void of tea with honey and milk.

In addition to the improved sleep of last night, I can feel that at 8pm, I am much more alert than I usually am this time of night.  I also feel lighter...and like I can feel myself in my body.  That I can feel my body as a distinct entity...that my Self is not just a blobby consciousness floating around in the air.  This is not a usual feeling for me.

But, I am also hungry despite having had 2 eggs scrambled in the last of the grass-fed butter, a serving of Rogan Josh (lamb stew) and half an avocado for dinner about two hours ago.

I am sipping some coconut water, but may have to eat something again.

As the dairy starts to dry up I am going to have to lean more on yummy veggie preparations to give my meals more variety...in flavor, texture and color.  However, I have not been planning and prepping for that.  Tomorrow, we head into the city to visit with Mitsi and then my Dad.  We have appointments with Vinny in the afternoon and then common meal at night.

Thursday some time will be devoted to recipe searching, veggie shopping and cooking.  Otherwise, I'm toast.  Pun intended.

Peace and love.

P.S.  I am having one of the easiest periods ever.

Seasonal shelf side track

Things are falling into place.

For me, a primary reason to declutter is that I hope the resulting simplicity will make it easier to do what I want to do.

Ever since my Waldorf days in Sacramento, I have tried to keep a nature/seasonal table, off and on, for years.  But, I would inevitably be thwarted by my disorganization/inattention.  When we started the current living room reorg, I designated a shelf that used to hold a mess of photo frames as my/our new seasonal shelf.

Our autumn has been unseasonably warm, but the leaves are finally off most of the trees and things have turned a distinct brown outside.  With the time change a couple of weeks ago, our days are noticeably shorter.  Winter is coming...even as the temps rise above 60ºF in the daytime.

Changing the seasonal shelf has been niggling at me.  Tonight, I got sidetracked from continuing with the paper work.  I dug through my "seasonal" box.  Then, I dug through my postcard box looking for a good image to match the season as it is feeling and looking for us, right now.

Done!  (For now...this scene is calling for some "stuff" from the outdoors...)

Whirly whirl

On Tuesday, I was here:

Gem and his new Warriors book in an exam room.

He does not have mono, appears to be at the tail end of a virus, and we've been told to watch the low grade fever and resume normal activity.  He is feeling better and better, temp hovering up to 99º still on most days.  (He lost 4lbs. in two weeks...focusing on fattening him back up!)

I was also here:

We never made it to the pizzeria, but his Tour de Favorite Foods is over.  In the end, the grand finale won out.  He really effin' loves the cheeseburgers at Five Guys.  Later on this day, Sag popped a fever high enough to give us pause.

Late Tuesday night, we decided Sag and Cap would not be going to Massachusetts (we had already decided Gem and I were staying home).

Yesterday was mental insanity for me most of the day.  

I was in multiple conversations with Massachusetts family about our change of plans...and managed to forget to call key people.

I was in multiple conversation with the mechanic about our car and the various long-not-dealt-with glitches and noises, etc.  (He was fantastic...drove down to the house pick up my set of car keys when I said I couldn't get them to him easily because we didn't have a second car and I had two kids under the weather.  He wanted to try to get the rear hatchback open...the door hasn't opened in months...and Cap's keys were not working for him.)

I was in multiple conversations with various family members from my side of the family about when we could get over to Queens to take my parents' holiday picture.  I really felt the effects of my lack of balance and energy (Qi) as the day wore on and I felt more and more stressed and pressed by wanting to please the most people possible and not being able to please everyone.  This is never a good scenario!  It's always easier, smoother and simpler to have a singular well-lit path.  Ridiculous when I consider that no one was pressuring me or demanding to be pleased.  It was all me.

I continue to see how things are better than they were before.  When Cap called after he was done with his class, I was able to tell him how overwhelmed I felt.  He took the disjointed details I was spilling out, reorganized them, and became a quiet, reasonable beacon.

The kids were deemed well enough to travel.  I packed Inge's Dip, potato chips, a just-in-case meal for Gem, a collection of cheeses, a box of crackers, a snack for the car, candied pecans for my mom...and as soon as Cap came home with the car, we endured the trip to Queens which took twice as long as usual due to holiday traffic.

The holiday pic was taken, my sister's Sauerbraten rocked, we kept the cousins as not-on-top-of-each-other as we could (germ control), and my sister popped in The Wizard of Oz (which my guys have never seen).  It was lovely.

And last night at 9:35pm, we were here:

With everything going on, it was the first chance we had to food shop for an unexpected Thanksgiving at home.  I think this is the first non-traditional Thanksgiving we are having since Sag was born on Thanksgiving Day ten years ago.  (The store was not as crazy as I'd imagined it might be.)

I hope it's a good day for you wherever you are and whatever you do.  Peace and love.

P.S.  Good news on the car front.  The mechanic, who happens to love Legacy wagons and has a ton of experience working on Subarus, was pleasantly and genuinely surprised to feel that our car has some legs left on it.  We are starting with a relatively minor repair and if that holds up the working theory, then we will likely keep the car knowing it has another good couple of years with additional, reasonable work given the car's mileage age.  Yay!

Add it to the mix

We are probably buying a new car soon.

I have gone from feeling excited and finding the process fun, to feeling sick about it...and a bit stressed.

It's a money thing.  Its a change thing.  So psychological.

We are leaning very much towards the new Prius wagon since Subaru no longer makes a Legacy wagon.  We got our Subaru just before Gem was born.  11+ years and nearly 180K miles later, I am grateful to our trusty, but increasingly tired and run down, vehicle for all its seen us through.

Here's to the future...(as she tries to keep her glass from wobbling...)