Relating to Male vs Female

I have noticed that the cats play out some of our issues here as well (no surprise I guess right?).

It appears that for Thomas those that are the most confrontational or oppositional for him are females. And it is no surprise that Star, the female cat, is the one that he sees doing things she shouldn’t be doing.

Thomas has also pointed out to me that I have more issues with males and tend to be more critical of them (I don’t see it but I’m sure it could be right). And again it follows that Mojo, the male cat, is the one that I catch doing all sorts of things he shouldn’t be.

Just to go away from this theory I just watched something with the two cats. I had Mojo in my hands and Star was looking for something (attention maybe). Thomas was upstairs so she tried to jump the gate to go upstairs (now she doesn’t even go up when the gate is down so I was surprised about this. The gate is not attached and crashed to the floor with a loud noise. She went running away and hid. Minutes later Mojo was out of my arms, saw the open gate and went running upstairs. Thomas does not like the cats upstairs and he came charging down the stairs chasing Mojo. So Thomas caught Mojo when it was Star that instigated the experience (and I was just writing that it would be the other way round).

A different shift with this is our relationship with the kids. We both love both kids a great deal however Thomas has a harder time with many things in PM while I tend to be more triggered and more apt to lose my temper with LB. All of this goes to show that nothing is static and you can’t make generalizations. So why do I bother trying? Because I like to notice similarities and feel like I understand even if I know I don’t.

Creating backups

Today I brought out my external hard drive since I was overdue for a backup. I took the message a while back and made sure I had a suitable backup device (luckily it was a not so subtle one with 3 people telling me within a short time about hard drive crashes and how important backup devices are). It wasn’t too long after getting the backups in place that my own hard drive crashed. Now if only I were more regular about creating backups.

So today I am preparing to copy over some folders and pictures and whatnot for backup. Seems like a good time. Then PM gets on me about going outside. Good idea – I’ll just finish this up quick and it can do it’s copying while we’re out.

I come back a while later (we had fun outside with some exercise and shoveling and then tobogganing) and it stopped only part way through. Hmmm. So I decide I shall just start over again. I delete all that has been put onto the external hard drive and prepare to start again. I am starting to clear out my recycle bin when I go to my documents and realize there are some folders missing. Hmmm. What is going on? Did the cat come along and sit on my computer and delete many folders (wouldn’t be too uncommon – Mojo likes to sit there)? Now where were these folders? Oh no were they the files in the recycle bin that I just deleted? Where are my pictures? The folder is empty. Search, search.

Finally I realize that instead of copying I chose to ‘move’ the files and folders to my hard drive and then when I deleted them they all went to the recycle bin. Whew! Luckily I caught it just in the nick of time – really one click and much would have been gone.

So much for making backups. I’m lucky I didn’t delete all in the process. Experience right?

Accepting what is

Here I am thinking about acceptance. Acceptance of where I am now. For without acceptance there is struggle and that keeps us stuck in that which we can’t accept. Makes sense right?

But how the heck can you accept something that is unacceptable? It can be done and it is necessary. I know – I’ve been there before. I have struggled with the knowledge that acceptance is necessary to move on and yet been unable to conjure up the acceptance for the situation. And then something subtle changes and acceptance is current reality.

We can want something different for ourselves. In many areas we want something different than what is. Perhaps we want more time – to feel less busy. Perhaps we want more money. Perhaps we want better health. Perhaps we want better relationships. Perhaps we want to overcome addictions. All of these are possible but not without accepting what is.

Acceptance is not about dwelling in what is. Somehow they don’t seem to fit together but acceptance also fits with law of attraction. If you accept something, then how can you manifest that which you would like which isn’t what you have? I suppose that is where some of the beauty of this all comes in. With acceptance there is less energy spent in resisting and it is more of an honest viewing of the situation at hand. Perhaps more of a step removed from the situation. The judgment is not the driving factor. Without the judgment there is freedom to be open to change – but it can’t be the desire for change that drives the acceptance.

Wow – there is so much and it seems so confusing and yet it really is rather simple. It is subtle. To explain that subtlety makes it seem confusing. Life is subtle. The differences between many states are often subtle. And that brings about acceptance of the subtle nature of things that are hard to explain. Or perhaps I’m just making no sense…

How do you say that?

I may have written a while back about LB and her use of the word ‘yes’ with the very distinct pronunciation of the letter ‘s’. What is most unusual about hearing that definite ‘s’ (and it took me a while to realize this) is that most of her words do not pronounce the letter ‘s’ especially those at the beginning of the word.

Quite often ‘s’ is substituted by a ‘d’. ‘Hey, he’s playing with my dick’ when the cat is playing with the stick in her hand.

‘Get me some dope’ when she wants to wash her hands.

‘I want some doup’ is usually when she wants to share her dad’s soup.

I’ve heard her mention ‘dooger’ to her dad and he thinks she is talking about a digger when she is actually meaning ‘sugar’.

Another interesting tidbit about this is when she wants her water – she does not ask for a ‘dwink’ as one might expect but a ‘gwink’.

As long as I don’t have any expectations about how she will say any given word it seems like I can understand most of what she says. And lately another one that brings a smile to my face is the ‘gingerman bread’ – no matter how many times she hears gingerbread man she continues to say it her way.

And with numbers I remember PM seemed to shy away from the number 2. If there was two of something he would say 3. Counting he would skip over the number 2. For LB this ‘mystery number’ is 5. When counting to 10 she will just skip right over 5. I’ve wondered if this is an indication of some deeper knowing of issues and ages but I can’t tell and shall just take it as it comes.

Important Farmers

I was just thinking that some of the most important people in my life are the farmers that we know.

How Maggie will often allow me to go help myself from the fields or greenhouse or chicken coop if they have something that isn’t currently available. She will often accommodate last minute changes in my order with a smile and really cares about the animals, the land, and the people around her. An amazing couple she and Johann are.

Then there’s Utte who I don’t get to see that often but she and Tom tend to the many goats they have (and other various animals). They use natural helaing methods if necessary but otherwise just do their best to take good care of the farm. Beautiful people that feel like friends when we stop by. She cares about us and of course we care about her and her life.

Good food is important to me and so I guess it stands to reason that those that help us to have good food are greatly appreciated and important as well.

Greenfields and the folks there are ones that we rely on year round for our produce. They work the fields, they order in out of season and again they are willing to help out if you need something.

Then there are many others that I get to know on my travels – a lot of times via the farmer’s market. There are farmers there of course. They seem to be a wonderful blend of people. Both social and caring, and hard-working and dedicated, they look out for their customers and for their land and animals. The woman that is there in the morning after being up all night as her daughter gives birth. The folks that tell me what I might like that day as they know a bit of me and my tastes. The farmer that sees me coming and gets my order ready.

I am lucky to know many of the farmers that trade with us their hard labour to feed our families. And I am lucky to be able to give them our business and appreciation…

More on learning styles

A while back I was writing about the kids' learning styles. A big way I notice the differences is around music and how they like to be entertained.

LB likes to dance and is active with music. The other day she put on a new CD and was dancing around. PM wanted to hear the words to the song. They ended up getting in a fight because she wanted him to dance and he wanted her to stop dancing so he could hear the words of the song. It got pretty loud for a while but with a bit of help they reached a solution (actually this time I think she chose to dance later after he had a chance to hear the song – though many times it is he that backs down).

Though different learning styles are fully functional and can live happily side by side this was a good example of a way in which the differences can really get in the way. Nice to remember that one style is not better than the other even if it may be easier to relate to one in particular. I can think of Thomas and his complete dislike of questions and that is how PM and I relate to many things. Questions are part of how an auditory learner gets by in the world. Thomas is a different learner and he needs to see it and feel it and work it out himself in order to ‘grok’ it.

When I was in school I realized it was important for me to go to class because that is where I heard the information that I was supposed to learn. Sitting in front of books without having heard the info before was more challenging. Also in with the auditory for me is the visual and being able to see the person speaking makes it easier to hear as well. Each and every word is important for my understanding.

I do remember folks getting frustrated with my many seemingly repetitive and basic questions. I can see that coming around again with PM as he questions that which he is trying to understand and sometimes the questions are phrased different ways to get the same answer. I see that is in part learned by me and in another is his way of learning and understanding.