Lovingheart

This morning I was thinking about the second part to the tale of woe. I am so lucky. Though it wasn’t often easy I was able to ‘fly’ through the challenging times of Linsy’s sickness by counting the ways I was lucky. There were many times where I had other things I wanted to be doing – getting meals ready, getting outside for a bit, and whatever else (how selfish is that?). Of course with her not being well she just wanted mommy and daddy to be right there all the time. Often I was able to lie there with her and drift off into my ‘gratitude list’. Lying in bed beside her nursing her and thinking how lucky I am to have a comfortable bed to lie on, how lucky I am to be able to breastfeed, live in such a wonderful place, have a daughter to nurse in the first place, and on and on. It sure does make things easier. And then there are times like this evening where that list is out the window and finding gratitude for much feels challenging. Caught in the negati...

My tale of woe Well ya’ll know my computer monitor has not been fully functioning for a while. Well now it is completely non-functioning – white screen when the computer is on and has been this way (minus an hour) for about a month now. No big deal except it means the kids can’t watch DVDs and certain videos because they just don’t work on the new monitor. Well at least I have a monitor. At least until last week that is. Now the new monitor that is attached to the laptop is shorting out as well. Last week I came to my computer in the evening and it was black. Couldn’t get it back. Tried Paco’s monitor. Didn’t work either. Great – my computer is toast if I can’t view what is on it. Luckily I was able to get it back working again after a break. Since that time it blacks out quite regularly. What this mean to me is that I need to be prepared that in the near future it is likely to black out for good. Keep backups up-to-date. The interesting bi...

Years ago I turned away from the god I had been brought up with. Too much judgment, too much living in fear, and somehow there just seemed to be too much hypocrisy. My defenses were on with the mere mention of the word ‘god’ and I was closed to hearing anything on the subject. As my path progressed I opened up to greater spirituality which included a great appreciation for all that is, for angels, for the many beings beyond our human eyes. Slowly but surely I also brought more of an appreciation for god in whatever form was right at that moment. This appreciation and comfort is really an ongoing process. I continue to grow and let go of my judgment of the character that I once considered too judgmental. My beliefs don’t follow any organized religion and they can be varied and change from moment to moment. A while back my sister hooked me onto a site that offers a sort of tutorial on opening up to the voice of god within . I view our individual voice of god as our higher self and at the...

LB is more aware of letters and is interested in which words start with which letters. This is mostly started by PM as he has just gone through this where most names become ‘What is the first letter of …?’ This morning we were in the kitchen. PM was lying on the floor (not feeling well at all, poor guy) and LB started in on the ‘What is the first letter of …?’ Actually she can tell me the first letter of Paco quite easily and of Linsy and of Shera. We went through all the letters of Paco and Linsy and mom. Occasionally I will ask them which one it is. PM knows his letters and sounds more and more. LB on the other hand, well let’s just say most of it is guess work. ‘What’s the first letter of peach?’ ‘A!’ ‘pppP’ ‘What’s the first letter of plum?’ ‘A!’ ‘pppP’ ‘What’s the first letter of pear?’ ‘A!’ ‘pppP’ ‘What’s the first letter of pineapple?’ ‘A!’ ‘pppP’ ‘What’s the first letter of mango?’ ‘A!’ ‘mmmM’ ‘What’s the first letter of apple?’ ‘T!’ ‘A!’ ‘Wha...

Change is afoot. Struggle and resistance to that change is also present. That creates more struggle. It is stressful. The constant back and forth in the mind. The free-flowing ease of living with what is, and then, the questioning, the counting, the naming and the blah blah blah of the inner voice and the pain as a result of the lack of peace. So many healing modalities and there is much value in all of them I am sure. Perhaps it is just the places I frequent but seems to be more and more. People are realizing that many of us are searching. Searching for healing, searching for peace of mind, searching for success, searching for a free life with love and happiness. All of these modalities will offer you a path in that direction. Heck the internet really is a great tool for that. Spend hundreds of dollars here and there and your life will be perfect. Well not really because after all of this you are still human and still living in an imperfect world. Wh...

I am living my life in a way of getting it done. Working on healing all that needs to be healed so I don’t have to come and do it over again. Working on getting it all done. Passing the time with the end in sight. Working for the end but the end I am working towards is death. When I have a stretch of time in front of me (such as a time of vision quest or being ‘out there’ with nothing to do) then I am counting the time until it is over. Passing the time. And each minute passes ultra-slow and each day seems an eternity. Living the day until it is time to sleep. Living life until it is time to die. Where is the enjoyment in that? Where is my enjoyment in life? Where am I? Sitting motionless sitting calm on the outside looking for change. Looking and waiting for signs. Signs of what? Signs of forward movement – signs that I am that much closer to my goal. And what goal is that? The goal of death perhaps? How about that? Thinking of death as a goal t...

When I look at my life I see so many areas for which I am grateful. If I think about manifesting and those things that are important to me I can just look at people I know and talk with that have wonderful qualities and great gifts to offer and I have inspirations for my journey. At this point one thing that is important to me that I do struggle with is relationships. With all that I meet and know but most importantly with my children. Who my children become and how they feel about themselves and others are important factors to me. I can look at ‘grown kids’ and their parents and see positive relationships and healthy, functional, and secure individuals. I can do my best to create a positive relationship with my family of origin to set a positive example. I have many times I feel down but I have so much to be grateful for. My life has much abundance and yet there are times when I get caught up in the ‘small stuff’ and ya know I think that just comes with the territory of being hu...

Whew! Paco’s birthday is over and I now have a 6-year old and a 3-year old. The excitement mounting to Paco’s birthday is akin to that of Christmas. The planning and then the planning and the planning and the discussing and the organizing and the planning and the totality of how it consumes him. Bad enough that I have to get some things organized and planned but Paco gets right into it. Really though he was a big help. Leading up to the party he stuffed the piñata with the goody bag treats and took care of organizing that. He thought it was great that I had a list of things to get done and was very excited anytime anything could be marked off. I have noticed with him that when he is into something then it really becomes the be-all and the end-all. When he was into construction that was where most of his attention was caught up. I remember driving with a friend of his in the car and how excited Paco would get when he saw a construction sign, and it was summer so...

I had a dream where I was at my first day of work at a new job. Seemed to be a government type job. The people were very pleasant and the atmosphere seemed to be one of cooperation and appreciation. The work felt somewhat familiar to me and that which I didn’t know felt right as well. I was told that this was the best day in the office in a couple of years because two (or three) people (manager types) were out of the office. So that was not a great thing but the rest was good. I was wondering during the dream if Thomas was able to handle staying the whole day with the kids and were they all right. Turns out it was a full-time job. After work I was grateful that I was close to Olivia’s house and could just run there which makes me wonder because if Thomas were with the kids they would not be at Olivia’s house. Anyway, as I was thinking about this dream today, I realized that there is no one I would trust more to be with the kids than Thomas. And to me that i...

So many little things are not ‘functioning’ as they ‘should’ be. Losing my keys, mittens disappearing, feeling up and down like a yo-yo – as often and as frequent. Money stress and questioning where it will come from and how will I feed us all without it. So obviously I am way ‘off-track’. Sure, I could have told myself that years ago! As I wallow and feel even worse for whatever is going on in that particular moment I remind myself of how I would like to feel and what do I need to do or change in order to find more flow in my life. It is possible and there are tiny shifts. However, these shifts are fleeting and seconds later I am distracted and losing it again (losing it with the poor kids – me yelling and PM yelling back at me – I want to put you in the junk – his latest). Yes I see evidence that my poor little guy is stressed out by some things that happen around here. He is flying away and out of control and yelling and boisterous and hyperactive and ‘at’ L...

Had a rough night with LB last night. She was fussing in bed and couldn't settle. Lying on me, nursing and complaining. When she gets like this she says she wants to go downstairs. I am too tired and lazy to want to get up and trip over stuff in the dark while I walk around with her. Eventually she fell asleep again only to awaken a while later to throwing up. She was lying on my arm so mostly the pillow and I caught it. Yuck!! I felt like jumping up and into the shower except of course that isn't a possibility. Luckily LB was very calm. So much so I thought she was still asleep after throwing up. Turns out she was awake. I took off her sweater, my top, removed the pillow (washed it a bit), covered up the bed, and tried to ignore the smell and the feeling of mucky hair (I did say yuck!!). It didn’t take long for LB to fall asleep again. Then of course every movement from her or change in her breath and I am bracing myself to have her throw up again. It to...

I notice that if something has a lower price than I expect than I wonder about the quality of the product. For instance today we made a quick stop at the grocery store and there was organic broccoli for $1.99 when lately the selling price (well from the farmer’s market and health food store) has been $4.75. The cheap broccoli came from South Africa and that sure is far away. Heck even the hidden costs are almost greater than the money paid out. And also these days there is much about organics and the standards being loosened as larger companies want to get a piece of the pie. Products that are labeled organic can come from countries that have greatly different standards in calling something organic. Getting to the point where I wonder if it is even worth it to buy organic in the first place. For me I guess it still is but realistically what would be most worth it is to change my eating habits to eat more with the seasons and stop relying so greatly on greens. Eating...

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 ...

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 cl...

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 togeth...

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 latel...

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 fo...

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 com...

The other day the kids and I decided to take advantage of the free skating at the community rink. We just recently found the kids some skates at my sister’s place so we were all set. I was under the impression the skating was in the morning but was wrong and we had to wait until after lunch. Another one of those long waits with PM regularly asking WHEN… I was wondering if this would be one of those experiences where he is so anxious to do it and then when the time comes it doesn’t work for him. We made it to the rink and got our skates on among the crowds of others there to enjoy some skating as well. The kids were pretty steady on their skates and we all walked towards the ice. LB stepped onto the ice, her feet went out from underneath her, she started to cry, and decided that was enough for her. She would wait on land while PM and I did a few rounds. Ya don’t really realize how hard it is to stand on skates when you finally have it down – kind of like riding a...

Last week Mojo had a trip to the vet to get fixed. Though still not quite 5 months he is growing quickly and we do not want him to get into trouble with his sister. Luckily for the boys it is a day in and out operation. When we picked him up in the evening he looked so drugged the poor guy. By the time we got him home he was much more alive and then was going and going for hours afterwards. Star meanwhile was crashed by the time Mojo came home. She had spent the day awake and stressed and harassing Thomas. I guess she wanted Thomas to go get Mojo for her and the kids and I were off elsewhere. It took her longer to recuperate from Mojo’s operation than it did him. She does tend to be the more sensitive and fearful one. So now all is back to normal and Mojo’s nails are growing back (poor guy – they clipped his nails as well so he can’t climb trees and has lost much of his ‘grip’). In another month or so Star will have her turn. And again I have no doubt it will ...