A Walk at the Ocean and No Camera.

I walked on the MacKericker board walk today with Isis before the storm broke. Even as we started back for the car, the wind was already trying its best to blow us away. Isis kept trying to make a break for it and get to the car as quickly as possible. I started thinking about what a blessing it is to have a safe, warm place to go to at the end of my walk. I thought about what it would be like to need to be able to build a shelter and find food and not freeze to death because it is fucking cold as ice balls. But I had to tear my thoughts away from survival, because I did not need to build a shelter, or find food. I get to enjoy the feeling of the ice cold rain on the few exposed parts of my skin. I lost my breath when the wind hit my face several times. Bliss. 

Quite a few stops were made as I rummaged thru my bag to grab the phone, only to realize it had been eaten by the Dunes a few days before. The interesting thing about these stops, though, was that each time had been to take a picture of the beauty that is the Pacific Ocean. And every time I realized there wasn't a camera I paused and took in the scene with more focus. The colors, the way the waves came into the bay in backwards C. The waves were big, rolling, steel blue, cold looking. Beautiful.

We spent the day watching movies and participating in all my mom's christmas traditions. But in order to attempt the Martha Stewart Christmas my mom loves, I've had my 2 little stringing popcorn and cranberries, glueing popcorn and cranberries, glittering... lol. Tons of fun making new decorations this year for grandma's house. 

It has been a long a day and this post has taken me all day to write. I feel at peace today, I am praying for the moment of awakening at 3:15am pacific time. Something needs to change. I love you.

PD Eastman and Limbing Trees

hello.
hello.
do you like my hat?
i do not like that hat.
good bye.
good bye.

Been feeling very creatively challenged since landing at my parent's house. It's hard to just get in my zone here, we have to be very careful not to sprawl out much here. wouldn't want to get finger prints on the armchairs. So instead of knitting, I have attempted to become a weaver. Lenorre over at the Mendocino Yarn Shop had a knitters loom she wasn't using and when I told her my spinning wheel was all packed in storage in Las Vegas for real, i'm still sorta crying about it, she told me I could borrow it! yay! But, that hasn't been as inspiring as I'd hoped. I've already finished one huge ass scarf for one of the grandma's and I started a bit of a smaller scarf for my mom, who likes to complain that I never knit her things. And even though it is easy, and it is playing with yarn, it still hasn't been enough. 

Which brings me to the solution of the last few days... I've been clearing redwood suckers and under brush from the property. Starting with the trees and stumps that make the best forts, I've been going out for a little while every day with some heavy-duty clippers and my little hatchet and cutting limbs. I like to tell myself that by cutting the low branches and clearing away some of the dry(ish) sticks and bushes, I'm helping prevent a fire. in north-coastal california. in december. But really, I just need to be out of the house. When Huz is not here, the kids come with me. Everyone gets their own tool, a little rake or shovel, and the wheel barrow and we truck off to the day's target area. But then my man comes home and likes to say awesomely helpful things like: "it's too cold" or "it's raining" or "he's only 2! i think that a double sided hoeing tool with prongs is not safe for him and i'm taking it away!" And so lately, I've been out on my own. I don't like work. I don't like manual labor or jobs that make me sweaty or itchy. But for whatever reason, cutting the branches back has been exactly what I needed.

Pray for some yarny action soon, though, my shoulders hurt.

Also, the sand dunes at my phone.

bitches.

Word Vomit and Gratitude Sunday

I'm loving watching these Littles of mine grow. This week has been hard for us. Almost all their toys and games have been boxed up, furniture is being moved, and we're out of catsup because I refuse to buy anymore food we won't use up before we leave. i'm mean like that i guess. but really, what am i supposed to do with a twice used bottle of catsup? And with all this unpleasant change has come outbursts and temper tantrums and disagreements... and about half of that is me. in my defense, i was also sick AND it was my Shark Week. But despite all this, I see my kids and their perfect moments... the ones that happen all day long but maybe I'm not paying enough attention and I miss it. Just now, I finished nursing the ManChild and gently got up to pee, "I'll be right back," I said, "I'm just going potty. Sissy will hold your hand." I wasn't gone but maybe a moment and when I came back, they were still holding hands, fast asleep. 


I know I've been neglecting this silly little blog. Which is super lame of me, I have brilliant ideas to share all day long. But to be honest, blogging and moving sucks. I feel like I complain about it all the time and no one likes a whiney blogger. but SHIT! moving totally blows. didn't i just pack this godam crap? I've been so caught up in not-organizing that there are no knitting pictures... heck, there's been literally and absolutely zero knitting. And I know at least some of you dear readers come for the yarn. don't pretend you don't. There also haven't been any kid pictures either really. Well, my camera hates me. It says asshole things like "no, i won't focus on that awesome texture," and "sorry, sweetheart, but we all know your kids/knitting/dog/those mountains are cuter blurry/dark/bright/not in the shot." ok, maybe the last one is my fault. And since getting hit with the world's hugest over use fee on my data plan fuck you att, I've been pretty anal about my phone usage too. So yay! blog with no pics whoohoo!!!! And I don't know why else anyone would read this silly totally awesome blog. Except maybe for the diapers. I promise I have an awesome cloth diapering a toddler/potty training post coming up... if I ever actually sit down to write it. Oh and we've been reading awesome things, so I have a post in my head for both Ginny's Yarn Along and Unschool Monday... But I have to actually write those too... shit.

But today, what I do have, is Gratitude Sunday with Taryn. Her posts are always so magikal, I wish everyone would go over and read some of them. Also, she and her husband, Jeff, make the most wondrous buttons and things out of reclaimed wood and wood the find on their property, as well as salves and ointments, that they sell at their Etsy shop. 

Oh well. I'm so grateful for everyone who reads this blog and all my ridiculous word vomit. It would be cool to hear from some readers, if any care to comment, what types of things you'd like to hear more of... give me some ideas. 

I'm so grateful that my family is letting the kids and I stay with them for a few months while Huz gets some more things finished.

I'm soooo grateful to Snoop Lion for hosting my man's first EP. I'm grateful that Snoop let Huz use his studio, I'm grateful to DaeOne for making the beats all original, right there during the sesh. 

And most of all, I'm so grateful to my man. I'm thankful that I get to see his face on and off thru out the months. I'm thankful for 6 years and 2 beautiful babies. he still thinks i'm hot, even when i don't. I'm thankful that his job is structured to give us time apart to miss each other, lol. 

thank you air, thank you blood, thank you fire and water and body. today was an awesome day.

Sloppy

This post is not about knitting or cute kids. Self Reflection Zone Ahead. You have been warned.


Everything about the way we do things is, feels, sloppy. Sloppy isn't quite the word I'd use... yes it is. And not just is in a "clean" kind of way, but in the way we lead our lives. That old quote "cluttered room, cluttered mind" has really been resonating with me for the last few days. I look around our McMansion and see the clutter. But we don't really own a lot of "stuff." No large pieces of furniture, huge toys, things on the wall... stuff... The few things we do have are strewn about the house like leaves. There is another quote floating around the peaceful parenting/ attachment parenting facebook pages that goes along the lines of "play with your kids now, while they're small... you can clean your house later." This is really amazing and touches me to the core and I love it. But I find myself wading thru junk all over my house. The kids and I try to keep up with it, but honestly, I'd rather be playing with my kids or knitting or, well, sleeping, than cleaning things. We don't own a ton of clothes, but we have tons of laundry, and it's everywhere. The kids really don't have an excessive amount of toys, but the stuff they do have ends up getting kicked aside to make room to walk... I feel like the only thing in the whole house that is even remotely tidy is was the Yarn Room. Until, that is, the kids and I went on our trip and Huz converted my space to the clean laundry pile room. It is better this way (not for me or my stash), in as much as now the clean and laundry really doesn't have the chance to mingle. I usually don't mind messes. It really doesn't bother me, but lately it has been too much. Almost like a reminder of all the non-consumerist and artistic ideals I have while living such a convenience, consumer based life. It doesn't help that I dislike/am not good at cooking. I like to bake stuff from time to time, but the whole "fresh ingredients" thing puts me over some sort of edge. When I look around the kitchen I see Starbucks cups and plastic bread bags and recycling and it over whelms me, the Stuff-ness of it all.


 And the diapers. I'm having diaper guilt. Since moving to the desert, we haven't used cloth. Well, a few times. But not enough. I'm torn here between the water used to wash the dipes and the impact of the sposies on the planet. But that's a whole different post. The point is, I think it's time for us to rework the way we live. Scratch that, it's time for me to change the way I live and help my kids make better choices. I think despite his best intentions, Huz is a lost cause.


But it goes even deeper than just the surface stuff. There is always crazy financial issues, in any family. There is education and the dog and work and the car and the ever-present guilt that maybe I'm doing wrong by my kids in every choice I make. But the way I handle these things is a defining trait in my life: I'm sloppy. In my mind, my car, my kids. Every thing from the way I eat to the way I spend money to the way I keep house. It all just comes out sloppy. Even my spinning is sloppy, but I haven't been practicing much *cough*at*all*cough*. My knitting is at least nice still, but then maybe not... we'll see, I've made such headway on the F@#king Shawl. radness.


sorry about the emo word vomit, thanks for listening.

Wasted

2011 was a wasteful year for our family... Water, money, electricity, time... yarn. Food was a big one for us. My family wastes a lot of food. I chalk that up to my lack of any type of cookish skills. And the fact that I have no inner portion control, I would either make too much or not enough. We also eat too many packaged foods, but that is for another post. I am a firm non-believer in "New Years" resolution, but this year, I felt the shift toward a more conscious lifestyle for at least a few months. Starting in early November, I have had grandiose notions of cooking more, saving more, wasting less, working out, starting a container garden, walking the dog, meditating, playing outdoors with the kids more, reading to them more, yelling less... etc. At Solstice, I could feel the will to do these things growing, and a few days later 2012 started. And so, I have started. Started working out every day. Started taking a pic and posting it every day for 30 days. woot. I am going to live this year on purpose. This year is our year. Everything is changing. Everything is being reevaluated. I am so excited to be alive.

Day 6: A Much Better Day or Diapers in the Mail!

Kaya had daycare today and she was sooo good getting ready to go. Dropping her off was great, she was really good. Zen and I had a fine, calm day until he had projectile vomit all over our bed! It got in his eyes, his ears, his nose, his armpits... I even found some in his diaper! He got a bath and even though he has never liked baths in the first place, he was so good and relaxed. He let me clean him all over until I got to his hair, he didn't like that at all! We went to pick Kaya up and it was a disaster! She was so upset about something... I don't know what, but she had an accident during nap time and then a melt down. We had to get the other teacher from the baby room to hold Zen while I comforted Kaya.
I think she really just needs me. She needs my undivided attention, not me while I listen out for Zen or watch a movie with her while I nurse. I want to do something really special for her but what? My mom will take Zen for an hour or so and Kaya and I can go to the beach or maybe the toy store and get some paint and do a project. I want to give her everything I gave her before we had Zen. She needs lots of love and affection and attention and want, need to be the one to give it to her.
But by the time I got them both home she had cheered up a bit and we got on with our day. The best part of the day? Our new FuzziBunz came in the mail!!! These cloth diapers are so cute and soft and surprisingly easy to use! I love cloth diapers!!!!! I am pleased to report the rest of our day has gone smoothly, no major incidents to report!

Now on to Ice Cream, Knitting, and Torchwood.

Exciting News! and My Baby Girl's Birth Story... or parts of it anyway.

The first thing is way awesome, the second thing kinda sucks and the third thing is K Bean's birth story. I thought I should write it out before it gets all blended up with Baby Brother's.

After weeks of putting it off and watching things get grosser and grosser, I finally cleaned my bathroom. That is my Sunday Room-to-Clean on my new clean house chart. I got it done and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be... OK, yes it was. It was waaayyy gross. But I did it anyhow. The floor, the window, the blinds even! the mirror, sink and toilet, and even the shower! I even reorganized the shelves and brought in a new cart-ish thing to store towels and the like. Yay.
And to day, I finally started the kitchen. This will be a big project because not only are there 3 or 4 days worth of dishes in the sink, to K Bean 'helped' by turning her lunch into 'lotion' then dropping the yogurt covered tray on the floor. So hopefully today, I will finish the dishes, clean the counters and get the floor mopped and shiny. I really want to reorganize the shelves in here too so we'll see how far I get.
Oh, and I gave K Bean a hair cut! She looks sooo darn cute.
Oh, aaannnddd J Dub comes home today! Yay!

In case I haven't said anything about it in the blog so far- this baby moves around a lot. I mean all the time, this fetus is never still. His most active times of day are, of course, nap time and bedtime. And he always plays back when I move hes foot or poke some part of him that is sticking out. Well, yesterday, K and I were playing and she kicked me pretty hard in the upper tummy, where his feet would be. So all day yesterday, I payed close attention to his movements and found that he wasn't moving nearly as much as I thought he should be. When I laid down next to KBean to go to sleep (at 11pm) the little man in my belly wasn't moving at all... so, I called one of my midwives to ask her what she thought I should do. She had me go to the hospital to get a 'Non-Stress Test'. Not very non-stressful. My friends hubby came to sit with K and I sped all 10 blocks to the hospital. My midwife must have called to say was coming because the emergency room door burst open when the night guy (a super super nice dude with a great and reassuring smile) saw me. He sent me right back to the birth wing, which I had nooo idea where it was having never been there before. The nurse was ready for me and I was weighed, pee tested, and hooked up to the machine in like 5 minutes! As soon as she had the heartbeat monitor in place, and I could hear the little thumping, I knew everything was fine. But she had me stay hooked up for 20 minutes, that is how long the test takes, and she checked me every 5. Needless to say, Baby Brother is fine, lots of movement, just a clam kind of day, I guess... The exciting news was that while I was sitting there, I had 2 contractions!... OK, well, I didn't feel them, but still, 2 contractions! He'll be here soon, I just know it!

Now on to K Bean's story... First of all, she was 6 days past her so called 'Due Date' and our Dr. in Georgia had us go to a specialist at the hospital for the same test. Once again, everything was fine. The nurse kept trying to tell me I was contracting, I guess a ton of little ones, but I couldn't feel them. They sent us home and said 'If anything changes come to the hospital right away.' So we went home. J Wizzle and I both figured if I was contracting already then today would be our last day to really get things in order. So we spent the rest of our day cleaning and organizing and making phone calls, all that stuff that gets put off till the last moment anyway. We didn't start getting ready for bed till around midnight. That's when I had my first real contraction. We had a hella busy day and now I was in for a sleepless night of birthing my daughter. Great. We already had the bag and the car seat in the car so J Dub drove us the 26 minutes to the hospital. We had already registered, some pre-reg thing to make check in go faster. The triage nurse took us right away and was pretty cool, she did all the initial checking and poking around and whatever it is that they do and sent us to our room. I labored for 8 hours but have no idea how long I had to push for. At this point it all seems the same. At some point I declared I was done and didn't care what had to happen, just get her out of me!!! I don't remember the Dr. coming in but she was just like my mom, she told me to stop whining and push, that my birth plan said no forceps or things like that and that was how we would it! I told her to reach in and grab the baby by the ears, no tools needed. Isn't that how they do cows? Anyway, after much, much, yelling, the Doctor and J Dub were looking at a little purple monkey and telling me to push one more time, for the placenta. WTF? No one said that shit has to come out separately! Any way they took K Bean to run all those first-day-on-earth tests and she was perfect. The couch in the recovery room was way too short for my poor man and his poor back could only take so much.Since the baby Bean and I were doing fine, nursing and sleeping and peeing and all that, J Dub and I decided we should leave. So we did. We practically had to fight our way out, the hospital didn't want us to go. But we both hate hospitals and were very adamant about leaving so after signing away all types of disclaimers we got to go home...
And she grew, and now shes 2 and amazing and that is how it went. I bet J Dub remembers things differently but between the 2 of us, I think we have it pretty down.

Best Part of My Day...

I think my most favorite thing all day has to be the few precious moment when K Bean is still in a good mood before she crashes at bedtime. She is always so adorable then and tonight was no exception. We were sitting on the couch talking about life and she just had sooo much to tell me. We talked about baby brother being born soon and how she would have to be gentle at first because he would be so small, "teeny tiny" as she put it. But she was really just excited to "play wit him." I told her sometimes mommy might be very tired and she would have to spend a lot of time with Grandma or Daddy and she got very excited about that one. We sat and talked about her school and about her puppy, Charlie (one of those large beanie babies that I had when I was a kid). She told me all about the time she stepped on a bear and didn't even hurt her foot! It was really relaxing until I mentioned brushing her teeth, then all hell broke lose! But we got those little teeth clean and sent her off to bed. Where she promptly shed all her clothes and refused to put on the only diaper of her day, the night time diaper. She isn't even 3 yet and already she can go through the day, from school to errands to the sitter to Grandmas, without an accident! I'm sooo proud of her! But when she pees on my fresh made bed at nap time! that is when I tell her she has to sleep on the couch from now on! But naturally, that never happens so she is back in my bed, asleep on a clean blanket waiting for Daddy to come home.

Some Stuff Done, Still More to Come

Every time I think I have a handle on the To-Do list, it seems to get longer.

The good news is that I got all the laundry done despite having a broken dryer. I did have to take it all to my mom's house and use her appliances, but that is ok with me, I think it go done faster that way. I hung the belly cast just to get it out of the way but it still needs to be primed and decorated... I figured we could all do that as a family when J Dub gets home and this baby is finally born. The rug in the living room still needs to be laid out and both that and the carpet in the bedroom need to be cleaned while I still have mom and dad's steam vac. I need to do it soon because once I return that I can borrow the sewing machine and make my curtains. I finally laid out a cleaning schedule so I don't get so overwhelmed everyday when I wake up and realize my house is a pigsty.

Hopefully, getting the cleaning part of homemaking down will inspire and help me get to the cooking part. The ideal for our family is good home cooked, mostly vegan meals at least twice a day. There is an amazing grocery store here that has great sales on all types of organic, gluten free, or vegan packaged goods but I need to start cooking things from scratch too. I have a great collection of vegan and gluten free cookbooks, the recipes I have tried have all turned out well, and I enjoyed making them. But something always stops me from doing it on a regular basis. Usually it is the fact that my sink is still full of dishes from yesterday, or even a few days before! I don't want K Bean to grow up loving prepackaged, over processed foods, but she will if I don't change my act soon. Even organic gluten free cereal bars are still over processed products of the food industry.

Tomorrow my midwives come to check up on the little guy in my belly and make sure he isn't running out of room. I have a lot to do in the morning before they get here. Goodnight!