Spring

Holy cow! Spring here is gorgeous! When I came to Washington in May to look at a house last year is was pretty but cool and then I was shown a few nasty days. So far mother nature is being unbelievably generous. The cherry trees have blossomed, the mysterious un-fruiting pear tree put on a show and now the apple tree is taking a turn. The lilac tree in the front yard is slow going. I am having the most fun with my little garden. There is something about dirt, and seeds and watching all these things grow that gives me energy. When I was a little girl it was MUD. I loved mud. Maybe that is what it is. The opportunity to play in the dirt once more. I remember digging in my Mom's flower beds and finding her bulbs and cutting them up like onions to add to my mud creations. I'd make mud cakes and my Dad was the greatest at pretending to eat them for me. There is earth in me...something basic and natural. I am okay with no make up, hair undone or wearing pajama bottoms to walk my child across the street to school. I get stares sometimes but I smile and wave. I am just a girl, I am me. Lately, I find myself frustrated at those things which I have no control over. It is very much like planting seeds in the ground and sitting and waiting for them to grow. Some will and some just won't and there is absolutely NOTHING we can do about it. NOTHING. I realize all I can do is cultivate that which I can encourage to grow and let go of what I can't.

Birthday thoughts.....

Yesterday was my birthday. Usually I don't think much about birthdays and in fact I try to NOT think about them but this time I couldn't help it. The thoughts I wondered if I would ever have at some point in my life finally appeared and it was a big thud in the chest. Now usually I am "glass is overflowing" kind of person and that is why to think such a thing really bothers me but yet it slithered in there...like a big EWWWWWW. Dare I say it? Do you wonder what it is? Do I have as many years ahead as I do behind me now? Ah....deep breath. We control what we control right? We can do what we can do? right? So much is not up to us so I will just keep loving my life, and my children and my family and look forward to the birthday candles in the future. Sometimes I wonder if everyone knows the real me but that is okay if they don't, those that are truly close always will. I do listen to Pit Bull, LMFAO, Lady Gaga, Pink and a ton of others ...I admit it! I dance around my kitchen and sing and God blessed me with rhythm and I am not afraid to use it. I LOVE to dance. I love to be silly and make people laugh because I love to laugh until I wheeze and cry. I am intense, I am honest and I shoot from the hip. I am so imperfect and I wrestle constantly with the faith in which I was raised. I am not faithless by any means but I have many questions that will not be answered here on earth. I believe in a God who does not seek to segregate, or lay road blocks which many will argue are the rods of iron we are to hold fast too. To some I have shared that I believe that some day we will stand before our Heavenly Father and he will ask "Where did you get that from? When I sent my son to earth to teach what was needed to be done, it was so simple. How did you come up with that?" However if whatever we do draws us closer to our Heavenly Father, makes us better people and gets us closer no matter what faith we follow the I believe we are all on the right path. My greatest strength comes from knowing that my prayers are heard always. I don't always get what I "want" but I always have what I need and that is the comfort of knowing I am heard. So for those that are close to me and wonder where I fit in this world of religion where you may or may not see me at times...there you go. I love you, I love the community, I love what I feel but I also no longer allow myself to feel guilt as there are ebbs and flows of emotion in me. I am who I am. I am prayerful, I am mindful, but I joke that I am a renegade and there is truth in that. I hold on to that which I feel is pure but cannot embrace that which I question and find so complex that it keeps us away from our Heavenly Father and not closer. Heavy, huh? This getting old stuff may suck! Nah... I will just keep on dancing in my kitchen.

Goodbye would have been too late...

After my month of staying away from Facebook I have peered back in. Not so much has changed but my heart aches to learn of the passing of a friend in Texas. She has been on my mind for months and it was her FB page that clued me in that her health was declining as she always posted happy, cheerful posts about her girls, her "divas" she called them and then nothing. She was valiant and brave and fought like crazy to stay here for her family. I taught her little girl at church and she would often be sad, and draw pictures of "angels" to take to her Mom. She cried during one lesson and said she didn't want her Mommy to die and I was speechless. She asked the young child saying the closing prayer to remember her Mommy when they prayed. Now, she is really gone. I am glad we ran in to them in McDonalds and chatted over french fries shortly before we left Houston and talked about houses and school and ANYTHING but cancer. I am glad that in November I posted a note to her on her Facebook page that she was on my mind, in my heart and in my prayers. I know she got it because she "liked" it. Sounds silly, huh? I am sorry that two amazing, and strong beautiful little girls won't have this incredible lady to share their life with them. I know however that SHE made a powerful impact on the lives of so many people and her story will be one many will tell and share with them. They will keep her alive for Candy's "Divas". R.I.P. I feel blessed to have met you!

Some things make me smile....

A week ago I took my teen son to another small town to put him on a ferry to go on a weekend trip. Since I wasn't sure if I'd make it back in time to pick up my 7 year of from school, he got a lucky break from school and got to take an early day too. As a special treat (depending on how you look at it) we went to McDonald's after his brother was well on his way. While my little guy was playing in the playground with a new little friend he met there who was rather loud and telling my son to avoid the "girls", to "stay away from them", and "shoot them if they come in the boys room"...I heard my son say...."Well, actually I came here to try and make some new friends" to the boy. This melted my heart and apparently touched the heart of the mother of the girls as well because she looked my way and gave me a grin. All I could think was "Yes! He gets it!" If that didn't make the trip worth it there, we decided to have an ice-cream cone on the way out. J was shooting his toy around as I had instructed him multiple time NOT to do and as I kept walking I noticed he stopped. When I turned only to see him looking in the direction of some High School teenagers sitting at a table I asked him if he shot it under "THERE????". Once he confirmed my suspicions I realized we had also caught the attention of the teens and I explained why we were staring at their feet. To my shock, one of the teens jumped up and said..."Well, we must help this young man find his toy". two boys and one girl got up and got on all fours looking on the floor for J's toy. One young man crawled over to the trash containers and declared he found it and then he did the unthinkable. He laid completely prone on the floor and reached under the trash can holder and retrieved the toy. I was stunned. It would not have been the end of the world if we had never seen the toy again. My son is not the type who would have pitched a fit or thought the world have come to a halt because he had not done what I had told him to do which was stop shooting. These kids were amazing. I thanked them and then went and got cones for J and I. I couldn't get them out of my head so I decided THEY needed to know, stuff like that just doesn't happen. I asked the cashier for a gift card that would cover some ice-cream, coffee or a couple of soda's for them. On the way out I stopped back by the table and sat it down. I said..."I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate what you did for "J". It means a lot." They seemed surprised but hey, those were some awesome kids and such a great deed, well they needed to know it was really a GREAT DEED! Their parents should be proud. They are doing a good job.

I made it...the entire week! Giddy!!!! Yay!

My simple little blog is about many different things but I must celebrate the fact that I can say that I have been a vegetarian for 1 week. If I were to sum up my week and how I feel, actually pretty darn good. More energy would be the biggest thing I have noticed and that is what I have been going for. This totally plays in to the creative side of me but requires A LOT of preparation and planning. I have one thing I have wanted to make since I had something similar at a party in December and it's kind of like this. http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2010/01/roasted-root-vegetable-wheat-ber/ Does that make you drool? My plan for now is to continue on, more plants,grains and perhaps just a bit of seafood/chicken here or there but for now...PLANTS...fruits and veg's rule!!!! My Facebook fast continues and there are times I feel out of touch and I think I am really a sad sap. So much more to life than to be ruled by Facebook. I also realize that is also a huge population that DON'T use it and we tend to ignore that fact, so in our information sharing we make assumptions that people SHOULD KNOW...because "It was on Facebook" when truthfully, there are many ways to get information out there. I am grateful to know some humble, gracious and giving people who give their time for no other reason that they want to serve, help and make things better. They are soft spoken undercurrents in the world, wonderful and motive-less. Amazing. I have more contact with them away from Facebook and I love that. Selfless without desire to be seen and recognized, and gain notoriety is a quality that I admire. Some beautiful friends have I...truly beautiful...inside and out.

Everything is shrinking....

With all the tragedy, and urgency in the world going on right now it amazes me that the big news of the day is that a sub roll has shrunk an inch after being cooked, stuffed with meats and veg's, and pressed down to be cut in two. Seriously! Whoop D' Doo! I know those folks must really feel robbed of that hard end-piece of their sub roll but I genuinely don't think this is newsworthy, blog worthy yes, newsworthy NO! People must not bake enough to know what happens when bread is manhandled by minimum wage paid teenagers.

So I have gotten through 16 days of the New Year and have managed to actually survive without logging in to my Facebook. I was strolling through a store the other day and saw a guy's buttcrack and thought "that would be a great snarky Facebook post" or then I ate something somewhere and was like..."oooohhhhh ohhhhhh I should post this to Facebook" but then I thought how truly ridiculous. Why live a life so completely transparent that everyone knows my every move or thought. I do miss the people contact...my friends but then I have to ask what makes them friends....but yet I feel a connection to literally a couple of hundred people that I have never met before. This means I worry about, get angry for, or want to knock up side the head more folks than I can count. When I add myself in to the mix, along with all my bunch...I realize it is truly emotionally exhausting...and yet there is that "bungee cord effect" and I know it is pulling me, calling me. Facebook is whispering to me...come back...we miss you...you know you want to check so and so's page, or know if so and so had a baby... I cannot say that Facebook brings out the best in me or really in other people either. It is the most open venue to completely tear someone to complete shreds and there is really no one to protect another. It can do a lot of great stuff but it can also bring out the voyeor, gossip, cheating, judgemental, and truly cruel side of society. You have those that sit behind the screen and pretend to be amazing/kind and wonderful to all that think that know them and then use the power of the "private message" to bully and harass. Facebook can be a great place but has some wickedness all it's own.

A focus of mine this month has been to feel better. I have wanted to clear my head, clear my heart and get in a good frame of mind. I probably made a wee bit of a mistake by watching too many "Vegetarian" related movies over the holidays BUT they did have a lot of great information and some of it did sink it. I hope it sank in. I decided that for one week I am a "VEGETARIAN". This is probably one of the most hair brained schemes I have ever attempted but there is a method to my madness. I just want a week to "detox" and feel better. After this week then I will decide where to go from here. I know a good, plant based diet is just a great spring board for whatever I decide to do but I need to do something NOW!!!! So I started on a Tuesday, middle of the month...which is how I roll. None of this first of the month crap, first day of the week business. Oh now...if I am going to do it...it is going to be a pig falling out of the sky like a big ol' "wonk, where did that come from sort of thing!". Yesterday went fine except I was hungry though I ate. Today so far was a bit of a challenge and I have only had breakfast. So I am going to have to work on that. I have a ton of great stuff on the fridge, made veg' wraps, left over eggplant parm in the fridge but this morning I was stumped. I know this whole thing is going require a lot of careful planning on my part so that I can figure out what I need to do to stay the course for just a week.