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Today I gathered the three of you around
to apologize
Not a new path, but a re-commitment
To your youth
the path we now walk together
until your womanhood
forging your own
A re-commitment to your soft skin
your innocence
the sweet knowing that peers out from behind your eyes
An acknowledgment of the importance of
now
that Spirit entrusted me with your well-being
The original intent
going back to the ground from which I was formed
you were formed
To learn there
in the warmth of a sun cut by the limbs of trees
A re-commitment to out foremothers
their well trodden path
not a new path
Today, Confluence Herbals and Spiritual Coaching is born, and I feel the relief and exhaustion that comes after the labor that is listening to Spirit.
Trail to Bad Branch Falls
On the second, I started a post about the fact that I have actually made some New Year resolutions for 2013. I was excited while writing, and at the same time feeling a bit ridiculous. Gwen started fussing and I stopped writing. Then, yesterday was a difficult one for us. Ivy has started crying a lot throughout the day on most days for reasons so numerous that I’d have to write a book to describe it all and then some she just makes up on the spot. I’ve been told that it is middle child syndrome, but I’m not satisfied with that answer.
It was the first sunny day in weeks, so I made sure the girls went outside for a bit of play. However, Deladis decides that since they play in the creek during the summer, it would be a good idea to wade the creek in January in her new snow boots and Ivy in tennis shoes. I had a hard time with patience and the fact that I thought she would know better. There coats were thrown off in the floor. Their wet clothes thrown in the floor. I sit Gwen down to pick that up and to remind them that they also know where their clothes go, and she cries.
She doesn’t like to sit on her own much. I have about 10 minutes before I have to get her back up. She, like Deladis, is a spirited child. She doesn’t like to take naps, though she’s a decent night sleeper. Generally, a lot like her biggest sister. Like my sister reminded me that evening on the phone, “You’ve never had a laid back child.”
This was after Deladis cried during our first day back at school because she didn’t complete something perfectly. I wrestled Gwen through her fusses while trying to read Deladis her lessons, shifting Gwen from floor, to lap, to clothes basket. Right after, Ivy cries like a wild banshee because I ask her to tell me her ABCs. She says, “I’m too scared.” Same little girl that will dance in front of 100 people, won’t say her ABCs for her mother who is just curious at how well she knows them.
By the middle of the day, I was feeling like a failure of a mother. For sure, there was something bigger that needed to be fixed. I needed to just stop daydreaming about plans and things I needed to get done. The pile of dishes in the sink. My New Year resolutions, and pay minute detail to what spurs these fits. I felt bad for believing that I could tack yet more things onto my already determined to do list when I was already not doing that well.
Yet, I found reassurance from a group of mamas on Facebook. I realized that if I can turn it into a positive it is fine. I’m not failing, just seeing room for improvement. I talked to my sister, who rubbed her two laid back kids in my face, while talking about how grown up the not so laid back one is getting to be. 😉 And, I felt better. Not like it was the end of all I wanted to accomplish, but still just the beginning.
See, it is easy from these blogs and social media posts… and from mothering forums… Pinterest… to think that this parenting/homeschooling gig is a great accomplishment. But, what we often miss out on is how dag gone hard it can be sometimes. For, on this, we mostly see the end results. Our kids dressed in the play costumes, with their basketball trophy, the cool cake we made for their birthday, all the boxes of stuff I’ve managed to purge out of our cabin. We don’t see as often the work that got us there. And so, when the results simply aren’t there on any given day. It can feel like a loss. What do we have to post about that day? Sure don’t want to sound like you are complaining. There is no room for complaining in such a blessed life. How dare you feel like raising your voice or crying?!
The truth is… my list of resolutions is boring. I have quite a few, and I’m not cutting it down. The interesting stuff is the doing. The grunt work. For that is where our accomplishment is – the fact that we get up in the morning ready to do it all again. We’ve not abandoned our post. We’ll be there for those beautiful little souls when we wake up in the morning. Deladis always gets up before me now days. We haven’t and aren’t giving up.
As my friend reminded me of tonight. “I just think of it like this. Such a strong willed child will one day grow up to make one heck of a strong woman.” Amen, sister… Amen.
So, this year this blog is about the doing. Forget what I plan to do. I’ll share with you and record for my girls what we actually do and how we get it done. That’s the point – right?
Below is the start of my resolutions post….
I’m not one to make resolutions in the New Year. I never really have, or if I did I wasn’t serious enough about it to remember it right now. 2012 was a special year for me. I had my third daughter at home in one of the most beautiful experiences possible – an HBA2C. I accomplished something so very amazing for me and my beautiful daughter, our health and well-being, and am forever changed.
I called it my Jesus year. I was 33 for most of it. I discovered just how powerful a spiritual practice can be. I had the chance to pull back, reassess, and now I have come out with a plan.
My last post was all about my inspiration to be re-motivated for most of these resolutions. Many of them aren’t new, but things that have served me in the past, and will again.
1. Recommit to eating a Traditional Foods diet. (Being pressed for time and tired during the last months of pregnancy I haven’t been cooking from scratch as much as I’d like.)
2. Simplify our living space. Look what I am purging so far. I’m just getting started. 🙂
3. Organize what is left of the cabin and create a sanctuary for living. I’m making a designated school and office space in the living room! Our space is small and if you’ve followed me when I wrote here before, you know this is something that I am constantly working on. Yet, in this case, I have a new strategy, and am approaching it from a different mind set. It’s going to be fun! I’ve gotten some tremendous inspiration from some DIY homebuilding friends who have built a beautiful home at minimum cost and almost all on their own. I am still inspired by this home I toured in New Echota a few years ago.
My favorite kitchen of the day in the Worcester House at New Echota
4.
I’m so excited to share with you an article that was published in The Daily Yonder last week! I wrote it! Closing Maternity Wards: Costly and Risky… click on the picture below to read the article.
My darling nephew - brand new
The article was also picked up on www.kentucky.com! There has been some discussion on both sites. I’m so thankful to have gotten the opportunity to write this article for this publication. 🙂 I hope you will take a look if you get the time.
Explore Kentucky… Explore the World… Those words were the mantra of my time spent in early new motherhood when we lived in Louisville. We have never bought cable or satelitte since we’ve been married, but we were excited when we got almost 7 channels on our TV with a regular antennae. I love KET, all the versions. I grew up watching KET (Kentucky Educational Television) and the PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) programming they aired. Mr. Rogers, Reading Rainbow, The Write Channel, were staples of my education, and I have to say it is a huge part of what gave me the courage to call myself a writer. A huge part of who I am as a person.
Deladis was about 2 years old when she was watching evening programming with me as I rocked her to sleep. Explore Kentucky… Explore the World… flowed out of the television and Deladis repeated the words with the same cadence and tone as it was spoken by the narrator. My eyes welled with tears. It was one of the first times I realized that she heard words like I do. Hearing those words spoken in that way for that KET advertisement made me proud to be a Kentuckian. I loved hearing them, and in them Deladis heard the same value. KET and PBS produce such a quality programming, which is so hard to find now days.
Now, that we live back in the hills, we don’t get any channels. We watch television and movies through Netflix. I watch KET/PBS anytime I get the chance – renting their shows through Netflix and watching for free online through their websites. Public broadcasting is still such a part of our lives through radio as well. NPR and PRI programming through WEKU and are my chosen sources for news, education, and entertainment in the car and at home. Not only that, but WMMT (Mountain Community Radio) is our community’s (Appalachia’s) leading source for programming that is at the heart of our culture and community. I host a show on there once a month called Mountain Talk.
It was only a week or so ago, when no radio was playing, or TV going, Deladis broke out in her play as perfect as a radio announcer and said – “P…R…I… Public Radio International.” I felt the tears well again. Her gorgeous child’s voice, hearing words so beautifully. It’s an awesome thing for me as her mother to hear.
So, right now my heart hurts over the funding cuts proposed by our Congress to all public broadcasting – radio and television. It would mean the end of so many of the shows I value so much. Not only have they proposed this but also complete cuts of funding for preventing teen and unplanned young adult pregnancy programs, and cutbacks for initiatives geared toward maternal and child health. I have no clue what is going on here. I understand we need to budget, but there are so many programs wasting government money, not to mention the government itself, that I can’t see justification in cuts such as these. I don’t like to get political here, but in this case I have to write on it. Funding cuts for the arts, public broadcasting, family health, education, etc… really???
Read KET’s urgent plea here. Make your voice heard. Mr. Fred Rogers isn’t around to do it for us this time as he did in 1969. Can someone… can we fill his shoes?
I’ve been away from here for awhile with my regular posts, and I am coming back now for the final time – indefinitely. It is time for me to destress and focus on the things in life that make me feel peaceful and truly happy. For the most part, being on the computer isn’t one of them. I’m prioritizing and right now, I’ve idenitified some ways to cut back without cutting anything I enjoy out. It’s really important that I take it seriously. My computer time is limited to 1 1/2 hours a day, which is more than enough to keep up with online advertising for my birth work, researching homeschooling for the girls, and typing the stories and articles that will be the focus of my writing for awhile. I’ve come to a point where I feel better expressing myself through my more formal writing – my short stories, my novels, and I’m branching out into essay and articles, but all for publications. I don’t know how successful I will be at it, but I have hope. I love doing it. I’m feeling good about being less personally an open book, and more creatively one.
I may come back to blogging one day about our lives, but I think it will be in a more professional way. Maybe a more journalistic way. Doing the radio piece made me realize I really enjoy documentary storytelling. I’m going to be working on some more stories for the Community Correspondence Core, hopefully. I will continue blogging on my birth blog.
For those of you whom I call friends, we will not be out of touch I know. And I hope we will continue to meet on the haunts where we first discovered one another. 🙂 Email is something I will always check, and I will be around. It’s really a bittersweet time for me. I’m excited about changes I’m making to my life, but there was a huge part of me that enjoyed sharing it here. However, I think it’s time for me to bow out. I think it the best choice. 🙂
We will still be homeschooling, homesteading, living and being in our east Kentucky mountains. I will be playing with my girls, baking bread, enjoying the fall breeze, and spending time with God in yoga and my day to day. I will keep this site online as well for awhile, until I find a way to do something with the posts I feel have been important in the broader scope. The rest I will print off for us.
Please enjoy these Appalachian blogs and stories:
I will post here if I get a new more permanent website for my writing promotion as well. I may blog on such a site from time to time.
Thank you for reading my work, and supporting my life. I’ve appreciated your words this year and a half.
Be blessed and adieu…
This week John and I are both working at the Cowan Creek Mountain Music School. I am co-teaching Kids on the Creek, and John is the faculty coordinator. Both of the girls are attending this year, and are with me in Kids on the Creek. It’s a busy and exhausting week. So many personalities in one place, lots of music and dancing, smiling, and fun. It is in its 9th year.
It seems though that our family always has a bit of a crisis during the time of the music school. Last year it was our van breaking down. This year, it is the dogs killing the diddles (chicks). They have killed two, and yesterday, we realized that we had to get the mama and the remaining seven into the old coop for safety. They have been totally free ranging since they were born. We hadn’t been able to touch their mother since she left the coop months ago. I figured I’d have to have John to help me catch all of them. In fact, I wasn’t even going to try without him. His duties keep him at the school from morning until wee morning, and we see him in glimpses. I had resigned to grieve the diddles and resent the dogs.
Deladis on the other hand, resigned to get the chickens into the coop come hell or high water last night. After a thunderstorm that knocked the power out, Deladis chased the diddles all around the yard in the steady rain. Ivy was asleep inside. When I stepped onto the front porch to check on Deladis, I realized she was catching them! She had a diddle in her hands. She handed it off to me and I rushed it to the coop. When I returned, she handed me another diddle. “Get the mama,” I said.
They were all huddled under the front porch, and it takes quite a bit for me to maneuver under there, so I wasn’t too hopeful that Deladis could get her hands on the mama, but I knew that if she were caught, the diddles would be easier. “Oh, she’s pecking me!” I hear. Then, I see my four year old turn around, her arms full of hen. “Hang on!” I say. We rush her to the coop, and proceed to round up the last five diddles.
The proud look on her face said it all. Her eyes round and wide. Her smile open and full. “I did it, Mama,” she said. “Are you happy at me?” She was determined to get those chickens to safety with or without her daddy, and that she did. I was beyond joyful at her accomplishment. She did something I thought wasn’t doable. Something I thought it would take our man to help us with. Deladis taught me something last night.
What/Who am I waiting on? I have been waiting on John to have time for barn repairs for months, so we could move the chickens down there once again. I have been working so hard on advertising my birth work that I have neglected my housekeeping and writing. I have been waiting on acceptance to a known literary journal before sending off the collection of stories to small presses for consideration. I’ve been submitting those stories for two years. I have 25,000 words on a novel that I am waiting for time to finish. There’s no waiting. There is just now. Now. Right now. There is nothing that exists to wait for. All that is, is present now.
Miss Angie, over at The Artist, The Mom, and mine and Deladis’s former Parent/Child (Waldorf) teacher told me once that I was exhibiting some sanguine traits. At the time I thought – no way. But, I couldn’t just put it off. She had really studied the temperaments after all. She gave us an article on parenting and temperaments. I thought – sure, I’ll accept melancholic, even choleric, but sanguine? I had always thought, if only I had some sanguine tendencies. I am not the life of the party by any means. I’m lucky if I can approach you for conversation after knowing you for some time. I’m one of those who gets shy and ducks in and out of store aisles trying to avoid eye contact. Not because I don’t love conversation, or crave it even, but when I’m not prepared for it, it is very hard for me to initiate. I want to be assured that someone wants to talk to me before I approach them. I also remember things, and have been notoriously good and holding grudges (though not any more. What a blessing!). I have strong opinions about a lot of things, but I don’t go declaring most of them everywhere, and in most situations my opinions aren’t such that it makes me dislike anyone or confront anyone.
However, I see what she means in that I have my hands in so much at once. My focus changes so often, I don’t think I give anything time to really be what it is going to be. Just go through this blog and you will see that I have this and that then that and this on my mind. Does it mean that I need to find just one thing? Does it mean that I need to give up my little work for the important work of mother and homemaker, so I can do those better than I am now? I don’t think so. I really don’t.
I think it just means that I need to focus on what needs to be done in any given day. What work do I wake to? What work lends itself well to the feelings of the day – mine and the girls? Does it mean that I will take the conventional approach to things? No, I’ve never been conventional. Does it mean that the path I had set out on will be the one that gets me to where I am going? Nope. In fact, I think it is most doubtful. I need to always consider alternatives. Always consider now.
I wonder if I can do the work down at the barn. I wonder. I wonder how much time and advertising to put into my birth work. I wonder which small press I should query first. I wonder what it will be like to pick up my novel again. I’ve been wanting to switch this blog over to one that will allow me to do the Amazon Affiliates program, and post links to my book when it is published by a small press or myself. I wonder if I’m computer literate enough. I wonder. Deladis didn’t sit and wonder. She just did it because it needed done.
To be an Appalachian is to exist in the midst of stereotype (we aren’t the only people who do). You’ve read me going on about it here before. There’s no escaping it, even in the most unexpected places. I have lived with watching the perception of who I am change for a person as soon as I open my mouth and speak. And as much as that can tick me off, I must admit that I believe most stereotypes are made from the misunderstanding of truth. John believes it too, and it becomes apparent in his paintings. There is a part of us that is prideful of being in that state of misunderstanding – it is comfortable to us. It has been our way of life for generations.
Where You Goin' Baby? - John Haywood, 2009 http://www.haywoodart.com
One of the stereotypes that is very prominent in most Appalachians I know – at least in east Kentucky – is our fight. Our clannish ways. Our ability to hold a grudge. Our seeming lack of concern about getting physical if need be. Our willingness to stand up for what is right even when we know good and well it is wrong.
Every trait develops for a reason. We are evolutionary beings. We adapt ourselves to meet the needs of our environment both physical and emotional. Otherwise we’d have all died out long ago. I thank the Creator for that. My people in particular (as with many Appalachians) are Native American and European. In the specific combination of my family, it is Irish and Cherokee most abundantly. My native people were here for thousands of years. Here is there’s. Simply. My European ancestors dared to settle the frontier. They dared to go up in them mountains and stay. They were looking for home in landscape. They were looking for respect. They were looking for freedom to live the life they set out to live by coming to America, when they found in the early cities it was not the promised land and not as welcoming as they had expected.
My people entered the mountains with a fight in them. I will live by the standards I set for myself – and family, God, and myself is the only answering I am obligated to do. A way of life developed. We looked out for one another against those who came in from somewhere else. We fought for what we believed mattered.
In present day, I see our fight regrettably directed at the wrong situations. I see it serving its purpose in truth on rare occasion anymore. It is intolerably sad, so I put that in the back of my mind. But, right now, I am considering my fight. Physically I’ve been in one real fight, and two almost fights. I fought a boy in the fourth grade. My daddy had taught me a trick – see, and I used that trick, so it didn’t last very long. I had a bloody jaw. The almost fights were in 8th grade and college and those were fights for honor. Most of the fighting I did was on the basketball court. Us mountain girls were terrors on the hardwood. Not just for playing good ball, but because you didn’t want to get us too mad. We’d get you out of the way as best we could without a bad call by the ref, but if it couldn’t be avoided, we’d take one.
What normally could be a kind hearted compassionate person woman or man is turned by a speck at the first thought of honor or home being threatened whether it be their own or a family member’s. Gurney Norman read a story Friday night at the Seedtime on the Cumberland Literary Reading that got me to thinking about all this. The family of characters disapprove of their daddy’s/grand-daddy’s new marriage, and when grand-daddy also comes to despise it, his daughter goes to run the woman off in her dress, hat, and nice black pocketbook, threatening to get physical with her. We were all laughing and shaking our heads – get ’em girl. It was hilarious. A truly lovely story.
I got to read too!!!
It is this passion about our right to live the life we choose, where we choose, and how we choose that drives so many of us. A life that is by no means a permanent fixture on this earth or even in our experience – our path. And sometimes it becomes so personal that we forget there is a bigger picture, other experiences and paths. A deep ingrained belief in respect for the “person”. It has most definitely ignited passions in me or at the very least fueled them. But, sometimes, when used in a way that is not appropriate it is more of a detriment than anything else. It’s true for all of us in these hills.
Yesterday, I made a decision. Whether it be a cause I believe in, something I feel I am supposed to be doing for people, or my perceived obligations in life, I’m approaching it differently. What makes me – me? How am I sure I’m doing the right things? It’s one of those things that you can’t really put into words, but, I’m believing it is the difference between fighting through life and flying. There comes a time when old ways of being leaves us stuck. They don’t serve us anymore. Putting them off doesn’t change who we are. There is always our basis – what we know already, and in relying on that most basic of basic we can take the risk, and open ourselves to something new. What we are doing right now is the result of the path we are taking, and how closely we are paying attention to where it leads, our mode of travel, and the true distractions along the way.
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” Ghandi
“And don’t expect it of anyone else…” Kelli (if I might add to Ghandi… :))
I am all alone for a few hours. All by myself. John’s mother is keeping the girls. John is settling things at the house in Louisville, which we are preparing for selling. We have a buyer! I am supposed to be cleaning. Cleaning in this silence with thunderstorms on the horizon. Doing things that are truly impossible when the girls are here, like mopping and sorting junk. Somebody must be kidding me. A cosmic joke. Because the only thing that I can think about at this moment is writing, songs with the word silence in the title, and reading good books. My current read is Pushed by Jennifer Block. Playing is…
Words are unnecessary unless written and/or thoughtful. Good point this song makes. Listening is much more necessary. This song has grown better as I have gotten older. 🙂
Next, we have a classic. A most beautiful classic. I remember listening to this in the dark as a teenager. My room hot with no air conditioning. Fan blowing. Sticking to synthetic red satin sheets that wouldn’t stay on the bed. Alone, listening and staring at the ceiling – most of the time lamenting something (you know those melancholic teenage years), but in this case not. There was no thinking to do when listening to this song. This song always touched my soul. It’s nice, even now, in the quiet.
It is on such rare occassion that there is no one calling my name. Asking me questions. Suggesting I do something. Asking me to do something. I dare not waste a second. Not one slice of a second. I will write, read some, and then if I can muster up the energy after a couple, few more cups of coffee… I might do the dishes. 🙂
Have a nice holiday weekend folks. It is a time for celebrating life.
In my twenties, I didn’t think much about self improvement. I would have laughed at anyone suggesting a self-help book. I read little on spirituality, and honestly didn’t have a clue where I fit in. I figured I was who I was by that time and I had to learn to endure the faults, the neurosis, and the walls that I had built for myself. What I did dwell on were the negative parts of my childhood. I couldn’t seem to move passed them, and I felt like I would need to muster all the strength I could to move on down the line. I also clung to the good parts of my childhood. They stuck to me – bittersweet, moments of bliss that were only to be glanced at here and there.
After becoming pregnant with Deladis, I realized that life was much more than existing in a past you can’t change. I realized that there were things I didn’t want to pass on to my daughter. Things that can be excused in families. All ___ (insert family name) are mule headed. Oh, you get that temper from your Uncle ___. You’re always depressed, just like your ____. Things that are chalked up as inherited personality traits, that can very well be negative if given the right circumstances, but given a different environment can be worked with and made into positives. Instead of saying, that’s who I am, it’s in the blood, we can work to stop the scars that are passed down through generations in families. Those scars don’t have to be a curse. The fact is, you don’t have to live with them anymore the moment you choose to see them for what they are and no longer choose to accept them. Not that it isn’t hard work through them, but acknowledgment that there is no power there to hold you.
I didn’t completely understand my great desire to become a better me after becoming a parent. I would catch little thoughts as they passed through my mind that would hint at why. If you keep losing your cool, your relationship with your child will erode. Do you ever want her to wonder if she is loved? Then, there is the whole aspect of parenting daughters as a woman. Stop downing your physical appearance in front of your child. You don’t want her to spend her whole adolescence thinking she is an ugly duckling or not feminine because she doesn’t like makeup or spending too much time on her hair.
Eli, The Good the most recent novel by the eastern Kentucky author Silas House came out in September 2009. My grandmother went to North Carolina to hear him read and to buy me a signed copy of the book. I thought that pretty dang cool of her considering she was supporting an independent bookstore and she was buying me the best kind of material present I could ever receive. Silas House is my very favorite author.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect of this novel. I had heard him read an excerpt at the Hindman Settlement School’s Appalachian Writer’s Workshop evening readings over the summer. I appreciated the segment he read. I soaked in the frankness of the tone and took up the imagery, making a movie in my mind, as the best books do for me. I relished in his audible voice, true to his accent and unapologetic. The kind that makes you even more proud to be who you are because someone molded from the same clay as you is making a difference in the world. I was ready for this book.
I opened it and began reading, noticing immediately that this novel was very different from his first three (a series with the same family as characters). It was different in feeling and much different in tone. It was told from the voice of a ten year old child, Eli Book. While the setting was obviously the mountains, it was more universal. It felt like it could be many places. Immediately, I felt like that child could have been me.
I went through the first half of the book wondering where it was taking me. I didn’t grasp it fully because at times it was a very uncomfortable place to be, but as I moved onward I understood that was exactly the point.
By the end of the novel, I felt like I had been on a life transforming journey. The kind that is a one way ticket. You go from beginning to end and never look back. The end of the novel held the juice for me. Eli’s father dealt with demons brought back from the Vietnam war. A war he had gone to fight still being only a child. Eli’s mother clung to the love she found with his father because she had not known love as a child. There was Eli and his sister both feeling the very same way, but coming to the understanding that what they were feeling was not the reality of their life, but the feelings that their parents were carrying with them and projecting out onto their lives.
But then he saw me. I just stood there, feeling an overwhelming sense of sadness wash over me. I had felt alone all my life, had felt as if my parents only saw each other as they moved through the world, thought they loved each other so much that there was no room to love me. But now, by the way Daddy looked at me, I knew better.
His faced is what convinced me. He was so hurt to see me there, to know I had seen all of this. So I knew, once and for all, that he did care if I existed or not.
– Eli, The Good by Silas House, Chapter 25, pg. 265
It was that moment in the book that sealed the deal for me and my commitment to becoming my true self. The self that is uninhibited by my circumstances or past. This was the point that gave me hope. The hope that despite my shortcomings and my personal pitfalls, my children will at some point be assured of the fact that I love them and I love having been a part of giving them life. They will know it because it is true.
All the things that I am doing are not only for myself at this point, though I believe looking inward is important for people in all walks of life. It is for my family. From the choice of Waldorf inspired education, to moving up in the head of no where, to making our traditional culture a daily part of our life, those choices were made to help my children experience childhood. We can grow up so quickly. My spiritual studies, my yoga practice, my writing and reading, making the choice to become a childbirth educator, are all part of ending a cycle and embracing my natural state of well being. Disease is not our natural state. It is dis-ease. Feelings of inadequacy, depletion, and blaming are not natural. These are things that can be healed. These are things that with mindfulness can be made whole in beautiful ways.
I want to bring my children up in a healing environment. I want to do all I can to insure that I leave little baggage for them to carry into their adult life. Any baggage they will have will be theirs, personal and part of that which helps us become independent of our parents. It will be the stuffs of a beautiful life and the tools to make it a complete one.
Day Four:
Yes, it’s been four days since we have left the cabin other than two treks to the barn to refresh the chickens. We have about 5 inches of snow and the temperatures have not been above the mid-20s, but have spent most of the time in the teens and single digits. Ice covers the confluence so thick that we don’t dare to try to drive the truck through it. I have waterproof insulated boots now, so it’s all good.
Really, it is starting to eat away at us. The girls need room to play, and I have found I need activity. I thought about drinking coffee today just for some excitement. I can’t motivate myself to clean, but I have finished a short story that I am pleased with, and read some good ones.
There are good things about being stuck.
- More time together with Daddy.
- The girls have learned to love grapefruit.
- Snow angels
- Hot chocolate
- Blueberry muffins
- Coloring on black paper with metallic crayons
- Watching movies and reading books
- Dance parties in the kitchen
- Registering for my childbirth educator workshop/course. I start in February.
- Getting some writing done
There are not so good things about being stuck.
- Overhearing Deladis tell John she likes him best. (A fear I have had since becoming the mother of girls. I know she is just four, but I can kind of feel where she is coming from. I want her to like me too.)
- Something about our “doing school” isn’t quite exciting enough for Deladis, but Ivy is now growing into participating and it is just right for her. So begins the perplexity of homeschooling two at different levels.
- Aching bones. That little headache that develops from looking at the same four walls.
- The girls having penned up energy. Deladis gets too rowdy and has tantrums where she hits me, and Ivy just throws fits trying to bite herself and pulling her sister’s hair.
And so it goes. At least the good list is longer than the bad one. 🙂 I hope the bitter cold is over soon, and we can have more time outside. I’m doing some revamping of our schooling too, so I’ll post about that soon. I don’t know what will work, but I’m already getting…
“Is it a school day?”
“Yes.”
“Awww…” to the tone of someone who has just been told they are having iceberg lettuce and escargot for breakfast.
A Mountain Mama - East Kentucky Gal 