Balane to Achieve Goals

I have a desire to achieve goals, I always have. As a mother I see now that children need help to learn to achieve their goals. I also notice in a marriage you can have a spouse that sabotages your goals. When I was young I would dream and make lists to see if they were possible. I was usually doing this on my own and my dreams didn't seem realistic because I was a child with out resources. As a young adult I had more resorces and survival mode to help achieve goals. Buy a house, get a new job,  find a boyfriend, lose weight, etc. As I'm getting old and have been married for almost a decade my life goals seem like a heart ache one day and an adrenaline rush the next. Not much balance.

I have moments when I wish my parent's where there for me more when I was youthful and full of energy. I picked a spouse like my parent's who is not capable of being there for me and we have never achieved any "goals" together. We survive on a daily basis. I walk around with my goals hiding in my soul. I occasionally share them with a girlfriend who cheers me.

Currently I'm working on a few big goals like starting a small business so I can contribute monetarily and since I chose a spouse that does not mentally and emotionally support me it can be heart breaking to dream of achieving goals. I know I'm not the only as there are other women out there that I've talk to that go through the same thing. Having you dreams thrown in your face with mean words is heart breaking. I know why this happens and that's another post yet it doesn't make it ok. 

From my vantage point I feel like children whom are supported to make goals and then supported to achieve them will do that as adults. Unfortunately this doesn't make me feel better. My mind and heart tell me words can break my heart but not my soul. My heart will be sore for a couple of days but my soul patiently waits for the heart to heal. 

DIY Recipes

I've been day dreamer about blogging more about DIY recipes for everything. I walk around with a recipe book in my head and sometime I'll forget a part of the recipe. It occurred to me that a blog isn't just to share but also to remember. I laugh at myself with having a few untyped novels in the brain waves as well my everyday life plus lack of sleep. It's been a few years now that I've being using DIY recipes for everyday everything. A women's blog just randomly link me back to my own blogspot so thank you universe for the clear sign.  Hopefully it won't take me a year to do this!

Hard To Say Good Bye

This week has been a challenge because I said good bye to my mom and saying good bye to our home of 3 1/2 years.

I didn't think it was going to be so hard to say good bye to my mom as she continued on with her travels. But the moment I sat back into the car after dropping her off at the airport my heart felt so heavy and the car seemed to empty. Five years was a long time to be apart and now nearly 5 days later it feels longer than five years has passed. What I learned from this is a reminder that time is to precious. Every moment we get to share with a loved one is really what makes life worth it. The exchange that takes place energetically has no measure. I enjoyed spending 3 weeks with my mom. Waking up every morning to her, the smell of her, all her many questions, and most of her love made everyday that much better.  My boys got to me their mom's mom and understand who grandma is. I would marvel at their interaction and how they each created their own connection to her. Our cat loved her, as soon as my mom arrived our cat attached herself to my mom and nearly never left her side her entire stay. I am so grateful the universe and with help from my sister made the trip possible. I've also been inspired to simplify my life so that my family can start to travel. It's been so easy to just stay in one place year after year. I love to travel and the idea of traveling with my boys to show them their family as well as new places has given me a lot of motivation to streamline our lives.

The day after my mom left we were faced with a reality that we would also be saying good bye to our home of 3 1/2 years. It has been sold and new landlords want a new lease that are not feasible for us. After a lot of work we have been blessed with a new place and with 1 week and 2 days to pack, move and clean everything. Today it hit home to me how much I love our little space. I was 3 months pregnant when we moved in and I was still breastfeeding my 19 month old son. In our little space I have breastfed and weaned my first son, enjoyed a blissful pregancy, experienced and amazing home birth, breastfed my second son for 2 years until he weaned himself as well as gone through many transformations myself. I had to sit down tonight and have a good cry to accept that we are moving on. The universe does have amazing plans for us. Every moment of everyday has worked with graceful synchronicity. I will miss our space as when I look at it I think of all the initimate moments that I had with my 2 sons during their early years and even first moments. I don't think I can ever say good bye to this space. It will always hold a clear picture in my memory.

With all the letting go taking place I'm welcoming the new in and excited about what is next. My boys talk about visitng Australia everyday. Our new home awaits us while we are in transition. I feel blessed to be reconnecting with my immediate family as well watching my boys grow each day. I am grateful I have the opportunity to change and learn from my experiences as well as letting time stand still and enjoy all those moments in between. I am open to all the blessings and miracles that are in store for us.

"Forget not that the Earth delights to feel your bare feet & the winds long to play with your hair..." - Gibran

Forgiveness Is Freedom

2012, the Chinese year of the Dragon, a year of transformation, a year of Venus return and more. I started 2012 with a firm and grounded footing under my feet. I felt a shimmer of rumbling in the ground but I wasn't prepared for the quake. January started for me with a personal melt down that led into February. As I was frantically looking for salvation February rolled into March. March brought some relief. Relief came in the form of the right people being put in my path at the right time when I fully surrendered hope of surviving this massive internal quake by myself.

A dear friend Aleka Thorvalson with Aloha Healing Arts, http://www.alekasky.com/, returned my call for help. Aleka specializing as a Holistic Life Strategies Coach and Dynamic Food & Psychology & Mind/Body Nutritional Coach worked with me one on one to go to my deepest belief systems that were not serving me and need to be revealed. As I worked with her program and she pointed me in personal and spiritual ways to grow and learn more about myself. The "me" I so deeply wanted to be intimate again with but didn't quite know how was starting to be exposed in the light.

Part of this was to stop blaming others and seeing my part in things. I have had a hard time doing this for many years. Aleka's program gently helped me see this very clearly. I was able to talk to her about these discoveries and got even more clarity. A few major changes took place in my life. I started to feel a real sense of self esteem. Not the self esteem that fizzes out after a few days but the real stuff that I had admired in people my entire life. With this I started to look at myself and my relationships differently. Miraculously my relationships started taking deep transformations. At this point I was listening to Marianne  Williamson's A Gift of Change book in audio form. I gained a true sense of forgiveness for myself and others start to flood into my every being. Aleka provided wonderful guides to working on forgiveness and for the first time in my life I felt peace.

An amazing thing happened in this time. My mother called and asked if she could come visit and stay with my family. It had been nearly five years since I had seen her and a lot of my forgiving was being generating around my mother. As I was deeply forgiving her as well as myself I huge part of me that felt stuck for about 20 years released. At first it was very overwhelming because it was like watching a movie of someone else's life. This time the work didn't seem so hard but flowed and the peace came naturally. This is were I felt freedom. Freedom to be me, to be in relationships, to laugh, to cry, to dream, to think and to love. Freedom, yes freedom.

I have always loved Joseph Campbell's saying "Follow your bliss." I know I have bliss inside me but how do I follow it? This had been my on going question to my creator and myself. In the process were I found forgiveness it also led me to love the divine in me and in you as well as see everyone as a divine child of the universe. I felt as though someone had pulled off the dark hood over my eyes and replaced with a beautiful rosy colored pair of sunglasses. I will be honest and say this isn't always the case but this process has given me a stronger freedom to go back and stay in this place when I chose to. I would like to describe my transformation in 2012 as spiritual baby steps. Baby steps to follow my bliss, baby steps in believing in myself as well as wee steps to be of service to my creator and fellow spiritual beings.

Happy Place

Do you have a happy place? Recently I had a surgical procedure and discovered a very special happy place. This letter tells it all.

 Dear Farmer,

Hello from all of us! Thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you do to provide fresh, organic produce and eggs. We're so blessed to crossed paths with you. I wanted to share this with you. Recently I miscarried my pregnancy and had to under go a surgical D&C. The morning of my surgery at Kaiser I was just put in the bed and got plugged in when the some of the nursing team was also arriving to work. I was scared. I was praying. I overheard a nurse come in and the other nurses wished her a happy birthday and asked what she did for her weekend. She went on to share she took a bee keeping class. A few days back I called and requested some eggs and when I got a call back he apologized for the late call and mentioned he been in class all day. Therefore when the woman mentioned bee keeping class I had a gut feeling of where she took that class. I tuned in her conversation as she talked about what a splendid time she had and about what was going on in her garden as well as her plans to start her own bee keeping. At this moment I went to a happy place. I was on your property with my boys watching them running and playing with the dogs. I was smelling the air and looking out at the view. I was seeing your faces, saying hello and feeling warm embraces. I was digging my hands in the dirt and picking veggies while I heard all the animal sounds in the back ground. I was transformed to a safe loving place that carried me into the operating room. I know I have mentioned how special you and your farm are however to me it's a little more than that. Not only is the food amazing, the spirit that resides with in the food and all that it comes from is miraculous. Thank you for a place where my boys have this experience just as I did as a child running on Amish farms that has stayed with me my whole life. We look forward to seeing you soon.

I hope we all have places like this in our lives where we find renewal and joy. I know at certain points in my life I have struggled to find them but when I was ready they've always been there.

You can call me a Hippy! I call me Happy!

I'm a home birthing, breastfeeding, bed sharing, cloth diapering, baby wearing, recycling, homeschooling, organic eating, green mom. Let's start with the beginning. When I was a young teenager I saw the MTV video for the song We Didn't Start The Fire by Billy Joel. The part were the teenage hippy girl was burning her bra that was my connection. I was not brought up in bra burning evironment but when I saw that video I felt a connection. I could not see any hippy or earthy parts in my life except being totally connected to nature from birth and through out my teenage years. However during my first pregnancy I got the bra burning sensation and by following the instant I have found myself. Home birthing was my first adventure.

 
I love home birthing. It's natural and pure. No bright lights or beeping machines. For me it was the warmth of my home, my own bathroom, my own bed to snuggle with my newborn baby. Almost every day when I rise in the moring and walk into the living room, I know that's were my son came earthside. One of my favorite books was reading Ina May Gaskin's Spiritual Mifwifery book. All the stories and pictures from the 70's as well as the groovy talk made me feel right at home.

I love watching old movie's with Woodstock and other footage of that time when mama's were breastfeeding their babes and toddler with the shirts pulled up or down. None of the blanket or fancy cover stuff. Just let them hang out and let the babes get their milk. No bottles or pacifiers either. When I breastfed my 1st son any attempt at concealing it in public did not work. He hated anything over his head, wanted to eat when ever he wanted to eat and would only take me - no substitutions. My shirt came up or down and my breast were out everywhere I went, from Costco to the bench in the middle of the mall. All in all I enjoyed the freedom.

My mother and father bought a beautiful crib for my first son. Unfortunately the crib has had a total of may 30 minutes of use from both my boys. My babies slept in bed with me from the start and have always slept with me. I think of the good old days when families didn't have the luxuries we do today. They shared a family bed. I often wake up in the middle of the night and just listen to my son breath. When I'm old and gray I believe I'll be grateful I had the close moments and didn't count how much sleep I didn't get.

What did we do before disposable diapers? Cloth diapers were around. Babies pooped and peed in them. They were washed, hung out the dry and reused. It's really a simple process. Scientist can't even determine the exact hundreds of years it will take for a disposable diaper to decompose. Plus how many disposable diaper users actually flush there babes pooped in the toilet where it belongs?? All and all as a human race we can make a difference by using cloth diapers. Yep, the earthy mom in me cringes everytime I pass the isle of a store that sells disposable diapers. I got my husband on board and we cloth diapered our boys.

I was carried on my dad's back as a baby. These are actually the earliest memories that I can remember. When my son was born I instintually knew that's what I would do. I did not realize what an amazing selection I would have to chose from. Today baby carrying in the in thing to do. I love this! My boys hated their infant car seats and would never sleep in them or transfer into a handy dandy stroller. From newborn until they could walk they would go into a carrier of sorts. I have a collected a few varieties. My favorite times is when they were new borns. Tiny little bundle that need to be close to my heart. I toted my babes around on me. The best part was they had easy access to the milk supply aka my boobs too. My husband is a baby wearer too. Always so proud the have his babe close to him.

Now my oldest is approaching school age and I'm excited to start putting together stuff for us to do as "school" at home. On his own he's already teaching himself to read and write but mostly we learn life skills by living life. My boys do everywhere with me and help with everything. They love shopping and going to our local farms for food. They know where a majority of our food comes from and from whom. I love seeing them connected. We spend a lot of time at the beach too.


I live a simple life, I say I live a hippy, earthy, connected, simple life.

Confessions of My Boobs

My boobs have come along way in today's society. They have the compulsion to confess and share the journey from vanity to a divine life source.

Although this might sound silly I personally think that today's young women need to be educated and informed on what the possibilities are for the future of their bodies and not what they see on TV, in a magazine or on the internet. When I was a teenager the internet had not exploded yet. Magazines and TV was were you saw the models and actresses that adorned the perfect bodies. I was the teenage girl that so wanted to be them no matter what it took. My breast were average and so was I. Once I became a young adult I was addicted to be have the look. I also had a corporate job that helped motivate me. As I worked hard in my early twenties I came to a point where the job meant having the look and with vanity in complete control of my ego I decided to get breast implants. Although I vowed never ever to do it, there I was at a plastic surgeon asking about the procedure. The first statement out of my mouth was I want to breastfeed. He reassured me that implants done under the breast muscle are the best way for overall look and no complication with breastfeeding. Looking back now I find it humorous yet sad to think that I choose to manipulate my body yet I was conscious of the fact that I wanted to something healthy long term. I was a breastfed baby and grew up with the believe that babies were meant to breastfeed and it was the best and healthiest thing to do. As a babe I did not have a bottle or pacifier and was told I wouldn't take either, only the breast. I chose to have saline breast implants and went from a 34B to a 34DD. My mother was appalled that I felt compelled to do this. Nothing was going to change my mind. This was one of the worst choices I have made in my life and probably the one thing I regret the most. However I have not had any complications and for that I am grateful.

The years past and I was skinny with long blonde hair and big boobs. Until I moved to an island and changed careers. I worked on a boat as Scuba Dive Instructor and the big boobs led to a lot of sexual harassment that I could not handle. I quit and took labor intense jobs such as landscaping & cleaning houses. The big boobs led to big back aches. I pushed on.

When I met my now husband and discovered I was pregnant I was advised to start reading up on breastfeeding and the mechanics of my boobs as they were going to be making milk and providing a life source. My once perfect surgically enlarged breasts were going to go on quite an adventure.

Before my son was born my midwife said that I would have porn star boobs after the baby was born. I laughed her off. After my son was born I literally has porn star boobs, I'm talking 36G porn star boobs. And they were painful. From the surgery my milk ducts were a big cramped which led to insane engorgement. Hot compress, massage the breast, nurse baby, frozen cabbage with the occasional grated ginger compress thrown in there was my life for about 2 weeks. I was lucky, my son nursed like a champ and ate a lot. He more than double from his birth weight in less than 2 months. He was chunky and my amazing milk from my amazing boobs did that.

Within a few months of having my son I had to grieve, forgive and accept that choice that I made to alter one of the most amazing parts of my body. My son's pediatrician told me at my sons 2 month check up that I created nutritious bio-diesel milk. Then I heard the saying, "I make milk, what's your super power?" I felt a since of pride and joy that I had the most amazing gift of the universe. That I has gone from the gates of vanity to the astonishment of pure nature. My boobs were not meant to be enlarged so that I look a certain way to get a better job. My boobs were natures gift to me as a women to nourish my babies with a complete food that is made for only them.

My naked boobs have been displayed at malls, restaurants, parks, beaches, parking lots and pretty much any where I've been. I am not ashamed to expose my breasts so that my babies drink the sweet milk that is made just for them. Now the once perky breasts are saging and worn but they've fed two boys for two years each. My breasts have taught me how to trust my body and appreciate my beauty.