º¤ø„¸¸„ø¤º°¨Katrina (Chapman) Rasbold ¨º¤ø„¸¸„ø¤º°

What a wonderful week.  Yes, there was still snow around, but between some temperatures that courted the 50’s and a little rain here and there, it is quickly starting to slip away.  I kept a warm, radiant fire going on the wood stove most of the time, which helped get the chill out of my bones.  Since I lost some weight, it feels like I never get completely warm any more.  This was better, though, than it has been in a while.

Kids all went to school except for one day Delena missed.  She’s fairly invisible and low maintenance, so it didn’t really have an impact.  Quiet, peaceful, no major catastrophes… I could get used to this.

I have definitely decided to cut back on my work hours and go to the 30 hours a week that is required.  I’ve been burning the candle at both ends for a while and it is time for a break.  I started this a couple of days ago and feel better already.

In the “What’s this??  What’s this???” department, I actually seem to be getting sick for the first time in ages and ages.  It’s very, very rare that I am ill, but tonight, I am feeling the onset of some sinus issues.  I’ve downed a ridiculous amount of EmergenC and have deduced that the bottle of nasal spray the dogs ate this week was, in fact, the only one in the house.  I’ll bet they had a bad case of dry mouth.

Since I have absolutely no time to deal with being sick, this wannabe head cold is going to have to be gone by morning.  If it starts spending time with my ears, throat or chest, there is going to be hell to pay.

One day this week, I am going to venture forth into yonder Sacramento to broaden my horizons a bit.  My life experience is so limited now.  I’m home the very vast majority of the time and the only real exception is the one trip to town I make a week, child in tow, to get groceries.  I’m ready for some adventure, so I’ll go prowl around the thrift stores, check out the Super WalMart (ours is decidedly non-super) and go look at the places where I used to live.  Anything to see something different.

With “House,” “The Biggest Loser,” “Big Love” and “Celebrity Rehab” all airing new shows and “LOST” coming back Tuesday night, I am loving having something to actually watch on TV.  Of course, Dr Drew had to irritate me by bringing back my very least favorite not-even-B-list-but-like-L-list celeb from Sex Rehab onto the show this past week.  Could it be my sweet Phil Varone?  Oh no.  The omnipresent but very tolerable Amber Smith? Noooo.  It had to be Kari Ann Peniche, the addict most in need of a tough love encampment out in the Mojave Desert somewhere.   I hope Tom Sizemore eats her for breakfast and then picks her scraps out of his teeth, rolls her up and smokes her.

I am going through my closet tomorrow to pack away all of my grown up clothes in favor of those outfits more in keeping with my new life of never leaving the house or seeing humans.  Anything I can’t alternately sleep in is getting packed.  It’s not like I’ll ever go anywhere ever again where I might wear a nice dress or dress slacks.  Soft, long-sleeved t-shirts, sweat pants and jeans are all I really need.

My feet have been freezing lately, but the socks in the womens section are so thin that I ended up going to the mens socks and found some thick ones.  Feet are toasty now.  Maybe that is why life is so good.

It sure isn’t my danged sinuses.

Eric was kind enough to clean the house for me while I was in town today, so I am starting off the week from a good place.  My sleep has been hit or miss, but I plan to get in some good rest tonight.  Even if the duration won’t be what I need, I can feel that the quality will be there.

Life feel so much better with something of a routine in place and plenty of time on my own.  I’m able to think better and get my emotions sorted out instead of having to be “on” all the time.  The break from phone consultations helps with that as well.

I hope you all have a wonderful week and that Winter is kind to you.

I can’t believe that January is already almost over.  I haven’t yet mastered the art of writing 2010 on my checks and here the month is almost over.  I am so grateful for the feeling of rebirth that the new year has brought.  I am still riding the wave of hope and optimism that comes when bajillions of people make affirmations and promises to make their lives better.  The energy is almost palpable.

Although it was definitely intimidating at first, I have somewhat mastered the art of doing all of the housework, managing the kids and animals and logging in tons of hours with my job.  That translates out into mastering the art of getting everything done, just not done particularly well.  By intentionally cutting back on the quality of most of what I do, I have been able to not only get done the majority of what I need to do, but also to work in a little bit of time to do the things I want to do.  I’ve shaved off some of my work hours.  I don’t do all of the “under” cleaning and keep it to the surface stuff.  I don’t fold clothes any more, I just wash and dry them and put them into baskets for the kids to put away.  I don’t ever mop the floors now that the front and back yards are nothing but slush.  Why bother when they are going to be clean for about 45 seconds before an animal or human tracks in the crap again?

My mother was an absolutely terrible housekeeper.  There was house, but there was no keeping.  One result of that is that my eyes are not particularly trained to see the messes.  I tend to tune them out, a skill I learned when I was very young.  Another result is that I live in fear of being like her in that respect.  I was a really, really bad housekeeper for most of my life and finally, for the most part, got that bested.  It’s not perfect, but it’s much better.  I still worry that the house looks like total shit and I just can’t see it because I’m lost up in my own head – a frequent misplacement of me.

I have learned to get by on very, very little sleep.  I turn in around 11pm (my last work shift is over at 10:30pm), get up around 5:30am and try to catch up on the weekends.  I drink a lot of caffeinated drinks and take B-12.  I am at my best with 8-9 hours of sleep a night, but there isn’t a whole lot of danger of that happening.  I feel great and that’s what matters to me.

Eric is settled into his school and work routine.  He has Wednesdays off and has enjoyed the down time.  He did manage to fix a problem that has been plaguing our Jeep Liberty and has had quite a victory party as a result.  Yayyyy Eric.

Nathan told me a couple of days ago, “It seems like you were so much nicer a few months ago.”  It makes me wonder if maybe I was.  I feel the same, just less depressed and more together than I have been in a long while.  Maybe I was more amicable when I was depressed and indifferent, at least from a 10-year-old’s perspective.

He’s having a hard time, that little one.  Things come so easy for Dylan (my 12-year-old).  He is very happy-go-lucky, happy, unaffected and light-hearted.  His homework is always done before he gets home from school and since he was first born, he has been a really, really easy child.

Nathan is very intense and always has been.  When he was only a couple of months old, a little girl who lived near us asked, “Why is your baby always mad?”

Here is how he spent his first several years:

The child seems like he’s been angry since he first popped out and still hasn’t gotten over it.

Not sure where he gets it:

What I don’t get is that all that rage has rarely availed him anything.  He’s my sixth child and the first four put me through pretty much any kid thing that can happen.  I don’t cave to tantrums.  Surliness does not impress me.  These two apply to both children and adults, for the record.

I feel bad for him, I really do and I am just at an absolute loss for how to help him.  I’ve done the validating his feelings thing, I’ve talked to him a lot about the energies with which we surround ourselves.  I’ve talked to him about how to relax, meditate, change his perception of the world around him.  I’ve tried to teach what ways to treat and talk to people are OK and what ones aren’t.  Still, he simmers and fumes over all crimes real and imagined.

If ever there was motivation to move into a larger house, it’s the completely opposite personalities of my two youngest sons.  Two boys never needed more to be separated.  Dylan snores and talks in his sleep, which drives Nathan crazy.  He recently started sleeping with ear plugs.  Nathan hates school and being around people.  Dylan loves both.  Nathan loves to play outside and do active things.  Dylan is a couch potato.  Dylan is a dreamer, a reader, a conceptualist and Nathan is a plotter, a schemer and a rationalizer.

If I can get Nathan safely through adolescence and into adulthood, he is going to be a force to be reckoned with when it comes to success.  I can see him being an amazing businessman, much like his step-grandfather, Sherman.  I can see him being an absolute dynamo when he finds where all of that intense energy should be invested.  As soon as he finds his true passion in life, he is going to be unstoppable.  Until then, he’s frustrated and angry.

Like Eric, he tends to feel that the world has let him down and that what he needs and wants so desperately is being denied to him.  I’m not convinced that either of them are completely sure what that is, they just know they don’t have it and they’re more than slightly miffed about it.

One thing I have learned is that I cannot create happiness for another person and while I will try not to directly contribute to their UNhappiness, they both have to be able to find it inside.  I can’t put it there for them.

All I can do is work on my own outlook and be as positive and joyful an influence as I can.

I don’t do well being around people with a negative outlook and I often find it to be contagious.  I’m working on strengthening up my resistance to that sort of thing.  I have let it get me down, a little too down in the past, and I’m going to work really hard to keep that from happening again.  I can’t take on the disappointments and sadness of other, but I can empathize without collapsing into what they are feeling.  That’s the plan for now.

Eric is doing very well with school and work.  With the responsibilities of home and family removed from his shoulders, he has been able to focus on getting adapted into this whole new way of life.  All he has to do here is get the trash down on Wednesday, make sure we have plenty of usable wood for the woodstove and make sure the cars move.  Beyond that, it’s all on me.  He seems to really enjoy his classes so far and is very vibrant, animated and vocal about his experiences.  He seems to thrive in just this balance.

I have enjoyed the time alone and finding my footing with the recovered responsibilities.  I can’t believe there used to be a time where taking care of the house was the extent of my obligations.  What did I do with my hours?  (I cleaned closets, washed walls and windows and mopped floors a few times a week, that’s what I did)

For now, as the subject line indicates, my mission is to find myself, just like we used to in the 70’s.  There is a whole lot of me that has been lost along the way and now that finally, after a couple of years, I have something akin to a “routine” I can follow, an actual somewhat predictable life, I feel more capable of looking inside and seeing who I am now.  I am a creature of routine and any time there isn’t one, I feel chaotic and off kilter.  Having  a rhythm to life, a flow and ebb that I can chart, soothes me and gives me strength.  I am so very excited to have that again.  Living with Eric nonstop is a lesson in spontaneity.  He never, ever, ever has anything close to the day he planned the prior night or even earlier that morning or an hour before.  Things turn on a dime and I had to be in flight or flight every minute because the wind was about to change at any given moment.  Now there is peace and predictability and calm at least part of the time.  Again, I thrive.

In that thriving, there will be me again and I have really missed me.  Now I can rest, even with all the work there is to be done.  My spirit is at peace for the first time in a very, very long time.

PS:  Mom died 7 years ago today.  I miss her.

… time turn on your flight!  I just thought of the comeback I needed last night!”

I know that likely isn’t the actual wording on the comical turn of phrase I heard a long while back, but that is what stuck in my head and makes me smile from time to time when I feel as though I’m constantly running a day late and a dollar short.

Where has January gone?  Here it is already past the middle of the month and I haven’t even stopped writing 2009 on my checks yet.   January has definitely been better than December (and a whole pile of months that came before it), but things are still challenging.  When a train is barreling along in one direction, it has to take time and slow down and make the transition before turning around and hauling full steam in the opposite direction.  My train is working on turning around, but there are still a few rough edges here and there.

Eric had his first day of classroom college today.  He’s worked a bit on his online classes, but was waiting for the in-house stuff to begin before giving it his all.  Both finalize on the same day in the middle of May.  I felt like I should take a picture of him at the door with his little Star Wars lunch box (he corrected me to say “Return of the Jedi” while I told him this) and backpack.  He didn’t really have those things, mind you, but in my head, he did.

After having him here at home under my feet for the past 2 years, it’s going to be strange to have him gone 4 days a week.  The kids also had a week off in December because of the electrical outage, went to school for a week and then had 3 weeks off for Winter Break, followed by a week of school with a half day that Friday and then MLK Day yesterday.  Now they are all gone as well.  The house is very, very quiet and things tend to be where ever I let them for hours at a stretch.  I can watch anything (ANYthing) I want to on TV and there is not a running dialog/monologue playing through the soundtrack of my life.  It’s just me and the dogs and the fire.

…and the telephone.  I am still working long, mad hours and by “working,” I don’t necessarily mean “working” as much as sitting and waiting for the phone to ring.  Yesterday was a 12.5 hour shift day and that’s not so unusual any more.  Calls have been extremely slow, so I have to widen my scope of availability to catch as many as I can.  Out of the 12.5 hours, I was only actually with clients for 55 minutes.  It’s not always like that.  It tends to run in feast or famine.  Now we’re in famine.

We are also sitting in the middle of winter storm warnings for California.  We’ve had a good bit of rain, around 4-5 inches, and it’s snowing in that snow globey kind of way now, but not sticking much.  I suspect it will later.  We’re supposed to get dumped on a good bit this week and I am putting a LOT of energy into the kids being able to stay in school and the power staying on.  I’ll take the first part of the song: The weather outside IS frightful and my fire IS so delightful, but I’d rather the lights not be low and that we not “let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”

I had a minor melt down last week.  Nothing like the dark, dismal month of December and nothing that lasted for longer than a good pout.  I just deleted several paragraphs of complaining before I realized that it’s past and not really worth putting that kind of energy out there in the world.  Suffice it to say that long work hours plus having to take back the housework due to Eric’s college and work schedules did not put me in a happy place.

The premise of “you may be working, but you’re here all day” sort of made my eyes cross for a while.  I got better and told him I’d take over everything through the end of January and then we would revisit the idea – just while he settles into his schedule.  I have a feeling that’s going to fit him comfortably and it’s going to be challenging to dig him out of it, but I will cross that bridge when I get to it.  (Oh please, we all know it’s staying this way.  Let’s not pretend.)

I had a feeling that it was only a matter of time before that whole working at home thing came back to bite me in the ass.  When I started, I proclaimed that when I’m in the back room with the curtain closed, I’m “working” and it’s the same as if I’ve gotten in the car and driven away to a job in town.  Ah, how completely naive I was back in those oldish, golden days of youth.

As a result, I am doing my best to get things done between the calls I do get.  I am good at rising to a challenge, so I know I’ll get the hang of it eventually.  Single mothers do it all the time and I’ve done it as a single mother before, so I just have to dip into that adage of old and “demand more from myself.”  It’s not by any means what I planned for my life, to spend my every single day running between housework and phone calls without any time to do the things I want to do, but it’s the reality of things.  Since Eric makes about enough money each month to cover the mortgage, I’ll think of it as “single mom with a free house.”

I will confess to feeling a sense of the wistful as I see Eric going off on his journey as he starts 4 years of college, his life pretty much laid out in front of him.  I see my 4 years of doing things I don’t really want to be doing with my life in order to support his dreams and goals and plans.  I know he’s doing it to better our situation, although honestly, I am a little confused about what a degree in Geology is going to accomplish specifically.  I know that’s likely my own lack of foresight and experience.  I trust he knows what he’s doing.

I just don’t trust that I know what I’m doing.  When you’re staring hard at 50, signing away a minimum of 4 years of your life and  is a little more daunting than it is when you are 33.

What I know I have to do is take responsibility for my own life and create one I can must love that is not involved with anything Eric is doing.  He is working on his own life that crosses paths with mine very, very little due to scheduling.  By spending so many of our hours together in the past 2 years, I have gotten used to involving him in almost all of my plans and now it’s time for me to begin thinking in terms of just myself again.  I have to remember how to do that and to embrace the freedom that comes with that change.  I have to start thinking as a person instead of as a couple.

The really good news is that Eric has worked it out so that I have a vehicle to use.  It needs some work (blah blah blah front differential blah blah blah pick and pull blah blah blah around $300 blah blah blah SAFE TO DRIVE), but at least I am mobile while he is gone so much.  I do love it too.  It’s a Jeep Cherokee we’ve been keeping for friends for almost 2 years now that needed some drive line and axle work. (Isn’t this riveting?)  Now that’s all fixed and I’m sort of good to go.  We will be paying it off with our tax return.  One of my favorite things about it is that it is dark green.  Since I first got my license, nearly every vehicle I have owned – and there have been many – has been blue, silver or white.  I now hate blue, silver and white vehicles.  Dark green works great for me.  My favorite car ever was, in fact, one of the blue ones:  a 1989 Buick Regal that was light blue.  My second favorite was 1999 Dodge Intrepid that was bright, fire engine red.  Eric traded it in on what?  A 2001 white Dodge Intrepid.  *sigh*

I am painfully close to decorating the Cherokee with reading material like the Coexist sticker and the one that says, “Fat people are harder to kidnap,” but I know at some point, Eric will no doubt have to drive it and he is vehemently anti-bumper sticker.  Of course, putting the stickers on there could be like licking the top of your soft drink can to keep other people from drinking it, just as the inevitable fact that he will undoubtedly smoke in the Liberty, after countless times of me asking him not to, will keep me from driving it despite the better gas mileage.  Nothing makes me wretch more than opening up a car – especially one I own – and getting a face full of ashtray smell.

Agh.  When did I turn into this helpless, hopeless, rag of a person?  Surely some of you remember me when I was strong and decisive and assertive and wise.  That was a great 15 minutes, let me tell you.  I was shinin’.

I think that’s why gender roles are defined as they are.  If we spend too much time with our spouse, we stop being able to think for ourselves.  Thought processes get too incestuously bound into how our every move affects them or what they might want or the possibility of making waves.

The dark of the year is the time when I decide what I am going to plant in the coming year to manifest as a goal and I think I’m starting to figure out what that’s going to be.

It’s time for the independence to kick in and for me to be finding my own happy in the midst of the higher demands being placed on me.  I’ll be taking some days off work here and there to go out and do my own thing, getting some air that has not recirculated through my own house over and over and doing some things that aren’t being done because they have to be.  As it stands now, I pretty much only leave the house to go get groceries once a week.  I need to get in more meditating time, more sleep time and give the kids more chores to do.  They are great about doing whatever I ask them to do, but the schools here load them down with so much homework that it takes up a good bit of their after school time and I do like for them to have some down time in their day.

This year is about finding myself and creating the happiness I want to have.  It’s about forging my own identity and pulling up more strengths inside myself.  It’s about finding my own rewards and my own joy.  It’s about making my own choices and allowing others to do the sacrificing sometimes.  It’s not about defending my wants and needs as being just as important as those of others, but insisting that they be, by force if necessary.

As such, I wanted to post this to my Facebook wall, but it was too long:

If your parents didn’t really have much of a clue on how to raise you and kind of screwed you up, if your kids and/or grandkids are overall decent, but can be a pain in the ass, if your husband is a good sort who has said things to you to destroy your self-esteem and fatally wound your very soul, if you honor Jesus but think many of His followers have no clue what He was really teaching and have twisted His words to meet their own agendas and if you don’t really think it’s anyone’s business what color your bra is or what kind of panties you wear, copy and paste this to your wall.

In light of my new found independence, I did the unthinkable and changed both of my phone numbers.  Even with talking to them honestly and attempting to negotiate, I was still getting 20 or more calls from bill collectors every day.  Enough already.  They’d started phoning on my work phone, which was never reported to anyone (but was also not unlisted).  My work phone used to be Eric’s business phone line, so I would constantly get faxes in my ear.  I changed them both, just like that and like shaking an etch-a-sketch, it all disappeared.  I was so excited over my day or so of knowing for a fact that any time the phone rang, it would actually be someone I wanted to talk to.  Then came the telemarketers.  It takes up to 30 days for your entry to the National Do Not Call Registry to be effective, so I’ve now had all sorts of offers and surveys and other crap coming in.

I realized around 3:30 am today when I got up with the dogs that because I changed the number late on Friday afternoon, the schools did not yet have the update and if weather was bad enough to cancel, the autodialer would not reach us.  Hmmm.  Fortunately, the weather held out, off they went and I got the schools updated today.

It has taken me all day to write this.  Sad, I know.  Fortunately, it has been because I actually got a few phone calls here and there.  The kids are home and acclimating and I am thinking about what kind of pasta I can make them for dinner.  I am going to take a few hours off of work and just sit and be.

I hope all of you get “sit and be” time as well.

Peace, yo.

Good lord, what a month!  What a year!  I could not possibly be happier to see the back side of both 2009 and December.  December was like the grand finale of a year that while full of adventure and happiness in places, was overall more negative than positive.

It’s not many months when I can say that, but December, the time of Christmas miracles and good will, was one of them.

Going into all the reasons why would just result in a lengthy column of complaining and bemoaning everything from bad luck to wrong choices to the stripping away of idealistic illusion I was clinging too like a desperate spider monkey.  My claws and teeth were dug in hard and I was determined to hang onto my rose colored glasses no matter what.

I don’t know how many of you have had this experience, but my recent life has reminded me of times when I had bills I had to deal with, but when the notices would come in the mail, I would quietly slip them into the trash without even opening them.  I didn’t want to know how bad the situation was, so I pretended it didn’t exist.

That works for a while and can buy some healing time until you are strong enough to work on problems, but for the most part, I’d made a lifestyle out of that kind of avoidance.  I have spent decades making excuses for people (including myself) which usually leads to nothing more than enabling them to continue destructive behavior with their ace litigator (me) in tow.

December was the time of illusions dropping and reality hitting and it was not a pretty sight.  I did not fare well with it, I am ashamed to admit.  Everything that hit from the seemingly endless days with no power to the blizzards to the broken DSL to the emotional struggles Eric and I were enduring to the stress of trying to provide Christmas pretty much wrecked me and I crumbled into a rough depression.

Fortunately, January brought me out of it.  As planned. we had a nice night of pinochle with friends, then came home and I worked for an hour, then went to bed.  I woke up to a fresh new day full of hope and promise. I could feel the energy of all those who had made important promises to themselves and my hope was renewed.  Since it was being built on a foundation of “no illusions,” I felt stronger than I had in months.  My hope was built on very real goals and strengths rather than ones I pretended to have.

That has continued through the first week of January with good days piling up one on top of another.  Today brought miracles, which was lovely, especially considering that we are in a Mercury Retrograde when things tend to go backwards and get complicated rather than moving forward into positive development.

First, Eric (finally) started his work/study program where he is paid $8 an hour to go to the American Legion building and study and work on his online classes.  He was supposed to start yesterday, but felt sick and had not slept well the night before, so he opted to start today instead and slept in.

We have 3 eggs!  The little chickens, Stella, Naomi and The Fat One, have at last produced!  Delena went out to feed them today and in the far corner of the shed on the hay we’d laid some time back were the three little brown ovals of complete delight.

The chickens have been an experience, that’s for sure, starting with 8 and ending up with 3 after 5 had encounters with the dogs over the months since June.  These were encounters that did not end particularly well for the chickens who were involved.

We’ve been through the netting falling and trapping poor Naomi out in the elements, botching up her leg a bit and traumatizing her greatly.  She healed in just a day or so and other than potential psychological damage, seems fine.  I phone Eric to tell him about the eggs and he positively cooed.

The next bit of happy joy came from Grandpa Mike.  Grandpa Mike is married to Granny Liz and they are of no relation to us, but Grandpa Mike and Granny Liz, they remain.  A year and a half ago, Grandpa Mike and Granny Liz did a reverse mortgage on their house and as a result, bought themselves two lovely new jeeps.  They then let us use one of their old jeeps, a Cherokee that I have come to dearly love.  It was promptly revealed to have some axle and yoke problems and has remained hobbled in my driveway ever since except for occasional local jaunts of only a mile or two at a time.

Now, after a year and a half of shuffling one car back and forth, Grandpa Mike and Greasemonkey Jerry are hard at work getting the Cherokee all fixed and if luck holds out, I will have a second functioning vehicle in the foreseeable future.  Huzzah!!

This is particularly good since Eric’s schedule after January 19th is fairly brutal and our main car would be gone pretty much all of the time.  God bless Grandpa Mike and Greasemonkey Jerry.  Their timing could not be more perfect and *!ba!*!bing!* I rank that up there on my list of miracles for the day.

It feels glorious to come blinking and squinting out into the sunlight of life again after such a dark traverse into the Valley of the Shadow.  Speaking of sunlight, I went to town for provisions on Sunday and it was a balmy 72 degrees in Placerville, California.  Our temps usually run about 10 degrees lower than that, but we are still practically sweltering compared to the rest of the country.  It gets down into the 30’s at night and then pops up to the high 50’s, low 60’s during the day.  I could enjoy this forever.  I do know the debilitating blizzards are still coming and each year, I find myself foolishly hoping (again with the delusions) that maybe it won’t be “that bad” this year.  It always is.

I love my house, but although I surrendered to the inconveniences of being so far away from the real world (it’s a solid 30 minutes to the nearest town) and the very real dangers and irritations of the massive amounts of snow we get (around 10-15 feet cumulative in a year), I do find that it gets more and more intolerable as the years go by.  Wealth?  Do I want it just for the stability and security it provides?  No, not just that.  I want it so that this becomes my “summer home” and I have another house tucked away somewhere in a place with moderate winters and amenities within a reasonable distance.  That is my ultimate goal.

No

More

Blizzards.

The book planning is going so extremely well.   It’s great to have found an idea that is completely in the comfort space of my writing.  I suck so tremendously at dialog that my fiction books, even though they are fantastic ideas, are tremendously bad.  My non-fiction books have been to such a tiny, targeted audience that there is little marketing value.  The newest idea, “Stories I Will Tell When I Am Old,” has really taken off and I am on my 6th page of chapter listings and topics.  Bathroom reading.  I knew I’d find my niche and there it is.  That begins on Monday when the kids go back to school again.

My diet and exercise went out the window as soon as indulgence and comfort eating took over in December.  That also picks up again on Monday.  I’ve already started modifying my eating this week to ease back into the Zone Diet eating and that is going quite well.  I ate a wonderfully tremendous amount of junk last month and it does feel good to get back into good eating again.

I can feel the year starting to fall into place for me and I like what I am seeing.  There are some serious challenges ahead, some life-altering, but I am confident that they can be broached and managed in positive ways that bring about the most beneficial results for everyone concerned.

I feel reborn after a time of being buried alive and presumed dead.  Life resumes and it is good.

I feel qualified to go all “post-holiday” on you folks because we really don’t celebrate New Year’s here.   It all started when I was married to Paul and we began a series of absolutely the worst New Year’s celebrations on earth.  Every year seemed more accursed than the last.  

With Eric, it hasn’t always been awful (although there have been a couple of real squeakers), but mostly just completely uneventful.  Two stand out in my mind as particularly good.  One was in the first few years of our marriage and we decided to celebrate every US time zone of midnight, which was quite fun since we are in California.  We started the wave at 9pm and then just carried it over, feeling the energy as each of the time zones hit midnight.  

The other was last year, where we got together with one of our best “couple friends” and played pinochle and ate and drank until around 11pm, then went home.  It was fun and quiet at the same time.  I think we were actually we asleep before midnight last year.

All of that being said, so far this year, we do not have NYE plans and I do not expect any to manifest.  

The energy of January 1st is always very unique to me.  With the whole earth practically focused on new beginnings, hope and second chances, it always feels fresh and clean and full of possibilities.  I look forward to feeling that again.

Right now, I feel pretty much used up and spit out.  This year was like running the marathon that never, ever ends.  Fortunately, it did and although nothing will have likely changed on the surface when the clock eases into 12:01am Saturday morning, I feel as though a new age is being heralded.

Of course, a lot of the people who phone me for readings are asking about the new year and from what I can tell, despite all newsworthy indicators to the contrary, it’s going to be a real winner.  2009 was so damned debilitating for everyone and just kicked our complete asses.  The theme seemed to be that however a person defines themselves in the world was targeted.  Whatever made us feel most secure is what went away.

For a lot of people, that was money.  Money is just so damned useful that it makes sense a lot of people would base their security and their identities on the things money can do for them, in and out of the bank.  One of the lessons of 2009 is that like all things, money is transient and depending on it for happiness is not a good investment.  2009 took us back to non-monetary definitions of worth and once again, bartering is becoming a form of currency exchange.  The trick with bartering is that you have to be in possession of some skill or product that is worth trading or you’re kind of assed out at the Barter Stone.  That brings into play an energy of personal worth rather than monetary status, which is tough for some people to manage.

After the butt-kicking clarification process of 2009, I see 2010 as a year of rewards and attainment.  No, I do not believe that we will come close to building what was there before because what we had before, both as individuals and as a nation, was an illusion, just as our feeling of bulletproof safety prior to 911 was an illusion.  What we are now building will be based on reality; on strength and perseverance rather than on being able to move numbers around on paper to make a situation look better than it is.

As a nation and as individuals, we have believed a series of – to borrow and turn inside out the words of Al Gore – “convenient lies.”  We were shown illusions we wanted to believe to be true (“There ARE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!”  ”You CAN afford this house!!”  ”We are ON this whole New Orleans flood problem!”) over a series of years and we smiled and were grateful to have our hopes vindicated and moved forward into the machine that would ultimately chew us up and spit us out.

Now, the dust is settling and the wheat is separated from the chaff and those who are left upright will be walking into a brave new world with eyes wide open and the last of the lies being swept away like last fall’s autumn leaves.  I am ready for that.  I am excited for that.  I want to return to a baseline of reality and although I do so love a good fantasy for a while, I am completely ready to embrace “The Real” and all it brings.  

My all purpose phrase for the past few months has been “Keep passing the open windows,” which is a John Irving reference that basically means, “Don’t throw yourself out of one…this time.”  I believe my new one that brings me down to earth and plants my feet on solid ground will be, “The reality of the situation is this…”

I will still work my magic and plant my goals and dreams in the spring and anticipate a bountiful harvest in the fall, but I want this to be a year of “No Illusions.”  That’s different from “DISillusion” which implies that you had it, embraced it and lost it.  

The Winter Solstice is when the “spark of light” returns to the sky and the days gradually become longer.  I use that energy to bring the spark of inspiration into my meditations to decide what I want to “plant” in the spring to grow in my life and harvest in the fall.

I have had a few things floating around in my head for 2010 manifestation.   I want to get the book written.  I started notes on it a few days back and I’m up to around 4 pages of topics and I think I will have well enough to cover for a good bathroom reading book of essays on different subjects.  This one, I actually look forward to writing.  

Of course, I plan to lose the rest of the weight.  I started the journey very successfully this year and have done extremely well with maintenance, so I am eager to get back to the losing part again.  A friend got me the EA Sports Active More Workouts follow up for the Wii and it came today.  It has awesome reviews and I am eager to try it out.  

There are other, more personal things that I am still mulling.  Those are not really developed enough to bear discussion.

Solstice and Christmas went well.  We did not have as much money to spend as usual, so many gifts were homemade.  I was able to narrow down what the younger kids wanted most and get those items. Eric and I did not exchange gifts this year.  I still have a few things to send out and I hope that others enjoy aftergifts as much as I do.  :)

We went to Josh and Valerie’s house yesterday (my son and his wife).  Since we opened gifts on Sunday, ours was already done.  It was great to see them and the grandkids, although the grands were so busy with visiting cousins that I barely got to see them.  Paul, my ex-husband, was there and I got to visit with him a bit.  He and David (my second son) came up to my house the night before for dinner.  I hadn’t seen him in probably 11-12 years, I’m guessing.

It was wonderful to be at Josh’s house and eat food I did not prepare.  I can’t remember the last time we ate at someone else’s house for a holiday.  Valerie’s mom made a giant ham and a turkey.  I brought rolls, hot cider, a veggie tray and (store bought) apple pies, so my contribution was minimal.  Everything was delicious.

We came home in time for me to rest a bit and then sign on to work for a few hours.  I ended up staying on later, waiting to see if any other calls would come in, then went to sleep on the couch by the fire.  

A week from Monday, Eric begins his work/study program with the American Legion.  It will give him an opportunity to make a little money and also have isolated time to work on his online classes and later, homework from his classroom classes.  We are both very happy for that.  He is signed on for 25 hours a week of the work/study program, plus taking 5 (I think) classes ultimately, so he has been very ambitious in his scheduling.  It will be a whole new world for him compared to what he has experienced in the past 15 years or so.

That’s about all that’s going on in my little tempest in a teacup world.  In other words, more of the same.

Tra la.

There is a Tarot card, the six of wands, that represents a person returning from battle with the celebratory laurel wreath on their staff, signifying a triumphant win.  Still, all of that joy and revelry aside, they’ve been IN BATTLE and they are TIRED and just want to sink into a hot, Calgon bathtub with scented candles and tinkly music and a masseuse waiting of the after party, followed quickly by a long, long doze into a feather bed

That’s how I feel.

The financial challenges have been considerable and although we are far from being out of the storm, the punishing freezing rain, hail and tornadoes have subsided and we are now down to a cold, steady downpour.  (That’s all metaphor in case I lost you).  Eric has picked up a 2 day electrical job that is going to go a long way toward patching up the holes in our budget (we’re talking holes you could drive a pick up truck through were you so inclined) and then next month, he begins receiving his subsistence for college.

Speaking of which, his classes start on January 19th.  Before then, he will start working on a job study program in Placerville which will bring in a little bit more income.   It’s only 25 hours a week, but it is tax free money and it gets him out of the house and directing his energy into something positive.  Thirty-three year old men are not meant to putter.

The kids have THREE weeks of winter break this year instead of the traditional two.  They missed and entire week due to the power outage and there is not yet a determination on whether or not they will have to make that up.  They go back to school on January 11th, have a minimum day that Friday and will get home at 2pm, then are off the following Monday for Martin Luther King Day.  

The menopausal woman in me wants to grieve the loss of my alone time, especially after that week of intense family togetherness during the power outage, but the menopausal woman in me is also very excited over the prospect of 3 weeks of not having to get up at 5:30am, mostly getting to sleep in until I am ready to get up.

I spent the most part of the last month working on crafts.  That is all done now and I don’t expect getting crafty again except for candle pouring, which I love.  My hands are finally starting to heal.  For a while there, I looked like a leper from all of the glue gun burns I had.  

Yesterday was our “Christmas” as we celebrated Solstice together.  It’s almost exactly the same as traditional Christmas, we just do it on the Sunday closest to Solstice.  I’ll keep the tree up for a while, but will likely pack away the ancillary decorations and start getting the house back to normal again.

David (my second son) came up Saturday afternoon and stayed the night to spend yesterday with us.  He typically has a plan for how he wants the morning to go.  This year, he and Eric  moved the tree from the living room to the  family room and he put three small black bags on the empty, treeless floor that said “Coal” on them.  With it, he put a note that said, “PSYCH!  It’s in the family room.”  I wanted the note to say, “It won’t light up on one side.  Signed, The Grinch,” but my idea was promptly discarded.  I’ll survive.

He also told the kids that the LAST kid he saw or heard on Sunday morning would get a bonus.  He’s wily, that one.

Things were quiet, but successful and another Solstice is tucked away into the crevices of Time.  

The wild storm we were supposed to receive on the back of the wild storm we actually did receive ended up only being rain, so it melted off a good bit of the snow that had piled up.  Those of you who know me well know that I did not cry for the loss.  We usually do not get such heavy snowfall until after the first of the year,  but the snow plus the 5 day power outage really took a lot of spirit out of us.  

Immediately after the power outage, my DSL went out.  It last worked on Sunday and was finally up and running again on Thursday.  I don’t ever want to be on dial up again, cruising the net at a blistering 14.4kps.  It was like the old days where you click on a link, go to the bathroom, get a drink, go check mail, take the dog out to pee, make a couple of phone calls and then come back to find that you’re at around 85% of the page loaded.  This was back when computers used to teach us “patience.”  

Around the same time, one of my hard drives went out which complicated things a bit.  The kids’ computer died.  Delena’s wouldn’t access web pages on the browsers, but she could get emails.  The microwave had already died a month or so before.  My sewing machine had the fly wheel pop right off and would not reassemble.  I manage to get the critical bits of a promised sock monkey done before it completely crapped out, but not the other 6 I planned to make.  The bathroom fan broke.  The generators both went down (evidently 22 seconds before the power outage hit).  This seems like an absolutely perfect time to complain about the fact that I have, for the past five years or so, been cooking on a range top that has two functioning burners, neither of which is one of the “big” burners.  Can you tell I am tired of what can only be referred to a “broke ass shit?”

David managed to fix my hard drive (God bless him) and install a new DVD drive to my computer (God, just go right ahead and bless that child again) and fix the settings on Delena’s computer so she is again wildly surfing the net (God, just give it to him one more time, please).  Eric purchased a baby microwave at the thrift store for $15 a couple of weeks ago, so I can at least do the basics even if it’s not big enough to cook baked potatoes for all of us at the same time.  Eric is also assigned to phone a lady from the Freecycle newsletter about sewing machines she has available.  The boys’ computer is now diagnosed with a dead motherboard, so no love there.  Eric got one of the generators going with a carb rebuild kit and borrowed a second one, so we should be able to run on electrical skeleton crew if (that’s optimistic to the extreme – should read “when”) we lose power again.  

Ah.  Another chicken emergency.  These have got to be the most ill-fated chickens on earth.  After a quick round of “rock, scissors, paper” for three, Nathan ended up with the task of going out to feed chickens this morning.  After much persecuted grumbling, he finally managed to haul himself outside to render unto Chicken Ceasar the scoop full of laying mash that is Ceasar’s.  Ten minutes or so later (I could have fed the chickens myself about 15 times during the time frame between his return and the beginning of the rock, scissors, paper championship), he came back into the house using that shrill, hysterical girl voice that has become his calling card as of late – something just before the point where the dogs’ ears begin to bleed but no human can hear it.  I was able to make out that one of the hens was in great trouble leg-wise and that he had evidently been calling me for “ten minutes.”  Since I am neither a dog or outside, I could not hear his frantic cries, which has left my soul damned to the lowest levels of hell, based on the results I am seeing.

Sure enough, little Stella’s leg was all wrapped up in (and slightly manged by) a net that Eric had put over the chicken pen to keep out predators.  Pine needles had fallen on it and crashed it in and she was quite tangled and lying eerily still with her feathers all akimbo.  I got her untangled, but one of the legs does not look very good.  She can’t put pressure on it and the other one is really shaky.  Of course, some of that could be from exposure if she was outside all night.   I put her in the chicken house on some hay and gave her some food.  She was really hungry.  Now she’s just chillin’ in the chicken crib.  I do wish her sweet chicken self well.

I am again considering writing a book.  My first thought was to retool the novel I have been working on (literally) since 1986.  Since I am terrible at dialog, fiction is by far not my long suit.  Instead, I believe I will write a book called “Stories I Will Tell When I Am Old” and have it be a collection of short, written experiences like the time my girls and I stole the gravestone from a cemetery and when I accidently killed an old man in a nursing home. Things like that.

So yes, holiday stuff is mostly behind me, crafts are done (hurray!) and January brings great changes.  This year, in retrospect, feels like a quest for survival on so many levels and 2010 seems like a time of rebirth and renewal and tremendous change.  I look forward to it and plan to use the winter months to charge my batteries and rest up for what is to come.

I hope all of you have a very happy holiday with those you love and find joy and blessings everywhere you turn.

Well, it didn’t really.  That was actually a little over dramatized.  On Sunday night, we went to bed and the weather was a little formidable looking.  On Monday morning, the phone rang around 5:15am (a full 15 minutes before I am forced to rise, so truly not welcome – NOT) and it was the school autodialer with Dick telling us that there is snow and kids will not be in school.  I was particularly not eager to look outside and see what fresh hell had been wrought overnight, especially when ominous quiet and encroaching bite of “chilly” in the air told me that the damned power was out.

It was still really dark out, but I could see enough to realize that we were in trouble.  When the call also came from the high school district, which is decidedly more hard core than the non-high school district, that THEY were also closed, I rolled back over and went to sleep.  Upon re-waking at 8am or so, the distinct lack of sunlight was troubling, so I stumbled over to the balcony door and peeked out and sure enough, everything was pretty well buried in white hell.  (I do so deeply and passionately hate snow)  We got somewhere between 2 and 2.5 feet overnight, I’d guess.  I never did go outside and measure it.

The power was promised to return by 1pm, so we got busy building a good fire in the woodstove and quickly showering everyone before the hot water heater was filled with icy water.  Yes, we have done this before.

Of course, 1pm turned into 4pm which turned into 6pm which turned into 5pm Wednesday night for a total of 3 long days with no power.  We have two generators, either of which is fully capable of running the house just fine.  Unfortunately, one has needed a carburetor rebuild kit since we got it a year ago this past September and the other would not start for reasons that are still unclear.

Our house is fully electric, so absolutely everything was inoperative.  The wood stove is always fired up after October or so and Eric had a decent supply of wood started.  The wood stove heats the family room and that’s about it.  We all huddled around it, cooked on it and waited.  I can’t count how many candles we went through.  I read and read and read until my eyes hurt.  I missed music.  The kids handheld video games and a laptop held out until the morning of the last day.  I have to say, they took it all with great spirits.

Eric grumbled about not having coffee.  I worked as long as I could in the back room making crafts for Christmas and taking calls for work.  The candles couldn’t cut the total darkness that was taking over.  Flickering candlelight gives me a headache if I read from it for very long and because we are in a forest on a mountain, sunrise comes late in the winter and sunset comes early.  I got tired of washing my ladybits with freezing water.

At one point, Nathan tried to pop popcorn in a saucepan on the cast iron wood stove, but the fire wasn’t hot enough.  He went to move it from the stove top and didn’t realize how hot the handle would be and promptly dropped it… 

…on the dog.

Poor Muggles caught hot popcorn kernels (unpopped, but hot), hot oil and a hot pan to her delicate underbelly.  We wrapped snow in a towel and put it on her tummy, poor thing.   She acted like she was fine, but we all know that dogs are much better at dealing with pain than humans are, so I’m sure she was uncomfortable.  There is no visible damage.

All of that togetherness was working on my last nerve.  Since the old woman hormones started to fire and misfire, I need my alone time and there was just none of that to be had.  

When 10pm Tuesday came and went without power, the PG&E message went to 6pm the following night, so we knew we were in for the long haul.  The time is a blur of rollicking games of charades and eyestrain and sleeping and cooking eggs on the cast iron griddle.  

I don’t think any of us had much faith in the 6pm idea, but sure enough, just before 5pm on Wednesday while I was on the phone to my cousin, Delena, the lights moaned back on again.  It was not an enthusiastic return, but power was flowing.  My computer did not enjoy the low voltage, but the kids were sure excited.  After they went to bed a few hours later, we had another blackout and when the power came back, it was full force again.

As nearly as I can tell, no fish died.  I only have 4 little neons, a gigantic plecostomus and a fat catfish.  I figured they were fish sticks, but somehow, they survived the lack of heat.  The chickens managed to stay alive as well, but when Delena went out to check them yesterday, she told us that we only had one.  After mourning the demise of the other two and wondering what could have happened to them, Eric found them safely tucked away in the dog house/baby chicken house where they used to live before he built the bigger one in anticipation for perhaps future nesting.  

Freezer and refrigerator items were buried in the snow.  Eric had a hard time finding a couple of things, but I think we finally got everything back with no loss.

Delena went back to school today.  Prior to this, her bus couldn’t get through the roads even though school was in session since Wednesday morning.  The boys are still out of school as of today because the main school does not yet have power, plus a sprinkler line in their fire system broke and they have to “assess the damage.”

Sigh.

So the upshot is that we survived the melee and there is likely very little chance that this will  be our only power loss of the winter since all indicators are that this is going to be a very long, very cold, very weatherly active winter.

I already crave Spring so very much.  I’m just not cut out for this a-tall.  I need to move back to Guam or something.

Today was the start of the candle blitz.  I did a ton of beeswax candles a while back and now I’m pouring soy votives.  I’ve done vanilla and lavender and have a pile more to go.  It’s a long process since you have to let them sit and get well hardened before you can pop them out of the molds and make a new batch.  I love doing it, though.  It makes me happy.  

I have also been making a lot of Christmas crafts to give as gifts.  I got a little delayed with not having a glue gun – the crafter’s best friend – for 3 days, but I did some wiring and such and still managed to make around 13 small wreaths. I’ve got another week to finish up, so I’ll be busy, that’s for sure!

You know, other than that, I got nothing.  I think my brain is frozen.  We are supposed to get hammered with more snow this weekend, so I have resigned to being housebound for a while.  

Agh.  I don’t mean to be all negative and depressing.  Next time I promise to say something remotely interesting and insightful (hopefully not inciteful).  This must be my descent into the underworld to court my inner demons or something.  

Or maybe these outer demons that shall go unnamed.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my closet and will…

…keep passing the open windows…

I apologize for the delay in updating.  It’s the usual reason:  I have been mulling and processing and wanted to wait until I had things someone organized in my head before trying to commit them to text.  Of course, as usual again, that never really happened so I am going to write out what I can and hope that maybe that very process will be what gives me clarity on some things that have been rolling around in my head.

The job is going well.  For a while, the calls were drying up, but I have had an influx of new people calling, which is lovely.  I have been working as a telephone psychic for three months  now and I feel as though I am finally starting to get my balance in the job.  Over two decades of in person Tarot readings does nothing to get you prepared for cold reading after cold reading after cold reading where you seriously have to pull the information right out of the air through your connection to God.  ”Dear Lord, tell me what these people need to know…”  At this point, I have done 638 readings in those 3 months.  

A lot of the time is spent waiting for callers.  My manager tells me that I have a 26% “fill rate,” which is the amount of my on shift time I actually spend talking to people.  He says that’s about average.  Of course, the people who have been with the company for years have an established clientele and are busier than newbies like myself.  I have met some amazing people who I love to hear from already in the short time since I started.

You have to pick up the phone by the second ring, so remaining in the immediate vicinity is required the whole time a reader is on shift.  I do like it now and for a awhile, I wasn’t sure if I would or not.  The income has gone a long way toward helping out our financial situation, but still, it’s not enough.  I make more money doing this than I would working full time in town once the expense of gasoline, food and payroll deductions are considered.  I am an independent contractor, so all I have to do is take care of my income tax and that’s it.  

I also still bring in some money from the web site development business.  I’m not really designing new sites, but I do have a few that I maintain for other folks.  

Eric has gotten enrolled in his college classes at Berkeley and should start in the next couple of weeks.  For now, he’s taking 3 online classes, but 2 actual classroom classes will join them in January.  He is majoring in Geology and minoring in Business and will have his BA completed in 2012 (which is likely what the Maya’s were so stunned about that they stopped making their calendar).  The VA has been a tremendous force in getting him set up and ready to go.  He will actually get paid to go to school, plus they put him into a work study program that has him doing office work and studying for 25 hours a week and being paid $8 an hour to do it, plus they pay his tuition and books and mileage.  

For those of you who remember, in March, he “planted” the goal of finding his passion in life and being able to sustain his family with that.  Since a major in Geology feeds into his passion for gold mining, he’s a happy camper right now.  He also has a brilliant mind and is very academically motivated and oriented, so he will do great in school.  I am so very proud of him for taking this brave step.

I have no idea how we managed to sustain ourselves as far as we have since his business folded in the spring, but it looks like things will be taking much better shape after the first of the year.  Meanwhile, of course, I have not purchased one single thing for Christmas yet and will try and piece something together at the last minute.  

As much as I love Christmas, at this moment, between kids and grandbabies and such, it’s just too big to think about so I am putting my head in the nearest snow drift and pretending it doesn’t exist.  I am going to let Santa handle it.  God knows I’ve been pulling his fat ass for long enough.

Tra la, and all.

Or since it’s Christmas, “Fa la la la la la la la la.”  

Thanksgiving was lovely.  David came up from Sacramento and Paul, Eric’s mining partner, ate with us as well.  The day was utterly uneventful, which can sometimes be less “boring” and more on the “good” side.

The kids are out an entire week for Thanksgiving (WTF?) and 3 weeks for Christmas.  I am awash in needs and wants and frustrations.  For some reason, they all three seem to be rubbing one another the wrong way.  Tomorrow, before everyone gets up, I will burn some sage and bless the house and try to get the energies calm again.

Part of that is my fault, I am the first to admit.  I know I have been contributing some frustrating energy and I am working hard to reel that back in again and ground it rather than project it.  The stuff I’ve been processing is very internal and very personal to the point that I have to decide what to write about and what to keep to myself.  I’ve had some strong realizations about myself and my relationships and I’m still trying to figure out what it all means and where to put it.  About the dumbest thing you can do is to take some kind of impulsive action to try and effect a change before you even understand what kind of change is warranted.  Too many people figure out that they want things to change, but they don’t know what exactly they want to have be different, so they start taking a hatchet to different parts of their life until they have killed everything around them and still don’t have (or even know) what they wanted.

The old sculpture joke about how to carve a statue of an elephant says that you get a block of marble and chip away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant.  If you don’t know what an elephant looks like or even that you want to carve an elephant, you just end up with a mess.

Whereas Eric planted his passion, I planted my own financial means (check – for the most part), financial security (in the works – in theory) and healthy weight loss.  While I did lose just at 40 pounds this year, I still have another 80 or so to go to get to where I really want to be.  I consider it to be an amazing start and I am very proud of my success.  My initial goals were very lofty, not taking into account the need to lose weight, maintain, then lose weight again.  Such an important part of the process is to learn maintenance after a phase of loss rather than pushing constantly for the loss.  

As every weight loss guide ever written or conceived will tell you, there are some hard core reasons why obese people are obese and they are nearly all emotional.   Sure there is the math of eating more than you are  burning, but the eating and lack of motion are caused by underlying emotional issues.

A year ago, I would have (and did, in this journal) expounded at length about how very happy and blessed I am and overall, that is true.  Yet here I was, maintaining a very unhealthy obesity that – let’s face it – you do have to work at to achieve.  What was the pain I was eating to numb?  What was the emptiness inside me that demanded to be filled?  What was draining away so much of my energy that I could not bear to exercise?

Those were questions that haunted me for years, but I fought them back with a barage of running comments in my brain.  How could I be unhappy with a husband who loves me to distraction?  How could I be unhappy when I live in such a heavenly place?  How could I be unhappy when I have so many blessings?

Other than financially, Eric and I have been abundantly blessed.  We have beautiful, robust, healthy, fun, respectful children.  We have a lovely, quaint (small!) home.  We have a relationship built on deep, abiding friendship.  We have a thriving spiritual life together.  Our only problem has always seemed to be money.  I have always seen our life as being perfect in every other way.

Eric commented recently that I have been different since I came back from my trip to Kentucky to be with my family and high school friends.  I am.  Being surrounded by all of that unconditional love was not only addictive, but clarifying.  No, I don’t believe that a week of my life in a realistic sample of how things would be if I lived there all of the time.  Still, I know I am loved for who I am.

There is an inate understanding of one another when you are with people from your own area.  For instance, a friend recently commented off handedly about making “turkey and dressing” for Thanksgiving and I actually had tears come into my eyes.  For years now, I have been corrected to say “stuffing” instead of “dressing,” even though my “stuffing” never sees the inside of a bird.  I have been trained out of calling the evening meal “supper” and the noon meal “dinner.”  (We don’t fool around with anything called “lunch.”)  The sense of belonging, like when Gonzo goes to the Gonzo planet and finds all of the other Gonzos, is so very important and it’s something I lost through 23 years of military living and 9 years of post-military living in California.  

When I was down with my back a couple of weeks ago, there was very little I could do BUT think about things.  The contrast of how I felt in Kentucky versus how I feel on a day to day basis was very much in my mind and I wanted to try and get to the heart of it to work through the grief I was feeling since picking up stakes and moving to Kentucky isn’t really an option.

After a great deal of mulling, what it came down to was the issue of change and ironically, it started in Kentucky.  When I was growing up, my parents did not think highly of the fact that I had some pretty lofty goals and ambitions. I wanted to be a midwife.  I wanted to travel to see some other places.  I didn’t necessary want to live in those other places (as I ended up doing), but I wanted to see them.  I wanted to go to college.  I wanted to write medical journals.  (Told you my goals were lofty).  I was always a kind of free spirit, interested in weird things like ghosts and other worlds.  Dad hated that I liked rock and roll.  Mom hated that I didn’t like to sew or cook or do domestic things.  My head was always in the clouds.  They wanted so desperately for me to be different and more like them.  Had I not been born at home, they likely would have believed their baby was switched for me at birth.

Finally, when I got married, they pretty much saw me as Paul’s problem and waved me goodbye and wished me well.  They loved me, but they didn’t have a clue what to do with me after I was around 13-14, so the thing we never talked about was what a relief it was for them when I left home and they could grieve me properly.

I was 16 when I got married and we promptly moved to Guam.  I had no clue how to behave in the world as an adult, despite my aspirations.  I had a series of babies and turned out myself to be nothing that Paul wanted.  For the better part of 20 years he worked in shifts of trying hard to change me into someone else or get away from me.  Finally, he just found someone else and was gone.  

Some time later, I married Eric and, truth be told, he’s spent the past 13 years wanting me to be different than I am.  He wants me to be more sportsy and active, more in tune with things going on in the world, much, much more physically fit, more of a hard core disciplinarian with the kids, more focused, more tuned into the physical world, more of a Type A personality, more outdoors focused than indoors focused…

These aren’t just goals he has for me, but lackings in me that he actively laments from time to time.  I have gone in cycles of trying to fit into that mold of what he wants to trying to get him to let go of his own goals for me and it has turned into an uncomfortable situation for both of us.  After almost 50 years of people telling me how I ought to be and actively trying to change me into that, I’m just tired. I want to be who I am and be loved FOR that rather than IN SPITE of that.   

To his view, all of the changes he wants to manifest in me are for my own best interests and for the best interests of the family, so I should get busy on them, chop chop.  So I cry and promise to do better and try harder and fail again and he gets frustrated with me and I gets frustrated with me and of course, I eat to anesthetize that pain.

What’s interesting is that while I was in Kentucky for that week, despite eating (well) at restaurants for a lot of the time, I lost 3 pounds.  I was happy.  I was relaxed and I didn’t really think about eating.  I usually ate one decent sized meal a day and nibbled on fruit and such the rest of the time.  

He and I have discussed these things endlessly.  They are no surprise or mystery to him.  He sees things one way and I see them another.  He has specific goals for me and for our family and holds tightly to them.  I have reached a point in life (cursed menopause!) where I am tired of struggling to meet the goals other people have for me.  It is, currently, at an empasse.

The weight loss is the one place where I am determined to persevere, for me and not for anyone else.  The 40 pounds I’ve lost represents a long journey for me and I refuse to let myself down by not completing the trip.  By this time next year, I expect to be at my goal weight and well into maintenance.  Admittedly, a part of me is irritated that he will take partial credit for that and believe that him badgering me into it created positive change when actually (got to use these words again), it was done in spite of him and not because of him.

Eric is not a bad guy and I do not in any way mean to paint him as such.  I love him tremendously and he is an amazing friend, father and stepfather.  I don’t ever want to not have him in my life and I know that his intentions are all good.  I do, however, need to find a way to successfully pull away from his strong expectations of me and find out who I am for once and what expectations I have of myself.  I have spent way too long nurturing others as my primary mission in life and not tuning into myself. I have spent way too long relentlessly pursuing the goals other people have for me to the point that I no longer even have goals for myself.  I just try to do what I’m told and end up repeatedly failing.  

To my mind, that’s no kind of life.

I’m 48 and I do not intend to live the last half of my life as I did the first half of my life.  It’s not a matter of not caring what my family needs or wants for or from me, but more a matter of finding out what I need and want for and from myself.

I do chalk this whole experience up to an effect of menopause.  We just reach a point where enough is enough.  Whether that turns out to be a blessing or a curse is yet to be seen.  

For now, I am – as one Native American group says – “taking back my power eggs” and putting them into my own basket.  I’ve got my slab of marble and I by God know what an elephant looks like.  I am going to start chipping and see what all falls away.  One thing I do know is that this is going to be one very amazing, svelte, muscular, empowered, gorgeous elephant when I’m done.

I started a rather lengthy post on Saturday, but already, I was starting to feel the pain that was going to take me down in the coming days.  It was never completed and after a quick re-read, it’s just as well, so into the ether it goes.  

The pain started while I was back home in Kentucky, just a twinge toward the hip.  I figured it was from the new shoes or from some sympathetic pain picked up from a friend of mine who has chronic hip pain.   By Thursday, I was starting to get a little concerned.  By Saturday, it was uncomfortable enough that I was holding onto things to walk.  Sunday, I was down for the count.  I did manage to get in my night shift at work each of the weekend nights, but it was tough.

Poor Eric got commissioned to go into town and get a heating pad and some Equate (Fake) Ben Gay.  That definitely felt better, but it was a rough night trying to sleep.  There just were no comfortable positions.  I’m sticking pretty close to the couch again today, but feeling slightly better, so there is hope blossoming on the horizon.  After a great deal of research, the conclusion is a heriated L4-L5, likely from the many hours I have spent in my desk chair while working over the past 3 months or so.  I have cut back on my hours for the time being and shifted them so that there aren’t as many strung together at once.  Eric will soon be starting college classes and getting a stipend for that, so it will make up the difference.

He got his transcripts from Air College (the Air Force college program) and learned that he is 2 credits away from an AA and so he’ll complete that and then move on to his BA.  He has another project he’s working on that will bring in some money, so this year promises to be much better than the last one.  It’s wonderful to see results from all of the seeds that have been planted over the past several months.  The hard times are not yet behind us, but like with the back problem, hope is on the horizon.

For a long time now, I’ve believed that our physical ailments bring us messages, like about everything else in life does.  Most people I’ve known who have back problems have some issue they are not addressing where they need to stand up for themselves in a particular way that isn’t happening.  When we “go down” and have to be immobile for a period of time lest we court enormous pain, it gives us plenty of time to think about where we need to grow some spine and get stronger.  

Since yesterday and today have been those kinds of days, I took that to heart and did some internal work while I was stranded on the couch and got my head sorted out on some things.  That was when I decided to cut back on hours and open up my life to more joy.  

As I read back over this, it has to be the most boring post I’ve ever written.  For those who follow on Facebook, this is actually an article that posts to my website, www.katrinarasbold.com and automatically crossposts to Facebook.  There are years and years of journals archived there.

I recently had reason to go through a number of my older journal entries and I am amazed by what a whiner I used to be.  There was so much fear and acting out and anger and complaining I can hardly believe it was me.  It feels good to have come such a long way, but I feel sad that so many of my readers had to endure that kind of bitching and fussing.  

Since I’ve spent so many years whining and spent the last bit of time talking about my stupid back, let’s do something fun!  I’ve done this a couple of times before and it seems to get people talking.  Let’s do another installment of:

COOL SHIT IN KATRINA’S HOUSE

You can click on that link to see the aforementioned cool stuff in my house.  I do a lot of thrift shopping, yard sale haunting and collecting of strange and unusual stuff.  As Lydia Deitz said in “Beetlejuice,” “I myself AM…strange and unusual.”  

My ex-husband, Paul, loved large, open rooms with austere white walls and an Ansel Adams print perfectly measured and placed every few feet.  My house looks like the Goodwill Store and the Super Glue Factory both blew up at the same time.  I have *stuff* all over the walls and on shelves all around my house like a museum.  Each little piece has a story and is there for a purpose.  It’s usually only important to me, but it’s who I am.  Lots of little facets and cubbies and stories and interests; none of them particularly vital to the overall course of life, but fun to me.

Fortunately, Eric doesn’t mind.  

A week ago today, I left Kentucky.  It has taken me that long to process all that I experienced from my trip back home again – and yes, it is my home – and I know that I am still not finished chewing on that particular issue.  I knew when I planned the trip that it would change my life.

I think part of the reason I have hesitated to start putting my feelings into writing is that I do not have the talent to pay honor and justice to what I feel.  In pixels, it will look like so much less than what it actually is and I was/am not prepared to have to reduced down in any way.  I will, however, try.

This is going to likely be  a very, very long post.

This situation reaches back over time, in some ways so far I can’t even trace it.  It’s best that I just pick a spot and get moving with the story at hand.  Since I left Kentucky in 1978, I have not been particularly close to my family.  My mom and dad relied on me a great deal to take care of the family because mom was sick so often and dad worked a lot of the time and when he didn’t work, he was very invested in gender roles and not excited about cooking or cleaning.  When I left in 1978 to marry Paul, it was seen as a betrayal of sorts and they didn’t just mourn my moving away, they essentially mourned my exit from the family.

When he and I would go back to Ky, it was always extremely awkward.  My father was a painter of automobiles and never wore a mask when he painted due to extreme claustrophobia resulting from years of child neglect and direct abuse.  The resulting lead deposits in his brain left him very mentally unstable.  Withyoung children, trips back home became shorter and less frequent due to his deteriorating mental condition and financial constraints.  Dad died in 1986, Paul and I went back for a short visit in 1995 and then Mom died in 2003.  In a stretch of 13 years, that has been my contact with home… until recently.

Having no real family base to speak of left me feeling adrift and alone.  Eric is very close to his family and they spend a good bit of time on the phone chatting.  Holidays were particularly tough.  I’d talk to my kids and feel empty that I had no home to phone.

Two years ago, there was literally no one in my life who knew me when I was growing up or even before 1996 or so.  It was as though I didn’t exist and had no past.  Sure, my kids were older and knew me before then, but honestly, your kids never really know you.

In 2007, my ex husband contacted me out of the blue.  I was stunned, to say the least, since we had not spoken in 10 years due to his wife putting the hard smack down on any idea he might have had of wanting to be in contact with me.  Evidently, she carried a bigger stick than I ever did with him because he acted accordingly and was appropriately hostile toward me for reasons I could never really figure out.  I’m still working on how I get left for the other woman and end up being the bad guy, but overall, I let it go.  By this time, they were divorced and he was interested in a friendship.  I was skeptical and put him through the wringer, but he stood there and took it and now we have a friendship of sorts.  It’s uncomfortable for both of us at times, but it makes things easier on the older boys and I feel better having someone who is so much a part of my history in my life rather than on the outside hating me.  He was the first person from my past to step back into my life.

In September of 2008, I had a really weird Magical Mystery Tour of a week.  I am going to cut and paste from the journal entry from that week (September 3rd) because it tells it best:

Included in the post was this, which I found to be quite apt:

Strange Things Are Afoot At The Circle K

Here is the applicable part of the post:

I am currently wrestling with some interesting omens that are coming through my life.  At the bazaar on Monday, I was walking through the vendors to try and find a place with good cell signal to talk to Eric.  As I was walking through, I spotted this doll.  She had no clothes on, but I recognized her.  She was Charming Chatty, which was a doll I had and adored when I was little.  She came with little records that you put into her side, then you pulled a string and she would talk.  She was the second store-bought doll I ever got and I got her when I was around 10 years old.   The guy wanted something ridiculous like $30 for Charming Chatting, so THAT wasn’t going to happen, but I felt a kinship with her just from seeing her. 

Chatty Cathy

Then on Tuesday, I went out, as I said, to the thrift stores.  At the first thrift store, I found 5  75rpm records off by themselves.  They were kids’ records and as I looked through them, I was surprised to find that I’d had every single one of the 5 when I was growing up.  I only had about 15  75 rpm records total and only about 8 of them were kids’ records, so the odds were pretty astounding.  I didn’t really connect that to Charming Chatty until I got to the counter an hour or so later to check out.  They had a display behind the counter of old toys.  In the (limited) display, there was a Perry Mason game I had when I was little:

 There were two of the markers for the original edition of “Go To the Head of the Class,” which I had.  There were a couple of little metal cars that went to a game I had called, “Calling All Cars,” a rubber mouse about 10 ” tall with really big ears that I had, a stuffed red bull that I had and a rubber doll that stands about 36″ tall that my grandmother pulled out of a river in West Virginia for me after a flood  that is currently in my back shed.  (I named her Esther around 40 years ago)  There were a couple of other things up there that I’d had as well, but they escape my memory as I write this.  By this point, I was pretty well stunned.

I went to the next thrift store and there was the stoneware set of dishes in the wheat pattern that my mother had when I was growing up and I have not seen SINCE I was growing up despite the eleventy bazillion times I’ve been in thrift stores in the past FOUR DECADES. 

Then today, my son brought home a flyer to inform parents that the kids are going on a field trip to the “mother school” where they will spend the day attending the dedication of the newly opened library.  They will leave as soon as they get to school and dismiss as soon as they return.  The name of the new library?  The Cathy Chapman Memorial Library.  What was my name when I was growing up?  Kathy Chapman.  My maiden name was Chapman, which I had until I got married at 16, at which time it became Humphrey.  My parents started calling me Kathy practically from birth because my grandfather couldn’t say “Katrina” and I did not use Katrina as my name until I was in my 30’s.  Maybe all of this is my deceased mom telling me happy birthday in her own way.  I wish she would do it with a huge truck of money pulling up to my door, but if this is what it is, I’m good with that too.

I need time to think about all of this.  If you need me, I’ll be in the corner curled into a fetal position…having night sweats and talking to myself.

As I said, that was written 14 months ago.  Eric and I, as many of you know, are very invested in the belief that God speaks to us mere mortals in fascinating ways and if you keep your eyes to the ground and trudge blindly forward, you miss a great deal of quality Divine Conversation.  I love noticing the connections and the guidance and this message could not be more clear:  There is something back there in the past for you.  You have to go back to where and when you were Kathy Chapman and find it.  It’s waiting.

Since my mother’s 65th birthday would have been that month, I considered that there was a possibility this was just her saying hello, but no, I knew it was more.

A few months later, I signed up for Facebook, very reluctantly because I’m just not a social networker at heart.  I am a rock.  I am an island.  Shortly after that, I found my brother on Facebook and we re-established a closeness that had been lost to the miles.  Then came Delena, my very beloved cousin.  Starting around June or July, I began finding classmates from High School on Facebook and from there, it snowballed.  Given our financial state, I did not expect to be able to return to Ky any time soon, but Eric encouraged me to think positively and felt that October would be a great time to plan a trip out, so I did.  I’d been waiting for so long to have enough money to fly everyone in the family out that the months and years were slipping away.

By October, things were better financially due to the job I took in August and Eric qualifying for unemployment benefits.  Still not great due to the catch up problem, but significantly better.  Friends offered to give me rides (no car rental and the places I needed to go were minimal) and to give me places to sleep (no hotel bills).  I am on The Zone diet, so I eat small amounts frequently and the things I eat are not expensive, so that worked perfectly.

If I could just get airfare and a tiny bit for food, I’d be golden.  Between Cheapoair.com and priceline.com, I was on my way.

The trip was nothing short of amazing.  I have not been alone as no one’s mom, no one needing anything from me, literally for years.  I slept and slept and slept.  I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much time in bed.  I normally cannot sleep in any bed but my own, but it’s like I was sedated or something.  I got in on Friday and we had a wonderful dinner set up for the intimate cluster of friends on Friday night at the magnificent, world-famous Moonlite BBQ.  I got to see friends I had not seen in 30+ years, plus my cousin/sister, Delena.  We had a great time, then once we had laughed ourselves tired, went to bed for the big day on Saturday.  Marty (one of my best friends from high school), Rick and I went to El Torbio Mexican Restaurant to check out the venue for the Ohio County High School Muli-class Reunion and I have to tell you, Marty and Vicki could not possibly have picked a better spot.  It was perfect.  There was a fairly humorous language barrier in discussing arrangements but we made it through and then it was off to dress for the reunion itself.

We met early at 4:30 so that the “staff” (meaning us) could eat and be ready for the masses.  As it turned out, tons of people were already waiting even though the event did not start until 6:00!  From that moment on, it was laughing and talking and crying and back slapping and hand shaking and big, big hugs.  Grown men had tears in their eyes over seeing friends from long ago and there were more smiles in one place than I have ever seen anywhere.  I didn’t even end up eating because I was so busy trying to see everyone and was way too high on life to be hungry.  I only had enough time to spend isolated bits of time with a lot of people, but it was nice to see so many people who I’ve loved in memory for so long.  OCHS really produces some quality folks.

It was a wonderful evening.  At one point, I did a head count and got 119, including guests of alumni.  The restaurant did a wonderful job of handling the crowd of people.  There was lots of room and everyone seemed comfortable.  The evening was a complete success.

Afterwards, we went to Milligan’s Lounge at the Ramada Inn.  There was a live band and they were good, but it was hard to talk.  I only ended up staying for about an hour and a half because I was getting tired and my throat was sore from screaming at people to be heard and I don’t drink.  Still, it was fun.

I went to sleep and again, slept like the dead.  The next day was family day and I was tremendously excited.  Things were strained when Mom died, so I wasn’t sure how it would go.  I did what any Ky woman does when she’s with family.  I fed them.

There is a traditional meal in our family called “Floozies.”  Floozies are actually the Mexican dish “Flautas,” except that my Uncle Delmar (the patriarch of our family) uses venison for them.  He got the recipe from my Aunt Alleen in Miami, Arizona and couldn’t remember what they were called when he got home, so they became “Floozies.”

Rick was my chauffeur for the day since he had to drive to Ohio County to see his mother who is in a nursing home and went right past Delena’s (a slight jag) on the way.  We were walking in Wal*Mart (and of COURSE Owensboro has a SUPER WAL*MART unlike my decidedly UNsuper Wal*Mart in Placerville) while I was grabbing the ingredients for floozies and I was in the process of explaining to him about how “flautas” became “floozies.”  This immediately followed the conversation about how Uncle Delmar would flat out kill me if he saw me use frozen tiny potatoes in my floozies instead of cutting each one of those little things up myself fresh, not to mention that I was using a beef roast instead of deer meat. 

I was in the middle of saying what would have been, “You know how Ky people are.  We get the ‘fl…’ out and the ‘oozie’ just follows” when I hear this booming voice saying, “No, why don’t you TELL us how Ky people are???” I stopped cold and instantly became 10-years-old.  There in the Super Wal*Mart of a town he doesn’t even live in, strolling down the same ethnic food aisle as me, WAS MY UNCLE DELMAR.  This was the first time I’d seen him since Mom’s funeral.  I couldn’t contain my joy and hugged him like crazy and didn’t want to let go. 

We were both grinning like monkeys and then he said, “And what are those fake potatoes doing in your cart?”  We talked for over a half hour there in the store and then I reluctantly let him go.  He gave me the awesome news that he and Aunt Betty would be coming to dinner (which in Ky is the mid-day meal and supper is the last meal of the day – we don’t fool with that “lunch” crap) at Delena’s.  Aunt Betty’s been really sick with COPD and we didn’t expect she could come.  I was just going to quickly drop food off for them if they couldn’t come to the family dinner.

Rick dropped me off at Delena’s and I got busy cooking and she got busy keeping me company.  We laughed and talked and the sisterhood was back completely.  I was there in her life from the time she was born and we were always together until I left Ky in 1978.  Since then, we’ve been in contact from time to time, but now, we were solid again.  Her brother, Greg, was there with his friend John, who was a sweetheart.  John’s daddy used to run my daddy’s favorite BBQ joint in Owensboro, The Black Kettle and I still say they had the best BBQ chicken ever.

Soon, more people began to arrive.  I’d thought that since Aunt Betty and Uncle Delmar (who were often more my parents than my parents were when they were alive) likely weren’t coming, I’d be cooking for Delena, her son, Brandon, Greg and John.  I was so glad I brought extras because I ended up with a house full of people! I think we counted 16 ultimately.  I fried up something like 40 big flautas, made 5 loaves of homemade bread and a gigantic green salad.  I even made Aunt Betty’s recipe for the flauta sauce.  Delena’s other brother, Randy, came with his wife Sherry, their 4 children, their grandbaby and their son-in-law.  My Aunt Pat was there and Aunt Betty and Uncle Delmar were there for almost the whole time. 

There were so many things about this day that touched me that I hardly know where to get started.  It was sweet nostalgia to see that the old dynamics still applied.  The men went to the back porch to talk or into Delena’s huge family room to watch hunting videos together.  The women stayed in the kitchen and living room and talked.  I found so much comfort in the return to that routine from my childhood.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal and I thought I was going to cry when my Uncle Delmar pulled me aside and told me how good the floozies were, even with my fake potatoes and beef roast. 

He also told me something that made me burst out into stupid sobs.  He said, “You don’t look like your Grandma Chapman any more.  I think it was your hair style before.” 

That is my Grandma Chapman.  She was easily one of the most miserable people to have ever walked this earth.  She was totally filled with what she felt was God’s love, but I have personally encountered God’s love on an ongoing and very familiar basis and what she was filled with was not that.  It was more along the lines of righteous indignation married up to white-hot hatred for anyone who was not spiritually perfect.  Her misery with the world around her and its people showed on her face.  She was not an attractive woman, although she had been at one time.  The last several times I’d seen my uncle, he had remarked on how much I looked like her.  That made me scared and sad.

The day was perfect.  I would not have changed a thing about it except to do it the next week and the next week.  The profound feeling of having a family was more than I could handle and I had to work hard to keep from breaking down every few minutes.  Lots of slow, deep breaths were going on, let me tell you.

I didn’t sleep quite as well that night because it was time to leave the next day and I didn’t feel ready.  I hadn’t done enough, felt enough, seen enough or spent enough time with any of the people who mean so much to me.  I was extremely emotional and felt as though my soul was being ripped out of me to leave.  As I looked around Ky while driving away, I was overcome with grief.  This was my home.  My roots were here and I had no clue when I would see any of these dear people again.

Another person I got the honor of seeing was Dorothy Wade.  Dorothy was one of the “cool kids” in school who I worshipped from afar.  She even had a cool nickname – “Sly.”  No one questioned why she had the name.  She was just that cool.

Dorothy and I became friends via Facebook and I knew she wasn’t coming to the reunion, so I made a point to go by her shop and get my hug.  Again, I didn’t want to let go.  I actually got to see her twice and each time, I just wanted to take her with me. 

Dorothy’s brother, Allen (who was in my grade in school – Sly was older by a few years) went to England last year and won the Japanese Karate Blackbelt Championship of the freakin world. 

I left Ky with my heart and spirit too full of love and memories.  Normally, when I leave home and return, I can’t wait to get back to my mountain and see my own family again.  This time, there was actually a grieving process that I had to work through.  Being surrounded by all of that unconditional love gave me a whole new perspective and has changed who I am forever.  It wasn’t a matter of me being good enough if I lost weight, if the house was nice enough, if I bought the new Pokemon game, if I made enough money, if I was smart enough, if I was social enough or if I gave enough.  I was good enough and so very loved just for being who I was.  I was their true family.  To others, I was their true friend.  No conditions.  No holding acceptance hostage until I achieved x, y or z.  They loved me because of who I am and not in spite of who I am or what they thought I could or should do for them.

I am not foolish enough to think that if I lived there, it would be like that all the time.  Of course it wouldn’t and there would be family and friend scraps and fusses and some rocky waters to navigate at times.  It just felt so good, so exquisitely, breathtakingly sweet, to be a part of a big, extended family again to feel that generational security and that sense of “we will always be there for you.”

The time was so short, but I was limited on how much I could be away from work.  How could I possibly do all of the things I wanted to do, see people as much as I wanted to and make up for 30 some years between Friday afternoon and Monday morning?  The fact was, I couldn’t.

Some people were hurt that I didn’t spend more time with them.  I could have slept less and come back home exhausted, which would have left me a little more unprepared and raw to deal with the emotions I encountered on my trip back home and afterward. 

Admittedly, it was a tough adjustment to jump right back into being mom and the one who gives all of the love rather than being swaddled in it for several days.  I’ve got a whole new perspective on my life and what I want it to be and that’s exactly what I thought might happen when I finally got around to going back home.

As much as I would have loved to have experienced this earlier in my life to carry it with me over these past few years, I know that God in His perfection and The Universe in Its Efficiency brought those experiences to me exactly when I needed them.

When we went to the Halloween Carnival on Saturday, I walked past the Cathy Chapman Memorial Library and saw the plaque on the outside wall and literally, my mouth fell open.  I had completely forgotten about that odd little week back in September of 2008 and that filed message in my head that something was waiting for me when I went back home again and again walked in the shoes (in this case, the comely and fashionable pumps) of Kathy Chapman.

Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to help me find my way through his spiritual adventure.  I am still breathless with awe over all it has been and all that is to come.

My heart is filled with love and my spirit is full of joy.