Life

I have been mainly blogging on my other blogs these days. I have taken my health blog http://mamakendras-journeytohealth.blogspot.com/ to a new level, since I feel that this is something quite serious. It is a journey I am working through on so many levels- too many really, but in the end it is all up to me and how I think & handle it, in order to "put off the end". Life has a cruddy irony sometimes, sometimes I think it is really personally attacking me, but it is just a joke (from life itself!).

I am making some new choices, what I put in my body, what I do w/ my body, how I relate to Mark & the kids, how close I get to others around me, what is important materially.

I need to live like I only have one day to live with my family, but plan for the future like I am going to live to be 95 (because I AM going to live to be 95+!!!).

Pocket Mod!!!!

I just got my recent Family Fun magazine in the mail yesterday, and in it there is an article on 10 secrets of organized families. There are some great tips (and I LOVE tips, just about as much as I love organization!). Here is one that is too cool to keep to myself!

http://www.pocketmod.com/

My "New" Toy

Actually, I have had this since 2005, when Mark's Aunt Leah was clearing her "estate" (ie: giving everything to me). I didn't use it until the other day, and am now smacking myself upside the head and wishing for all these years I would have been though! It makes the best, tastiest, more flavorful coffee I have ever had in my life. I actually like the taste of it, and find the creamer to be a bit overkill now. Thank you Starbuck's for explaining to me on the phone how to do it!

Okay, for those of you wondering, yes, I have fallen off the coffee wagon. I am however, getting back on it tomorrow since I won't be able to drink any and then will only be able to in slight moderation depending on the outcome of my liver biopsy...in more detail on My Journey TO Health blog.

TAGS!

Okay, my tags are getting out of hand down there at the bottom of my blog. HOW does one TAG effectively??? This is crazy!

Mom Pals & Kids Growin' Up

I once saw this Law & Order episode where at the end the show this lady had passed (or maybe it was a guy...most likely murdered...obviously neither impacted me like the point I am about to get to...), so this person passed and the cops were wondering (okay, now I think it may have been Crossing Jordan...and it was the forensics team wondering...anyway!) where this person's friends were since not one person showed up to the funeral.

This person had hundreds of friends, dozens of really close ones...but ALL ONLINE!

So, point is, I have a bunch of friends, most I rarely see even once a year, some just once a year, others just a few times a month, that just seems so, odd. I guess if I was raising kids 25 years ago I would either A) not have any friends at all; B) get out of the house during the day more and meet some; or C) actually have a life since I wouldn't be sittin' at the friggin' computer on and off all day. (okay, exaggeration, but feels like it!).

I guess friends take effort, and after pseudo-homeschooling, half-ass cleaning the house and all the other roles home manager entail...I just "get by" with the least amount of effort. So on that note, I am going to make sure to actually talk to a friend on the phone. Oh wait, I called Sam this week already! (whew, off the hook!).

But really, I miss the good ol' days of my "Coffee Klatch" (as Rachel K. used to say), we all were in the midst of having babies, nursing and had toddlers running around. We lived in the Silverton/Woodburn/Keizer/Salem areas...and EVERY Friday, someone would make the coffee, make a nice munchable for the parents and kids, and offer up their home. Start off clean and after 2+ hours everyone would clean up and whoosh, time to go home and make lunch and get the toddlers to nap. Fulfilling conversation, face to face, seeing that my kids (oops, only one at that point!) WAS normal.

There were 6 of us at first (and 10 kids...and then 5 more babies to follow from these 6 Mamas), and then we had 3-5 more Mama's that would come sometimes, and sometimes not, making over 16 kids at times. Crazy, but fun!

There is something I really miss about having a preschooler, a toddler & a baby all at the same time- the portability of them in the "Mom-realm", being able to go Indoor Park because it was 5 & under, or take them all to a cooperative preschool because two were enrolled and one was a "sibling".

Things are different now, older kids...one almost 8 and another almost 11!!! Sports rule our evenings, not snuggling in the California King sized bed (sideways even to make even more room!) and reading books until bedtime. Maybe this should be about kids growing up...not friends...somehow I manage to digress into another topic all together. Really though, they do go hand in hand...friends, Mom friends, kids, and as they get older and as your activities get more diverse, things get really too busy to just sit w/ coffee and chat with friends most of the time. I sure do miss those days!!!

The Many Blogs of Me

I have outdone myself on this new blogging thing! I now have a blog for me, a homeschooling blog for the boys, a gratitude blog, and the newest is my health journey blog. I like to make things complicated, but it is how my brain categorizes things and sorts, works for me!

Anyway, about my new blog. I somehow thought this little health "glitch" would be short and the "all-knowing" (haha) medical establishment would have ALL the answers just from one test. Okay, now here we are, several tests later, a few surgeries, a few hundred dollars (more like over a $1k or so in the last year) and we are still guessing what the heck is going on in my body!

I have a friend, well, more of a fellow homeschooler from Santa Cruz, that has been tracking her journey with cancer of a rare form. This process has been educational to her & others who are needing to really LOOK into the whole journey of a disease/cancer, and its beginning symptoms.

I didn't think I would need to do this, I thought it would be simple. In looking back at my actual symptoms, this all started well over 8 years ago, and had I been tracking, I would've saved all this trouble of money spent, hospital stays, tests done, and now maybe cancer. 8 years is long time to have the semi-silent symptoms grow & morph into something not-so-silent anymore. If I really looked back, the symptoms started at 18 and even the tests then didn't show much. Boy, lessons can be so hard to swallow in retrospect. IF ONLY I...had, done, did, known, been, fill-in-the-blank...all water under the bridge now.

I am thrilled to have this medium to log in, on, or whatever you say. I have been wanting a website for so many years, and even the wsygig (something like that) formats were not user friendly enough for me! Someday I will get all these blogs onto a site, maybe, and each blog will be it's own link, or not.

I Think I've Done It!

I don't know if I have shaken my bout with depression currently or not, but I am feeling pretty good. We went to Bend (OR) this past weekend to attend Morgan's gymnastics State Championships, and we stayed with Mark's family (cousin). It was a quick trip, but it was so nice to be in a different place! The blue sky was just what my clouded up brain needed. Salem is so gray, dark, cold & wet. This was a breath of fresh & cold air, but bright and sunny! We could do stuff outside (and move around a lot to keep warm), and we didn't have to run from the wet, damp or rain. We almost moved to Bend in 1998 when we first moved up to Oregon (and then back to CA in 2001, and then back up here in 2005), but we chose to move to a beautiful little town of Silverton (now we are in Keizer- 40 inches of rain). Everything there was almost perfect, except for the 44 inches of rain a year! (Bend gets about 11 inches!).

Having hours of coffee induced conversation w/ my husband...talking about our constant money "situation", moving, raising kids, where we really want to settle and stay, how to buy a house with one income...or not, kids, family, friends, more on life, health, etc...it got tense, but we never argued. That alone was a huge accomplishment! Tired, cranky kids in the back, a 3 hour drive home, the stress of some of the conversation (moving, money & family), we pulled it off successfully.

I know I analyze my life A LOT, more than weekly or daily...more like bi-hourly! Trying to peg myself into some sort of clinical diagnosis to "solve" my emotional/mental state. I am settling into the whole "A New Earth" idea of my ego just running amok in my brain, and has been for some time now. I am NOT bi-polar, despite my ups & downs for the past, oh, 35 years (um, that is how old I am!), I am NOT run by my depression, well, I am, but I letting it by not exercising or taking care of me w/ good foods and thoughts. I can see this now that the clouds have cleared from my head a bit, and to act quickly will keep the demons far from my being.

So, things are looking up, life was shaken and I actually saw the light (in Bend).

Utopia in My Mind

So here I am, sleepy baby sitting/leaning asleep on my chest, time to blog. I am analyzing my whole reason for blogging. I was inspired by some fellow homeschooling Mama's that I know, it seemed so fun, such a great way to log life, and is this for me, my family, my friends or all of the above?

If this is for family, to see the kids and everything they do (since I have family all over the country, and my own parents & brother's fam live across the country in MD), how much or little to say? Will I squelch who I am and be more cautious, not being as open for fear of someone "commenting" a comment? What about friends? I am not some outrageously flamboyant person in the first place, but I have been called a conservative rebel for tattooing the back of my head (where I could hide my tat OR grow my hair back), and been accused of stirring the pot, rocking the boat and being an instigator- a black sheep in my family. I have had 18 piercings all over my body at one time, dyed my hair fun colors and wore hair wraps (one that turned into a dread lock). I have been in a coven (wasn't all that exciting actually). BUT, I have been pretty darn mellow in the past several years so some would never know any of this but me as a Mama, of the crunchier type.

Ahhh, the balancing act of who I am. Ekart Tolle says who I am is just the ego anyway, who my being is, well, that is who I really am. In this game of life though, who I represent, who I present myself to be, who I hang with, how I behave or treat my husband and children, it really does matter, even if it is the ego (which I am only on chapter 3 of 10). So, do I bare my demons, egos, loves, hates, and just be the raw me, or tidy it up a bit...not quite soccer mom, but crunchy stevia sweetened granola Mama.

Then there is the who I am vs who I really want to be. I am a fire spitting f-you if you're in my face and punch the wall punk from rage hell. I am that. I am the pregnant lady who got out of her car to yell at a truck driver for cutting her off in an intersection...just keeping herself from punching the guy in the face. I am the mean Mama who tells her kids to go away, says "what are you thinking?" and "leave me alone". I am the wife that pokes fun at her husband, at his expense and can be awfully mean and cruel and not bat an eye. I have a meanness and nasty side most people would be shocked if let out of it's cage (because IT is a being in my head- thus is possessive in a dual sense). I have been mean and bossy my whole life, controlling, anxious, bitchy, up & down, too happy and too sad, extreme, I have been in more physical fights than I should have been in, even more verbal fights times 100.

BUT WAIT! That isn't who I WANT to be. I don't want to blog about that, doesn't that make it okay to be that way? I cringe at Mother's who tell their kids to go away, "beat it", are mean to their spouses, who embrace the yucky side of themselves, like they let a monster out of themselves and, "well, that's me so deal with it or leave".

I have tried to be a better person my whole life, I am NOT stopping now, I will not be defeated. I want to be genuine in my efforts and in the outcome. Enlightened, bliss, love, happy...a Utopian place in my mind, but why the hell not??? (hmmm, maybe I should go back on Zoloft, Mark did say I was nicer, albeit spacey and even more tired!).

I guess when I figure it out, the clean named 15 minute blogger just may change its name.

A Passing of a Fellow Homeschooler

I haven't been posting lately, been feeling like I am at the bottom of a pond, looking up into the reflection of myself on the bottom of the surface (only way I know to explain it). Basically, downer than down, lamer than lame.

But yesterday, something urged me to move into action, outside of myself. Apparently, a fellow homeschooling Mama in Dallas, OR passed away from a bad cold going around. It turned into pneumonia, and her kidneys shut down, and she died. DIED. She was 37 and had a 12 yo daughter and a 7 year old son. Mother, wife, 4-H teacher, church lady, homeschooler, friend. It rocked my psyche and pull me to pull up my bootstraps and get something done for her family. I didn't do much, just contact the church, and contact the MOPS Mom meal train coordinator, and now am on the back burner for her family, all I need to do is rally up other fellow HSers at a moments notice and help.

Something like that just shakes your world, makes you look around, even while you are in a funk, and pull you out of it, even if just temporarily. I am not "cured" of my depression at all, but between that raising my awareness of something bigger than me, and reading A New Earth, I am feeling like I am getting a better grip of life's true meaning.

I am not going to get all philosophical here, but I am feeling a bit better knowing that my life ain't so bad, that I could be paralyzingly depressed, and I am not. I am functional, which means I can pull myself out with effort. That is worth living for!

Vent OUT, Not In

I am. I am just. I am just having a very interesting week, or two. I am just having a very emotional life. I am just. I am.

Up, down, up and down, sometimes in a minute or an hour. Clean everything like a mad woman, then let it all fall apart. Inspired to conquer, and then crawling to the computer to get my "fix" away from it all. Happy and lovey dovey, then get the he!! out of my face angry. Delegate things, then martrydom. I just need to vent on this one.

Doom & gloom, grab a broom, push them out the door. Play, play, outside today, and let my feelings all over the floor. Love, love, love my kids, why don't I feel so good? The ups and the downs and the very sad frowns, when am I gonna give? Pushing and pulling and never stop yearning, wanting to be happy for a DAY. Emotions and ego and can I re-live NO. Never ending, can't quit the emotional spending, taxing and tearing and so overbearing. Open my eyes, the cries, the cries. Open my heart, can't I just tear it out? Wishing me thinnner, pretty and a "winner", wanting me happy, not a Mama that's crappy. Letting it flow out and please God don't go out, I need your help and please don't make me yelp. Poem is over, my life needs to...flower.

I have been bottling those feelings for sometime now. I am just cranky, tired, feel fat and frumpy and caught a glimpse of myself at church today, how sad does a woman have to look before she actually gets off her butt and does something. I have never seen an animal feel sorry for itself. Last night before getting into bed, Mark mentioned that my lovely saddlebags were very noticeable. He wasn't being mean, but didn't feel good. So I went to the mirror and what did I see, why eight thunderous reindeer...sorry, that's a different story. So I looked and before my eyes shocked the sh!$ out of me! I have saddlebags meant for a draft horse! ~sigh~ The time is nigh (okay, knigh sounding, not like neigh a horse!).

Baby is ripping plastics from the cupboard, Tremors II is almost over (our favorite B horror flick, okay, next to Bats & Eight-Legged Freaks). Gotta compose myself, or morph, into a better Mama, cuz who needs to hear how unhappy I am, AGAIN. It's really all in my mind, just too bad I got this crazy, messed up one..

Rose City Challenge Gymnastics

Today I got up at 5:30ish roused my eldest up around 6:30. We headed up to Beaverton around 7:15 and we MADE it to his Rose City Challenge gymnastics meet in time! He did SO well, I am so very proud of him. His scores are getting better, and I think he is feeling very in his skin in level 6 now. Healthy, well rested, and with friends.

I have a love/hate relationship with gymnastics. It is his life, our life, and at the same time, taxes us financially to no end! We are now cleaning the gym 2 hours a week (2 of us x 2 equally 4). The burden is so worth it in how he feels about his body, his skills, his stability and consistency in it...been doing it since he was just barely 1.

Now the guilt. Jordan & Hayden too have been doing gym since they were 1 also, and have the same possibilities of skills, strength, love of competition...but there isn't any more MONEY. They are so gifted, they literally climb the walls, beams, anything they can scale they do.

It is hard being a part of potentially the most expensive sport out there, and something I am thinking I will have to be more creative to accomplish this priority.