Findings

Right now, I’m trying NOT to be fake or glossy about my life.
I also have a lot going on that I don’t want to be open or loud about either.

I’m trying to find a balance that is honest and real but still honoring my own boundaries.
Right now, my personality and uniqueness is fighting with GRIT to stay even a little bit present. I’ve lost so much of it in the trenches, and I’m so tired… sometimes I’m JUST TOO TIRED to let myself be me.
Ironically, my TRUE SELF is one of my most powerful tools in the battles facing me right now.
CRAZY how one of my most powerful tools is also the quickest to run and hide behind chocolate bars and classic movies (speaking of: The African Queen is on Netflix right now which means I’m happy and also honing in on perfecting my Katherine Hepburn accent).

So on the days when I’m not too tired, I work on finding beauty in my feminine energy -whatever that might be for the day.
Sometimes it’s a roaring strength that only a woman knows.
Sometimes it’s stitching something in only a way a woman can.
Sometimes it’s putting on something that smells good, or diffusing a creation of essential oils.
Sometimes it’s cleaning a space. I like to tell anyone who passes by to see the sweat on top of my sweats and five trash bags behind me that the closet was messing with my chi.

But if we’re being honest, every room in my house is currently messing with my chi and today I’m not likely to put my feminine energy into cleaning it up.

As I’ve sought out things that really touch me and awaken something deep within me, I’ve found a couple that I wanted to share with you.
The first is Katie Daisy Art.
COLOR is something that really brings me joy. Colorful yarn, colorful plates, colorful personalities, variety on earth and in people!
You think I’d do better with having “every color in the rainbow” on the dinner plates… but sometimes my rainbow consists of brown and red and CORNDOGS it is!
And the children rejoice therein.
But back to Katie Daisy.

Run My Dear -   vertical print

Bringing color into my life nurtures the part of me that will always be perpetually 11… the days before I cared too awfully much about boys and what others thought about my gigantic pink glasses and when I lived in a world filled with imagination, colors, accents, adventure! And I usually never even had to venture outside my own backyard to get it.
My mind has always been it’s own sort of foreign country.
The guy I married will vouch for that.

This morning and yesterday morning and the day before that, I lathered myself up in homemade soap and it made me so happy. It reminded me that I need to making my own like I’ve always wanted to, but in the meantime I have no qualms getting this stuff from Brit Dewey.
I’ve never met her.
She came to my little town and sold some of her wares, and I wasn’t able to make it. A friend of mine gave some of Brit’s product to me as a gift, and it has made me so happy.
Today I get paid, and I’ll be placing a good sized order from her.

This stuff. You guys, it’s GOOD. It feels good and smells good.
It keeps on giving throughout the day. I can smell her soap scent as I work in a shop filled with grease, and it reminds me that although the shop smells, I DO NOT.

Feminine beauty, folks.
I smell like a rose among antifreeze.
Or something.

I realize not everyone gets as worked up as I am over this soap, but I wanted to share it with you anyway. I kind of want to give some away and it’s priced OH SO RIGHT for me and my tight wallet.
It’s all natural and I KNOW WHAT’S IN IT which is important to me right now as I battle -along with everything -health issues like inflammation.

Check out her site right here.

Here’s the soap I’m using right now, and I’m going to see if she carries lotion in the same scent…

I’ve uncovered a few things lately that make my inside do good flip-flops, but those are what have caught me this week.

I’d love to hear about YOUR findings. Because sometimes -as I said -I’m just too tired to find my own :)

Like a Cat

Speaking of cats, The Awful Mother had another litter. She removed them from our sight, and I have no inkling as to their whereabouts or state of alive-ness.
Has she eaten them?
Has she not?
I don’t know.

What I do know is that she’s having her kitten-bearing abilities stripped from her. A penalty for eating her own kin. The jury (made up of me and the guy I married) was in unanimous agreement… the cat must and will be barren.
It’s better that One Awful Womb should perish than entire litters perish in starvation and cattibalism.

That said: I met with my counselor on Friday. He gave me a list of 8 “c” words that kind of encompass an emotionally well-balanced person.
Curiosity was at the top of the list.

“Curiosity?” I asked, “What does that mean?”
(Obviously, I’m not lacking in the curious area, even without knowing EXACTLY what he meant by it. Or maybe my nose is just brown.)

“A healthy appetite for the world around and beyond you.”
Ah. CURIOSITY.

I have it in spades, and not the irritating variety that plagued Pinocchio.
I want to learn HOW TO DO new things.

I don’t care if I’m perfect at doing them, but I can’t satisfy this hunger to learn the HOW behind things. I fall head first into canning jam and I love it… I love the sweat on my forehead that beads up and falls onto the syrup spills on my counter. I love the steam, the botched batches that make me laugh and wonder WHAT I’m going to do with them because throwing them away feels sad.
I make myself laugh, thinking of giving them away as “heartfelt” gifts… and making the receiver eat it in front of me thereby pressuring them into lying about the greatness of the jam that doesn’t resemble jam so much as it does ROCK CANDY.
I move on from water bathing jam to freezer jam which is easier and better and my blood sugar hates me for it.

I tear apart a sewing machine but the ending result is that I CAN SEW PAJAMA PANTS and do basic repairs on pillow cases.
I make my own cleaning supplies.
I buy essential oils and make my own bath soaks and healing cocktails.
I want to pull taffy but I’m too lazy to buy a candy thermometer, and I’m trying to brown my nose up not just toward my counselor but my BLOOD SUGAR as well.

I get after my daughter, “Don’t you start a bracelet before you finish crocheting and put away the paint before you get out the duct tape (for wallets).”
“But I’m not done with the paint…”

This curiosity thing is hereditary, and I can’t truly expect her to put her yarn and paint away in favor of jewelry making when I’m sitting on top of my own pile of yarn while I scrapbook.

This morning I woke up after an evening of working on my gigantic granny square project which is going to look something like:

And I felt the hunger -the ache -the NAGGING CURIOSITY to do something I’ve been dying to do for years. More than pull taffy. More than make my own make up so I don’t have to keep buying it because I always get the shades wrong and don’t realize HOW wrong until I run out of foundation, quit wearing it because I’m too cheap to buy more, and get no less than 4 compliments on how my color has improved.
I want to make cold-pressed soap.
I want it more than I want lunch.

Making cold-pressed soap at home

I’ll wait until Christmas to buy some supplies… but truly, my curiosity is ticking like they say it should.
No issues here.

The other 7 “c” words… they need more work. I’ll list them here so you can do a quick self-check and maybe bum a little off of my sessions.
COMPASSION
CALMNESS
CONFIDENCE
CONNECTED (to others, God, self)
COURAGE
CLARITY
CREATIVITY

In other news, we went to Disneyland for our 10th Anniversary, and here are 5 quotes -one from each of us -to sum up the experience.
“This is heaven! HEAVEN!” ~Lacy

“When I grow up, I am never taking my kids on that ride.” ~Trenton, on Space Mountain

“HI, HONEY!” ~Alice (pronounced Eliza Doolittle style, without the Hs)

“This was the best idea. I almost don’t care that we’re going to have to amputate my feet.” ~Mom and Dad

I learned that though many claim the beach to be amazing, it doesn’t hold a candle to the wide open spaces of Arizona. Why?
Because BEACH SAND EVERYWHERE and WAVES THAT WILL SURELY KILL ALL OF MY SMALL CHILDREN.

Here’s a family picture of us at the beach. My toes and everyone other certifiably crazy person in my family who thought the beach was really exciting.
It’s not exciting. Unless terror excites you.

I’m grateful for beaches, but I’ll retire in the cactus and have my pineapple shipped in thankyouverymuch.
Oooh! PINEAPPLE SOAP!

Can I really make it until Christmas to order my soap making supplies?
No…