Wide Open Heart

Plan B

2010-07-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

I just wish we could catch a break. We were all excited about moving into a less expensive place and FINALLY start saving money and catching up on bills. Turns out that prospect fell through. Ugh! A new brainstorming session has to happen soon. Schedule splitting? Childcare share? Work swap? I don't know. I will just keep looking for a smaller place to move to in the meantime.

#25 P90X: First Week Accomplished!

2010-07-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I have completed the first week of P90X. Hell Ya! It feels good to be sore. I have been super viligant on the diet part and have lost 2 pounds. The biggest surprise was how HARD the yoga was. I can't believe that! Kevin and I are having a great time supporting each other through this. Onto week two...

#25 Go through the P90X series (First Post)

2010-06-30T11:14:00.001-07:00

Next Tuesday is the big day...the day I start to tackle #25 on my list. I have done all the before measurements. I still need to do the before photos and the pre-test. I am not sure if I want to post them here. Maybe I will with the after photos. I don't know. The best part of this is that Kevin will be right by my side the whole time. I am excited!

Debt Diet and Family Budgeting

2010-06-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

I have been working on developing a No-Fail way of handling our finances. It seems like no matter how we "intend" on managing our money, we always end up broke with no savings.

Kevin and I have decided to take drastic measures in order to put ourselves and our kids in a better position financially. We considered moving into an RV temporarily to alleviate the housing aspect of our spending. This became impossible since we were turned down for a loan to finance the RV. So I am just going to put it all out here in hopes that it helps us remember where we started.

I am an impulsive person. I often do things without giving myself time to consider if there is a better option. I like to spend money. There I admit it. I don't want to like it, but I do. So, I need to set myself up so that I cannot fail. Here is how I intend on doing that:

I must never have checks available for me to write. Checks are to abstract. I need to see the $20 bill disappear to feel the pain.

I have to stay away from Target and the mall. The green-eyed monster LOVES the mall and Target. Enough said.

I will create a 30-day list. This means that anything I want to buy that is not neccessary, I write it down and the date. If 30 days later I still feel that I need it, then I will buy it.

I will greatly reduce the amount of food we eat that is not made by me at home. We have already done this to some degree, but just not enough.

No more incurring new debt. Period.

Kevin and I have decided to move into a much smaller place (2 bedroom 1 bath) in order to create some mergency fund and pay off debt. We have been selling off most of our big furniture in order to make that happen. It feels good to purge. "Stuff" has been weighing me down. I spend waaaayyyy too much time sorting, cleaning, picking up, moving around, and basically feeling like I am under all that weight of Stuff. Minimalism is now how I intend on existing.

So here is the plan:

So our income is about $6300 a month. With this chart we end up allocating almost $1800 to Childcare, $1100 on Living Expenses, $1000 to Savings, $850 on Transportation, $725 on Housing, $600 on Debt, and $220 on Extra Expenses.

We looked for a way to reduce the outflow of money: No cable, No big travel, minimal gift giving, ect. We can't reduce the Childcare Expense: we have three kids that need to be taken care of while we work. I still make more than double the expense so staying at home is not an option. We still all need to eat and have a home with water and electricity. We still need cars to go to and from work, and take the kids to school. The only real option was to reduce our Housing.

So here we go. I hope we get the place we are trying to move to. We are continuing to reduce our clutter and big furniture, get rid of things we don't love and don't use.

Wish us luck as we discover new adventures in simplicty and frugal living.

When a Titan Tumbles

2010-06-14T13:12:00.000-07:00

We had an accident at school last week...Grace fell from a playstructure and broken her radius clean in half. She had to have surgery and now is the bionic girl with two pins in her arm. She was so brave through the whole ordeal.

Here is Grace waiting to find out if she would need surgery. She did need surgery and was really scared. You can see the x-ray sitting on her. Here it is up close:

OUCH!

We were taken into a pre-surgey room and had to wait there for about 40 minutes. Grace was SO scared about surgery. She was crying and shaking. I was finally able to comfort her and she is actually asleep in photo above.

During this whole day Grace was complaining more that she was HUNGRY than anything else. So right out of surgery she happy slurped down her cherry popcicle. And ate some jello. And had a sandwich. And drank a HUGE water. Then she was full.

We continued with our plan go camping the next day and here she is after all the camping fun was over. She is just a cute little one-armed dirty titan of a girl!

Dreams

2010-06-08T10:41:00.000-07:00

I dreamt about my dad a few nights ago. He told me he doesn't feel well. He was sick to his stomach. He was taking medication to stop the pain in his stomach. He was telling me he is fine and is doing well. It was my impression that I was younger, probably a teen and I was trying to get him to confess that he was drinking again. I felt helpless. And then he died in my dream and I kept looking for him.
This latest dream had some of the same common feelings as the dream I have had over the years about my dad. I am searching for him, in disbelief that he is really gone. He is always aloof, usually doesn't speak at all. Often he is trying to make me feel better in someway. He even gave me money in a prior dream to somehow "buy" my forgiveness.
It seems strange to me that the father in my dreams is not the father I remember. Never the silly, loving father I recall. I am not sure what these dreams mean. After having him gone for these past 16 years, I am not sure I will ever fully get over that tiny hope that it is all a bad dream. That he is out there.

Last night I dreamt that I adopted twin children, a boy and girl, from a country in Asia. The country was flooded and I could see all the people swirling around in masses of mud and muck. Somehow I had the children back home with me and took them to a bright, sunny toy store. There faces lit up. I had a fear that they would be taken away from me. Not sure why.

Ebb and Flow

2010-06-02T09:29:00.000-07:00

Transistion.
Life consists of constant transistions; birth, death, darkness, and light. Sometimes I want to duck, sometimes I want to weave. And sometimes I just want to run down the street flailing my arms around as I scream. You know the scream I'm talking about...Primal. Bottom of your guts kind of shriek.
And then the light returns. Gratitude flows. Overflows. We are gearing up for som BIG changes in our life.
Step # 1: Define our vision of our life; or as I like to say: Get a fucking compass already!
I keep finding myself so confused as to WHY everything seemed so hard. It is because I have been operating in survival mode, in a knee-jerk reaction to everything happening around me.
So do I want to be in fight or flight mode? I think I want to fight to take flight.

#75 - tell at least 10 people about this list and encourage them to create one for themselve s

2010-05-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

A simple post to complete #75. I won't stop there though...I will continue to encourage others to dive into life and create their own list.

#58 - create a list of 100 books to read

2010-05-03T12:58:00.000-07:00

This has been a lot of fun. I can't WAIT to get reading.

1. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
3. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
4. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
5. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
6. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
7. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
8. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
9. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
10. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
11. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
12. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
13. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
14. WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams
15. FARENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury
16. BELOVED by Toni Morrison
17. THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
18. THE FEAR OF FLYING by Erica Jong
19. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
20. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
21. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
22. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
23. ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE by Barbara Kingsolver
24. TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE by Mitch Albom
25. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Stieg Larsson (this is the first of a triology)
26. SAY YOUR ONE OF THEM by Uwem Akpan
27. White Oleander by Janet Fitch
28. The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou
29. She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb
30. The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard
31. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
32. BLACK ELK SPEAKS by John Niehardt
33. THE PLAGUE by Albert Camus
34. The Spiritual Teachings of Ramana Maharashi by Ramana Maharashi
35. A Simple Path by Mother Teresa
36. An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth by Mohandas Gandhi
37. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
38. I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta by Maharaj Nisargadatta
39. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki
40. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chogyam Trungpa
41. The Bodhisattva's Way of Life by Shantideva
42. Start Where You Are by Pema Chodron
43. TO BE HUMAN by J. Krishnamurti
44. The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
45. Courage, The Joy of Living Dangerously by Osho
46. Little House on the Prairie Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
47. CHARLOTTE’S WEB by E.B. White
48. THE ABSORBENT MIND by Maria Montessori
49. WALDEN by Henry David Thoreau
50. COMPLETE POEMS AND PLAYS:1909-1950 by T.S. Eliot
51. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv
52. NATURE WRITINGS by John Muir
53. OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA by Michael Pollan
54. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
55. Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
56. Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory B. Lovins, et. al.
57. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth by James Lovelock
58. HIROSHIMA by John Hersey
59. UNCLE TOM’S CABIN by Harriet Beecher Stowe
60. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
62. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
63. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
64. Kindred by Octavia Butler
65. THE REPUBLIC by Plato
66. 1984 by George Orwell
67. How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie
68. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
69. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
70. Beyond Good and Evil by Freidrich Nietzsche
71. A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway
72. I Am That by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
73. An Interrupted Life by Etty Hillesum
74. The Essential Rumi by Rumi/Coleman Barks
75. The Emotional Lives of Animals by Marc Bekoff
76. The Great Ape Project (multiple authors)
77. The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery
78. The Good Earth Trilogy by Pearl S. Buck
79. Fatu Hiva by Thor Heyerdahl
80. No More Words by Reeve Lindbergh
81. Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
82. Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
83. The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
84. The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield
85. The Biology of Belief by Bruce H. Lipton
86. Call Me By My True Names: The Collected Poems by Thich Nhat Hanh
87. Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life by Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr. Lilian Cheung
88. The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology by Thich Nhat Hanh
89. Start Where You Are by Pema Chondron
90. Food for the Heart by Ajahn Chah
91. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West By Dee Brown
92. A People's History of the World By Chris Harman
93. A People's history of the United States: 1492-present by Howard Zinn
94. Overcoming Speechlessness by Alice Walker
95. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
96. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
97. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle By David Wroblewski
98. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
99. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
100.The Hobbit (preface to the Lord of the Rings) by J.R. Tolkien

100 Things

2010-04-27T13:16:00.000-07:00

Here starts an adventure to complete my "100 things" inspired by the Buried Life...

So here is my list:

start going to Roller Derby practice
adopt a child {Rethinking this one...three is probably enough!}
raise chickens
host a conversation about love and forgiveness
go to India
start my back tattoo
own a home {or at least find a rental I feel can be longterm}
travel around for a month in an RV
learn how to make cheese and yogurt
wear a bathing suit and feel beautiful
get dreadlocks {maybe 2 dreadlocks}
be in the presence of Thich Naht Hanh
get my Professional Engineer's license
write a children’s book {just for fun}
learn how to make tamales
grow a substantial garden for my family
become comfortable chanting
do a 7 day juice feast
work on a community service project
host a fancy dinner party
sew something that I absolutely LOVE
learn to crochet or knit
paint a beautiful picture that I want to hang on my wall
complete a YES day with the kids
go through the p90x series
go away with Kevin for the first time since having kids
write in my blog, consistently
take a photography class
have a pig and goat {maybe a rabbit and hamster would be more reasonable}
go on a multi-day backpacking trip with my family
learn how to make soap {I think I will just tackle laundry soap}
go horseback riding
start an online business
write some poetry
visit all the national parks in the U.S.
color my hair a funky color
give someone I know $100 anonymously because they really need it
take a dance class
take a canopy tour
grow a flower garden to attract butterflies
write a love letter to each of my children
make a family recipe book of all our favorites
paint a mural
climb mount Kilimanjaro
travel the path of the Buddha
visit each continent {I don't really feel to connected to this one anymore}
make homemade bagels
dance under a full moon
complete a triathlon
learn to play piano
go on a hot air balloon ride
learn how to rock climb
see the Northern Lights
visit the Great Pyramids
make stilts and walk around on stilts with my kids
make candles
take a cooking class
create a list of 100 books to read
read my list of 100 books
be in a play or other public performance {not really feeling this one anymore}
understand all about wine
have a wine and cheese party with friends (after I know about wine)
start a roth IRA
have $10,000 in a savings account
see a gorilla in the wild {I can watch Animal Planet!}
create a sacred space in my home
reconcile with my sister
write a letter to my dad telling him that I understand
attend Burning Man
trace my ancestry
take a self-defense class
learn CPR and Basic First Aid
learn how to make a business plan
learn how to read and write some Sanskrit {maybe another language}
tell at least 10 people about this list and encourage them to create one for themselves
blog about each of the items I cross off my list
kiss in a torrential downpour long enough to get soaking wet
paint a self-portrait
learn basic survival skills
build an eco-friendly (straw-bale, earthship, ect.) building
go on a family canoe trip
compete in a 10K run
throw a surprise party
dress up in a really wild costume for Halloween
learn how to make tiramisu
pick a cookbook and make everything in it and write a review of every recipe
get over my fear of public speaking
take a pottery class
be able to walk in heels like I am a runway model. *smile*
learn how to invest wisely {would like to add debt free to this}
invent something
learn how to put on make-up
learn how to do fancy hairstyles for myself and my girls
grow out my hair until it is in the middle of my back
make knot dresses for my girls
take a cake decorating class
organize and make a small Montessori “class” in my house
stop buying processed food…completely
go 80% raw…for at least a month
learn how to make Waldorf dolls

When I complete an item I will make it bold.

Last week I started going to Roller Derby practice. *smile* It has been a blast. Skating makes me feel alive evn though it was pretty scary to walk in there by myself. I give myself kudos for bravery! I will try and take a few pictures of me skating so that it's official *wink*

The kids and I have begun raising chickens. I guess I can't officially say that we "raised" chickens until they lay their first eggs! But, I marked it off the list anyway since the coopa-cabana is up and they are living out in it. Pictures to come in an upcoming post.

So here starts the adventure that I should have been on all along. I guess I lost myself being a mother. No, I probably never really knew myself to begin. I am not sure you can ever really know yourself. I meet new parts of myself everyday. New strengths and weaknesses, new hopes and dreams; that is what makes life special. Some said to me a few recently: "no one can take you out of the game faster than yourself."

I am back in the game.

What is on your list?

A Bird Sings because it has a Song

2009-05-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been thinking about the gifts we recieve everyday. As it relates to parenting, which is my deepest and most meaningful practice, it seems as though we are only willing to recieve the gifts we perceive as "good". So what gifts are offered that we refuse, or recieve with a resentful spirit?

The idea of recieving the gifts my children have to offer came up as one of the keys in a wonderful book I have been reading "Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids". So often the kids want to help, want to be heard, and want our attention so much that the wonder of THEM, of really BEING and recieiving them where they are is lost. This happened to me earlier this week and really started me thinking about what it means to be grateful for ALL the gifts we are offered.

Grace hopped in the car happily after school and handed me a gift she had made me at school. I quickly said "Thank you" and stuffed the small paper in my purse where it stayed for the next two days. I was in a hurry and "couldn't" be bothered by taking the time to really recieve this gift.

The next day at the same time Grace asked me if I liked the gift she had given me the day before. I didn't want to hurt her feelings so I said that I loved it and she beamed a beautiful proud smile in the rear-view mirror.

The next day as I rumaged through the bottoms of the purse, which, by the way is a repository of all things, I happen upon the small gift that Grace so loveingly prepared for me. I opened the small, handmade envelope and carefully un folded the paper inside.

A simple gift, yes, but no less perfectly positioned in my life to help teach me the value of fully recieiving the gifts we are offered. This is not to say that the only gifts worth anything are actual "things" or even that the gift has to be pleasant. This is just the eye opener for me in the humble act of recieving.

So, to explain the title of this post I have to refer to the book I am reading and hopefully ABSORBING into my heart. In each key there are quotes in the margins that represent the key in a powerful way. Here is the quote that inspired the title:

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song. - Maya Angelou

I guess it makes me think to hear the song, recieve the song, and not look for the "answer".

On Dreaming and Dying

2009-03-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

I had a dream. I was in a car driving at night in the passenger seat. Next to us was a big rig that violently swerved at something in the road. Then it swerved again. I suddenly realized that our headlights were not on and a feeling of fear came over me that we were going to die because we could not see the hazards in the road. I yelled “turn on your lights!” As I tried to reach over to turn on the lights I noticed it was pitch black and it felt as though we were driving very fast. The next instance I looked up through what seemed to be a moon roof and saw a dark sky and stars. Faintly it appeared as though hands came down and picked me up. Instantly I could no longer hear the engine of the car and felt instantly at peace. I was thinking, Am I dead? Is this what death is? I was dreaming and knew it was a dream but asked myself am I dreaming or did I just die? I woke up startled and it took me a second to realize I was dreaming, now awake and clearly remember the entire dream sequence.

What did this dream offer to teach me? I think it made me think more about being alive and to show me there is no fear in death. I had the fear of being gone from those who I love. I had the thought that I was so thankful I am alive. It was overwhelming in my half awake state of being. It had gratitude that I could go on living and be with my family in this life. Yet, I did have a sense that I would be okay in death. I feel grateful today to have had that dream and to be here another day.