More Information

I've slowed down posting the last few days because some information is flowing into my life from all sorts of areas and I'm just trying to soak it up and stay open, open, open. I was praying last week for help with my health, and imagined it coming from all corners. I even thought about sending an email out to friends and family asking for help--send any advice you have, books you've read, exercises you've tried, doctors you trust...but I didn't send it. I just sent out the prayer.

Maybe emails don't work as well as prayers, anyway. Because a flood of help is arriving. Friends offering up spiritual counseling and career advice and the name and number of a good rolfer. Books and relaxation techniques and insights and artist's group. Phone calls and hugs and meaningful conversations. Loads of love.

I'm at a bit of a crossroads at work, too. Having just wrapped up some projects and about to embark on some new ones, I can make new choices. Do things differently. Imagine different futures. Which is scary and completely necessary, and my body isn't letting me ignore what my brain has been ignoring for a while, about what I get to do for a living and how I do it. So that is an interesting place to be.

And then there's the fact that E tore down a staircase and a wall and built a floor in our former guest bedroom and now I have an honest-to-goodness studio! I can see all the things I use to create. I have room to move, and lots of light. It don't have electricity or runnin water yet, ma, but it's home! With some burly friends' help (thank you J and J), E conquered it in a weekend. Before and after pictures will come eventually, when the floor's done and we've painted. But everything's put away for now and it looks and feels amazing.

Which is more information.

Now. For what to do with it.

Purple Gold

I've just decided that is 100% okay to have a huge slice of vegan cake at 10:04 in the morning.

Yes, my cakes continue to look like dog-doo, mostly because I make them at night and then have to frost them while they're still hot so the girls can have a piece before bed, and the frosting mudslides off onto the plate. This makes it look bad, but also creates an opportunity for fully-sanctioned frosting-stuffed-in-the-cakehole action later.

E. didn't like the cake. He kept asking if I had used apple sauce in it. "Nope! Vinegar!" I said cheerily. But you can't taste the vinegar. I think it's just the active ingredient, since I can't use egg. Either way, he was unimpressed, and didn't finish his slice. But this particular cake took five minutes to whip up and 30 minutes to bake. Can't beat that. Thank you Vegan Kitchen.

E. can't be much trusted with "health" foods, anyway. My theory is that anything that isn't meat and potatoes smacks of times in his childhood when carob chips were offered up as "chocolate." He still hasn't recovered. What's most important is that both girls really dug this cake (and Nolie doesn't do cake--only icing), so that's a sign that we're on to something.

I also want to report that I had a very successful encounter with the Spicy Indian Potatoes dish in the Working Parents Cookbook, and I also like cauliflower steamed with lemon, capers, parsley, olive oil, and salt.

While we're talking about food, though, it seems most important that I pay homage to this little dish:

To most of you, this looks like the makings of a humble peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

You would be wrong.

This is homemade bread. Soon to be toasted and smothered in organic peanut butter (thank you Costco). But, most importantly, said peanut butter will then be topped with--wait for it--huckleberry jam. From Idaho. Which is most certainly proof that all is well with the universe and that God loves us.

As usual, Gloria and my dad sent down a boatload of treasures for us to unpack for Christmas. We loved everything they sent, but the last package to be opened was Eric's, and it was the jam. He took the paper off and, I kid you not, my nose twitched and I pointed. I knew instantly what it was--G's homemade jam from McCall huckleberries--and I snatched it out of his hands. It was like Lord of the Rings, but with condiments instead of jewelry. "Mine, mine!" I shrieked, and ran into the kitchen, petting it and muttering about how pretty it was.

Luckily, E doesn't know much about purple gold, and he let me have it. I can't say what I would have done had he resisted. He's lucky to still have all his digits.

Oh, and head over to N.'s place, if you have a minute. She has a very good post up today that captures exactly what's been going on in my head recently.

All the Latest

I don't write enough on this blog about how great my kids and my husband are, and how they bring so much light and love into my life. It's more fun to kvetch. Plus, who needs therapy when things are going great? And this blog is nothing if it ain't therapeutic.

For me. It probably drives all of you into a therapist's office.

Here are some pictures of Addie, living in Addie-land. She is a delightful, strange, sweet, amazing individual. The nurse called me from school yesterday and said Addie had fallen on the pavement outside the school and had these. She handed the phone to Addie and when I told her the nurse was going to give her some tylenol she said, "Mom! I'm not sick! I just want to go back to class!"

Ain't nothing stopping this girl.

I know this isn't the best picture of E., but that's what he gets for leaving it on the camera. Actually, I think it is a great picture of him. Because you all might think he's a bit quiet or shy or whatever, but in fact, he is a total, class A goofball. And the man is a rock. I can't tell you how many times in the last few months I've been sick or my back has been out and he has just rocked the goofiness with the kids so I could rest. Blessings be.

It Aint' Over

Is it too late to be sending out Christmas cards, on this 23rd day of January? Is it?

Santa Nolie says no.

So, look for one in your mailbox soon.

I Guess...

what I needed was to cry throughout the hour-long yoga session, and then slowly release my sciatica by laying with a Miracle Ball underneath my right ass-cheek for thirty minutes.

I feel much better.

Waking Up

I teach Wednesday nights again this semester. This is mostly good, because it's my only class and teaching at night leaves me a lot of time during the day to write or have meetings or stare out the window. But I'm noticing it is getting harder every semester to teach late Wednesday night and then get up Thursday morning to work. It takes much longer to wake up and get going. It takes longer to regain my enthusiasm for work. And all this is made doubly hard by the challenges I'm facing with my back and body.

Last night (Thursday) I had agreed to give a lecture in a colleague's class. By the time I got home from that I felt like I could barely move my neck. I crawled into bed next to E. and whole parts of my body just throbbed--my mid-back, especially, and all along the sciatic nerve, going pretty much from shoulder to ankle. It felt impossible to get comfortable. I finally fell asleep frustrated and angry. Frustrated that my body couldn't withstand two nights of teaching--it's not like it's back-breaking work, for chrissakes. Frustrated that all of my efforts to strengthen my body--yoga, pilates, strength-training, cardio--don't protect me more from these moments. Frustrated that I'm 34 and have to be so careful with my health.

Once I did fall asleep, my dreams were unsettling. There was the recurrent dream I have where I've done something to make E. mad, something unforgiveable (I never remember what this thing is, and it's not really the point). He refuses to talk to me he's so angry, and I get more and more hysterical trying to get him to listen to me, to talk to me. I become a monster, screaming for attention. In the other dream, I'm on a trip and have lost something or it's been stolen, and I can't get home no matter how hard I try.

E. took both girls to school this morning and I rested in bed an extra half-hour, and then did some house chores and have been reading. I'm heading into a yoga session, and I know I will feel better after that. Maybe it'll soften me up for some gratitude, too, or some awareness. I'm pretty sure there's something for me to learn in all of this. I just wish, in these moments, it wasn't so hard to see.

Thoughts While Staring

I took a few minutes to sit on a beanbag and stare out the window this morning (which is quickly becoming one of my favorite pasttimes). Next to me on the bookshelf was the excellent Wayne Dyer book Being in Balance. I opened it to a random page, and here is what I read, from the chapter titled "There's More to Life than Making It Go Faster":

"Take your time. Your work isn't terribly important...your worldly duties aren't terribly important.... Make your first and primary priority in your life being in balance with the Source of Creation. Become thoughtful in your slowed-down time, and invite the Divine to be known in your life. Being the peace you desider means becoming a relaxed person whose balance point doesn't attract anxiety and stress symptoms.

"Make deliberate, conscious efforts to slow yourself down by relaxing your mind. Take a little more time to enjoy your life here on this planet: Be more contemplative by noticing the stars, the clouds, the rivers, the animals, the rainstorms, and all of the natural world. And then extend the same slowed-down loving energy to all people. Begin with your family--take a few extra hours to romp with your children, to listen to their ideas, to read them a story. Go for a walk with your most cherished loved one and say how much you treasure him or her in your life.

"Extend this slowed-down perspective outward at work, in your community, and even to strangers. Make a deliberate effort to give someone your place in line rather than hurrying to be first. Become conscious of your efforts to become the peace you desire and to live in balance, even while you're driving. As you slow your thoughts down and decide to enjoy your life more, bring your car to a stop at a yellow caution light rather than speeding on through. Consciously drive at a relaxed pace rather than in a frenzy to get somewhere two minutes sooner. Let other people into the stream of traffic by being courteous rather than right."

Courteous rather than right. What an interesting synchronicity that led me to this passage today, huh? It's like it was written for me (except the driving part. That part was written for E.).

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important..." --Bertrand Russell

"The more you advance toward God, the less He will give you worldly duties to perform..." --Ramakrishna