Piece de' Resistance

Tonight I am going to see the Pixies with my girl Spicy -T. My sista.


It doesn't get any better than that.

posted by Unknown at 3:26 am | | 0 comment(s)

URGENT! Please HELP!

This was brought to my attention by Pam England, my mentor and author of Birthing From Within.

Please do whatever you can to help.

The Birth Project is a great midwifery run birthing project for low income and indigent women in Sacramento to receive prenatal and gyn care. Totally midwife staffed (LMs and CNMs). I like the grassroots/women helping women aspect….


Dear SisterFriend,
. . .we're about a month away from having to close if we don't raise $25,000 in May because of a Medi-Cal reimbursement error and having to advance our State Challenge Grant program five months.

Our feminine wisdom is to ask our sister friends to ask 20 of their friends to send $20 and then ask 20 of their friends to do the same. This can be done on-line with our Pay Pal account. Next month, we can invest our $20 in another womans' organization. In this way we can support each other in a powerful and compassionate way.

My name is Kathryn Hall. I am director of The Birthing Project. Please visit our site at www.birthingproject.com.

If you like what you see, please consider making a $20 donation in the name of your mother or a special woman in your life. Your acknowledgement of her in this way will honor her by helping women have the medical care and support they need to grow
healthy babies. And, then...send this on to 20 of your e-mail friends.


When we stand up, we must know that we are standing up for everybody--Maya Angelou

posted by Unknown at 2:58 am | | 0 comment(s)

May I take a second to whine...

I don't want to be a big baby, but I have to whine about how I have been feeling physically. I have fibromyalgia, which is worse when the weather is cold and rainy. Since I live in the Pacific NW that is pretty much all fall,winter, and spring. (And yes, I do realize I am certifiably insane for moving from one land of low pressure systems to another...) I really lucked out this winter with the unseasonably dry and warm weather we had. Had I known what meteorlogical hell awaited me in the past couple months I would have planned ahead a bit. (yeah, right - me not procrastinate! There's a thigh slapper!)

The past few weeks have been particularly nightmarish. I have been in so much pain. If you don't have fibro, I am not sure how to explain it. Remember the last time you had a really bad aching flu? Where every muscle in your body screams in pain and doesn't want to move. Where you hurt all the way down to your finger tips and toes. That is sort of how it is. It sucks. Really really sucks. Another fun symptom of fibromyalgia is non-restful sleep. You foolishly go to bed and think that you will awake rested, only to find that the sandman has driven a bulldozer over your body while you slept (if you are lucky enough to sleep as the pain makes all sleeping positions uncomfortable). I try not to whine about it. Some days I do better than others at keeping it to myself. Since there isn't a whole heck of a lot for me to do about it I figure complaining is counter productive. But then again, if I didn't mention it to at least my family and close friends they might wonder just what crawled up my butt and died. Pain does not make me smiley and carefree. It makes me rather grumpy as a matter of fact. And I am sure that many a grumble and curse has been muttered at my low productivity level when I am having a bad flare up. Axel probably wonders why I don't do more. The answer is simple - I can't. I just can't. It hurts to move. It hurts to not move. Oh - and I almost forgot - stress makes it worse. Ha! Between the lousy ass weather we have been having and all the stress we are under with our impending move..... OY! or should I say OUCH!

Last week my hip started hurting too. Joint pain is not part of fibromyalgia so I am not sure what is causing it. I have had the pain intermitently for several years, but until now it is only after sitting in one position for more than 30 minutes (like in the car) and resolves after I take a few steps. But last Sunday it started hurting really badly and took almost 3 days to resolve. I had maybe 12 hours of relief and it started again. It has continued to hurt and still hurts today. I have seen my chiropractor and she doesn't feel it is due to any misalignment. That worries me. I am trying really hard not to be a paranoid hypochondriac, but visions of an arthritic hip is freaking me out. I am only 38 and have plans to be healthy and active right on into my golden years. Hip pain is such an "old persons" complaint. I guess I need to inform my hip that I refuse to get old - at least for now.

So there is my whine for the day. It feels good to get it out. Now back to my regularly scheduled mirth and merriment....

posted by Unknown at 2:35 pm | | 0 comment(s)

Some things are just messed up

There is something really screwed up about my needing to get a "letter of permission" to travel out of the country with D&K. What the fuck is up with that? Their sperm donor opted out of their life loooooooooong ago. But because he has right to visitation - no matter that it has been several years since he made any attempts at contact with them - never mind ask for a visit - he has the right to grant permission for me to travel out of the country with my children. I can get a court order granting permission if I am not able to locate him, which I am not at all certain I can do truthfully. Even so, I have learned never to assume anything as far as family law is concerned. I wish I could report having even once felt that my or my children's best interest ever has been served by them.

Yuck. This whole situation makes me feel sick. Anything that has to do with my ex and the nightmare that being married to him was gets to me on a cellular level. I still have trouble believing any of it really happened in my life. It is all so twisted and bizarre.

Tomorrow I start calling lawyers. Oh what fun that will be...

posted by Unknown at 4:49 am | | 0 comment(s)

Its about time

Guess what I started to do in the past week? Finish my belly cast from being pregnant with Anja. Yes - she just turned 4. Shameful, I know.

Up until now it has just been displayed exactly as it came off me. It has help up well, but was starting to degrade a bit because I never sealed it. With moving I have to either put it in storage or take it with us. Both require me stabilzing it and I figure as long as I am working on it, I should finish it. I started with just a couple coats of gesso, but soon realized that it needs more. I just applied the second coat of new plaster on the front. I will let that dry and then put a layer on the underside as well. When they are both totally dry I am going to sand the top and gesso it again.

Then I will start the fun stuff - painting! So far I have a couple sketches of basic designs I want to do. I am leaning towards something not too complex in terms of drawing details. The whole experience is more or less a blur to me anyway, so it seems only fitting that what I express on the cast express that feeling. More energetic and experiential than a clear image.

posted by Unknown at 8:56 pm | | 0 comment(s)

Clearing out the cobwebs

Thought I might come over and breathe some life into this dead blog. I have been mostly posting elsewhere, but been kind of missing good ol' blogger lately. Need to make some changes to my template. So much is outdated since I last posted.

Hey - the big news though is that we are moving to England! No kidding. We leave July 16th and we may never return. Truly. We have no plans to come back. Axel is going to school there for 3 years and after that who knows where we will end up. He is studying Biodynamic Agriculture so that could really put us just about anywhere in the world. We hope for somewhere in Europe though. The US, without major changes in the political climate here, is just not where we find comfort these days. Sad, but true. You can read all about our adventures and travels at Beneath Our Feet .

I have been busy. Finishing up my certification with Birthing From Within and working as a doula. Occasionally I pretend to have another business that I sell things I have made, but mostly it serves as a means of supporting my fabric habit. I am a full fledged fabric addict.

So we shall see jus how much i actually write here. It might be nice to have a place to just babble again.

posted by Unknown at 7:37 am | | 0 comment(s)