Stormy Skies

The temperature right now is 49 degrees (F) and the snow is slushy and melting. I have a headache, possibly from the barometric pressure, possibly from stress. I had terrible dreams last night and woke up way too early and anxious. It is the anniversary of the Challenger explosion and my father's (who I haven't seen in almost 4 years) 58th birthday.

This weekend I had an opportunity to practice my revolution: Release. An email popped up in my inbox, a reply to an email I sent to a friend in June of 2006. I had just finished my thesis, changed jobs to stay at home with Lil'Bug and the diploma for my Masters had arrived in the mail. With that relief, I jotted out a quick email to the close friends that I had become distant from that Spring. Only one ever responded and I was heartbroken, left wondering why. Time marched on, I slowly made friends and found things to occupy my time but I was still sad and sometimes angry about the loss.

Guess what? Yahoo had put my email in spam/junk folders and the recipients had never received them. Huh.

So I have all this built up heartbreak I've been holding on to all because of technology? (Ok, my aversion to using the telephone is another blog altogether....) Back to the email on Sunday.....she found my email while changing accounts and sent me an invitation to be friends again, even a play date this week. I cried. Geeze, I'm crying now*. It wasn't a purposeful ending of friendship, it was a glitch. So I released all the hurt I'd been feeling. Bye bye. (Sob, sniffle, whoo hoo!...) *Fine, pregnancy induced crying. Perhaps I am making big deal out of small gesture? Whatever. Whoo Hoo!

I have felt so disconnected and angry and sad for so long about so many things in my life. How many of them should I let go of? What if it hadn't been a mistake? What if I'd just tried harder (ie picked up the phone and dialed) instead of the self pity crap? Release. I need to let go of the questioning I torture myself with and just freaking relax. Enjoy what is to come. Embrace it fully without hesitation or sullen regrets.

Several times in my life I had passionate dreams that were derailed by outside forces or my own learning and discovery. Today reminds me of that. I gave up too easily. I fight hard until I don't and then I just regret. Sometimes I succeed, I do have a Masters and a child to prove that. :) That's just it. Why not explore those interests I gave up on so early? Photography, astronomy, ornithology, poetry, training to be a paramedic......I can still do all of these things and on my own time for my own pleasure. I can rekindle lost friendships. I can foster and nurture new ones without hesitation.

I can heal.

Photo Challenge 4- Release

The word for this week: Release

That's my revolution word for the year as well. My focus for meditation and relaxation. I am challenging my self to find the visual for this word, both noun and verb.

Later this week I am going to set up a sidebar with those who have participated so far! Feel free to jump in if you haven't.

Evil Sniffles, Fish Juice, and Car Safety

The evil sniffles have almost left my tiny daughter's body, we'll see what happens (resurgence?) after she gets home this afternoon from a trip, her first, to Chuck E. Cheese with her grandparents. I am not a germaphobe BUT our local Cheese leaves much to be desired AND Lil'Bug does not do well around animatronic characters (ei nightmares for weeks/months about "Dr. Faucet" and "Her Grossness" from the Grossology exhibit at the Science Center.....) so we will see how she does- rather we will hear about it when she gets home.

*UPDATE: She didn't go the Cheese! MIL took my concerns seriously and postponed the trip. :)

Fish Juice. What else would you call it? Last night while shopping Lil'Bug grabbed a Tropicana Omega 3 juice carton and put it in our cart. My curiosity led me to pick it up and read the ingredients (how did they add O-3 to juice? for that matter how do they get it into eggs? it's a fish product.....). Um. Yeah, in case you did not visit the link or missed the little print:

Ingredients: 100% pure pasturized orange juice and MEG-3* (fish oil and fish gelatin). *Ingredient not found in regular orange juice: contains tilapia, sardine, and anchovy.

If you click on the tilapia link, you'll see a detailed informational site that pretty much explains why I don't eat tilapia anymore. I am on a quest to get the Omega-3 in my diet more but I have to draw the line at adding such to my orange juice. Perhaps it is just a thing I do, reading labels and understanding them. Anchovies/Sardines in my salad dressing, I can live with- but what's next?

Ok, then there's the funny thing: Lil'Bug asked me to strap Purple Baby into a car seat, but we had groceries on the seat so she asked if I could strap her in with me. Sure. What I didn't realize was that I did. The doll was buckled resting right on my gravid belly and I didn't notice until we got home. It was a good laugh for all. At least my fuzzy brain defaults to caring for and the safety of small humanoid things.

Totally Awesome

Wow. I feel all warm and cozy. Evie at The Road Less Traveled gave me this award! Now to pass it on......harder since many, many of my favorite bloggers have already received this award and I'm not supposed to duplicate. I've been mulling over how to do this for days now. Do I just post my blogroll? No, too lazy. Agh. I know I will leave someone wonderful out, but I'll do my best!

Mama B. at My Little Soap Box: in real life and in blogdom she inspires me to think and to homeschool in ways I had not thought of on my own. In my unschooly world, she is a well trained mind.

Needleroozer at Turtleworks: An artist. She inspired me to get creative again, and despite my puttering, keeps me at it. Until I get the box off the counter and in the mail to her (I will, maybe when it's not so cold!) I hope this award shows my appreciation!

Evie's Incredible Shrinking Whimsigal: Oh, the food. Yum. You all should try her mushroom soup. Also, I could never fry an egg before. I know. Weird.

Laura at LifeDreamed: Another local friend and unschooler of a little. Honestly, her friendship came at a time when I really needed it. Our kids adore each other, despite the age gap. Also, yay!, she's due in August! We'll have summer babies together (I'm in June).

Anna Kiss at sugar boot and weasel: She's a poet too. I'm getting back into my groove and writing poetry- one a day in February. I totally bombed at NaNoWriMo. I didn't even get started. This I can do! Oh, and she's in Ohio. My hope is that I'll get to meet her when we move there.

Montucky Rox at South of the Bridgers: She posts rarely, but when she does it is usually something I need to reflect on at that very point in my journey. She's actual family, a precious and rare commodity. She has helped me through some pretty tough times and transitions AND she unschooled her young ones before life had other plans for her. I never knew that before this summer and it certainly made our connection feel deeper.

Kip at 24 piece set: Rox's middle one in NE, my second cousin. I recently found his blog and reconnected through that. The Internet is so cool! So is Kip's art, BTW.

Sarah at The View From Here: She is very conservative and religious. Sometimes I need to connect with that too. She also is a wealth of knowledge (and products) on natural parenting and that's awesome too. She's had a tough year, full of loss and hurting. A constant reminder to me to be more gentle with people, as we don't know what they are going through. Despite everything, she has still inspired many and continues to do so.

Christine at Welcome to My Brain: The pastor's wife. She cracks me up. She's sexy and nurturing and a whole lot of other stuff too. She has an awesome weekly Magic Milk o'the Week picture series- a major thing in breastfeeding advocacy. She's also got a crazy beautiful family and is about to add more to her brood. All that and she homeschools too!

KMDuff at Stuff About The Duffs: She's just like the rest of us, working towards gentleness, unschooling, raising kids, AND she writes about it too. She's in a warm locale- I often visit her blogs and think about flip flops in February. I've never worn flip flops in my life (web toe power and all). Mostly I love getting ideas from her. Her kids are much like Lil'Bug in interests.

I know. I left off the list some really great blogs- but the rules say only ten!