- visiting S.C.R.A.P. next week with friendie Misty for cheap reused goodies to inject my craft bug with crack.
- discovering natural wood toy/craft items at bulk prices
- impending trip to FL and watching LOST Season 5 premiere with decade old friends (and the coming Season 4 from netflix! – tooooooo inject my Lost bug with crack )
- revisiting the possibility of being a homeschooling work-at-home mom tomorrow morning with Debra!
- new blogs to frequent: Debra’s above, as well as this one and this one.
- tomorrow’s plan to pack away Christmas, but move the tree to the backyard covered in bird seed ornaments to enjoy for another week or so from my window.
- the coffee in the french press RIGHT NOW… liquid la-huv.
- the amazing, not to be missed, knee high’s Hubby SCORED as a christmas”time” gift for me from nearby “Sofia’s” on Fremont. Will I ever take them off? Well, I have to shower eventually…

*there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home*

Speaking of goals, add this to my previous list of goals for this year and beyond:

- Focus lately on getting a few more marks on the right hand side rather than the left:

Characteristics of Functional and Dysfunctional Couples

1. Dysfunctional: Being together and unhappy is safer than being alone.
Functional: Being together brings us joy and happiness.

2. Dysfunctional: It is safer to be with other people than it is to be alone and intimate with our partner.
Functional: Being alone and intimate with our partner is as safe as being with other people.

3. Dysfunctional: If I really let my partner know what I’ve done or what I’m feeling and thinking (who I am), (s)he will leave me.
Functional: When I really let my partner know what I’ve done or what I’m thinking (who I am), it increases our intimacy. It’s met with acceptance.

4. Dysfunctional: It is easier to hide (medicate) our feelings through addictive/compulsive behavior than it is to express them.
Functional: We no longer need to hide and medicate our feelings through our addictive/compulsive behavior. We can express our feelings.

5. Dysfunctional: Being enmeshed and totally dependent with each other is perceived as being in love.
Functional: Being interdependent adds strength to the relationship.

6. Dysfunctional: We find it difficult to ask for what we need, both individually and as a couple.
Functional: We are learning to ask for what we need, both individually and a couple.

7. Dysfunctional: Being sexual is equal to being intimate.
Functional: Being sexual enhances our relationship (increases our intimacy).

8. Dysfunctional: We either avoid our problems or feel we are individually responsible for solving the problems we have as a couple.
Functional: We are learning to face our problems and not to feel individually responsible for solving the problems we have as a couple.

9. Dysfunctional: We believe that we must agree on everything.
Functional: We believe we don’t have to agree on everything.

10. Dysfunctional: We believe that we must enjoy the same things and have the same interests.
Functional: We believe we can have different interests and enjoy different things and enjoy being together.

11. Dysfunctional: We believe that to be a good couple we must be socially acceptable.
Functional: We don’t have to be socially acceptable.

12. Dysfunctional: We have forgotten how to play together.
Functional: We can play and have fun together.

13. Dysfunctional: It is safer to get upset about little issues than to express our true feelings about larger ones.
Functional: We are learning to express our true feelings about larger issues, and we are learning to resolve conflict.

14. Dysfunctional: It is easier to blame our partners than it is to accept our own responsibility.
Functional: We are learning to accept our individual responsibility.

15. Dysfunctional: We deal with conflict by getting totally out of control or by not arguing at all.
Functional: We are learning to deal with conflict and to fight fairly.

16. Dysfunctional: We experience ourselves as inadequate parents.
Functional: We accept our limitations as parents.

17. Dysfunctional: We are ashamed of ourselves as a couple.
Functional: We are proud of ourselves as a couple.

18. Dysfunctional: We repeat patterns of dysfunction from our families-of-origin.
Functional: We are recognizing and breaking the patterns of dysfunction from our families-of-origin.

Call it end-of-year itchy, maternal nesting, or psychosis, but me and goals are soul sista’s lately. To name a few… in no order of importance (and I hope to update the blog when something is accomplished throughout the year):

- Cut TV/movies to a minimum and institute a Family Night of games and creativity instead.

- Learn to knit (period) but most importantly: hats, leg warmers, and baby clothes, including cloth diaper covers

- Get a used sewing machine and finish up some drape/baby clothes/natural toys/etc dreams of mine.

- Learn to make (and commit to making!): my own bread and crackers, rice milk, kefir/yogurt and soap.

- Turn studio into place for guests and my writing, reading and craft-making adventures.

- For next 4 months, with Hubby, focus counseling and mentoring relationships on our parenting skills (and ISSUES)

- Launch new business (website) in order to attract more freelance clients (this will be realized in about a week!)

- Decide/commit on whether or not to homeschool Lil E for the next 2 years (meeting with some one about this this week! Yay!)

- Take online courses on website design and development to obtain credentials (haven’t heard back from an advisor I contacted last month, but its on the not-so-back backburner of mine – and its in good company with many other not forgotten, but not gotten around to lists.)

- Paint and photograph more artwork to beautify the home on a dime (accomplished 1 new painting and 2 new framed photographs this week, have more painting to do…)

- Continue my commitment to counseling, discover, healing and wholeness.

- Increase awareness of God in daily routines and increase involvement in church theology and service activities.

- Start seedlings of this year’s plantings indoors and successfully grow more than herbs and tomatoes this year.

- Strengthen my community/network of female/mommy friends in Portland.

- Gain less baby weight this time around, and lose it faster too! (So far so good- 24 weeks, weight gain at less than 15 pounds)

- Have a successful homebirth (the best laid plans, anyhow!)

- Learn to cut hair better since me, my son, and my Hubby all go to yours truly for their lousy haircuts (okay, they aren’t lousy, but they could be better, that’s for sure!)

- continue to make all debt payments on time, equaling over $10,000 by end of 2009 (nearly half my current income!)

- Figure out how to live the fullest life possible with the least amount of income as possible in order to achieve progress towards simplicity, enjoyment and balance.

Come on, let’s hear ‘em, what be yours?

Christmas Greetings!

Another snow day inspired some dreams about possible career moves, including photographer for the National Audubon Society (j/k)…

Hubby, however, just got buried while I made some Christmas decorations and gifts …

Not a very usual winter for us stumptowners! This was quite an exciting day, with 4-7 inches of snow. We got to play in it most of the day, even walking to the grocery store wasn’t so bad if you could stand the stuff blowing in your face. There were lots of families out sledding down the hill at the park and we realized we just HAVE to have a sled in time for next year (just in case!)

…apparently, we don’t know how to use the audio for the movie setting of our camera, so you’ll just have to do one of my favorite pastimes: watching on mute and making up funny things we are saying! YAAAAAYYYY…..

just to update ya -
the day wasn’t so bad after all. I was grumpy all morning and trying to get work done, only to fall asleep on my laptop and wake up 3 hours later (so did Lil’ E – on the floor!). It’s safe to say we were both just really tired! I woke up and worked some more, and this evening got a call from Lil’ E’s pediatrician (who is actually a midwife and natural health practitioner). I’m going to be switching my care to her and going with a home birth (as opposed to the birthing center), a decision I feel really good about. The financial cost is about the same, the cost out of pocket being about what we make as a family for the entire month, but I’m going to be hopeful about raising some money and taking some side gigs to save up the money.
Okay, back to work and coffee(3 hour nap bites ya in the butt later!)

It’s 7:30am, I’ve only been up for one hour, but already I have this “bad day” kinda feeling. Dealt with some correspondences that made me think about debt and the pregnancy, two things that I really don’t want to think about before the sun comes up (or at all, frankly!). It’s frustrating, as always, to barely have enough to pay our bills, yet make too much to get state insurance to cover my birth. Disappointments with my midwives over the last few months have been really eating at me, as I’m more than half way to the birth and there is still no budge from my insurance, along with other things that have made my intuition and feelings about my midwives kinda muddled and complicated. My last few appointments have left me with an unsettled feeling and fighting tears on my 45 minute walk home, which can’t be good… I’m praying God will lighten this one load a bit – either give me some breakthrough with them that leads to some peace, or throw a new midwife in my lap. (I just need something to not be a struggle or a fight, just a nice, flowing, easy process. Is that so much to ask?! )

This year has including some major disappointments, and with less than 2 weeks left of 2008, I’m really, really, looking forward to sloughing it off and hoping for 2009’s triumphant entry. This year, particularly the last 6 months, has been a bit like getting one of those really deep pressure massages that, despite its healing properties, leaves you dehydrated and bruised. The difficulties of this year have left my good juju so depleted that little things (like the painful cheek bite that has left me unable to eat anything solid for 2 days!) make me want to scream “IT’S NOT FAIR!” and kick over a trash can. Ah, yes, how nice would it be if every once in a while, an adult could feel totally justified in throwing a good ol’ fashioned FIT!

Of course, there’s a flip side, there always is. I’d like to think the struggles have left me wiser, less apt to throw my energy into useless causes, (i.e. at this point, if the news gets too heavy and ridiculous, I turn it off!) It’s easier to filter what dramas I let get to me and to differentiate what activities and people hold value. I am also usually more aware of my insecurities and over-explanations, my tendency to get consumed with work instead of what’s going on inside and around me, and less concerned if I’m understood or even liked. Why I ever cared about the opinions of people who have hardly spent any time with me in my life I doubt I’ll ever get. Classic, but insane. It’s refreshing to be exhausted at my old habits, and to realize I don’t have to feel either defensive or apologetic- particularly because I’m allowed to make mistakes and grow. Amen?! lol To be able to recognize even the teeny beginnings of this change in myself is encouraging, because I know that if I continue to work this process of dealing with my life, I’m only going to learn more and get healthier as time goes on.

Elsewhere in news:

It is snowing outside and its really, really pretty right now. Nice thick snow and not too cold out (mid-30’s). It looks like a postcard from my window sometimes, as these large evergreens line the backyard fence and now have frosting all over them

I’ve been working on revamping my business, name and website, this week, and will be excited to launch it by the new year. Finding the time to design something new has been a long time coming, but I think it will be much more encompassing of my current services and skills.

I’ve begun reading a communication book (Hubby has been obsessed with these social/emotional intelligence and teamwork/leadership books lately so I have some catching up to do). I’m starting with “People Skills: How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts” by Robert Bolton. The start is cheery (not) — the highlight being the T.S. Elliot quote that typical families are:

“Two people who know they do not understand each other,
Breeding children whom they do not understand
And who will never understand them.”

From first hand experience, I can attest to the correctness of the authors statement: “Marriage, the most complicated of human relationships, cannot flourish without effective communication. Couples hoping to establish an enriching marriage often lack the needed relational skills and end up living parallel lives in a marriage without intimacy… Proximity without intimacy is inevitably destructive.”

I’m also reading “Abide with Me”, a novel by Elizabeth Strout. I need to start on the next Imago Book Club book (hopefully I won’t be leading a third discussion in a row having barely finished the book minutes before we joined!) which is a Henri Nouwen book, “The Wounded Healer”. When not doing one of these other things, or while working at night to keep myself awake, we’re starting our Lost marathon, hoping to watch all the seasons by the premiere on Jan. 21st, though we don’t have the funds to buy the latest season on DVD just last week. I’m surprised at how little I care about that this year!

That’s about all I can think of for today. Chow for now!

Oh, the snow sure was purty today… from my window, anyway…

Having to go get chicken food this afternoon? Bleh. Wrapped up like a tortilla in layers of maternity clothes, with nothing but my eyes exposed, yet the temps turn my toes (from inside snow boots) into numb ice cubes and fingertips (through two pairs of knit gloves) into useless burning tentacles! Oh, and let’s not forget the lovely build up of SNOT that drips into the scarf wrapped tightly around the lower half of your face, (yum.) Lil’ E and I hold on to Hubby’s arms for dear life since we both stand to lose our lives (yes, I’m a drama queen) slipping on slick icey sidewalk. By the time I get back to the house, I’m walking on my heels in hopes that the .5 inch distance from the ground will keep my toes from needing to be amputated! (Did I mention I lived in Florida MY WHOLE LIFE?)

But, seriously, had you seen how cabin fever we were today, you’d know that I complain only in good heart. We woke up BEFORE the butt crack of dawn for Hubby to decide whether or not to take a PTO snow day, so I got to workin’ super early only to lose my internet access a few times. By noon we had exausted ourselves with munchies and daytime TV in the background, while Hubby and Lil’ E resorted to pillow fights (with lots of lovely shrill shrieking from the 3 year old). I put on LOST season 1 when the soaps took over network television, after giving up hopes that Hubby would play me in a hearty game of scrabble (I think I wooped his arse a bit too hard this weekend – hurt his ego). Finally, we just had to leave the house. Sanity depended on it.

Sometimes I feel stir-crazy like this from a normal week, snow not included. When work assignments are slow and there’s no one to chit chat with save the incessant narrative of my WAY TOO VERBAL toddler, I tend to get a bit nuts. It’s that fine balance between staying open enough with your schedule that you have time to raise a child AND take work assignments simultaneously, verses getting your plate productively full and risking overload. There are nice long work days that make ya feel like a normal adult again, (pleasantly exausted), and there are other days when life has been set on slow-mo and you are making up songs to sing while you lay on the floor. (When I said nuts, you believed me, right?)

But, then, what is there to complain about, really? Ha! Nuthin, sweets! Keep on keepin’ on.