(from Chicago for work). … but not back to blogging just yet. Took today to do a yoga class, have tea at a park with a friend, etc. Will be back in the swing of things over the next few days!

Well, I did it! I Raced for the Cure! I got up early this morning and ran the timed 5k with my lovely 4 running mates, including one crazy pink haired mama

The pictures came out SUPER awkward, esp since I look like I’m doing the pee pee dance. It was cold at 6:30 this morning!

How did it go? I got my period while running, that’s how. By mile 2 I could tell things were, well, uh, flowing. And the pms cervical cramps came right on time too. I think my IUD made it worse, I seriously felt like I was going into labor, lol. So I walked from about 2 miles in for maybe a .5 mile stretch and then ran the last part again, timing around 39 minutes, lol. I’m still happy with it though, it was about having fun and we sure did! Also, I wore a pink sign on my back honoring my friend who passed away. It was sad to see young girls running with “In memory of my mom” on their backs. Though we were having fun, I was sobered by the reality of this disease. It’s heartbreaking.

So here we are, being nerds. (Okay, I’m the only nerd.) After are some other pictures.

Enjoy!

For some reason I want to add that we all appear much thinner in real life. This photo added 20 pounds to each of us LOL

Yeah, that’s me dancing in the background of this accidental pic, with Nicole in the foreground tying her shoes. Sigh. I have WAY too much energy at all the WRONG times.

Misty with her crazy pink hair. Me with my crazy pink face.

Ethan in my “Race for the Cure” cape. (Is it just me or is this pose a little… feminine?)

Verity playing in the kids room at church this morning

Off the needles: Finally finished this Ostrich Plume Shawlet (in wool and silk yarn) for Lacey this week.

Verity fell asleep in the back position in the Ergo while in the back yard picking tomatoes the other day. When I took off the Ergo she stayed fast asleep on my back, so we had to shoot this funny picture.

THAT’S ALL FOLKS. I might be quiet this week as I’m working a TON and flying to Chicago on Wed.

How do you explain a phrase to your 4 year old that is, afterall, just 90’s slang? Okay, okay, raise your hand if you say the following words and phrases as part of your regular vocabulary (like I do):

• All that and a bag a chips
• Back In The Day
• Beeotch
• The Bomb
• Boo Ya!
• Chica
• Chick-Flick
• Don’t go there!
• Dude!
• F-bomb
• Gettin Jiggy
• Homey
• Junk
• My Bad!
• NOT!
• Nice!
• Not So Much
• Oh snap…
• Score!
• Shiznit
• Straight Edge
• Sweet!
• Talk to the Hand(because the face ain’t listening)
• Trippin’
• Whassup?
• What’s the dillio?
• Who’s your daddy?
• Yadda Yadda Yadda
• Your Mom!
• fugly
• m’kay

(Check out more and their meanings here)

Admittedly, I wasn’t very “hip” in the 90’s since I was pretty much in grade and middle school (LOL) but I never heard this one: “Quit Icing My Grill” – did you?

… but I’m SO using it from now on!

a.k.a. the Friday home school group that began this summer. (Not pictured: Misty and her kids, darn it!) But the rest of us are here and we took a group shot today at park time for our yahoo group page. These kids are some of Ethan’s bestest buds and I’m so happy to have found this lovely group of diverse women! (Chris is at most of our gatherings and entertains the kids, so he was told he HAD to be in the group shot too, lol. I secretly think he is the most fantastic of all men )

Update on Verity!

She’s roughly 4.5 months and weighs 18 pounds (gained 10 pounds since birth). She is also verifiable sitting up all the time now (one step closer to being able to ride my bike again!!!) I just grabbed the camera to capture this mile marker, as well as her hand/mouth coordination with grabbing her toys and stuff. She will be running around with her brother in NO TIME!

She still nurses whenever the heck she wants to, is worn 99% of the time, sleeps right next to me, and sleeps about 11pm through 4am straight most nights, wakes to nurse frequently in the early morning but stay asleep until about 9 or 10am. She then cat naps all day, literally only 20 minutes at a time sometimes. She is very similar to Ethan at this stage; loudly verbal, curious, and strong.

(sorry about the spit up in the video and the fact that its sideways! lol) This is kinda long and boring and there is no sound so basically if you are a grandparent, eat your heart out; all other readers, you can pretty much skip this entire post

Sometimes I read something on a blog or in a book and I think, wow. One day, I’ll write that good. Cook that good. Be that funny, endearing and interesting. I think that when I read Kathleen Norris, or Annie Dillard, or Ann Lamott.

It’s fun to be in my twenties, as long as I continuously recognize the fact that I’m a noob at life for most intents and purposes. I feel like a wobbly kid walking on that balance beam at the playground that is actually only a foot off the ground. On this blog, I write about all the crazy and ordinary shenanigans and ideals I get myself into and I don’t spell check or edit or draft – I just lay it out there. People think their whole childhood about being a “grown up” and what they really picture, or at least I did, is being in their twenties and thirtees: what job you will have, who will be your spouse, what cute little kids you will have, what your house will look like… then BAM! You’ve arrived! Look around – this is what you’ve pictured as being “grown up”! And then the kids start to age and EEK, so do you. The future, being the mom of older kids, being a mid-lifer, or older, seems a million miles away.

Sometimes I meet some woman who is passed her 20’s and 30’s and I realize it must be rather grand. I met one last week at knitting- a sarcastic, fun, energetic mom from church. Or I’ll read someone’s blog who strikes me as being very comfortable in their own skin, or very at peace with life, and I begin to look forward to growing older, wiser, more seasoned and secure.

Blogs like this. I read Karina’s Kitchen from time to time and its like listening to the rambles of the mom figure I’ve always wanted, lol. She’s gifted in the kitchen, gifted with words, spunky and unapologetic in her humor. I like her. So I’m passing on her blog, for those who haven’t read it yet (if there are any of you left?) because maybe seeing a woman like this age so gracefully in her demeanor will inspire you too. Doesn’t it just make you wanna live life to the fullest, whatever that means for you?

(Doesn’t it also make you wanna bake some muffins?!)

This is an awesome article! I couldn’t agree more with the absurdity of conditional parenting, and I know I have a long way to go before I am really realizing my ideals as a mother but I’m growing more confident in my goals each day. So woot!

You know what else is awesome?! MamaZen. I can’t say enough about the free class I took this morning (they were shooting photos for their website so it was free). Ethan’s old “playschool” teacher was the class teacher and the space and offerings at this place are just amazing. Not to mention the wonderful workout I got, which warmed up and BURNED muscles I didn’t know existed, got my heartrate up, sweat dripping, and I felt all flexible and warmed up by the time it was over. Back pains I’ve been having were almost gone. It was amazing. If you live in the Portland area, please check them out. They’re adding new classes and events all the time. GREAT group of ladies. –> http://www.mamazenpdx.com

I just got back from a community dinner with our friends down the street. The vegan potluck features many delicious meals which I scooped out by the heapfuls and piled on a small dessert plate for Ethan and I to munch on. But just when I thought I had it comfortably full, I turned around and noticed THREE MORE dishes on the stove! What to do?!

Boy, this is life, zapped into this little kitchen surrounded by amazing opportunities. Choosing what I want on my plate is definitely one of the major themes this month.

Within just a few weeks of Verity’s birth, I already began working (from home) again and within a month I was starting to be involved in Ethan’s homeschooling and joined a Friday homeschool group. I tried to be cautious about my involvement and commitment level to the various offers out there, from putting in time with my local church to taking on more roles (and hours, and even new clients) in my business, to starting a 3x a week running schedule to do the 5k this Sunday, to signing up for random things like mommy and me yoga on Wed. and Sat. and Village Home classes on Tuesday and quickly, quickly, I am realizing, my schedule got FULL.

SO full, in fact, that when I turn around and notice all the pots still on the stove, I have no more room and things begin to overlap and fall off. Not good.

Fact of the matter is, I am a mom with 2 young kids; one who is an infant and one who is homeschooled by yours truly. I work between 20-40 hours a week, depending on the work flow, from home with only my darling husband as “childcare”. I often work a few long days per week and then other days all night, in order to make up for the days I must take off to participate in field trips and community events and so on. Oh, and let’s not forget spending a tad of my time with my “intentional community” at the Kenton House and, of course, my husband and marriage (and weekly counseling and reading material and all those things that come with that!) And then there’s the wee time to blog, or knit, or watch a movie, or have tea with friends. You get the picture.

The point is, my time is valuable. And there is a time for everything under the sun. And it is all meaningless. LOL (okay, that was a tad out of context, but sometimes it feels that way, heh? Solomon certainly was wise!)

Where am I going with this? Here it is –

Today was Ethan’s first day of school at Village Home. We were SO looking forward to it. Here’s how it went:

Up working til passed midnight last night, nursed twice in the night, woke up at 7:30am to get kids dressed, ran out just before 9am with no breakfast (the kitchen was too full) so we ran to Posies, ate our breakfast in the car on the way, got there (in Beaverton) 5 minutes late. Got to class 10 minutes late.

First class of the day? Word World. Hmmm, how do I sum this up? The teacher mainly passed out worksheets. The lowlight of this was when another mother did Ethan’s FOR him. Yes, she sat there and told him every single answer to a worksheet he already knew how to do, not even letting him guess himself. I suppose his size deemed he needed the help but I was stunned silent and didn’t know what to do. I actually had to walk out of the room! I was like, if I’m going to spend an hour watching my son do TWADDLE, at least let him do it himself! lol Then a story was read, Blueberries for Sal, which we’ve been reading allllll summer long. Then they did another worksheet and colored in things that are blue. What? This is a $50 class (for the semester). So that was a little of a bummer, but I was still hopeful.

Then there was Move and Groove, a dance class. Ethan was very shy about moving about and following the teacher. He constantly wanted to be up at the front, talking to instructors, rather than following along. I watched him pick his nose on the sidelines for about 20 minutes (I’m not kidding, either, he dug out some good ones) before I was able to pass off the baby to Chris so I could go do ALL the dancing activities WITH him for another 40 minutes. It was fun, but I will not be able to do that each week, as the morning classes were going to be the hubby’s duty and the afternoon classes were going to be my duty. So this was definitely not a permanent solution. And I definitely felt that he was not that interested in the class, AT ALL.

The highlight of the day was meeting up with a home school mom from our Friday group and her son and going out to lunch (Korean, yum!). We rushed back for “Knitting” which was basically a small group of knitters, over half of whom were tweens learning for the first time. Ethan was frustrated doing his finger knitting in front of people and ended up practicing his “common words” flash cards instead. I was beginning to feel like this exhausting day was not really worth our time, or our money, but I wanted to get through the last class.

Organic Gardening. This is perhaps the best class of the day, which involves an instructor answering our questions that come up about our home gardens all the while we are weeding and planting and what not a space at the school with two small raised beds. It was fun – but alas. We have a garden at home. We do this every day. Do we need to travel 3 hours both ways via lightrail and spend our entire day here for that?

So we finally get home at about 4:30. I promptly start the meal for the vegan potluck and Ethan is a great little cook with me, helping me clip the tips of the green beans, par-boil them, add the cherry tomatoes and stir in the dressing. I talked to him about the day.

He says he enjoyed himself. He says he wants to go back. And I know on some level he does. This is hard!

But I asked him if he wanted to hit a storytime each week at the library like we used to instead of going to the reading class for a story, and that we’ll still see William and Brianna several times a week for playdates and our Friday group. I remind him that we dance together everyday, so we can still do this at home, as well as garden and knit. But if he REALLY wants to keep going on Tuesdays, I say, then okay – I’ll keep trying to make it work.

In the end, he admits that he could do without the Tuesday school day, in exchange for the dancing, knitting, gardening and reading we already do anyway, integrated into our daily life so effortlessly.

This was all such an odd experience. I thought I would love starting this little “homeschool” classes day, but I realized even more why I chose to do what I do: Because learning is so alive, so vivid, so individual; Because peers should be mixed ages, mixed abilities, mixed walks of life; Because life should be organic and integrated and rhythmic- not a rush and a squeeze and a stress; Because our time should be FULL with not only wonderful activities but also plenty of open slots for spontaneity, generosity — even so-called “inconveniences”!

I end the day right now reflecting on how grateful I am to live the life I do. I love that Ethan’s classroom is the world, his teachers are all around him and his learning happens constantly. He thrives in it and he’s confident in it, he has dear friends as well as casual playmates. Upon carrying bags full of plums from our tree to our neighbors yesterday, it occured to me that he also has a “grandpa and grandma” figure right next door, as well as “Aunts” a few doors down from him, with dogs he gets to play with since he doesn’t have one, lol. (Chickens I can handle. Dogs? No.)

In Portland, we are building, (ever so slowly sometimes!) a surrogate family – complete with odd characters, clumsy experiences, and — eventually — roots. A few weeks ago I was seriously at my wits end with homesickness and wondering if I should just pack it up and move in with in-laws back in Florida!!! But since “hanging in there”, I see evidence each new day that we are here for a reason and that things are actually going quite well.

So long as I can keep my plate open enough for community experiences that matter, I think we’ll do just fine.

(On a related note, our Kenton House will be the new NoPo – the short name for North Portland- Home Group at Evergreen! I am very excited to get some more intimate and smaller experiences with a group of great people while we shares meals — and lives– together. Pray for us!)

Ethan’s been singing the Milo and Otis theme song for DAYS.ON.END. (hence the title of this post). We took many a walks outside this weekend while camping, which included the usual and unusual conversations and play and laughter around meals and bonfires (including one very, very huge one) with old friends and new friends, lots of meals, trails, and even an amazing puppet show (courtesy of Heath, of course) and a tour of a farmhouse/museum (way to slide some “unschooling” in there!).

We are all pretty exhausted (WHAT? You mean I didn’t sleep that well in a cold tent with a deflating queen sized air mattress squished between a 4 year old and a nursing infant and a snoring husband who weighs more than the 3 of us combined so we roll towards his side the whole night??? Didn’t those EAR PLUGS WORK? Ya don’t say?!)

Pictures tell the rest:

Okay, this first one is from the night before camping but isn’t she too cute always sticking her tongue out?

Here we go now with the camping:

Raise your hand if you’re the one who ate all the blackberries!

My friend Katie was my angel helping entertain baby while I cooked!

This is my favorite picture of the shadow puppet show, Ethan with buds William and Brianna. (Can you guess the story? Where the Wild Things Are!) Below is a slideshow with more pics from the puppet theatre and massive bonfire.

Since my internet connection has been rather spotty tonight, I wasn’t able to get you some pictures of our camping trip due to long uploading times. One of the things I thought about a lot while camping was the way in which intentionally eating well was HARD. Camping, I found out, is considered by many to be like vacation or holidays- as in, no holds bar on crave eating, lol. I had brought only healthy things that for the most part adhered to my “whole foods” diet, (and some creamed raw honey to curb my sweet tooth!), but I still felt at the end of the trip like I was a bit bloated just from the bread for sandwiches, etc. I found people were curious as to why eggs, butter, sausage, etc was okay for me but not things like marshmallows or diet coke or french toast, so I had the opportunity to share how I’m trying to eat to get healthier (losing weight a plus). Aside from what I thought was a pretty healthy diet already, I’m doing more to add nutrient-dense, whole foods and cut, well, the opposite! In addition, I’m going to be using herbal teas to support my vital organs (to clear out and support things like my liver, hoping to also see my skin acne improve).

Anyway, with all the curiosity I decided to post something I had come up with to give me meal plan ideas and so on. It’s an example of what foods would be consumed on an ideal day in my diet. (And I don’t mean diet as in “South Beach” or “Watch Watchers” but in the traditional sense of the word- i.e. “the food I eat”.) I’ve done an okay job with some of these for about a year now, and I’ve gotten more focused about it in the last week or so. This week I plan to be truly intentional because I’m feeling my body saying something like, “I need support; mayday, mayday!”

Example of my ideal diet:

Breakfast:
• 8 oz. homemade raw milk kefir smoothie blended with organic frozen fruit and 1 tbsp of raw unfiltered local honey
• 1 slice of bacon cooked in coconut oil in cast iron skillet, a poached farm-fresh organic egg (yoke unoxidized / runny) on top of a bowl of quinoa and kale, along with a variety of seasonal sautéed veggies(squash, mushrooms, green beans, onion, sweet potato, etc.), sprinkled with nutritional yeast (for a vitamin b complex, etc) and topped with local hot sauce (peppers are anti-inflammatory)
• 6oz. organic fair-trade coffee, 2 tbsp’s whole raw milk

Lunch:

• canned tuna or wild caught salmon (with bones and skin) on salad of leafy greens and veggies, with homemade dressings like EVOO and vinegar, etc
• a fermented cod liver oil supplement – dosage to provide me with at least 20,000 IU vitamin A (needs for nursing women) and comparable vit D support (5-10,000 IU)
• Strong tea of dandelion leaf and root, red clover, red raspberry leaf and nettle (which is a liver, kidney and uterine tonic for hormone balancing and gentle cleansing – as I can’t do a full on liver detox while nursing)

Dinners:

• Stews (bone broth, veggies, pieces of chicken, etc), quinoa bowls (soaked black beans over sautéed kale and quinoa, etc), baked or sautéed meat and veggies (curries!), stuffed peppers, soaked legumes/beans/grains in moderation (quinoa or brown rice, lentils, etc)

Light or In-between meals and desserts:

• a baked sweet potato with skin and butter and raw honey on top
• celery with all natural no sugar peanut butter (ingredients should be peanuts, with or without salt), or raw tahini (almond butter)
• handful of mixed nuts (esp raw almonds)
• stove popped popcorn in coconut oil with nutritional yeast and sea salt (“real salt” brand for minerals)
• steamed edamame in the pod with sea salt
• Occasionally a small baked good, made without refined white flour or sugar.
• Kale chips (kale baked in extra virgin olive oil and sea salt)
• Seasonal variety of fruits and veggies (carrot sticks, sweet bell peppers, cucumber, baked sweet potato “fries”, etc.)
• Fresh, plain whole yogurt with some fruit, cinnamon, and raw unfiltered honey
• raw milk steamer (raw milk warmed on stove with raw honey, cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg, cloves, fair trade organic powdered cocoa and homemade vanilla extract)



Not allowed:

• sugars– which is in everything from cereals to bars to breads to ketchup to peanut butter these days… (oh, and this includes every type of sweetener except raw honey – and even that can be too much of a good thing — I have to remind myself! lol I have been using Xylitol in small amounts here and there as well, like if I want a touch of sweetness to my coffee)
• refined processed foods (most things that are prepackaged, preprepared, etc fall into this category)
• empty carbs (refined white flour pastas, breads, scones, bagels, fruit juice, yogurts, baked goods, white rice, etc – this stuff WILL mess with your insulin and WILL make you store fat. Period. Tip: If something says “fat free” or “light” on the package, its a good idea to puke on it. Or put it back on the shelf, whatever.)
• trans fats (like hydrogenated vegetable oils) (fast food is a duh)
• foods with soy and corn additives (high fructose corn syrup, soy lecithin, so on)
• basically anything that is not a “whole food” or was not made with strictly whole, natural foods. If you can’t read the ingredients, you are better off not eat it (this includes “healthy” cereals, salad dressings, you name it). Look at nutrition labels and know what you are eating. Bonus: eating whole foods (organic or fresh and local when you can) is NOT more expensive than prepackaged NON-food when you actually look at it pound for pound unit comparison.
• In summation, give your body what it was made to consume. Food. Just food. Kinda easy to remember, heh?

of course, plenty of water is always a good idea as well

To add to my nourishing diet I am hoping to strengthen my body physically. This week I have 3 practice jogs for 30 minutes each before the big race (5k, lol) on Sunday for Race for the Cure. But my goal is to also begin to develop a backyard obstacle course with things like ropes, tires, a soccer ball, orange cones, so on, that I can run through several times a day with Ethan. In addition, I’ll be starting a yoga class.

So if my connection cooperates, I’ll be posting the pics tomorrow, stay tuned!