Category — community living

We’re here!

Lots of thoughts but nothing ready to articulate just yet. SO here are some pictures of us celebrating Valentine’s weekend with watercolored hearts and beautiful flowers amidst the packing and packing and packing. We loaded up everything in the living room to make sure it would fit in the storage cube (a nifty way to move cross country BTW, esp if you only do terminal to terminal as opposed to the more expensive option of door to door). We loaded up on Fat Tuesday and cleaned on Ash Wednesday. Our final evening was spent saying our goodbyes and a tasty throw-back homemade pizza night with our roommates and others who stopped by to say adios. It was lovely… and emotional! Later we spent a few hours trying to evenly distribute our FIVE HUGE suitcases full of stuff so they were all under the 50 pound mark. That’s a whole lotta luggage! We hit the hay (or the blow up mattress, to be precise) at just passed 2:30am and woke up to get ready to leave 4 hours later. A super sad goodbye was said to our amazing roomies and we boarded the taxi to the airport. What followed was the longest 13 hours of traveling EVER and we got to Fayetteville (or just outside of it) late yesterday evening. Baths and SLEEP came easily

Today we got groceries (found kombucha and our beloved cookie dough – score!) and spent time with my aunt. Back at the country house (where my other aunt lives), we set out to explore a bit. We spotted 3 deers, 1 hawk, and an armadillo. Chris and Ethan bounded after the hopping armadillo and cornered it under some rumble. Being just a foot away from it was fun and Ethan was super charged with energy after that! But not enough to make it back up the hill to the house again

More later… enjoy the pics in the meantime! The slideshow begins with Ethan playing with walnut boats last week in Portland and ends with Chris drinking Fayetteville roasted coffee. (The video below is Verity – she got the moving furniture thing down pat!)

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Had I known how 2010 would start out, I might have spent a little more time enjoying the “boring” aspects of our holidays.

Wow. Yeah. So…

I’ve been keeping some secrets from my blog readers at large, and for now, I still have to keep them! But I can share a little, and must, or I will begin to outgrow this humble little blog and be too far into another world to catch you guys up!

The last 3 weeks have been cra-HAZ-ee. A mixture of some of the most unexpected events to ever come our way, which truly spanned the spectrum of miracles and tragedies. We continue to “process” them all and hold so many in our hearts as we tredge on with life.

This week we finally zero’d in on some decisions about what our future holds and we felt strongly that us Ortecho’s had better get a move on. We have the opportunity to relocate right now; a window of time where Chris can look for work while we find more affordable housing elsewhere in the country that would also be more centrally located to loved ones (though we now have so many loved ones in Portland… *tear*).

A combination of events, circumstances, answered and unanswered prayers lead us to our first (and maybe only) stop along this next part of our journey: Fayetteville, AR.

When we first disclosed the news that we were moving to Arkansas, we got a lot of the same question we did when we picked Portland: “What’s in [insert location of your choice]???” with vague disdain and certain confusion

I think most of the people who know and love us well have come to see us as some brand of pioneers or globe trekkers at this latest surprising locale. Ah, but be that as it may, our hearts actually yearn to find “home” and settle down, and we wouldn’t be taking this step without some Hope that Fayetteville will fit the bill.

Our one-way tickets are booked for February 18th, (so soon!), and we began sorting through our clothing today (ah, the unhappy process of MOVING). I truly feel we are clinging to more than just our ideologies, more so to our FAITH in our loving Guidance and our new found sense of purpose and vision for our family unit. We trust that the light we have received for this next step is just enough to see us through. Sometimes the path we are on as a family creates in my mind’s eye an image of a trail in the darkness, complete with eery noises in the fog of a moonless night. But this latest stretch? It feels a little more like the dawning of a new day. It is the first crack of sunlight, chilly and quiet, when you spot the wildlife that comes out to graze and suck up the dew on long, unkept blades of grass.

Alright, alright, I’m at it again – getting way to allegorical

Deep breathes, simple prayers, belly laughs and cries of surrender seem to capture the mood of this stage. As we each adjust to another transition, we try to keep our sanity and sense of inner stillness.

And after all, what are we as humans if not explorers? Willing to go deeper, farther – within, without? Our family conversations these last few weeks are focused on the adventure that awaits us. Chris and I are excited to find new coffee shops, libraries, thai food, counselors, and of course, community. We are also wondering what God has up His sleeve with the close proximity this location puts us to my maternal family (who I was not raised around)! As for Ethan, he is excited to try out the caves and slip in bat poop (one of my memories when I visited Devil’s Den at age 7!) but when I told him about hiking around things called ticks and chiggers he declared: “I will NEVER go walking in the forest. EVER.”

So I may be more or less “around” these next few weeks as we attempt to get our “stuff” into a rubix cube of material things that can squeeze into a single storage pod for shipping. My heart is bursting with news and surprises and insights that are happening to me every day – but for now, I’ll hold them in and wait until the right time.

Until next time…

Oh and P.S.: I’m sporting dreads these days. No, really. Pictures coming as soon as I don’t look like a gnarly rufkin raised by wolves

I’m up after a loooooong nights sleep (guess I needed it!) still sitting in the dark in my room while Verity sleeps. She needed it too. You see, when she was trying to explore the possibility of biting my nipple yesterday, I had to pop her off and react to the pain to convince her to not try that again. She got wigged out. For about 5 hours she cried and wailed and started to nurse but then remembered my reaction and pushed me away. We laid in bed at midnight, her wailing, tired and hungry, while I just tried to coo at her and pray for her. Finally she fell asleep and so did I. When she woke up through the night, she nursed like a champ. She just needed a little sleep to ease the pain and confusion.

It works that way for us adults, too. The random thoughts and fears that my fatigue surfaces is often long forgotten when I wake up in the morning. Mercies are new.

I’m not enjoying the start of this year, I must admit. It’s put so much on my plate that I am really missing the simplicity of our days – doing some lessons, play, crafts, baking bread and working a few hours when Ethan goes to bed. The predictability and daily rhythm we were beginning to achieve at the end of last year has be upset by the upheavals that planning and moving creates.

An impending move away from Portland weighs on my mind. Part of me wants more time. I want to watch the tulips come up in all my familiar places. I want to sit outside working during the summer while Ethan and Verity and Caleb and Malachi play in the dirt and kiddie pool and get toasty. I want to crunch the leaves when we go trick-or-treating at familiar neighbors. I find such healing in the changing of seasons (something Florida did not offer me) and I hope that our “next place” will feel like home, and quickly! I am determined to put myself “out there” when we move. Ethan wants to know who our neighbors will be, and dog gone it we will bake them something and go introduce ourselves. We’ve already contacted a church we’d like to check out and are searching for home school groups, counselors, etc etc that we will have to find to keep ourselves from being “new” and isolated.

I tell myself it will be just a couple of years. I will look forward to seasons changing in a different area of America. It’s not that big of a change. Serenity tells me to accept, but my stubborn and fearful heart constantly quivers about starting over. Being present with my concerns helps, but sometimes I crave a distraction. Simply NOT thinking about it is a lofty goal

More work has come in this week, which helps. Work reminds me that life is still happening in the margins of all these big plans. Having something to focus on, and finish, is it’s own meditation.

The family and I took a break yesterday and went to see “The Princess and the Frog” – was way cute to see a Disney fairy tale set in New Orleans and the bayous (where my families are from and mostly still reside). While I am not a fan of Disney (at all!), it was nice to just go be entertained by a Cajun musical with Ethan while we split some popcorn. He loved it. I threw up the popcorn later but all in all it was a good outing. (My body was just pissed that I ate so much junk.)

Speaking of eating – oh my – this has been a pleasant moment or two to my days. I haven’t been able to pick up the knitting so reading is my next best escape. I’ve devoured some amazing books on nutrition and cooking. I don’t even know where to begin about that but yeah- let’s just say that I can’t wait til we move (there’s that word again!) and get settled in so I can start cooking my little heart out.

Now that I’m thinking of food, my tummy rumbling is reminding me that I haven’t had my tea and eggs yet. Must go!

More details soon, as plans shape up…

When I give a whistle, here me shout!

Phew, does any one else feel like the compression in their brain is reaching the “red” territory and sirens are going off with weird “Lost” voice WARNING alarms??? Or — is that just me?

For now, I don’t know how to catch up this blog and it’s readers because I am still not at liberty to reveal the details of the journey I am on. In fact, I won’t be “in the clear” to do so for several months! Kinda agonizing for me to not get this out there for processing, actually — but I’m trying to see it as a lessons in keeping some things private

Suffice it to say, we have lots of decisions to make. I am having to learn all kinds of stuff right now, like a crash course in the grown-up-world (which I have in many ways been too stuck on “survive” to take part in for many years!) Arg, again, I would like to say more about that but trust me, the time will come.

I can feel myself being propelled forward by necessity and desire, yet at the same time that Still Small Voice and many wise friends/family remind me to take this slooooowwwwwwww. I can’t even describe what mixture of feelings and thoughts run through me in the course of a single day lately. I am burdened for they heavy, heart-breaking circumstances happening in the lives of people I love right now. I am struggling to stay present in my own life, (work, homeschooling, marriage, cooking, laundry) while at the same time doing the very real and necessary steps of future planning. As a plan unfolds before me, I feel at first relieved that it is there and then quickly that relief is replaced by the uncertainty of still more unanswered details. (You can relate, heh, Maw Maw?!)

Staying present is SUCH a practice in surrender — and I for one SUCK. AT. IT. Choice is at once liberating and a weighty responsibility — which must make me sound like such a preteen, lol, but it’s true.

Will my family flow gracefully into this next chapter? What hiccups will interrupt our song? What fallen trees will litter our road? Can we “let go and let God”? Can we trust that He is holding on to our loved ones during a time when we are helpless to be of any practical service to them?

Oh, I am just not cut out for life on earth!

And now I am going to spout off words to let off mental steam (tip me over and pour me OUT!):

settling, creditors, SEP, liability, CD, HSA, taxes, jobs, unemployment extension, wagon, reliability, mileage, towing, u-haul, Upstate, budget, giving, saving, credit score, lease, waiting, goals, waldorfing, masters degree, FAFSA, 2 hour yoga class from which EVERYTHING HURTS, fermented, bulk buying clubs, homeschool group let downs, postpartum, mental health, new mexico, job loss, unusable ankle, recovery, counseling, identity, homesteading, solar powered, first time homebuyers programs, dreads, new city, new friends, new neighbors, new church, new farms, new home, new yard, new chickens, new beds, new life — old habits?, JESUS!, decisions, liver and egg yolks.

The path I am on has recently taken quite a turn. Or maybe I just see it up ahead, but haven’t ACTUALLY changed course yet. Perhaps I’ve been on whatever trail this has been for so long that I have to keep rubbing my eyes as I approach the upcoming crossroads. Is that a mirage I see?!

These are some findings:

Life is very peculiar. There is so much to be suffered. So much heartache and confusion. Especially since moving to Portland, I have realized just how essential community is to overall mental and emotional health. There are times, seasons even, where being out here has felt poignantly lonely. But for the most part, we have found relationships of support, investment, respect, generosity and love. For that I am so grateful. For SO many things I have found on our most recent leg of the “path” here in Portland: I am grateful.

Life also contains so much joy, surprises, and sweet, simple moments of surrender and worship. What a trip!

And now, change is on the horizon. Life and decisions and freedom, too.

I have a vision of our family a few years from now: homesteading a little urban bungalow somewhere; me- getting slightly better at being energetic and patient as a work-at-home, homeschooling mom; Chris graduating – and more importantly, finding his passion; our children enjoying life and learning and play; our home a place of solace and rest balanced with joy and production, with our hens in the backyard, most of our property covered in food producing gardens, Ethan and Verity’s paintings scattered across the walls. The vision rocks me to sleep at night and soothes the hardest of times. I believe it is a gift from God to catch for yourself a vision for the future and feel even slightly hopeful about life not ALWAYS being how it is now

Very exciting.

Curious about Urban Homesteading? Here’s a great article. Gives me chills just reading it!

In the meantime, enjoy some recent snapshots of our family… there is never a dull moment:

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“I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.

‘We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,’
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.”
- Oliver Herford, I Heard a Bird Sing

Ethan and Caleb gaze at the flames from their handmade beeswax candles

Verity’s Christmas present: blocks cut and sanded by dada, polished with beeswax and emollients by Ethan and mama

Ethan snapped this picture of me knitting Chris a hat in church on Sunday

Despite that I managed to blow up a blender today and send homemade carrot babyfood and glass flying all over the kitchen, (while my 4 year old bolted towards the living room screaming like a lobster in a pot of boiling water… ohhhh, the chaos that is my life at times…):

I am listening now to Sting’s introspective Christmas album (thank you, Maw Maw) and sipping my holiday tonic tea blend and, what can I say? All is well.

Peace, grace, tranquility and surrender: find them. Keep them close.

Brace yourself for a long post written by a lunatic who can’t sleep at 4:30 am.

I’ve been thinking this week about a particular conversation I had with some new sweet friends. They observed how odd it is to them that since moving to the Portland area they actually watch MORE TV, eat MORE fast food, and do more things out of convenience than they ever did in less progressive residences held previously. We talked about how in Portland, getting grass fed beef or raw milk from a local farmer isn’t such a novelty – in some circles its mainstream culture! Homeschooling, having all natural toys, example after example of how living in such a way is not special here, which challenges you, as a transplanted Portlander, to figure out what the real constructs of your value system is; do you do what you do because its trendy, because it sets you apart, etc — OR — do you do what you do because you value the earth and its inhabitants, you value nutrition and health, you value freedom and richness of educational options, so on?

In this conversation, some one remarked about how “living simply” is actually very complicated. You have to adjust to a whole new way of doing things. For us, living simply by having no car means we never have to worry when the Check Engine light is on. We never have to worry when we hear a funny sound. We don’t shell out $200 or more in gas and insurance each month. HOWEVER, living with no car is far from simple. Even in Portland.

To live without a car, for example, I must leave my house a full hour ahead of time to get to Ethan’s ice skating lessons. What would otherwise be a 10 minute drive, tops, becomes an Olympic endeavor to strap the baby on my back, brace the cold, often RUN out the door dragging Ethan along beside me to catch the MAX (only to, more often than not, barely miss it while waiting for the light to cross the street – thus being 15 minutes late despite my best efforts to leave an HOUR ahead of time.) Same thing goes for home school meetups, church on Sunday morning and other church functions through out the week. Outings, errands, and just plain ol’ shootin-the-breeze ventures will almost invariably FLOP without careful planning and purpose. Something like going all the way to Trader Joe’s for a more affordable load of groceries, but forgetting to get flea medicine for the cat at the pet store next door to Trader Joe’s is a tremendous oversight! You get all the way home and realize what you forgot to do and you might as well kiss your time goodbye because nothing is worth the 2 hour round trip again!

Or get this- going to the post office or finding a place to fax something. Oh my gosh. I can’t tell you how inconvenient it is along our common routes to do these things. A month ago I was set to fax a simple letter to my student loans lender in order to get my deferment processed, and you’d think in this day and age I could manage to get that accomplished in a MONTH but no, I haven’t. With two little kids, no vehicle, a job, homeschooling, and the bazillion things on my mind, finding a location to fax something has just not managed to stay in the forefront of my planning.

This is one reason that we are talking about owning a vehicle again, after 2+ years without. Also, the need we have for community while being so far from family is a pretty steep and crucial one — and the not having a car thing has been making it really difficult to participate in community. Hopping on the bike’s used to be a more viable option from our slightly closer-in locale, but a few miles out and an extra child and things get slightly more complicated – just enough to put that straw on the camels back. I feel like we’ve missed out on so much and have so few opportunities to get to know people in a church we’ve been going to for 2 years now. I can hardly ever make it to my favorite yoga studio, either, and I get free classes so – sheesh, what a bummer, right? I just can’t afford to lose the 2 hour bus ride round trip (when you have to take into account wait times) to a place that is less than 10 minutes away by car. But I digress…

There are other things, like eating organic and sustainable foods from local sources, that takes a large amount of intentionality despite that the efforts are in part fueled by the desire to live more simply. This week I took an hour or two comparing my organic produce buying options: this involved literally looking up the items on the produce bin that is delivered every 2 weeks to a cumbersome spreadsheet published by a distributor of large quantity/bulk produce from organic and NW growers, figuring out the unit price for each apple or pound of carrots, so I can effectively cost compare the options and make the right choice. When I order from Azure Standard or other food buying clubs, it takes time to figure out the savings involved in getting a 50 pound bag of rice verses a 5 pound bag of rice, deciding what we really need now and what we can wait on, yada yada yada. Like I said – these things can be complicated!

But what is interesting is that, of course, you do grow to see the extra hour it takes to get some where or the time spent planning bulk food buying as part of every day life. Some one from church a few weeks ago made the following comment to us: “I think about you guys sometimes and I always figure that for every 5 things I am doing each day, you guys can probably only get to like 2… which really makes me think about those extra 3 things my family does and whether or not we really need to do them!”

It’s true! We get a lot less done. lol No but really – sometimes getting to a place in life where things are simple and less dramatic takes concerted effort and — sometimes — blood, sweat and tears.

This aspect of my life lately has weighed on me as we discuss making some major changes. Not quite content with the way thing are going for us in Portland, this week we all but officially announced (that’s how sure we were) that we were moving to North Carolina as early as this Spring.

Yep, back up and read that again. We were practically CERTAIN we were leaving Portland. (And Chris is still sleeping – so he is still CERTAIN. But when he wakes up I’ll fill him in on the change of plans. )

Eventually relocating is still a possibility – actually it is pretty much inevitable. The combination of slightly pricier housing, lack of job market, and distance from family makes Portland a place that works for NOW, but not for EVER. Too bad too, because we love the city – its been a boot camp, a training ground, for so many lifestyle changes we wanted to make. It’s also been where we began recovery, started healing our marriage, had a baby, plugged into a home school group, so on and so forth. And if this week of research and planning has taught me anything, its that there ARE cities in the East that could suit us nicely. Carrboro, NC, for one.

However, our personal situation is, in some ways, quite unprepared to relocate. We have had something major to “do” for so long that staying put and dealing with everything that is catching up to us has been the very LAST thing we want to do. If we weren’t moving we were graduating or having a baby or something every year, something to press on, something to drive us forward to the next big crazy thing – sadly sometimes used as a nice distraction from the here and now.

The present is not something easy to sit in. Yoga reminds me of that. We set out with certain values and intentions and when the cast of characters and scenes becomes boring, tense, uncomfortable, frightening or disappointing, it is oh-so-tempting to place something before ourselves to reach for, to hope for, to work towards, to change things all up a bit.

(Briefly, this is also a theme of my homeschooling life right now. Reading about Steiner’s philosophies on the role of “inner work” – very good stuff and I’ll write more about that soon!)

My son is feeling the reprocussions of this not-so-pretty habit of mine. He asked me today to please stop changing things in his room and listed the various ways I have moved his furniture since we moved here nearly 10 months ago, lol. It’s true. The 10 x 10 room hardly gives me space enough to home school in and my discontent with supplying my child with a cramped basement room gives me cause to creatively unleash myself on its layout every few weeks. Poor kid!

As I continued to mull over this cross-country move, I finally just prayed for some direction. I laid in bed tonight and felt like the whole decision was confusing, not peaceful – not even very exciting. While coughing up a lung and unable to sleep, my restless mind churned the facets of our situation over and over until suddenly things began to get clear.

My roommate commented last night that for them, it is apparent that the two families are outgrowing the space. As much as I want to put a positive spin on everything regarding our community house (which I SO do that, constantly), I’d have to agree on some level. We set out to live amongst another family – to be in an intentional community. It pains me to realize how far we have strayed from those original goals – how we have kept to our corners, for no particular reason or starting point, exactly. I think the minute you replace “community” with “roommate” and see the home as simply a place to keep your privacy and split bills, it so easily becomes a situation where space feels limited and more and more of the home becomes “yours” or “theirs” instead of “ours”. Oh how I wanted this to be a place where my home schooling could thrive, where we broke bread together, where we all had a stocking on the fireplace and felt equally a part of something really special! I think for us, we really wanted something intimate and surrogate – something that had a lot of sharing of lives within the home, not just sharing the home. Maybe we can get back on track, if that is what both families want and need to do. Community living will always be something I want to embrace, regardless of the ideal space, ideal lifestyle similarities, etc etc. I guess if we all waited around for ideal, community would never really happen, would it?

This is yet one more great example of how this simple living thing is also very complicated and intentional! Community doesn’t just happen- it requires careful planning, lots of thought and prayer and talking and on and on. Real relationships must be nourished or else you turn around and the whole purpose has been lost. I know a few people going through divorces right now and I think the same thing. It takes a lot of work and time to cultivate the fertile soil on which a garden can flourish, (to make an analogy to gardening… hey, cut me some slack, I’ve been up since 4am!)

So here we are: where we never thought we would be. With the loss of Chris’ job we are forced to start filing bankruptcy while making plans for him to start school for his Masters. When I look at some of the facts of our situation, I feel pretty disheartened. Mainly because we tried to be diligent for so long – we always worked hard, we always paid our bills, somehow or another. It’s hard not to feel ashamed of how dismal things have become financially, but at the same time we are doing much better and more thoughtful and frugal things with our money than we ever have before. And while I don’t necessarily love this phase of our lives, one I might call “Recalibrating”, I do like the people we are, or at least who we are becoming. I like that our family loves each other, that we discourse about things that bother us rather than push them under the rug, that we band together when the going gets tough. Another wise friend told me a few weeks ago that these are the years we will likely be looking back on with much endearment in the future. How hard we struggled will be seen through rose colored glasses in light of the sweetness of all those good times we had while living on lentils

So here I am, over 2,000 words and 2 hours later (6am). The baby is up and growling. Chris is hitting the snooze on his alarm because he wants to get 5 more minutes of sleep. I suppose this is where the “in conclusion” part comes in… for those of you still reading!

In conclusion: I think we need to stay put. I think we need to deal with the bankruptcy, deal with the co-housing, deal with the vehicle, deal with the loneliness of not having as much of a community base. There are so many things to deal with – no more distractions. No more putting one foot in the next phase before we’ve completed the one we’re in.

The simple life we crave, one rich in quality time with each other and as few bills as possible, is – I am learning – not something we will come by in one new move, in one new house, in one new book, in one new baby, one new arrangement of a tiny bedroom, etc. We have to study produce spreadsheets, miss lots of buses, try out lots of living situations, deal with our debt, be content with smaller quarters, and face our giants squarely.

Deep breath. Now “publish”.

In our local home school group we are fortunate to have a healthy dose of diversity. We have families from all different religious/cultural backgrounds, including Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish and Agnostic. Personally, I celebrate that. I have found some really amazing mom friends in the group, people I would have never met had I only invested in my church community that is, for the most part, largely homogeneous (composed of mainly white, low-to-mid income, anti-mass church, fairly liberal, trendy, pipe smoking, wine drinking postmodernists and wanna-be-postmodernists and post-post-totally-over-it-modernists).

Family Art Night; Making Watercolor Wrapping Paper (baby asleep in background

Last week I went to a Hanukkah Party with our homeschool group during the day, and then celebrated Christmas with my church community that night. Ethan asked some interested questions about the two celebrations, questions that were, as usual, centered around Jesus and what He means to us, to others, etc. I am SO grateful to be having these conversations, to let his amazing little mind see the world as fluid and open and evolving.

Verity asleep by the electric fireplace in our room (yeah, it doesn’t get much chintzier than that!)

At the same time, I am grateful for my experience with God’s love, for the belief that Jesus is His son, yet one-in-the-same, and that through Him this crazy world that doesn’t make sense to me is comforted. When I listen to Christmas music this time of year, I’m not too jaded and cynical that I can’t still relish the words of adoration and praise. It resonates with my soul on the deepest level, deeper than anything else could possibly dare to reach.

Ethan painting a freezer paper stencil of his ladybug drawing onto his shirt

Again, for that I am grateful. I have had seasons of darkness and doubt, confusion and mistrust. Seasons where my “god” was deconstructed along with the pathetic portrayal of a life I had. Where I thought I had memories of life, (in my own denial), I was awakened to the contrast of death that was below the surface. Things I didn’t choose or deserve, yet there they were, in glaring reality that goes well beyond technicolor or high-def. Even in the confusion and anger at Him, I knew that He was a vital part of all that was happening. He’s in the Truth, He’s in the new found marital intimacy, He’s in the freedom and reality of husband’s (and mine’s) surrender. He’s in the miracle of my daughter’s birth, He’s the Protector of my little boy’s emotional development. The fact of our experiences with Jesus lead me to view this time of year with great, great joy.

Third Sunday of Advent

Growing up, I didn’t have Currier and Ives holidays with extended family and a house bubbling with merriment and myrrh. I admit, I would love to experience this picturesque holiday, and I might have come close a few times, but I think I’ve come to the point where I can also do without it.

Being in Portland has enriched our experience of times set apart for celebration and reflection with family. Striving to create a special experience for ourselves, particularly for Ethan, when extended family and friends with whom we have a rich history are 3,000 miles away has been really difficult but the challenge has been good.

Sweet happy boy

We’ve learned that Christmas can come and go without any visits to the mall or Target or whatever. We’ve dug in our heels with handmade Christmas, (Make Something Day, Advent Conspiracy, etc etc) and its producing a wonderful thing: an entire season of crafts and handwork and simplicity. This is our third Christmas in Portland, (and could in fact be our last if the economy here continues to make housing expensive and jobs scarce), so I am bittersweetly enjoying it. As always, we miss family and friends this time of year the most. Even in a place like Portland, and in a COMMUNITY house for goodness sakes, things are very quiet and lonely. Gotta keep the Christmas movies and music going to keep spirit’s high!

Ethan waking up from nap: hot cocoa and a painting session in mama/dada’s room!

Today, through coughs and illness, we are continuing our preparations. We have beeswax polish for Verity’s blocks and beeswax candles on the to do list, along with some decoupage. You can see some of our morning activities in the slideshow below – making scones and breads for soup!

Ethan and Chris christmas caroling in the rain

Later this week we’ll have ice skating and more crafts and knitting and sewing to finish up Christmas gifts. We also have very light homesteading duties this time of year: thawing the chicken’s water each morning and covering their run with a tarp at night — which is much easier than shelling out money for Paz’s (cat) vet visit this Friday. I am also placing an order with a new produce supplier to get organic produce directly from the distributor, with an average savings of 35% from the local grocery store (and hopefully our delivery bin as well). I’m crossing my fingers that the new method is cost effective and worth my extra time!

So, that’s an update, and hopefully more of a picture of how we view the holidays and happenings of Christmastime as a slightly unconventional Christian family:)

Here is a slideshow of still MORE pictures…
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Life this week has been slightly run of the mill. We had a really good conversation on HOPE in our packed living room for Home Group on Tuesday night, which was probably the highlight thus far. I’ve been able to do a little more with Ethan these last few days and work more at night, which is good in some ways. We took a walk and collected some branches and holly and rosemary and have plans to do some sort of seasonal “tree” along with a wreath of holly and herbs and pine cones and so on. But then its been too rainy to work on it so our treasure pile is sitting outside in the drizzle

I worked on making him a wall cozy from scrap fabric and one pine branch I found with a few pinecones still attached as the bar. It’s pretty cool! It holds his doodle pads, chalk board and white board, colored pencils flash cards, etc. I got the idea from my new copy of Amanda Soule’s Handmade Home (which I heart (almost) as much as The Creative Family.) I painted a little fall tree for kicks.

We also moved the rocking “couch” to his room, under his bed, as a place to snuggle on rainy days. I think these new additions to his room prepare us more to hunker down in there through an unschooling winter Right now we are somewhat learning about cowboys and indians, as we continue to work on reading skills.

The minute October heads out, winter begins to head in. It’s chilly, but not overly so. Right now the November wind is really picking up outside and with a cracked window in the living room I am listening to our wooden wind chimes. Verity is sucking on wooden blocks on the carpet and Ethan is screaming, “I’M DOOOOOOONE!” from the bathroom (still wants some one else to wipe his rear end.)

My throat is swollen and my sinuses are funkdyfied — I’m praying I get over the start of this cold fast, but something in my body says I should gear up for my first flu rather than be too hopeful. I’m forcing down water with Wellness Fizz (homeopathics), Lacey’s AMAZING raw honey cough syrup (raw honey, essential oils, and herbs), and citrus Kombucha, and Kefir (probiotics), and warming spices and antioxidant rich fruit salads and trying to do a little yoga here and there to flush out toxins. I’ve got a light day tomorrow so I’m hoping I can just recover rather than get worse.

Immune Boost Tea is brewin:

Homemade Chicken Stock is simmerin:

We also just picked up our monthly azure order tonight and I thought it would be fun to show you guys what the fridge of an 8 person household looks like. With 4.5 dozen eggs, 5 pounds of dates, several gallons of raw milk and kefir, 1 gallon of raw apple cider vinegar, a large assortment of produce stuffed in the bottom bins, lots of soup left overs from dinners, a freezer stuffed with frozen fruit for smoothies, frozen local meats that were on sale, so on and so forth- things get a *little* full in there.

The interesting thing is that we don’t really have a pantry. We have several shelves in the cabinets for smaller containers of our bulk ingredients (whole wheat flour, nuts, yeast, what have you), but very little “consume NOW” foods. I try to get things like that from Trader Joe’s. I recently discovered 2 products from TJ’s that I am a huge fan of: Glutein-free brownie mix that is delicious and only 2.99. It is made with organic brown rice flour, organic evaporated cane juice, cocoa and pretty much nothing else, lol. Awesome! The other thing is Ay Say (I need to check on the spelling) but they are crackers made with very simple, all natural ingredients. They are delicious and only 1.29 a box (so suffice it to say we get like 10 at a time). These are both great alternatives to healthier brownie mixes and crackers at places like New Seasons, where one tiny bag of groceries is $60! lol

Anyhoo. So…yeah. Until next time!

Sometimes I feel like the Grinch. A grumpy, cranky, irritated, impatient, selfish, angry old Grinch. Oh wait, that’s not just sometimes.

But, you see… it’s not Christmas that I despise. It’s not the noise of all the Who’s down in Whoville. It’s the noise of my life. The constant barrage of noise. Some of the noises aren’t even audible.

Yesterday we had the house to ourselves for the afternoon, the housemates out at their parents for the day to celebrate Halloween. I felt really excited about Halloween and very grateful for my family.

THEN…
The following took place within 5 minutes:

I sat down, happy as a clam, to start knitting a new project. The cast on was “provisional cast on” method, something new to me. I clicked on a little video to view the demonstration and I was a little baffled. Frustrated, I turned up the volume a bit and tried to concentrate a little harder. I had finally gotten Verity to sleep just minutes before and I could feel the familiar sense of impatience with myself creep up, knowing I had only so long to “myself” before she would wake up again, or Ethan would need something, or a chore would need to be done, or food would need to be made, or an event would need to be prepared for, … etc.

Ethan was watching a movie and apparently not so happy about things the fact that he could hear my 2 minute tutorial video from my laptop across the room. He started raising his voice asking me to turn it down so he could hear his movie. I was engrossed and determined to steal a few minutes for myself to learn something new, so I didn’t even register WHAT he was saying. All I could register was a whiney, demanding voice that was ruining my thought process (and what else is new?)!

To make sure he was heard, he got up from his spot and got right in my face, abrasively coming directly between my video and I, repeating like a broken record something about my video interrupting HIM!? (The nerve!!!) In a frustrated, Grinchy instant, I snapped. White flashed before my eyes and I stood up, raised my face to the sky like a wolf and SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAACHED. An octave away from a dog whistle, let me tell you.

The baby woke up, of course. Ethan started crying and ran off to his room, of course. I felt like a total failure, of course. Chris looked at me like I was a wild woman, of course.

Emotional exhaustion is all that follows my Grinchy moments. It’s the pits. The worst feeling. I have to go back and smooth things over, explain, apologize, take responsibilty and make amends. Try to move on, try to start anew. And I’m always ten times harder on myself about it than anyone else is. The kids seem to have bounced back within seconds, while I am still realing over my mistake.

It seems only full-time, stay-at-home parents seem to be able to relate to the truly grueling job of 24/7 noise and needs. Those days that you have to take as long of a shower as possible because that is literally the only time you will have to yourself all day (or in a couple of days!!!) I can’t even begin to imagine the HOURS that other adults have to themselves. HOURS?!?!?!?! Um, am I green with envy yet?!?!?! You mean you can watch a movie without interruption? You mean you can drive somewhere and just listen to music? You mean you can read a book for more than 5 minutes? What is this life you speak of – IS IT REAL? Will I ever have it again?

It has been FOUR. LONG. YEARS. Four years of being around at least one young child for all or the vast majority of EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

Folks, I can’t even poop in peace. He will be barging in if I forget to lock the door or BANGING on the door if I remember.

Where are my boundaries, you might ask? Right where they should be, thankyouverymuch. I do tell him when I’m tired or when I’m angry. I walk away when I can take no more. I tell him I need space when I need a moments peace. I institute a “quiet time” every afternoon and on good days, he actually takes it willingly!

But then you throw a baby in the mix. Boundaries with a baby? LOL

And then you throw in a full-time work load FROM HOME.

And then you throw in chores, and meals, and counseling, and homeschooling, and outings, and… ???

The noise is constant. And in my worst moments, my response is utter Grinchyness. Suck. And the worst and best part is that I KNOW BETTER. I know I can choose my response, I know I can manage my feelings better. But practicing inner peace despite the crazy demands around you is an entirely different matter.

But let’s digress and move on to a related topic:

Today Chris and I got three GLORIOUS hours away from the kids, (whom we love so much and never want to leave them BUT boy are the breaks refreshing with a capital R!!!)

We signed up for a co-ed spa day at MamaZen. Three hours. Granted, the way there was stressful. We were late, trying to leave the babysitter with everything she would need for 4 hours with a nursing infant and 4 year old. We got on the bikes and raced the 4 miles or so to the yoga studio. It was hilly. I was out of breath, my thighs were screaming at me, and I was disgruntled and cold and pissed that I’m always late to things. Then Chris’ reflector broke and spewed out at me behind him. Everything took too long. I felt like a total idiot for the life I lead on my freaking flipping bicycle. F-bombs were murmered. Tears even escaped my eyes. Yep, lovely bike ride to spa day.

But don’t worry, it gets better.

Hour one: a yoga practice of extended, gentle poses and guided meditation, meant only to increase awareness and release tension, deepening into relaxation. The yogi had wonderful, beautiful things to say, things that seemed so poignantly related to my life. At one point he said, “We are always assuming that the harder we try, the better we are doing. But what about trying SOFT?” I wanted to cry. What am I paying a counselor for – this freakin’ yoga class was therapy!!!

Hour two: Tea service, complete with sandwiches and tea and mimosas. I cuddled up in my blanket in a chair next to Chris on the porch and zoned out, silent almost the entire hour.

Hour three: Seated in some kind of crazy ergonomic reclining chairs, we were covered with blankets in a circle in the room, a lavender eye pillow on our faces, hot peppermint tea refilled constantly on the night stand beside us. A LIVE HARPIST played soothing music and I just ZONED some more. I saw myself as a strong tree in the fall, allowing and accepting the autumn winds which would rid me of my weight, as the leaves fluttered effortlessly to the ground in time with the harpest’s music. I went deep into my thoughts for the first time in maybe 7 or 8 months. During this time we received hand and feet massages, and our time ended in upright position with hot salt mineral foot bath in a private bowl of pebbles and floating flowers. Nice…

Yes, it was back into the harsh reality of our life – hitting the bikes in the dark; very cold, to trek home. It was invigorating and I tried to welcome that, but my life is so stimulated and invigorating ENOUGH that it was hard to really embrace a cold bike ride home, even through beautiful neighborhoods and silent streets.

I sit here having a bowl of popcorn and a glass of red wine, trying for the first time in far too long to write out my feelings. But this post is pushing 1,200 words and I feel I must leave it here. I’ve recorded a little of my life and the rest will come, in time.