Living Room Makeover

I have a funky "L" shaped living-dining room area. Each area is narrow and therefore small feeling. A friend of mine came over a few months ago and had some great ideas about rearranging the furniture. We finally made the time to make the changes and I LOVE the results.

This is the area in front of the big window where I used to have my couch.
Now it is the dining room.


This is the area where the dining room table was. During Christmas when the tree is in front of the window we do have the couch set up similar to this, in front of the fireplace. But now the couch is set back much further and feels roomy.

Another view of the living room. The retro chairs are now in front of the fireplace. I love sitting on the couch facing the fireplace, while still getting a great view out the front window.

The view from the kitchen where the table used to be.
The sofa table is new with a lamp on it. The fish tank was an eye sore no matter where we tried to reposition it, but I wasn't ready to give it up completely. I found a smaller, and much nicer one on craigslist that fit perfectly on top of a small cupboard. I hadn't wanted to part with this piece of furniture because it had belonged to my grandma, but honestly it was almost on it's way out the door because I had no where to put it after re-doing the family room. It had been sitting outside on the patio for months and I didn't have the heart to get rid of it. I'm glad it worked perfectly for the new aquarium!
And I love the new fish tank (even though I still don't love it's location)

Now Emilia keeps begging me to have some parties!

Finding some Peace

The last few days have been emotional.

Ok, it IS that time of the month, but that's not the only reason. There's been drama in the family. My life used to be FILLED to the brim with drama. I dumped that crap and have spent a good deal of energy healing and finding balance. When the crap comes back in I am sensitive to it's effects on me.

My midwifery community lost a friend yesterday. She was young (my age :). I went to high school with her, where we were both in the dance community, but we weren't close friends. In the midwifery community you don't have to be close friends to have a bond. The passion for the job is enough to bring you together with a deep caring. The fact that this woman died of a stroke, leaving a loving family motherless is heart wrenching to me.

I have friends in Haiti right now. Reading their stories fills me with sorrow and joy. The people of Haiti are joyful and gracious, but they are suffering beyond anything I can even imagine. I am nervous about going, yet I know I need to go and try to make a difference, to help just a little.

So after a good talk with a friend today, (who seems to always be available to me and willing to listen...thanks!) I feel much better and gained a great deal of perspective. I left the conversation filled with hope. I am working towards love to those who have offended. I am feeling strong about who I am and my family structure and our choices. I will tell myself every day that I can have love towards the people who hurt me, because I know they are hurting, too. And I KNOW this is NOT about me.

On the drive to a home visit I was enjoying the drive, enjoying the scenery and feeling good. I thought about my own midwife and how much she meant to me. I enjoyed our relationship and she holds a special place of honor in my heart and in our family. It made me appreciate my job so much! What a unique honor it is to be invited into the sacred bubble of birthing at home. Each family teaches me, touches me and I love them for the gifts they give me. And I felt joy at believing that some of them will think of me fourteen years from now and still remember that most amazing day of their baby's birth, and that I was a part of it. It's not about me! But I'm so glad I was there.

I'm going to Haiti!

I've heard back from Midwives for Haiti and they have schedule me to be there from June 12-19th. When I received the email confirmation I was terrified. But this is what I want and know that I will be prepared by the time I leave. I am fortunate that several of my friends and colleagues are going before me. I will be able to glean so much information from them. I also have the benefit of time to plan, prepare and raise the funds.

I do not want to travel alone. There are several other midwives who are also trying to leave in June, so my prayer is that we will be able to travel together. I will be relying on much prayer and faith as I prepare for this trip. I humbly ask that you will not only pray for the people of Haiti, but that my travels will be for a good purpose and I will be able to raise the funds and supplies needed for them.

CASA

I've been feeling a little lost lately. Too much time on my hands and feeling the need to do something important. Raising my children has been my most important job. I've held that position for almost 23 years, and have about 5 years to go until "retirement". I say that in jest, because those of us who are parents know that the job never ends. But the every day responsibilities do decline. I'm not needed much around here anymore.

After months of consideration I decided to take the plunge and train to be a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) in Clackamas County. The training will take me about three months (about 40 hours of training) to finish. I will be sworn in by a judge and then anxiously receive my first case. Unfortunately there are many children waiting for a CASA.

I'm almost half way through my training to be a CASA volunteer. Through this training I have learned quite a bit about the court system, DHS, and how these systems works. But I feel like I have so much more to learn. Part of our training is to attend at least four hours of court proceedings. I have not done this yet and feel like when I do I will gain a better perspective of the role that a CASA plays not only in court, but in the role of advocate for the child.

This training is intense and forces you to look at what you know, where you came from and to identify your biases. Everyone has biases. In this job you can not ignore that and have to confront what your biases are.

One of the things I have learned about is MSL. This is an acronym for Minimum Sufficient Level. This is the lowest possible standard that a child can live within and still be safe and cared for. This standard is NO WHERE NEAR how you or I live. It is sad.

But the thing that I really understand now? Children want to live with their parents. They will choose living with their parents in a car over living in a nice house with strangers, even if that nice house is warm and filled with good food and lots of toys. The goal is to remove the danger from the child. If the state can not accomplish this, then they must remove the child from the danger. This is traumatic to the child and begins a cycle of grief. The average length of time the child stays in the system before being returned home or finding a permanent living situation is 18 months! That is a long time for a child. Yet in the court system this is considered speedy.

The other thing I understand better? Most parents who have had their children removed LOVE their children as much as I love my children, and they want their children back home. They just have to overcome some insurmountable obstacles to accomplish that. The good news? This is what the state and the courts desire; to reunite families.

Challenging? I'd say so. Some days I think I'm crazy for pursuing this non paying job. But no doubt I'm learning and growing and hope to make a difference.

Mt. Hood Weekend

We went to our favorite cabin in the woods again this year. It's so nice to get away and relax. We watched movies by the fire, melted in the hot tub and ate some good food. That's about it.

Lots of little details in the bed and breakfast. The owners even took the time to make me gluten free scones that were amazing!

This was for fun...

The perfect size treat....except you're not supposed to eat two of them!

The day we left we made the mistake of taking a look at a house that was for sale down the street from the cabin we stayed in. We even called the realtor to look inside because the house was adorable, the property was beautiful, the price was amazing and it sat right on the Sandy river. This is the view from the front of the house. I fell in love and am now cursing myself for stopping there.

I've had this inner dialogue since we drove away.

1.
Manifest it with all your heart,
believe it will happen
and make it happen.

2.
There is no way we could ever manage to swing it.



It can't really work when both thoughts are competing for power.
But if you're interested in joining forces and buying a piece of property on Mt. Hood we are entertaining the idea of a partnership in order to do so.
All reasonable offers will be considered. ;)

As a woman lives, so shall she birth.

One of my new favorite blogs is The Gift of Giving Life. It is an LDS woman who writes about birth. Hmmm...I wonder why it's one of my favorites. I love finding LDS women who think and feel the same way I do. I often feel like an anomaly within my religious community, like I'm different and don't belong. So to find like minded women who can thoughtfully express some of the things that I feel is refreshing.

In her last blog post she quoted this "As a woman lives, so shall she birth". And followed that by an exercise she participated in during a yoga retreat she is on. The exercise follows:

First, we had to think of the most difficult thing we have gone through in our life, and then think of how we dealt with it.
Then we had to pair off and share.
We each talked for a couple of minutes. It was good.
There were some tears. I'm amazed at what the woman across from me had been through.
And i think we all realized that what we did then was similar to how we got through or will get through birth.

This got me thinking. It is important to look at the difficult times in our life and then look at how we dealt with it. We have all experienced hard times. And we have survived. I don't know about you, but I feel pretty powerful when I think of myself surviving some of the hard times. I am a strong woman who has done some amazing things. Birthing four children was pretty powerful. Raising them...even more so! Looking inside of ourselves and finding our strength, our courage, our successes helps us to continue on this journey and keep surviving our failures, our pain and the inevitable difficult times.

February 1st

Today is an anniversary. Not a happy one, but one that I will always remember. Two years ago I attended the birth of a baby who died. The anniversary of that time is difficult for me. The difficulty isn't necessarily on that date for a moment. I notice a pattern of thoughts creeping in and consuming me over time. I begin to feel sad, overwhelmed, guilty. I replay the events over and over again. It feels like I'm punishing myself, that somehow this punishment is a requirement.

Today I am lighting a candle for this little girl. The one whose lips touched mine as I tried so hard to breath life into her. The one who changed the life of the few who knew her. I am trying to stay positive today as I look at the light. She came into this life and left it for a reason. And I had a role to play in that.

As much as I want to blame myself I know in my soul that God had a plan, and He is more powerful than I am. I will trust in His plan.

I dare you to eat at McDonald's after watching this film!

We watched the film Food, Inc. this weekend. I've been hearing about it and wanted to watch it, but knew that I had to be prepared for how I was going to feel about what I was going to hear. Wow! Mario and I had some pretty strong reactions to the things we learned.

Four companies control 80% of the beef industry. The beef industry is controlled by the fast food industry. And the fast food industry has changed the food we eat. They have demanded cheaper food grown faster and bigger. The result is cattle that is corn fed, chickens that are harvest in a third of the time they once were at twice the size. Our meat is processed in huge factories in unsafe and inhumane conditions (for animals and humans) by illegal workers that the companies have recruited from Mexico (successfully recruited because these same companies have forced Mexican meat companies out of business). I gained a deeper understanding of the politics of immigration. It is maddening to me. These companies recruit, but they are not held accountable for their actions. The only people hurt are the illegal workers and their families, who are raided in their homes (shacks!) in the middle of the night. These companies are not raided. When their workers don't show up for work because they have been arrested do you think they have any problem finding others, desperate for work, willing to be paid under the table, to replace them? This is part of why you can go to McDonald's and get a juicy burger for a dollar!

Did you know that corn is subsidized by the government? This means we are growing it at a loss, so that it can be put in all of our food, CHEAPLY! This means that our government controls how the farmers grow and what equipment they need, which means the farmers put themselves more into debt to keep up with what the government demands, which further makes the farmers dependent on the government subsidies.

Oh, so many things to be angry about! But if you're still with me here, there is hope. I feel good about the changes that I've made. Buying grass fed beef raised by a local farmer and chickens that were raised by a friend. I don't think I'm ready to give up my boneless-frozen chicken breasts and the occasional roasted chicken from Costco. It's convenient. But I do use them less.

I won't become a vegetarian because of the things I know. I feel better when I eat meat. And I believe that God placed animals on this earth for our benefit. But we must act and eat responsibly. Now I better understand why grass fed beef and organic vegetables are more expensive. And now that I understand why, I'm willing to buy them more. I can not promise that I won't eat fast food ever again. But I do know that I already eat far less than I did years ago. And I will continue to try and eat less. And when I do go out to eat I can choose to eat at restaurants that act responsibly. They are out there.

We DO have choices and we choose by where we spend our money. I will be spending more of my food budget locally.

Living out of my Suitcase

I saved some money last year so I could take a vacation to Mexico with my husband.

That didn't work out.

He got a job instead.

Really, I couldn't have gone to Mexico whether he got a job or not. How could I justify traveling while he was unemployed. Maybe we'll go to Mexico next year. I did not want to waste my time off call just sitting home catching up on my DVR que. I planned several mini-vacay's and had the opportunity to visit many friends that I don't get to see very often.

I hit the road...

My first stop was to visit my dear friend, Stefani.

Doesn't she look wonderful!!!! I got to see her in action as a cheerleading coach. We got fancy pedicures with snowflakes on our big toes. We went to a movie and out to eat. And we hung out. All that in two days! It was wonderful to see her.

After Christmas I headed up to Olympia Washington to visit Alida. Alida and I became friends when she moved into our ward many years ago. I was her doula for her first birth and I love her dearly. Her family has moved all over the place since she left the NW many years ago. But now they have settled just a couple hours north and it was great to spend the afternoon with her and her delightful children.


While in Olympia I also treated myself to a visit to the Olympus Spa. It is a women's only Korean spa. I spent two hours soaking in tubs, sweating in the earth rooms and meditating. It was wonderfully relaxing.

I went straight from Olympia to Seaside, Oregon, via Portland, OR to pick up my friends. We could not have picked a better weekend to head to the coast. The weather was a sunny and warm 62 degrees. In the middle of January!!!

That sweater I'm wearing? Yeah, it was gone just a few minutes after this picture was taken. It really was warm. And have you noticed I'm wearing it in every picture in every trip? Weird!


Mario and I headed to Richland, WA again to help Stefani celebrate her 40th birthday. She truly was surprised and I think she had a wonderful time. Her husband put on a great party. Mario's the one who loves to dance, but due to a knee injury we spent most of our time sitting and visiting. But we did get out on the floor for "Celebrate" and "YMCA".

Next stop-Nashville, Tennesee

I got to spend time with Jensen and Kamarie

and Lucy and Lane

But the best part was hanging with my sister and friend!

We haven't seen each other in three years so there was lots of catching up to do. And one of the things we both love to do, especially with each other, is just to hang out and do nothing but talk. So that's what we did most of the time.

Lisa was generous enough to share with me a gift certificate she received to a beautiful spa. We spent the day being pampered. Robes and all! It was heaven.

My daughters have been feeling a little left out of my travels so we are going to try to spend some time together this weekend. The last weekend of the month is reserved for my husband. Then it will be back to work for me. But that's ok. I do love my job.

Oh, and I told my husband the other day that it probably would have been cheaper to spend a week in Mexico. Oh, well.

Happy Two Thousand and Ten

Emilia, power napping in preparation for the big night!

Requisite: Lot's of food.


~Magnetic Poetry~

The top 10 list of 2009.
There was room for improvement!

A bunch of lightweights around here!

Celebrating at midnight.
I'm sure the neighbors love us even more now!

Happy 2010!
May God bless you with health, happiness and love.
And may our world be blessed with Peace!