Sick Day

Bean was sick today; she woke up this morning throwing up, with a slight fever and feeling very cranky. She didn't eat much today but she seems to be feeling a lot better tonight. She's been Mommy's little shadow all day long, and I felt so bad for her that she was sick (although I've been sick also!). I went to a meeting tonight and was glad I did, even though I felt like sitting at home and continuing the process of getting over this cold. I've done everything I can, short of going to the doctor, to get rid of it. I've tried healing meditations, eating right, taking vitamins, drinking lots of fluids. The key ingredient that I'm having difficulty getting is rest. There isn't much time to rest with a two year old, basically three jobs (one as a Mom, one as a book keeper for my husband's business, and one as an artist) and too few hours in the day. The meeting I went to tonight was about having humility, and also about having the confidence in ourselves to pursue our goals and dreams without feeling the certainty that we'll fail. I sometimes need to work on this one. Sometimes I'm my own worst critic, but if I just keep on keepin' on I find that my confidence builds. That's all from me tonight. Peace to the blogger world. Tra la la.

Hi from South Florida

Gads, there has been so much death around me lately. Not of people with whom I'm close, thankfully, but still, it's right there. Given my past, I'm a bit supersticious and creeped out when there is so much death at the doorstep. I've lost lots of people who were close to me. I don't take any day or even any moment for granted, nor do assume that I will have time to do this or that "next year" or even "next week". People sometimes say I'm too paranoid, but to me it's just reality. Being in this blogger community for just a short time, I didn't know Betcha, but I hope that she is okay and alive somewhere out there. I'm hoping that something not so bad is amiss and that's why she hasn't checked into the online community. When I read A's blog, I freaked out and thought he might be talking about Stealthbombshell, so I checked her blog; thankfully, she was okay, but that lead me to finding out who actually is missing, and it freaked me out to think that this beautiful, young and obviously well loved woman had disappeared. So, today we had lunch with my daughter's Bubbie. She has been sick for a long time and is having surgery in about three weeks. She will probably be okay, but you never know, so even though R and I are both sick, we met with her for lunch and just made sure not to get too close to her (which is very difficult for her given that she loves R so much!!!). My Dad always told us to tell people you love that you love them every time you say goodbye. I think he was right about that, 'cuz you just never know what could happen once you part ways.

Saturday Night

So, today wasn't the best of days, but we're safe, healthy and here in our own home so I guess things aren't all that bad. We had planned to go to the circus today with Little One, but N had it in his mind that the circus was at a different arena from the one where it was actually taking place in Miami, and we didn't have time to backtrack. In short we missed the whole thing and spent $100.00 for nothing. That put N in a bad mood for the rest of the day, and I wasn't too happy either, especially since that meant that we came home and he watched football all day while we hung around the house bored out of our skulls. Finally, at around 7:30, I took Little One out for a walk around our development. It is beautiful night here tonight and I couldn't bear to spend another minute indoors, and besides that, the baby was going crazy, much as she is right now. Sigh. Tomorrow is another day!!!!

Bahama What????!!!!

My husband let it slip tonight that he is in the bidding for a job in the Bahamas that will take about ten years to complete. He never mentioned to me that he was going to bid a job that required us to move to the Bahamas and, quite frankly, I'm freaking out. I'm not sure what the chances are that we will get it, and some of you might think I'm crazy for saying this, but I DO NOT want to move to the Bahamas. Me, I'm a mountain girl and an earth spirit. I like pine trees and cool breezes and deep woods and big mountains that I can climb. All I see in the Bahamas is lots of water, lots of beaches, and a whole lot of activities that involve agua, which is not my element. The local cuisine might be interesting, and I know that it's beautiful, but it is not my bag as a full time gig. That place gets hit horribly when hurricanes breeze through; I get stressed out enough about hurricanes living in Florida!!!! So, we shall wait and see what happens. Ee gads.

A New Year Begun

I'm a little screwed up today, but just trying to focus on my spirituality. Yesterday my focus was on trying to live with integrity and humility, and practice peace, since the day before yesterday I had a verbal knock down with a woman at an AA meeting who complained about my daughter. My daughter quietly colored for all but the last ten minutes of the meeting, when someone gave her two cookies and she proceeded to go a little crazy. Meanwhile, this woman never attends this meeting (which happens to be my homegroup). She got in my face and I got back into hers. I never back down if I feel I'm right, but I wish that I'd handled myself a little better. I woke up the next day with an emotional hangover and needed to do a lot of spiritual work to get into a place of calm, a place where I wasn't going over the altercation in my mind again and again. Anyway, there is something else throwing me a bit off today. Our friend's girlfriend just got out of jail and she is hanging out with me today. Hopefully I can help her, but I guess I'm an intensely private person, and having someone else around my house is uncomfortable. I didn't expect that she would be here today and I wasn't asked in advance if this would be okay, although last night I agreed to it. I will be very happy when life returns to normal without all of this dysfunction. Where are we supposed to draw the line??? I'm never good at that; I want to help people, but I have to think about my daughter's well being first, and also, I suppose, my own peace of mind. Anyway, I'm trying to stay in a positive place.

Welcoming 2007

Happy New Year. What does it all mean? Another new year, another new resolution to do better in 2007, to be more organized in the business, more dedicated artistically, to get into better shape. Or, is it just another day? We make so much out of these holidays, but we can really start over again at any time. We don't need to have a new year on the calendar to get off our butts and do something about the intense dissatisfaction we feel over this, that, or something or other. Sometimes we use this "new year" stuff as a way to push off what we should be doing now. "I'll quit smoking when the new year comes around." "I'll lose that ten pounds." "I'll..." you get the idea. Which reminds me-I have a newspaper article I'm supposed to have finished within a couple of days. Crap!!!!

Happy New Year

The New Year is almost upon us; soon we'll be trying to remember to write "2007" on checks and other such things and embarking upon a new year. I don't really have any resolutions, so to speak, but I do have some goals that I'd like to see come to fruition. With the baby in non napping taking mode I've had a lot of difficulty finding time to paint, and that's been a bad thing for me, especially since one of my goals is to get a portfolio together. Eventually I'd like to maybe get back into school for art therapy, and the first step toward making that distant dream a reality is getting some current work together. I haven't been getting to enough meetings and I can feel it. Today I was driving down the road actually thinking about drinking, and even though I don't want to drink, really, I don't like when my mind wanders into that territory. It's a definite indication to me that I need to do something differently. The real indication to me that something is amiss is that I don't feel like getting drunk or anything, I just feel a need to "take the edge off". That is more dangerous than wanting to drink to stupidity because it's easier to fool the mind into thinking it's okay to "take the edge off" than it is to convince oneself that it's fine to get torn up. Our new year's eve plans include attending a sober party at a friend's house who throws a new year's eve bash every year. I've been to it for like seven years straight, but it's a safe place to go and it's a good time. At least I know I'll be around other sober people, which is super important to me, especially during the holidays when I'm struggling with being away from most of my family. I hope ya'll have a great and safe New Year's Eve!!!!

Happy Holidays

Just wanted to give a Merry Christmas shout out to everyone, since I probably will not be blogging over the weekend. We will probably be having some sort of Christmas Eve dinner here at our house for all of the people we know who don't have anyplace else to go. We usually manage to find a few people to hang out with us!!! I'm not sure what I'm making, maybe a big vat of "Christmas pasta", which has all sorts of yummy meats and stuff in it. It's not really a conventional dinner but I can make a big pot of it easily and since we've done all of the holidays here of late I want to make something that will be uncomplicated. Have a happy!!!!

Blahhhhh

I'm just in a baaad mood today. The only thing that snapped me out of it for awhile was going out for lunch with my daughter. As soon as I got back home all the negativity returned, and I don't know how long it will stay. I just wanted to be a Mom today. I wanted to take Little One to the playground and run around with her and just watch her be happy. Instead I wound up with a whole pile of work to do which I hadn't expected and which pissed me off immensely. It shouldn't have, I guess. I know I should just be grateful that we're getting business. I am grateful; I guess I just overwhelm easily and today I wasn't in the mood for the storm of paperwork which I suddenly found myself drowning in. I feel like I'm not a good Mom when I'm not able to take enough time in my day to go to the park or to just spend some one on one with my daughter, and that causes me to feel this very uncomfortable, burning resentment. When I got home, the stuff I needed had been faxed over, but for some reason the girl faxed it to me in this tiny, practically unreadable format and I had to enlarge it, which took me a few tries since my printer was not cooperating. I guess the holidays are starting to get to me a little bit too. I miss my hometown, miss my family, am getting fed up with this place (again), and just found out a friend of mine is moving away-far away. This person had an immensely positive effect on my life and it's hard to say goodbye even though we don't talk much anymore (he's a former boyfriend and since we're both with other people now I guess it's kind of awkward). I have a lot to be grateful for and I'm trying to focus just on that stuff but sometimes my darker side takes over. Today is just one of those days. Tomorrow will probably be better....

Hanukka First Night

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah and I should NOT be sitting here on the computer. I have tons of cooking to do. The baby is taking her nap (she has a cold and naps are super important right now in order for her to get better) and N should be home soon. I'm making Hanukkah cookies, latkes, Russian vegetable soup and a roast (which needs to cook for three hours-ahem!!!). The Hanukkah dinner at the temple was sold out. I guess I waited too long to buy the tickets, as usual. In my own defense I didn't actually know about the dinner until a few days ago. It's been grey and rainy here for the past couple of days, but I don't mind. Once in awhile I like days like this. Florida enjoys so many days of sunshine that I believe a dark day now and again is good for the soul. I guess that, being Irish, my heart can't take too many opressively hot, sunshiny days. My soul needs to be re-greened by the rain. For all of you celebrating Hanukkah tonight, have a happy. For everyone else, have a great night also!!! Now I must go and starting cooking, or we won't be eating dinner until midnight!!!

A Week of 12 (Stepping)

A good friend has been sleeping on our couch for the past week or so, trying to get back on his feet. It's been a good week, since he's been gone for awhile, out ripping and running, and it's good to see him back around, trying to stay on the right path. Who knows how things will go; it's all one day at a time, for sure, but I hope he can keep the clean gig going. It hurts to have lost so many to the disease of addiction and I pray not to lose another. I've known him for a long, long time and wish happiness and peace for him. He's going to a sober house tomorrow and I hope they allow him to stay; he's already tried one but they wouldn't take him because he has a job towing and usually towing jobs require some night hours. In the end, it's going to be about what he's willing to do to stay clean and sober. When his girl gets out of jail in four weeks I hope that she too will want to stay clean and sober. Right now she's all about recovery, but time will tell if that's what is really in her heart or if it's just jailhouse talk. At any rate, I feel very grateful for all of the blessings currently lending their sparkle to my own life. Hanukkah is approaching and we're getting ready for that, as well as Christmas (for my husband). I'm grateful to have a little family to share the holidays with and to have been able to buy some nice gifts for Little R, and to have been able to join in the Toys for Tots run on Sunday to give to some other little girl/boy who might not have so much. Plus, getting on the bike again after so much time away from it (good babysitters are difficult to come by-I don't trust too many people with my daughter) was a blast!

Tired of the War

I'm tired of hearing all the bs about why we need to still be in Iraq. I support our troops but I want them back home. George Bush refuses to budge in his stance that our country needs to stay in Iraq until a new democratic government has been established. Meanwhile, people keep dying, our men and women keep dying, and the President admitted in a television interview that this war might be similar to Vietnam. Everyone seems to be afraid to admit that they don't agree with current policy with regard to the conflict and speaking out often creates a situation where the speaker outer is publicy castigated for voicing what everyone with half a brain knows is true. My brother is a Marine. Once again, I will say that I support our troups. That does not mean that I feel this war should be continueing. We need to finish what we can and get out of there. That's just my opinion.

Plastic Surgery and Plastic Geese???

When we first moved into our new place I was excited by the sight of three ducks floating around in the pond outside (others here call it a lake, but I know better). They reminded me of living up north; we always had lots of geese at the park we visited when I was a little one. I was disappointed to discover that they are fake, markers used to keep track of some sort of plumbing needed to run the fountain in the middle of the "wildlife sanctuary". Eee gads. It's bad enough that more than half of the women living in this state (or, at least, the southern part of this state) have breast implants, that much of radio advertising is for plastic surgery centers and a large part of the population is more concerned with buying an expensive, flashy car than with the state of war we're currently under. I guess fake geese are more attractive than floating balls or something like that. I did see some seagulls and crows outside this morning. Pretty sure they were real....

Happy Pre-Turkey Day

I am currently in the middle of making sweet potatoes for a party we're going to at a friend's house tonight. She is have 26 or so people over; among the guests is my ex boyfriend, his new girlfriend and their new baby. It might be a little bit weird but I hope it isn't awkward. The hard feelings are well gone by now, and I love my life so much that I'm actually grateful, in a way, that the new babe helped to end a relationship that really wasn't traveling to anyplace good anyway. I took the bubelah to the playground earlier and she is sleeping soundly, which is good because if she doesn't take a nap the party tonight (which starts at the late hour of 8:30pm) won't be much fun for us or anyone in our immediate vicinity. My computer is annoying the hell out of me. Why is it that when I have only a few minutes to blog (which is pretty much every time I sit down at the computer) I have some computer issue (it's too slow, it's not downloading a picture I want to use, etc. etc.)??? That said, I will not be uploading the picture of cartoon turkey I'd planned on sharing with you. Oy. I hope you all have a wonderful turkey day, although I do feel very badly for all the turkeys out there, real and otherwise.

Sometimes I pine for home...

I didn't take this picture, but it looks very much like where I grew up. Now, living in Florida, I yearn for places like this. I live here in perpetual sprawl, where nothing is quite city or quite suburbs or quite country. I have to drive a long way to get out of the atmosphere we live in, and even then I wouldn't come across beautiful rolling hills like these unless I actually left the state. So funny that sometimes we leave home searching and return there to find exactly what it was we were looking for. Problem is, I can't just go back there now, because I have a whole life set up here. I have a great life, no complaints about that. It's just that my heart sometimes yearns for places like in this picture and it hurts so badly I feel the pain physically, like a blade in the side. Also, in my travels I've found that no matter how beautiful the place, no matter how nice the weather, no matter what new and groovy things there are to do, I still miss my family. I've never found people on whom I can depend as I can depend upon them. And, on a recent trip back home I discovered that my sister in law is like a twin separated from me at birth. We are so much alike it's eerie, although not surprising, since the brother she is married to is like the other half of my soul. Not being close to him in proximity is like having a part of my soul in another part of the country. It's not like I live in a horrible place, but I have a sense of disconnection all the time that I've never been able to quite shake. I have to constantly look at the good side of things and focus on my blessings always, and keep close to my Irish heritage, where I feel my roots. When I don't know what else I am, I know that I'm Irish. I know that I come from strong, courageous people who came to this country not knowing what they were getting into, filled with sorrow for having to leave a home they would most likely never see again. If they could do that, then I can survive another day in Florida!!!
I took this from Victorious Spirit's weblog. It's very cool. Check out her Johari window (I think you have to get it from her blog) and mine here: http://kevan.org/johari?name=Starfairie and make your own as well!!!!
Slàinte!!!
ps-If Blogger had actually uploaded my picture you would have seen a beautiful scene of rollings hills, autumn trees and New England homes. Blogger is NOT being friendly to me tonight.

Sighs of Determination

I'm a little bit tired today, but determined to live my life with more organization from today forward because I can't seem to get anything accomplished otherwise. My art, homelife and peace of mind have been suffering for the chaos in which I've been reveling and it has to stop. There is so much I want to accomplish outside of being a great Mom and a great partner to my husband; those things are infinitely important, but I didn't cease to be when I married and became a Mom. Lately I feel I've been resigning myself to the fact that I simply don't have time for my creativity and I've realized that, for an artist, the end of creativity is the end of the self. I've been going completely out of my mind with the pain of stifled energy. Little R is safely tucked into bed for her nap, the house is quiet, and I feel it's a good time to put on some Irish music and get to work cleaning up the rest of the mess that is our newly moved home. Once I get that done my free time will be available for artistic pursuits, and I can begin to feel a bit more like me again. I think I'm experiencing what lots of moms feel; I feel like there are so many demands on my time and so little time left over for doing the other things that I enjoy doing. Our lives are short, and they are the culmination of all of our experiences. It's up to me how I live my life and up to me to make me happy and to pursue my dreams. And, today's the day!!!! (By the way, the "Today's the Day" slogan was penned by Mel Fisher, not Monster.com, regardless of whether or not they trademarked it!!!!!)

Post Halloween

Well, Halloween is over and we've finally managed to get everything moved over to our new house!!!! Hooray!!!! I haven't been online in awhile because it took a few days to get back up and running again. Thankfully it didn't take very long because I feel disconnected when I can't blog, email friends, etc. Plus, I use the internet for work. Little R was not impressed with Halloween. It was about 85 degrees here and humid last night; too hot for her lion costume although she did look adorable. She seemed very unimpressed with the various princesses, skeleton men and gouls we passed during our foray around the new neighborhood, and we decided against going to my girl friend's neighborhood because it didn't seem like it would be much fun for her. She reported having a huge crowd over there, but I think it might have just been overwhelming for our little one. So, we came back here and handed out some candy and ate dinner (our first home cooked meal at the new house) and called it a night!!! We still have some candy left, in addition to the candy Little R collected, and there is enough of it that she's too young to eat to make the situation here dangerous. It seems that I'm a chocoholic, among other things, and will have to exercise much restraint until all the yummies are gone!

SO TIRED!!!!! Yeah, I know. Stop Bitchin'.....

I spent some more time working on the new house today. I cleaned up the kitchen (yay!!) and painted the kitchen table a beautiful shade of lapis lazuli to go with the purplish blue that I'm going to paint the kitchen walls. I used spray paint to the cover the base of the table, since it's metal and I had a lot of area to cover and I didn't notice until a friend pointed it out later that I got some of it in my hair. It's not very dark, but I have a fine mist of blue covering some of the strands around my face. It almost looks intentional, so I don't mind it so much. Pink would've been cooler, but pink would not have looked good in our kitchen. It will probably fade out; I'll wash my hair tomorrow and see how it goes. I'm wiped out tired right now. I had dinner with the family and a friend of ours at my favorite Irish restaurant and we were blessed with live Irish music. The fiddle player and the singer both were amazing. I love that kind of music; it speaks to something deep within my soul. It feels like something my spirit remembers from long ago.

Yay, we found a place!!!

We found a place; a really nice place!!!! We were bumming out because we'd turned down a killer condo on the beach due to some logistical problems, but I'm convinced that God is in charge and that He had this place in mind for us instead. We ended up renting a townhome in a nice community with a playground and a swimming pool. It's close to where we live now and close to the highway and it was within our price range. Phew!!!! Now at least when we're packing we'll know where we're moving the boxes to. We picked up some paint yesterday and I'm going to start painting some of the walls; I am so tired of living in white rooms. Some color please!!!! We had lunch yesterday with another couple who is searching for a new place and she offered to help me do some painting. The place is kind of dirty; really dirty, actually. The guy who lived there before us wasn't the cleanest of dudes, but the owner is letting us start moving and painting now so I don't mind doing the cleaning. It gives us time to move and to get the place more or less set up the way we want it to be. The other cool thing is that the place is a three bedroom, which means we'll have an office/studio space. This is important since the kitten has been eyeballing my canvas (just the one I'm working on, of course) and I need to have a room on which I can shut the door to keep out intruders! I'm very happy and relieved today!