Beauty in the Dirt

One More Time

2012-02-10T07:55:00.000-08:00

Ok I am going to give this blogging thing one more try. Each time I think that ok I can't do this or this isn't for me, I feel myself drawn back here. I love reading other blogs and love that people are sharing their lives so openly and freely and I want to do that too!!
I find myself afraid to be open here due to past experiences where what was written here on my blog and my partner Ryan's blog was used against us!! I want to be open and real and not afraid to share so we shall see.
We have been making changes in our lives over the past six months, we bought a vitamix and have been drinking green smoothies everyday and loving the changes in our bodies and minds. We are eating more raw foods and less animal products. We are taking an online edibles course which just started and are hoping to save money on our really large grocery bill each month by supplementing with the wild greens around us that are super healthy to eat too!
I am dealing with past abuse (finally) by a priest when I was 12. That has of course been transformational for me and so I am like a new person now or my whole self. Happy with the challenges that has forced me to work on. To make healthier choices from a more grounded place is wonderful. So we are ready to move onward and upward to live the life we want to as a family.

Doula

2011-04-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

Well just to bring things up to speed I have decided to become a Midwife. It is a long process that begins with me getting my Doula certification. In anticipation of that I put on add on Kijiji looking for pregnant women who were interested in free doula services. I am excited to announce that I have 4 women so far! The more I dive into this the more I love it. I am in the process of reading 3 different books at once to try to fill in the blanks left by my 5 birth experiences. There are a lot more blanks than I would have expected!
When I have more time I will list the books that I am just loving and that every mom to be and dad too should read.
Life is good and here is a recommendation from a really smart guy for how to spend your day today! http://youtu.be/cDIVCtvhlvI

I'M BACK!!!

2011-04-07T13:08:00.000-07:00

Well long time no update. I cannot possibly write everything that has happened since I last posted (well since Ryan last posted!!) well I could and it would be a good book but I don't have time. I will try to slowly bring everyone up to speed but in a nut shell we are back in London Ontario and we did go and visit Ryan's family which was really great and worth all the crap that came after from various persons. You know who you are!
I was not going to post on here anymore but I looked at my stats and quite a few people are still checking here so what the heck. I hope that you will feel it was worth the wait.
That's all for today......stay tuned!

Manatoulin Island

2010-09-30T08:26:00.000-07:00

It's Ryan posting again,
I said I would write about the friends we made in Nova Scotia, I am feeling a little rushed right now though as we have a big pile of laundry to do and want to find our next step for the day.

I will do my best to write about Nova Scotia though, it seems to be where the magic really amped up on our trip. (a couple weeks ago now?) We caught the ferry off of Newfoundland to Nova Scotia at about 7pm Newfy time, we were supposed to be to the dock three hours before the ferry left, we got there maybe two hours before and weren't guaranteed to get on, but somehow it worked out and we made it. We purchased a cabin so that we could get some sleep on the 5 hour ride. We arrived at about midnight and didn't have enough gas to go anywhere and all the gas stations were closed! So we parked in front of a Robin's donut shop right by the gas station. Wyatt and I were nervous that the police were going to knock on our door and kick us out in the night, but no such thing happened. Nova Scotia is a much too friendly place for that!
When we woke up in the morning, the fella's outside the donut shop were saying something about our RV, they said a friendly hello when Rose and I came out of the door and complimented our paint job. Rose scored her and Lily free juice in the donut shop by being cute and we had coffee, hot chocolate and donuts for breakfast before we were on our way to the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton Nova Scotia. We stopped at the Clucking Hen later that morning for a more healthy breakfast and made it into the National park to stay the night, where we saw a seal out in the ocean and a lobster that turned into seaweed before our eyes!

The Cape Breton area was very rich in Scottish and Irish heritage, there were hand build stone driveways, bridges and walkways, lots of trees and green everywhere, woodsmiths, blacksmiths, artists, bagpipe lessons etc. Our second night we stayed at the hideaway and had a wonderful long walk to the beach and looked at some property that we can now dream of buying some day, the only turn off was some garbage had been dumped down a cliff off the road and there was dog poop on the road that Kelly thought might be coyote poop.. we stayed two nights at the Hideaway and collected about 4 inches of rain in the bucket outside!

When we got moving, we drove the rest of the away across the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, we stopped in the visitor centre there where we met our new friends Andrea and Mimi. We saw there dogs, 2 big Newfoundlanders and a lab mix out in the park, and they saw our painted RV. We had a wonderful talk with them and they invited us to come to their friends' for a get-together the next day!

and now Lily is getting hysterical about getting on the computer, we still have our laundry to do and some cleaning to do in the RV, so I will write more about the wonderful get-together and our trek back towards Ontario and our current situation next time.

Hopefully I can update soon!
Thanks for following,
I am putting my intent on opening up more doors for our family to find our way to more happiness, living our dreams, having fun and feeling good about ourselves.

I give my best wishes for love and health to everyone and good luck to you on your adventure.

-Ryan

Ryan Graham Jess

2010-09-21T16:35:00.000-07:00

We are in New Brunswick about 16 kms from the Quebec border and I am excited to say that Ryan (my significant other) is going to do a guest post on here (I think he is a much better writer than I) to kind of update on what has been going on these past few weeks.

So, I started writing this post on my blog but then it failed to save and I tried to copy it and ended up deleting it by accident! I originally was going to put it on Kelly's blog here, so that is what I get for trying to change my mind.. haha. :)

I should say thank you to her for letting me post on her awesome blog. And she is very flattering of my writing abilities, I hope her readers will enjoy my post!

So today we finally found the camera's battery charger and we can start taking some pictures.
What we've done so far that we have very few pictures of is headed north from London, ON to break down on our third day, upon fixing our started we went to Ottawa to take Wyatt white water rafting for his birthday. We ate fresh lobster at a trailer park on the St. Lawrence Sea Way, we drove along the beautiful and cultural Quebec coast for 2 weeks. I really enjoyed being around French speaking Canadians, at first I thought they would all hate me for speaking English, but that attitude quickly changed and I felt a bit sad when we made it into New Brunswick. Upon arriving in New Brunswick, we decided to paint the outside of our RV, it has all the kids names on it, flowers, 'peace', 'love' and lots of color! We crossed the bridge to Prince Edward Island where we only stayed one night, we were looking to get away from crowds and tourism. We took the ferry from PEI to Nova Scotia and hurried to catch the ferry to Newfoundland.

The ferry ride was 5 hours, it was Rosie's fourth birthday and we had no cake. I asked a woman who was working, stocking the pastries in the cafe if there were any cupcakes on-board, as I wanted something to put my daughters birthday candle in. At first she looked at me dully and said there were no cupcakes, but when she heard that it was my daughters birthday, she brightened a bit and said "I think I might have something, follow me". So I followed her through the beautiful but expensive restaurant aboard the 'Atlantic Vision' to the doors of the kitchen where she asked me if my daughter liked chocolate.

She gave us a beautiful big chocolate cake that the six of us couldn't even finish, 'compliments of the kitchen staff'!

In Newfoundland we stayed for two weeks at Tera Nova Provincial Park. The first week there, every morning, Lily bugged until she could go to their 'Junior Naturalist Program at 10am. There, she learned about 'Bear Awareness', the ecosystem, bald eagles and some other things. As a family, we went for many walks on the trails there where the kids learned to enjoy being outside by using their imaginations, Wyatt lead the party in playing a imaginative version of his favorite video game 'Dawn of War'. We found many wild berries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and cracker berries. We also frequently went to the park's visitor centre where the kids could hold star fish, scallops, hermit crabs, sea cucumbers, crabs and mussels. One of my favorite parts of the whole park was meeting Starlyn, a park ranger. She was teaching Aboriginal Awareness at the visitor centre when she dressed up the girls in Aboriginal dresses, the looked absolutely adorable in them. When chatting with Starlyn, she seemed like an old friend. We also went on a guided tour of the beaver dam with Starlyn, and the next morning she gave the girls each their own medicine bags. Roses has a bunch of different herbs in it to help her with her atshma, colds and allergies. I think we will all remember her kindness and hope we see her again someday.

Next time, maybe tomorrow, I will write about Nova Scotia and some dear friends we made there.
and also, I will be putting on the pictures we have so far.

Newfoundland

2010-09-05T08:44:00.000-07:00

Well I don't have the words to say how beautiful and amazing Newfoundland is. Everyone is so friendly and the land is so breathtakingly beautiful and I can't find the camera!! We are thinking of moving here someday. But first on to Labrador which I have a very strong feeling that I am going to like even more than Newfoundland. I have so much to say and no time in which to say it. The kids are doing great, Wyatt's acne is clearing up Lily is much happier than she has been for quite a while and Rose who is always happy is.....happy! That is all I have time for. We are at an internet diner in Eastport as we have been staying this past week at Terra Nova National Park. We are off to take part in the family scavenger hunt now. I do wish they had internet (a bit anyway).

Painted Wagon

2010-08-22T17:11:00.000-07:00

Well I STILL can't find the camera and I am sorry as 2 days ago when we were in New Brunswick we painted our RV with acrylic paints and it looks totally cool and bright and colourful. On the right side it has all our names and a princess and a ufo on the door (thanks to lily) on the hood it says SAM and on the side of the front it says super awesome motorhome. There is bright colours on both sides thanks to Rose and we have flowers on the left side and the back says LOVE and has a sun.
It is funny when I forget that it is painted and I see people pointing and staring and sometimes laughing and I am like WTF have they never seen an RV and then I am like "oh yeah!" We have had people take pictures and one really nice lady today when we just got over the bridge into PEI come up to tell us she loved our paint job. What fun. I recommend that everyone paints their cars, minivans, bikes whatever to better express themselves and make people smile!
So we are in Prince Edward Island today and we have to decide if we are going to stay here for a month or not. I was hoping to stay in Newfoundland myself but we would have to take a ferry to Nova Scotia and then one to Newfoundland and it costs a lot. So when I am done here I am going to do a bit of research to see what would be the most cost effective. I really want to see Newfoundland but fear I may have to wait until next trip. We shall see. One good point to staying here is that we have internet and we can start to answer some of the questions that have come up during our trip about the St. Lawrence Seaway and of course we will have to read Anne of Green Gables which I loved and I have a feeling that Lily will love too.
We have been on the road for 2 weeks now, a different place each night and Ryan is ready to stop for a while. I think that the kids are too. Me I could do a few more days I think. Tomorrow if we stay here again I am going to rip the RV apart to find the camera as I really miss it and being able to share the pictures that add so much to my "story".

Bonjour from Quebec

2010-08-18T15:33:00.000-07:00

Well I never would have believed it but here I am in Quebec on the coast and I LOVE it. It is a long story but like my 15 year old I had many prejudices against the french-speaking province based on absolutely nothing and here I am and everyone has been super-friendly and speaking english well enough that we have no problem understanding each other.
Last night was magical as we had a lobster feast complete with wine and dessert for less than $100 and that was for 5 of us!! You have to love a place where that can happen. The RV's plumbing has been acting up and we may have it looked at and fixed if it won't cost too much but we can live without it if we have too as we have a big washtub to get water in.
The kids have been great and the baby is a rock star she loves to be outside and is great during the driving as well. It feels really good to be heading out East instead of West and driving along the coast is surprisingly beautiful. How come no one ever told me it was so wonderful out here?? A person could get used to it.
The camera although found is MIA again!! So no pics and we actually took some too. We are just starting to unwind and really enjoy ourselves except for my 7 year old. She for some reason is NOT enjoying the driving. I don't know if it is the noise (as it is quite loud in the RV) or the bouncing around. When she works on her workbooks she is fine but that only lasts for so long. We are hoping that she gets used to the driving but it has been over a week so I don't know. When she is unhappy she makes life hard for everyone. Once we stop she is great. Here is an old pic of her with Azaela.

I am off to look up some info about the St. Lawrence Seaway! Aurevoiur!

Quick Update

2010-08-14T16:23:00.000-07:00

We are just outside of Ottawa right now and I am typing this one handed with a sick baby on my lap. We broke down the other day and $500 later we were back on the road.
Azalea has some stomach flu thing with fever and all the vomit and poop you could ask for!!! She is felling better right now! Man do I ever wish we had a laptop so I could at least be writing while we are on the road and then updating when we stop. As it is I am sitting in the office at the campground writing on my mac and feeling slightly foolish.
I am not sure how much time I have so I will try to recap, today is Wyatt's 15th birthday to celebrate he and Ryan went White Water Rafting which Wyatt loved and explains why we are still in Ontario. I saw the pamphlet and thought he might like it. He is feeling a bit down right now as his dad has not returned his messages since we left and hasn't called (yet) to wish him happy birthday.
We are talking now about visiting the East Coast instead of going to BC not sure why but Wyatt really wants to go and none of us has ever been we shall have to see though as everything is costing more than we had planned for. Also Lily has been much harder to handle than we had hoped. She has a hard time with change and we haven't been able to create a rhythm yet.
Not much road schooling taking place except for learning how to stay calm in the middle of chaos aka at the gas station where we broke down and they wanted us out of there but didn't want to help us to achieve that.
Of course things never go as planned. Sigh......No pics either but we did just "find" the camera so that is good. I have to go now so I can find the info on how to empty the holding tank on the RV........ :)

We Are Doing It!

2010-08-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

Remember when I posted about people stealing our dream well about 2 weeks ago still feeling down about my brother and disconnected we decided to just go for it. Ryan and I were talking (complaining) about where we were at and how unhappy we are with just coasting through life and wanting to give our children more to experience and learn. We both really wanted to get away from the city for awhile and connect with our friends out West who are in the process of trying to start an intentional community. So I said "Fuck it" (yes I swore!) lets put an ad on Kijiji saying we will trade our minivan for a working RV and guess what??? It worked and we are now the proud (I mean really Proud) owners of a 1985 Ford E350 Travelaire! Check it out.....

My Brother

2010-07-21T16:50:00.000-07:00

I just found out via a post on my sister-in-laws Facebook page that she and my brother, who live in North Carolina, were in Ontario a few weeks ago. I saw some pictures and was wondering but to know for sure stinks. Not that it is the first time he has been in Ontario and I didn't know nor get to see him but for some reason this time really hurt. Our mom passed away a year ago last April and I guess for some reason I thought that meant that when he came here I would get to see him.
As you can well imagine by now we are not close and really haven't been since we were young. I really love my brother and even if I haven't seen him for a while when we do get together for me its like I just saw him the other day and I feel really comfortable around him. The feeling is not mutual it would seem. We live very different lifestyles. He works outside the home and is gone all the time on business trips as is his wife, they have one child and lots of money and a beautiful house.
I wouldn't trade places with him for the world. Ryan and I are working on a way to earn income while we spend lots of time with the kids. We hope actually to be able to live in a community with like minded individuals in an Earthship or something similar. We would spend time growing and preparing healthy meals, unschooling, and helping others to learn to live more in harmony with the Earth. Only being away from each other when we absolutely had to. I know believe that he does not approve of my life. He also wants me to come to visit him in NC and I have always wanted to but have been unable to make it there. My first husband did not like my brother (the feeling was mutual I am sure) and flat out refused to visit. For the past two years I have been planning to visit but Ryan can't travel in the US until his immigration is done and that is apparently going to take longer than we thought. It stinks as both of us are wanting to go and visit his grandparents in Iowa and take Azalea to see them and we have to wait at least one more year and they are in their 80's!
This is what I get for bragging to Ryan that Phil and I have a great relationship where it doesn't matter how long since we have seen each other we are as close as if we see each other everyday, I guess not so much. It makes me really sad to think that I may never see him again and that in his life I am not important at all.

Big Ass Hair

2010-07-19T10:25:00.000-07:00

Well it has been a week and a day since Dreadcon 2010 and I still have big ass hair!! It is slowly starting to come together and when I go out I put on a bandanna and I don't mind how that looks. Still I would be lying if I said I was happy with how my hair is right now. We are going to try putting rubber bands at the roots so that it will help make it easier to tighten and add in the loose hairs so hopefully it won't be so puffy! Any tips please feel free to share!
I just recently finished reading No Impact Man and I loved it! We are already living pretty no impact, we don't buy packaged food (as it is bad for you as well as killing trees for package) make our own laundry detergent, grind our own flour with our Junior Handmill Deluxe, walk where we need to go instead of driving, use vinegar to clean, use baking soda for shampoo and vinegar for conditioner and more. Also we try to get most of our food at the farmers market. For us living like this feels good and we are wanting to take it to the next step by living in an intentional community that is focused on "doing no harm" to ourselves or the environment. I feel that is what the world needs, people who are totally committed to doing no harm.
While we have come a long way as a family I still feel like there is more I can do personally and I have wanted for many years to help people in their personal healing journey and I am not sure how to do that. One of my favorite blogs is having a giveaway of this amazing course, I am hoping to win myself but if not I am going to try to come up with the extra money to take it. I feel like it is exactly the nudge I need to get clear on how I can make my dreams come true.

Don't get me wrong life is pretty sweet right now even with the puffy hair but both Ryan and I are ready to "take it to the next level" literally and figuratively!
What steps are you taking to "do no harm"?

Dreadlocks and a New Life

2010-07-12T15:43:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago I woke up in the morning with the thought "I want dreadlocks" it wasn't that surprising as I had been trying to decide what to do with my hair that was, for me, really long. So with that in mind I thought that I would have to wait to have it done as I do not have an extra $100 or so (that is what I think it would cost) lying around. Then I go to read one of my favorite blogs and I see an old post where she talks about doing her dreadlocks herself. Yippee! Ryan can do them for me.

Well yesterday was the big day hours later this is what I looked like.
I felt like crying. This is not how it was supposed to look at all. Ryan was more optimistic than I saying not to worry he just had to re-comb and roll them. I tried not to complain but I tend to do that on a good day and here was my beautiful hair tattered and torn. So I let it go and now today I found another site with more info and a better description of back combing. Ryan tried again today and they are tighter now and starting to look like dreads. I guess I should point out that I didn't want to use any product at all and that would make a difference in how they look it doesn't make them tighter they just look tighter, you don't really have dreads until the roots start to come in "tangled" and that can take years!
I don't want to put a picture until Ryan has re-combed them all and we have to get a metal comb (which we should have started with) so it will be a few days.
As with dreads so in life or something like that. This is a prefect example of how Ryan and I can be. I am looking forward to his blog about this to read his experience of it. For me I see having what I want to be a problem or "it never works" as in I can never have what I want. I also see how I wanted to suggest to Ryan that he re-read the instructions before he started (but I didn't) or that perhaps after that first dread was questionable then we should have checked the instructions again or waited to get a metal comb.
*Sigh* hindsight is twenty-twenty right? I know that they will look really good someday! I am pledging to try them for one year before I decide. That is what I like about this hairstyle it is a lifestyle too. Stepping outside the box and waiting for something, moving toward something, slowly and hopefully with joy. Please wish me luck!!

Why I Haven't Posted for So Long.....

2010-07-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

I come here almost everyday to check on the blogs that I follow to see if they have posted and everyday I want to post as well and yet I don't so I will tell you why.
My ex-husband that is why! It seems he is still controlling me from afar, or to be honest I am letting him still control me. I found out from my 18 year old son that my ex, his dad, was reading my blog and then talking to Zack about why what I wrote bothered him. Since the day Zack told me I feel creeped out to come on here and write about my life. The creepy part to me is that my ex doesn't talk to me about what I write but to our son. A grown man not being able to communicate is not that surprising I guess but I really wish that he would talk to me and not our son.
That being said I am not going to censor myself because I am afraid that he will read it and pass judgement on me. That is the old way and I will not play the old way anymore.
So a lot has been going on since I last posted. Wyatt is done school, for good, as he is going to be home schooled next year. We are going to be receiving what is in his college fund so far to pay for his private pilot license sometime next week so he can get back in the air. He passed his physical even with his eyes being off and is ready to fly!
We are hoping to travel out west the end of the month to meet up with some of the people who are interested in starting an intentional community too.
I am feeling excited today for the future, I hope you are too!

Moving and People Stealing Our Dream!

2010-06-09T09:40:00.000-07:00

Well we did it! We found a four bedroom townhouse that will fit us all in and have us living back on the ground. No more 5 am wake ups by loud blaring Lady GaGa, at least I hope so. No more dog poop falling onto our balcony from above, and by above I don't mean heaven!!

I should be really happy about that right and I am....but Ryan and I had a dream this summer to "get" an RV and travel first through the US and then Canada. Don't ask me how we were going to get the RV we hadn't thought that far ahead. We were really excited about it at first and then the air kinda went out of the idea as we didn't pursue it. So today reading the blog of a wife of a really great friend I had back in the day, she says that they are thinking of getting an RV and traveling around for a year! I am like NO WAY that is our dream!

So I tell Ryan that these crazy people have stolen our dream. :) Well I got looking around at some of the websites that she recommends to see what living on the road is like and it turns out that lots of families are doing it, living on the road, looking for their tribe, living cage free and loving it. Here is a good site to check out . So I am revisiting our dream and I hope Ryan will too and see if we can make this happen. I have a friend who did this already she is RV'ing from Mexico back to Canada. I really hope we can make this happen in the next year or two. The kids are really excited about it too.

Just think 2-3 months of just traveling with your family. LOVE IT! I guess it would help if I were to say that these families are sharing our dream and not actually stealing it. :)

This weeks You Capture....Your Favorite Shot

2010-06-03T19:29:00.000-07:00

A funny thing happened this week I couldn't find the camera until this afternoon so I only had 4 pics to choose from and this is my fav from the 4. It is the pic of our "healthy" cake. It was really good and had palm sugar which is somewhat healthier than regular sugar. We don't make cake very often but when we do this will be the one we use with real whipped cream and fruit! YUMMY!

Learning Disabilities

2010-06-02T04:08:00.000-07:00

Well a miracle has happened in my life! My 14 year old who was diagnosed with Learning Disabilities when he was in grade 2 just discovered that he has double vision! I know what you are thinking (at least I think that I do) and yes I had his eyes tested regularly since he was 4 years old but like the optometrist said yesterday it is hard to diagnose until they are about 10 or so.
This discovery was made possible by the fact that Wyatt is in pilot school and needed a physical to be able to do solo flights. Well it all went well until the doc did a routine eye exam on him and discovered that he had different depth perception in each eye. As was discovered yesterday there is about a 2-3 foot difference in each eye. Can you imagine what that is like? As he was most likely born this way he thought that is just the way the world looked. It makes perfect sense as when he was 3 or 4 he ALWAYS spilt his juice or milk cup, it almost looked like he did it on purpose and we would give him shit. I cried a little about that yesterday remembering the poor kid most likely saw two tables and while setting his glass down would hit the side of the table and it would tip. Or he would reach for his glass and knock it over!
The worst part about this for me is that right now he is in a school for children with Learning Disabilities called Amethyst (it is free and kids can go there for only 2 years thank god) I wanted him to go and thought that it would help him keep up in school. He started there in Grade 8 last year. The first thing that they did was recommend that he go on meds to help with his focus. He didn't want to and I didn't want him to either but his dad and I talked him into at least trying it. Well his teachers all noticed that when he was on the full dose (I don't remember the name of the drug) his performance in school "greatly" improved. I didn't notice any difference in him but his dad (we are divorced) said that he was a new kid who didn't complain about school anymore, well Wyatt didn't complain to his dad anymore because he dad didn't listen to him but he still did to me. While on the meds he started to have really bad allergy attacks that got worse and worse as the year went on. He would be itchy and then get an upset stomach and be covered in hives. Once when he was with us it was so bad we rushed him to emergency they were concerned with his reaction too and had an eppie kit ready in case. It was bad he could hardly walk and was really dizzy. The only thing that was different was the meds he was on. I did some research and discovered that people with stomach problems like Wyatt should NOT take this drug and the doc whom prescribed it knew that Wyatt had stomach problems. This all took place near the end of the school year and Wyatt went for allergy tests after school was out and he was off the meds, all that showed up was the he was allergic to grass and mildly to eggs none of which could explain the reaction that he had.
So when he started his second year at Amethyst and Wyatt and I said to the school that he would not be taking the meds this year the shit hit the fan. They said that he would fall behind if he didn't take them he wouldn't be able to keep up when he went back to regular high school etc. That is when I started talking to Wyatt about home schooling and he loved the idea. We had already decided to home school our daughter who was 6 using Living Books Curriculum and were really excited to start Wyatt on that and give him a positive learning experience. His dad agreed with the school and tried very hard to pressure Wyatt into taking the meds. Wyatt told his dad that he didn't like how he felt when he took them. His dad then showed him the chart that the Dr. showed us that basically said the people with ADHD (that wyatt was NEVER diagnosed with until he was at Amethyst) who didn't take meds for it were basically losers who failed at life, really that is what this "chart" said. If I can I will get a copy and put it on here. He told Wyatt that if he would at least agree to take half the dose he would buy him 5 video games for his X Box and Wyatt said ok. Well I was furious when I heard this but Wyatt said he made a deal and was going to follow it through. We went to the doctors with one of Wyatt counselors Patti (more on her in a later post, she gets one all to herself) he said there was no point in putting Wyatt on half a dose as his teachers didn't notice any difference in his performance until he was on the full dose so Wyatt and I won that round.
The whole point of this is to illustrate how the teachers noticed improvements in Wyatt when he was on the meds. With this new info we have as of yesterday it is pretty safe to say that most likely Wyatt is NOT learning disabled but visually challenged! How then could his performance improve? Well really I don't see how. Yet they are so determined that the meds work they "see" the benefits just because the kids are taking them. I wonder if they would see improvements if they were just told the kids were taking the meds. That is so wrong and scary on many levels. I can't even blame his dad for bribing him to take them as he believed the scare tactic that the Doctor used and really thought that Wyatt needed them. As relieved as I am to know that Wyatt's life will change when he gets his glasses I am FURIOUS at the school for their behavior and need to do something about it yet I am not sure what.
I hope that any parent that has a child with learning disabilities reads this and finds the courage to advocate for their children if they think their school is pushing their children to take meds they may not need. Or better yet look into and consider home learning.

This weeks You Capture....The Sky

2010-05-27T13:08:00.000-07:00

I really enjoy this weeks You Capture as I love to be outside and this past week was the first few week of thinking about what picture I wanted to take. It also helped me to realize that I know very little about how to use my camera and I am not sure where the booklet for it is!!

Garlic Socks

2010-05-21T09:56:00.000-07:00

Well Miss Azalea has a stuffy nose as of late, which I feel is wrong due to her age and only being breast fed! So I tried looking up any info on detox and breast feeding as I have been drinking beet kvass (more on that later) which I made and which is something to help the body detox. I have been totally unable to find anything on the subject of detox and breast feeding other than don't do it.
Now drinking the beet kvass is NOT like doing a regular detox but it does help your liver to detox itself so I stopped drinking it but it didn't seem to make a difference to her stuffy nose. So while I am surfing the net I come across this wonderful website here and I read about garlic socks! What you do is take two cloves of garlic, cut them in half and squish them a bit with the side of the knife. Then take two little pairs of socks and put the crushed cloves in between the socks and put the socks on baby. Well the garlic socks were like magic. The night before we tried them she was awake for two hours (which is only the second time she has ever been awake during the night as she is a magic baby) because her stuffy nose was making her cough. With the socks on it was like she didn't even have a stuffy nose! The next day she still had a runny nose but it was more liquidly (i know gross eh) so it came right out and didn't clog the pipes as it were.
So we have been alternating nights with the socks. I am back to drinking the beet kvass again as maybe it is simply helping her to detox too! I didn't exactly eat super healthy while I was pregnant and a running nose is just our body's way of getting rid of the crud!
I love finding new, easy and natural ways to keep my children healthy and happy. If you have any please share. Garlic socks, who knew?!?

Edited You Capture

2010-05-18T19:30:00.000-07:00

So here is the same photo for the You Capture weekly assignment with some enhancements that I just discovered I could do with the iPhoto program that I have. I like it much better and I am going to use it more. See this is fun and I am learning too!

First You Capture

2010-05-18T19:07:00.000-07:00

This is my first submission for You Capture which is where you get a different photo assignment every week. It is cool because it combines the last two weeks assignments which is something yellow and depth of field. I didn't even take it Ryan did and I found it when I was looking for the picture I took of the top of the fridge which for some reason didn't work!! I am looking forward to doing more of this.

Breast Feeding Hero

2010-05-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

I just came from the online mothering community that I am a part of called Londonmoms and was blown away by one moms breast feeding heroism. Her baby is like a week old now and she had some real problems getting the breast feeding going. She is a first time mom as well. So her milk took some time to come in and the baby got very frustrated about nursing, it happens but she was being pressured by the "hospital" community to bottle feed him, I guess so he wouldn't starve to death or something. So of course she did, but being so determined she didn't stop putting him to the breast but he didn't want it.
So she went to her chiropractor and she of all people had the answer for her. She wisely suggested that she express some of her milk in a sippy cup for baby and to give him that not a bottle while she was trying to get him on breast, the milk in the sippy cup was to help keep the baby from getting too frustrated while waiting for the milk to come out of the breast. Unlike a bottle where it comes out immediately it can take a bit for the milk to come out of the breast. Well the very first time the mom tried it it worked!! She basically has had no more problems since and now just puts him on the breast and away he goes.
The miracle here is that the mom was so determined to breast feed that nothing was going to stop her!! If only every child were so lucky!
It reminds me of a former close friend of mine who with her first baby had not one problem getting her to latch on, I was so jealous as I struggled for over a week before things went smoothly and almost gave up myself! Yes it was easy as pie for her and after about a week she decided she didn't want to do it anymore. She apparently didn't like having the baby "on" her all the time. So she switched to formula, I tried my best to talk her out of it or to at least bottle feed breast milk but she was having none of it. I am afraid to say that I think the real reason that she wanted to quit breast feeding was because she wanted to be able to drink alcohol.
So here is to all us moms who didn't give up and decided to give our children the best start in life with breast milk.

New Blog!

2010-04-26T07:27:00.000-07:00

So much to say and so little time. Ryan and I are going to create a new blog that we will both post to as we don't seem to have the time to keep two blogs going so we are hoping that by working together we can make it happen. I like his blog way more than mine anyway. So hopefully in the very near future that will be up and running which is good as there are so many exciting things happening to us.
We finally got a curriculum for Lily and it should be here this week, she is almost as excited about it as I am. Wyatt started flight school and had his first in air "class" this past weekend and LOVED it and is happy and hopeful for the future for the first time since he was about 4 years old. The smile on his face when he got off the plane was so bright and beautiful and I swear I have not seen him smile like that since he was very little (before he started school go figure). I am still praying that his dad will come around and let me home school him, especially since I just found a really great home schooling site. Pray for me too! :)
My oldest son got his braces off last week after almost 3 years of wearing them and he looks amazing. Baby Azalea is doing really well and using the potty too. Rose is just being her own unique self and keeping everyone smiling.
Life is so good that I feel like bursting!

Out of Left Field

2010-04-07T18:26:00.000-07:00

I feel like this post is going to seem out of left field because I wasn't real with my last post and it may seem like back tracking. It was funny because my last post didn't want to post. I had to click on it a few times before it worked which was a pretty good sign to me that it was crap and I shouldn't bother!

So last night Ryan and I watched a video on YouTube about a lady who is one of the "Wisdom Keepers" for a native american group. She is called Little Grandmother and her talk was amazing check it out here . It was perfect timing as usual because I had been feeling like nothing was working and I wasn't getting anywhere that I wanted to go to. Her talk reminded me that I am the creator of my life and if I am not getting to where I want to go I can only look to myself. I think I have been asking the wrong questions and living in lack. So here is the million dollar question, why did I come here? What do I want to do with my life?

Since I first read Barbara Ann Brennens book Hands of Light I have wanted to do healing work. She actually has a school where you spend 4 years online and 5 times per year in person for a week learning healing techniques using the human energy field. There is a lot to it, anatomy, physiology, and more. I will be doing college level english and math as well! I really want to do it but have lots of great reasons why I won't / don't. Mostly money as it costs about $7000 a year plus travel expenses! I will have enough to pay for my first year this year but what about next year? Will we have enough money to live off of? Can I do all that work plus homeschool plus take care of 3 young children plus work too? I don't want to live in this apartment anymore so where can we live for cheap so I can make this happen? Just the idea of it is exciting to me and I have to get off my ass and start moving towards my goal. At this point I feel like I just have to get off my ass!

So I am going to listen to Little Grandmother and remember that I AM the GREAT I AM and I will work to create my life the way I want it to look!! And when I start to become negative I will change the channel! (in the video she says that when a negative story comes on the news change the channel) Let's get it started! YEAH!

Spring has Sprung!

2010-04-05T19:42:00.000-07:00

Wow it is really difficult to make coming on here a priority. So much to talk about I am not sure where to start. My brother made it down and closed out my mom's estate. He stopped over for a bit to drop off the money and some gifts for the baby. As always it was really good to see him even for just a bit. It was also cool because he got to meet Ryan's mom too as she was down for her spring brake visit.

The girls really enjoyed having Ryan's mom here (Ryan and I did too) especially Rose as she doesn't have a grandma down here like Lily does and she loved calling Janette grandma, because she must have said grandma a thousand times.

So we paid the rent on time and are not evicted which of course is ultimately a good thing but man I am so ready to have a place with a yard, even a small one!! I am not sure what we are doing yet about that as we still need to wait and see what our income will be with my maternity leave which please god, I should get going this week, still waiting for some info to come in from LCBO!!

Also hoping to get our home routine going again now that we have adjusted to our new member! I found a really great Charlotte Mason home learning site that we are going to subscribe to. I really like her philosophy and that she says that reading what she calls living books to children can foster a desire to learn and we have been reading books like that to Lily already. We started with Dr. Dolittle and I was surprised at how much she enjoyed it as it seemed to be beyond her. Charlotte doesn't believe in reading dumb downed books to children. I have to agree and I am sick of those books and the ones that are nothing more than commercials for toys. I am looking forward to having some curriculum to follow and they also send weekly support e-mails with suggestions too. I can't wait to get our new rhythm going.

Endings and Beginnings

2010-03-27T11:08:00.000-07:00

Well I finally did it. After years of agonizing over it and uncertainty. My oldest daughter Lily who is 6 is the product of a very brief relationship with someone with a really bad drinking problem who pays support for her but hardly ever sees her and is not listed on her birth certificate she just calls him by his first name when she sees him although she does know that he is her "biological" father. Because of this she has always called her brothers father "dad". She has went to spend weekends with him since she was about 2 although she didn't see him for almost a year when I was out in BC. She did go back with the boys for a 4 week visit during that time as well. She knows that he is really her "step" dad but said she wanted to pretend that he was her "real" dad.
Since we have been back in London these past two years it started to become clear that going to visit with John is really hard on Lily for some reason. At first it seemed like it was just a matter of getting John on board with not having her watch too much TV and getting her to bed on time. He was letting her basically watch TV all day and staying up really late not having a bath or brushing teeth before bed. No routine and she is a girl who really needs a routine or does better with one anyway. But even though John started to make these changes she would still come home from visiting his place and have fits, yelling and screaming and saying awful things about herself and all of us. I tried to talk to John about my concerns and never really got anywhere. He would just say that she was fine at their place and it was my fault if she was having fits etc. Through all of this I had to sometimes resort to threats of Lily not being able to visit with him anymore if he didn't follow the rules we have in place for Lily, like bedtimes and not letting her have lots of candy. He would say yes he would do that and then I would find out that in fact he was not following them, then I would have to talk to him about it again. It was like having to babysit him. As he is not really Lily's dad he has no legal right to her, I twice tried to get him to become her legal guardian when she was a baby but he refused as he said I would try to get support payments from him for her (which I would not have done as I don't even get support for our sons, but that is going to change too).
Even though my heart was telling me to not let her go anymore that it was doing more harm than good I had a hard time listening to it as I felt like it would be mean to do that. Mean to John not Lily. So finally yesterday I tried one more time via e-mail to talk with John about my concerns that the energy at his place where he supposedly hates me and disapproves of how I am raising Lily, homeschooling, natural food and not buying lots of crap for her and he didn't even hear me. Just the same old response that he is sick of my shit and trying to control him. I tried to talk to him over the phone but he yelled at me and hung up. I sent him an e-mail saying that he could not come and pick her up and that until we could have an adult conversation about it she wasn't going back to his place. He called and tried one more time telling me that he was not going to be my friend and was tired of being blackmailed by me and to tell Lily that he loved her and would maybe see her again one day.
Well I felt a great relief that it was over and Lily herself took it pretty well, she had a bit of a meltdown but she had bigger meltdowns over being able to watch a movie. At bedtime she didn't ask about seeing him and today she has not said a word. For some reason I don't really understand she seems relieved to not have to go there. I will probably never really know what it was like for her to go there.
Then something happened this morning that just cemented for me that I had made the right choice. John was to take our youngest son Wyatt to hockey this morning and we were to bring his equipment as it was at our house. Well for the first time ever we forgot and at 5 mins to 9 am remembered. Ryan called them at home because I said that they must not have gone or they would have called at 8:30 to ask where we were. But they weren't at home and had gone to the game. Ryan left to bring the equipment and tried to call John on his cell phone. No answer. 2 minutes later Wyatt called back, they were on their way home and hadn't called us because Wyatt said "we forgot we had a cell phone". Well when Ryan came back in the house and told me what he had said I was very upset for this was Wyatt's last hockey game and for the past 2 months when he was at john's he didn't usually go.
I called and talked to Wyatt about it and he said he was ok with missing the game. I asked him why they didn't call and he said again "we forgot we had a cell phone" and I said didn't your dad check his pockets and Wyatt mumbled some response that I didn't understand. I reminded him that there was a pay phone in the arena and also that they would have let them use the phone to call us to get his equipment. He said he didn't know that. But of course both Wyatt and I knew that his dad didn't forget he had his phone, that is just his way of showing me. Now he can tell everyone how I not only hurt Lily by not letting her come to his house anymore but I made Wyatt miss his last game. I was like wow I married someone who acts like this and keeps making choices like this.
Now what will happen is I will have to go back to fighting with him about Wyatt's education. But that is ok I have never walked away from a fight but now I will not "fight" I will just keep supporting Wyatt with what he wants to do for his education ie homeschooling.
I feel cleaned out and hopeful for the future. I am sure I am not done dealing with this with Lily and I imagine that Lily and I will have lots of talks about why she can no longer go and stay at John's for the weekend. There she is the "poor" child who is homeschooled and is a weirdo. Here she is the amazing and smart young lady who can be and do anything that she desires. Which do you think you would prefer??

Future choices

2010-03-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

So I found out yesterday that my brother will be coming to Canada April 1st to settle my moms estate and that is when I will get the rest of the inheritance money which should keep us from being evicted. Since I won't get it till the first I am pretty sure I won't be able to get the money to the landlord on the 1st and then it is Easter Weekend and he will have to wait until the following Tuesday and I have a strong feeling he won't do that and we are going to be evicted anyways. In all truth Ryan and I really dislike where we are living right now and would not be entirely sorry to leave but really who wants to be evicted?
We have not been able to get ahold of the person who owns the property that we are interested in. I am going to try again today to reach him. In a strange coincidence I know someone who knows someone who lives next to the property we are looking at! I sent her info about the property and she sent it to her friend as she knew that she lived someone around where we were looking and come to find out they live next door, how cool is that. Her friend said the property is very beautiful and not serviced which is ok with us as we want to live off the grid.

I also contacted the London chapter of the Weston Price Foundation which is something that Sally Fallon put together to help people find healthy milk and meat choices. She just started the chapter here and is going to need help which is cool. Although she did remind us that we can't buy raw milk and need to have our own cow to get it. If only we had the proper land to have a cow! We would save soooo much money as healthy milk and dairy is crazily expensive and we need a lot. We could make our own butter and yogurt and kiefer and cheese. Dare to dream! We could have goats and chickens too. What fun. Lily would like to have a pig but I am not sure about that as I don't want to eat pork anymore but Lily reminded me that we could have lots of bacon. I am not against raising a pig as they are the smartest of the domesticated farm animals but I can't see butchering it and what would we do with a huge pig? I know that they can help clear your garden of weeds each year but how to keep them out of the asparagus? Also geese and ducks can be trained to help keep your garden free of weeds too! Oh if only we were there already. Maybe it is closer than I think.

Oh yeah Ryan's mom is coming for a visit on Saturday and we are all excited to see her. We need to go through the house and clean up the clutter too. Yeah for the future!!

So Excited!

2010-03-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

Ok so I don't get much time to come on here anymore, not as much as I would like so I am not sure what to talk about as there is so much I want to say!

Azalea is doing great, she is mostly sleeping through the night, just waking up to have a quick drink and then right back to sleep she is in bed with Ryan and I so that helps I think. We are going to try to see how she does in her bassinet soon as I personally am not a huge fan of co-sleeping. Like it for the first month or so but that is about it. Of course she will stay in our room for quite a while just not in our bed. The elimination training is going well. We can usually get her to at least pee in the bucket 2 or 3 times a day. Not so lucky with the poop yet. Ryan is much better at it than I, he can usually tell when she has to go. It is really so easy to do too as most people with babies can tell you they tend to go when you change them anyway so putting them on a bucket during a change is not too difficult.

The girls are adjusting to having her around it has been harder for Rose than Lily but they are for the most part doing well. Not sure about the boys, Wyatt loves to help with her and hold her and put her to sleep Zack for his part seems indifferent really. Well he is 17!

So I am so excited because yesterday I found a blog about people living in Michigan and they are living off the grid! They home school and follow Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions which is a cookbook (much more than that really) that Ryan and I got last year and totally changed the way we look at food and nutrition. I would consider it our Bible for cooking. They just hosted a free seminar on her food recommendations at their family farm. She is all about predigesting and fermentation as well as raw animal products from pastured animals.
http://www.pamkilleen.com/Sally_Fallon.htm check this out. Also check out the families blog it is on my list under Living off the grid Maple Valley Farm. It was very inspiring for me to find this blog as this family is doing what we want to do. After looking it over I started looking for property again and found something that may work for us. It is 124 acres about six and a half hours from London with water on it and 30 acres for farming. No buildings which for us is a good thing. It is actually possible that we can purchase it as I have more inheritance money coming from my mom next month. I would love it if we could live on the land while we build our earth-ship, which is a self-sustaining house. Here is to dreaming.

I LOVE the internet, it is helping to make my family's dream come true!!

Azalea Moon is born!

2010-03-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

Well she did arrive and in style, only two weeks and one day past MY due date. I stress the my because for herself she was obviously right on time. Weighing in at only 7 lbs 9 ozs she is the smallest of all my children so I am glad she didn't come when she was "supposed" to!

I had been hoping to get on here sooner to share my birth story while it was still fresh but better late than never, just like baby. :)

My water broke Monday March 8 at around 12 noon. Not a gush but a trickle we were just getting ready to head out. No contractions had happened but I was sure they were right around the corner, called the mid-wife Leanne to let her know. She advised me to call when they were closer and if nothing was happening by the evening they would come and check up on me. Mid-wives are great! So of course I see them around 9 pm that night and nothing is happening yet, I was very surprised because I had had 2 stretch and sweeps done that are supposed to speed things up. Baby sounds good though so no one is overly concerned. If nothing is happening the next day I will have to go to the hospital for another non-stress test, the fourth to make sure baby is ok. If after another day and still nothing I will have to go in and be induced with drugs! Yuck.

Not to worry though because Monday night at about 10:30 pm I start to have contractions!! They are not too bad and a half an hour apart but at least it is something. So for most of the night every half and hour, once and hour and a half apart, I wake Ryan up to record the contractions. Around 3:30 in the morning they start to get longer and closer together. 10 mins or so apart. Coming up to 6 am they are really getting going good, (alliteration) I don't want to call the mid-wife yet but by 6:30 I knew it was crazy to wait to call. So they are both there by 7:00 am, Leanne who is almost done her training and Amy (not our regular mid-wife Jane) who has been a mid-wife for 3 years.

Leanne checks me and I am only a disappointing 4 cm, one cm more than I was 2 days ago!! I was really disappointed because I was already feeling tired and thought that I would never be able to stay on top of the contractions for much longer. When you can't stay on top of them you start to tense up and actually work against your body you really need to stay totally relaxed to help it happen as quick as possible.

So the next hour closer and closer together and longer and longer I am only getting about 30 seconds between each one. I want Leanne to check to see how far I am dilated but at the same time I don't want to know in case it is only like 5 cm. In the meantime the mid-wives are setting up, it takes them a good half an hour to do this as they have basically everything that would be in a hospital delivery room, just in case. Lily comes and stands beside me and watches everything that is going on asking lots of questions as usual, Rose comes in too but not as often or for as long. Zack is off to school and Wyatt is out playing on the computer and helping the girls if they need it. Ryan ran to the corner store to get me some ginger ale and I mean ran as he was gone like 3 minutes.

Even though he thinks he didn't do much he was a big help, just the fact that he didn't mind that I woke him up when I was having contraction was huge. He was nice and calm through the whole experience at least outwardly.

Around 8 am I started to feel like I wanted to push but knew it was too soon. So then I had this experience of laying still (was probably 5 mins but felt longer) and not moving at all breathing really slowly. I had like a 5 min long contraction and I just keep thinking open and feeling myself opening up to let the baby through (i was afraid she would not fit because she was late and I though she would be big, she felt big!) I was so still that Ryan and Leanne both thought that nothing was happening and she came over and suggested that I try another position (I was laying on my left side) it was hard to talk but I managed to let her know that the opposite of nothing was happening!

I am not sure of the time but around 8:15 I told her that I really wanted to push, so she checked and I was fully dilated except for a tiny bit and she said I could push. It took about 7 minutes of pushing and in the end she had to reach in and stretch the cervix around baby's head and she started to come out. Really slowly which is good I guess but ow! Once her head was out huge relief one good push and her body came out too. They wrapped her in a towel and put her on my tummy rubbing her to get her to cry, they don't suction out her mouth so they like them to cry to clear their lungs. She started to cry a bit and I asked if she was a boy or a girl and no one knew! So we looked and sure enough, "A girl" I cried out. I didn't realize how much I wanted a girl until then.

Lily and Rose came in then. I feel like they wanted to make sure I was ok because even though I tried not to make too much noise I am afraid I did yell a little bit and I know they were afraid. Lily was so surprised to see a big whole baby there is a good pic of the look on her face I will put it up here. Wyatt came in too which I was glad he did. How nice for them all to see that birth, while intense, is perfectly natural and doesn't have to be a big deal.

There is not much more to say, the placenta came out after a bit and Leanne showed it to Lily and myself, it was so cool to be able to get a good look and it and see how it works. They should do that in the hospital too. We have it in the freezer and will put it in our garden this year.

The whole thankfully brief if intense time I was in labour the mid-wives we wonderful. Mostly sitting quietly holding peaceful energy for me, encouraging me when I felt like I was losing it and helping when it was needed. I am so glad I got to have Azalea at home and with them here and Ryan and the kids. Everyone should experience birth like the natural event that it is!!

That being said I am glad it is over! :)

Day 11 past due date!!!

2010-03-05T08:11:00.000-08:00

Well here I am and still no baby. I try not to think about it or make a big deal but I am starting to worry because I DO NOT want to be induced. My 6 year old almost died when she was born because I was induced with her, two days before my due date, for no reason whatsoever. I was too timid and ignorant at the time to know that I could say no, which is what I wanted to do. Her heart rate dropped to nothing right before she was ready to come out and after she came out 3 minutes later she didn't breathe on her own for almost 10 minutes. As a result she has some emotional challenges, in the big picture she is lucky and so are we, that it isn't worse than it is.
So as you can imagine I am not too eager to be induced again, even for a reason. I am so glad I have a midwife who says I can wait if I want. I have to go to the hospital for a non-stress test every few days to check on baby and have an ultrasound to check fluid levels as well and each time I feel the pressure from the staff their to have the baby now "because it is dangerous" to go over your due date. If I had an OB I would imagine at this point they would be telling me that I had to be induced and I don't have a choice. That being said there is an increased risk. Between 40 and 41 weeks 1 in 1000 babies will die, between 41 and 42 weeks 2 in 1000 babies will die. Doesn't seem like that big a risk unless your baby is one of the 2. To get so far and then some and not make it seems like a cruel joke. Even knowing the numbers I still don't want to be induced. My midwife did a stretch and sweep yesterday, basically pushing on the cervix to get things going, but it didn't work. I go back to the hospital on Sunday and will have it done again so hopefully that will get things going. The test show that baby is fine and happy so I try not to dwell on it!
I have the rare treat of being home along for part of the day today as Ryan and the girls are at the Children's Museum so I will do some cleaning and see if that gets things going.
Please if you can send loving energy our way.

"Natural" Living

2010-03-01T05:33:00.000-08:00

This morning just to see what would happen I googled Natural Living Blogs and was very disappointed by what I found out of the first 20 links, all but one had lists of "natural" products. Cleaners, toys, etc. I am sorry but natural living to me does not mean buying a bunch of supposed natural products, what is natural about buying a bunch of shit we don't really need. You want natural cleaners, get some vinegar, baking soda and some bleach a little goes a long way. I know some people won't even use bleach and that is cool but I like to use a bit in the bathroom, diluted of course.
You want some natural toys, get some sticks and rocks and leaves and let your kids imagination do the rest that is what they have it for. A stick can be anything a toy car even a wooden one can only be a car. The price is right too!
Then take some of the recipes on the "natural" living blogs, margarine, margarine really how gross and not too natural from my perspective. I guess I am hoping our family is more "hard core" natural. In my opinion it is natural to not buy a bunch of stuff no matter where it is made or what it is made out of. Take bamboo, the supposed darling of "green" people everywhere, the process to make it into cloth is a chemical process and not good for the environment, not to mention that lots of land is being used to grow it that maybe could be used by the local people to grow oh say food for themselves. To me that is not green. I am tired of people using "green washing" to justify unconscious consuming.
If you must buy stuff, and we still do, try second hand first! It doesn't matter where it is made and what it is made of the damage has already been done the environmental impact made. Even new "green" products leave a carbon footprint, buy less!! It is so easy really. Take your extra money you will save to work on a garden at home even if it is just to grow some tomatoes such a little thing makes a huge difference.
Lets put nature back in natural.

Happy Days

2010-02-28T06:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a really great day, no not because the baby came still waiting on that, but because it felt magical to me and I haven't felt that for a bit. Doesn't mean there hasn't been magic I just didn't notice because I was too busy feeling sorry for myself and my family and worrying about things that I couldn't do anything about, except let go.
Why was it magical? Well we scored an infant car seat for FREE and it is like brand new. Ryan's sister is sending some cloth diapers as a gift which is very exciting. Ryan's mom has lent us some money till the end of March and so we can get that wringer to help with the laundry. A miracle happened at the bank so that all the bills went through and nothing bounced, still not sure how and why that happened but thank you Universe. I don't want you to think that I am only happy about material things but these things are all really helpful and a reminder that everything will be ok.
Another really great thing is that Ryan is really getting excited about life again, he had been pretty down about stuff going on between his father and himself. It is hard to hear someone that you love and look up to telling you that you are a worthless piece of shit because you don't have a job (Ryan can't work in Canada until he is a permanent resident) and haven't made a lot of money in your life. Thankfully Ryan is finally starting to speak up and say what he wants to even when it is not what someone would consider very nice. It has been huge for him. Check out his blog "Put it in a Dirt Farm" it is under my list of blogs and is excellent!
Here is to discovering the magic in every day! It is there if you are willing to see it.

Still No Baby!

2010-02-25T12:38:00.000-08:00

Well here I am still pregnant and 3 days overdue which is absolutely unheard for me and this is my 5th child so a person could well assume that it shouldn't be that different this time and yet it is. Oh well I shall just enjoy these extra days of not having to be up most of the night breast-feeding although I am not able to sleep all that well anyway.

I am so excited to bring a screening of No Impact Man to London, Ontario! I am just in the process of trying to make it happen I have yet to hear back from the No Impact Man camp as to the extra cost of shipping to Canada. I am trying to have it come and play at Hyland Cinema which is a small independently run place, they are interested in showing it too. The movie will be followed by a discussion of going no impact for a week. This is to take place during Earth Week so hopefully people will be on board to give it a try. It will be fairly easy for us as we are already making changes to living more like that. I hope it works out and a lot of people attend the screening.

So Ryan went to the hearing and we are not sure yet what is going to happen, weather we will be evicted or not. I doubt the judge wanted to evict people who will pay as soon as the money comes in and are having a baby any day to boot. He said he had to think about it. Ryan is not sure how and when they will let us know what they decide. I dream of the day that we will be rent free and not because we are kicked out!

Other than that my life seems to be holding its breath waiting for baby to be ready to come. I have to remind my life to just breathe!! :)

What is the word?

2010-02-23T19:09:00.000-08:00

What is the word of the day? Waiting? Waxing? Waning? (is that even a word?)

Due date today and no baby and to top it off Ryan has to go tomorrow and try to keep us from getting evicted because even though there is oodles of money heading our way we have NO IDEA when it will get here!!!

Despite all this going on I feel very calm and centered, thank you meditation!!

Watched a really cool movie last night called The Beautiful Truth that was basically about how you can cure cancer and other illness by eating a raw diet, nothing really new to Ryan and I but a great watch and reminder of what we want to create in our life, health!

The kids have been the best this past week and I feel so blessed to be welcoming one more into our family. I am considering training in some kind of nutritional field so that I can support people who want to take charge of their life by creating health for themselves and eating properly. We shall see how that goes, I am so tired of not having money for food and gas. I will work my butt off (lots there right now too) to keep us from living like this anymore. I mean I want to live simply but not so simply that I don't have food, you know what I mean?

Here is too having just enough!

Unresolved Conflict

2010-02-19T09:06:00.000-08:00

The theme in Ryan and my life this week seems to be unresolved conflict. Ryan with his dad and to a lesser extent his sister and me with my ex-husband.
Through these past 4 years I have tried everything to deal with him in a calm and unangry way to no avail. Just when I think we can be civil to each other he comes out of left field with some issue, usually about money and I have always bent over backward to avoid conflict with him to the point of not getting child support from him that I really need.
Well no more! My days of being "nice" to him are over, it is not really nice anyway just weak. Feeling guilty that I couldn't stand to live with the asshole anymore and gave him the boot. Listening to all the mean things he had to say about me and believing him. He doesn't even know how to live, he hides constantly and blames me for EVERY wrong thing that has ever happened in his life, well I might as well give him something to be mad about.
The hardest part is dealing with the kids, I don't want to bad mouth him to them but I want them to see how hard he makes his life with the choices that he makes and my oldest son sees his dad for how he really acts but doesn't talk too much about how it makes him feel.
Here is to standing up and speaking out about things that feel wrong to you. I don't want revenge against my ex, I just need the extra money from the child support he should be paying anyway.
Wish me luck in this endeavor!

Where is the love?

2010-02-15T13:06:00.000-08:00

Well what do I want to talk about today? I don't really know, just felt compelled to come and do an update. Ryan and I watched Enlighten Up! the other night and I really enjoyed it. Just another reminder that weather we know it or not we all want the same thing. Love.
It is really that simple. We all want to be able to give and receive love. It can look a million different ways but it boils down to the same thing. Some people call it recognition, acceptance, purpose, etc. but it is really love that we are all looking for. Of course almost all of us put conditions on it. It can only come from someone that I know really well (how often do you hug strangers? And being drunk doesn't count!!) or who looks a certain way, I mean I do not have anything in common with that homeless looking person, except you do have something in common with the homeless person and so do I we want to be loved!!
How do you show people love? It is as simple as saying hello, making eye contact and smiling. Wow who knew it could be so easy to start sharing love. Pay attention to how many times you walk by someone and don't even make eye contact yet alone say hi or even acknowledge their existence! So stop doing that. Make a pledge to try to say hi to everyone that you come into contact and see what happens.

I think the world would be a better place instantly if everyone would just start saying hi to each other, basically saying "I see you" you are worth seeing.

So if you are here reading this "HI! I see you!"

Competition

2010-02-11T06:38:00.000-08:00

I mentioned earlier that Ryan and I were hoping to live in a intentional community. We are friends with someone who is in the process of creating one and she has a community proposal ( I will post it when I get her permission) and one of the things she talks about is not being competitive in the community. It really wasn't clear for me what she meant with that and I was going to ask her to clarify but I just had an experience the other day that cleared it up!
When I thought of competition it brought up track and field day and competing with the neighbors over who had the best grass biggest house etc. I thought there is nothing wrong with a little healthy competition and it occurs in nature too when animals compete for food and mates, to ensure that the strong genes are passed on, right?
Well what she meant by competition at least as I see it now is when people disagree, it can be about anything, and then proceed to set out to make the other person wrong to "win" the argument and to be right. I myself personally used to have moments like that, I could usually see the other persons point even if I didn't agree and be ok with them not agreeing with me. Except for certain subjects usually having to do with my children. I have come a long way and still can improve on that but I am in contact with some people who are at a different place in their lives in regards to this subject and I just had a run in with someone.
It had to do with homeschooling (which I am very passionate about) and cuts to school being made in the US. The person was upset about a proposal to cut grade 12 out of high school to save money. I very much tongue in cheek said that would be great as more people would homeschool, eliminate school to save money and more people would homeschool is close to what I posted followed by a :) to show that I was joking. Well it was not taken as a joke and what followed was a really vulgar attack (don't know what else to call it) by the person's spouse. Taken with a grain of salt by me as having dealings with said spouse before and understanding that is what that person is like.
I tried to clarify that I knew homeschooling wasn't for everyone but didn't really get anywhere. Some more things were said but the bottom line was that the person saw my different opinion as a personal attack no matter how I worded it or even the fact that I stated that this is what I saw but that I could very well be wrong and that it was really just my opinion.
After it was all over and I was left baffled by the anger created in a simple discussion I started to see that maybe this was what Marie was wanting to avoid having happen in her intentional community. So for seeing that I am really grateful to have had the experience. It is another opportunity to make sure that I allow other people to have their opinions even when they are very different from my own.
I believe that you can have an intelligent debate about anything and it does not have to disintegrate into cavemen standing around a fire hitting each other over the head with bones to "win" the "fight" and be named the chief of the tribe!

Holding onto crap

2010-02-08T07:11:00.000-08:00

Well I discovered something very interesting over the weekend. I always knew that it was important for me to talk about things I was upset about but not how important.
Ryan and I had a fight on Saturday night, just a little one but we didn't finish it. Things were left unsaid for me. So all day yesterday I felt like shit. We didn't talk about it or really anything, I was still mad at him for walking out of the room and not finishing the "discussion". He tries to avoid finishing it by going to bed really early but I don't let him! It ends up taking like 2 hours to resolve what was really nothing more than energy that needed to be moved. For me when this happens I want him to leave. I have had too many times of being with someone who doesn't want to help me move through whatever I am going through because that means that they (partner) have to move some of their own shit too and it can be emotionally and physically painful to do so. In the end things are ok, this time. It usually doesn't go this far with us but when it does it sucks to the max.
Still not sure what is happening moneywise this month. I hope we figure it out soon so that we don't end up on the street even though I don't really like where we live at the moment.
Our dream is to be part of an intentional community. Where or when that will happen is not clear at the moment but it would be wonderful, we think so anyway. Growing our own food and milk and natural fiber, what could be more rewarding than that?
Thanks for listening.

What a day aka The Government sucks!

2010-02-04T18:34:00.000-08:00

So we have been without the child tax benefit for 7 months now because of some changes made to my CTB mainly letting the boys dad have it for the 8 months that he had them when I was out west. Who know it would create such a problem.
As you can imagine my CTB is large due to my lower income and number of children and also because Ryan is unable to work until his permanent resident status is complete.
So for 7 months I have been providing the government with the info they say they need calling to check to see if everything is ok. I will be told yes it is fine should be resolved next month, next month comes and nothing. So I call again only to be told they need to send something else so I send it and then am told ok everything looks good it should come next month and nothing.
Ok so this is the month that everything is going to work. So I call to make sure and after the lady on the phone explains how I could have still claimed the boys on my income tax even though they weren't with me the whole year she says that they still don't have all the info that they need. I lose it and start to cry, I don't yell at her or anything like that but she informs me that she is ending the call. I guess she can't stand when people cry which she must hear a lot as she works for the government!
So another month without. I don't mean to be a jerk about it, I know we are lucky to live here and even be able to get it. It pays our rent though and being without it for 7 months has been hard. Our nice little cushion of savings is gone. We are behind on credit payments and I am not sure that we won't be evicted come next month.
Money is coming but not until April! At least we have been able to keep buying food. It is a case of watching what you wish for as we wanted to live more simply and having no money really makes that happen!
What to do? I really do not know. Pray, beg, scream? I have tried all of these and haven't seen any results yet although I am not sure what I am hoping will happen.
Money stinks! I should know I don't have any but I can smell it everywhere............. :)

Starbucks and Music

2010-02-03T21:17:00.000-08:00

Well I wasn't going to write today but since I am up late with an upset stomach (not sure why it is upset just is) here I am.
Tonight Ryan played an open mike type thing at a Starbucks in the richy part of town and I was surprised by the music that was being played. Yes Ryan is a musician (of course I think that he is great) and plays open mic randomly. So we get there and all these beautiful people dressed to perfection and perfectly polished are sitting around drinking their soy lattes and fair trade coffees and the music starts a really bad cover of Yellow by Cold Play. The beautiful people love it! This is followed by a bad cover of John Meyers Why Georgia Why? Why indeed?
I want to laugh and say to Ryan what a bunch of pretentious people these are but I am afraid of making him more nervous than he usually is. He is going to go up there with his not electric acoustic guitar that has a hole in the side and a broken thing to tighten and loosen his string that he has to use a screwdriver to adjust the string. He ended up borrowing the guitar from the guy who did the bad cover of Yellow as he forgot to take his screwdriver up with him when he went to perform. For the most part everyone, especially the guys liked his music, it was definitely the most lively and original music played there tonight but I have a feeling that he will not be welcome back as this is something that takes place once a month.
I won't really be sorry as it felt out of place for us to be there. We have a hard time "fitting in". Our age difference, my 4 kids from 3 other guys and one more on the way. We home school, want to live really simply and like hand washing our clothes. Want to eat really naturally and think that being green means more than buying shit that has recycled packaging or made from organic fibers. Being green to us means buying next to nothing that is new but finding it used first. Only buying new if we really "need" it not because we want it. Trying to make it first ourselves. Etc....
Most people that we meet when we share our dreams look at us like we are crazy and maybe we are but we are crazy together and that helps and makes it fun! I LOVE my life and my upset tummy!

Grumpy!!

2010-02-02T11:53:00.000-08:00

Well didn't want to come on here and share today the idea being what is the point? No one is going to read this, but then I am not doing this for anyone but myself so I guess it doesn't matter. So there.
Ryan and Miss Lily had a run in last night. It is not uncommon but has not happened for awhile and it is always upsetting for me when it does occur. What Ryan does when he loses it is yell like a maniac and then Lily gets scared and cries. I HATE it.
To be fair she gives him a really hard time some days, usually after she comes back from a weekend at her "dads" ( he is not her biological father but her step dad she knows this but still says he is her real dad) it is hard for Ryan because he does everything with her and her "dad" puts her in front of the TV with some candy and lets her stay up late etc. Real great parenting at work.
I let a 10 min episode ruin the rest of my evening and some of today as well. Pretty silly I know.

So more info about my family. We are home learning Lily. I love it and believe more people should home learn with their children. To me it is more about building a stronger family than about education. IMO public school sucks and it gives children a warped view on what is important and what they should value. My experience with my oldest son it that he looks to his peers to see what is important to him instead of looking inside of himself. He has spent such a ridiculous amount of time with them in school that he thinks that they are his family. He is slowly starting to see that maybe they don't always have his best interest at heart and it is up to him to choose his path in life. He is an amazing young man at 17 and I hope he starts to see that about himself and soon.

Still not sure about a direction for this blog. It could be about home learning, it could be about my idea of healthy eating, it could be about spirituality as I experience it. It could also be about how we are truly dedicated to living more simply. Here is utopia to Ryan and myself. Our own property not too big couple of acres, some Dexter cows, a few chickens, a few sheep or lamas, raw milk, raw milk butter and cheese that we make our selves. A garden to grow all our own food. SIGH! how wonderful to imagine that we will live like that someday. Maybe this blog will be about how we get there. Not that I am dissatisfied about our life now I would just like more! :)

Here is to more!

Can't sleep!

2010-02-01T03:06:00.000-08:00

Ugg! 5 in the morning and I can't sleep. 3 weeks left to go but I would not be surprised if the baby comes early. Valentines day would be nice. Little chap still doesn't have a name and since we both think that he is a boy we have been focusing on boy names. Ryan loves Huckleberry and I like Ignatius. Can you imagine? Poor kid, but those are the names that call to us. Maybe when we see him we will know.
A little bit more history. Like I said I have 4 children so far. A 17 year old son, a 14 year old son, a 6 year old daughter and a 3 year old daughter. My 17 and 14 year old have the same father, my 6 year old has a different biological father but calls the boys father dad (although Ryan plays the role more with her) and my 3 year old has a different father as well, although once again Ryan plays the role and she sometimes calls him dad. She sees her bio dad a few hours each week.
It is a long story to explain this unusual blended family and not for today. Needless to say I let people assume that Ryan is Miss Roses dad and IMO he is and sometimes I just tell them that he is. I don't want to explain the situation to everyone who asks and quite frankly I feel it is not most peoples business. I am ashamed sometimes at how my family looks, not the children but that it would appear from the outside that I make such poor choices. Maybe I do. But except for my 17 year old and the 6 year old all the others were planned and very much wanted. They are wonderful blessings in my life and I really wouldn't change anything except for peoples perceptions or judgements about it. And really the point is why care what strangers think?
To be thankful for the wonderful partner that I have now who is deserving of my love and doesn't care about my past choices is the important thing. I am very lucky.
Well I think that I may try to get some more sleep while it is still dark outside. Here is to another great day on planet earth!

In the Beginning......

2010-01-31T09:16:00.000-08:00

After months and months of procrastination and encouraging all my friends to start blogs here we go!

Knowing that journaling or blogging is a great way to share and to clarify thoughts and ideas didn't seem to be enough to get me started. What did it for me was continually reading Facebook updates and having so much energy around what the "spiritual guru wanna-be's" were saying about consciousness or spiritual growth that I found myself continuously commenting on them and feeling frustrated.

So now I have my own place to share and vent and hopefully receive feed-back. I have so far lived a very interesting life to say the least. I hope to share it over the coming weeks.

To begin I am 40 years old. I have 4 children and one that is due in 4 weeks. My current partner is 15 years younger than me and is the biological father of the baby on the way. He is the "real" father of my 3 and 6 year old girls and is pretty amazing in all ways, usually.

We met at a retreat center (cult) in BC 3 years ago, more about that experience later.

To give you an idea of where we are at this time in our lives, Ryan is right now doing our laundry in the bathtub and hanging the clothes around our 2 bedroom apartment to dry. This is being done for 2 reasons: 1 to save money and 2 because we are wanting to live more simply.

1 not having a lot of money is helping to achieve 2! Perfection at work. :)

I feel that is all I have to say to start. Here is to finding direction for this blog.

Kelly