December's End

I made a list in my notebook of all the events in December that were extra, pertaining to Christmas celebrations. These were things I either made food for, planned, hosted or attended. As they finished I would check them off to feel a sense of "Ok, I'm getting through this bit by bit and look at all the fun I'm having." It has been very fun and BUSY especially since this all happens in the midst of 2 houseshowings a week, and Cyler travelling 3 days per week. I do remember one night I was so tired and Cyler's (weekend)snoring was incessant so I said in the dark, @2am, "Just shoot me now" and at the time I meant it. But today I feel great as all but NewYear's Eve is checked off.

Dallas Parade

Do Tree

Ward Party

Choir Party

Secret Santa (church and family)

Ellery dance parent visit (3 classes)

3 Family Advent dinners

Gingerbread houses

Ellery Choir performance

Ellery School Party

Cookie Exchange

Jared Hall's bday party

Ellery Christmas Tea Party

My dad's Bday

My bday trip to museum w/Becky

Christmas eve (Soren bday dinner)

Ward Christmas program

New Year's Eve (Soren party)

We get to go to Austin for a couple of business things today. I'm looking forward to seeing the new film "Warhorse" with the family while we are there. Cyler and the kids are coming home and for my birthday, Cyler is letting me stay in Austin for a 2day getaway with me, myself and I. I will use the time to focus on wellness, nutrition, beauty, (I have been off the wagon with my eating and I'm bringing my at home spa stuff) and planning a balanced life in 2012. And lots of reading.

Thinking in New Ways

Here are some things from the arts that are making me think in new ways:

Book: Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Photo slide show: Mark Laita's "Created Equal"http://www.slate.com/slideshows/arts/mark-laita-created-equal.html#slide_1

Film: Hugohttp://www.hugomovie.com/#story

HardTail

My hairlength has been how I have been feeling lately: "Where to go from here?" It's as long as I'm going to let it be without looking like I belong to a cult. I'm looking for new directions so I have started to see a counselor who I am choosing to call a lifecoach. I'm not batcrap crazy--just looking for more. Trisha is good at keeping me in the real world and helping me get to what I want to change. She says I'm good at change if it's exciting. I need to be good at change when it requires me to plan for real life or when it requires me to be quiet and still.

The good news is that I'm not a Narcissist. The fact that I admit it, am sad about it and want to change it means I'm not one. Whew. But my lack of maturity, while fun and cute in some instances, is not really helping me out these days. Gotta change it up a bit.

I'll start with a haircut. It's easier.

Maybe it will help me make some other changes I am planning. Being wiser with my resources, possibly working again, being a whole person.

Sometimes our life stories are hard tales to tell. I'm finding I am in a ditch some of the time. How much are my time/skills worth? What passions are worth my time? Which unhealthy habits do I want to tackle first? My shirt above is from HardTail. I would like my tail to be a bit harder. Tackling that is up on the list. So much to tweak and so many extremes to avoid.

Fashion Police2

I need to see why Zoe Saldana keeps popping up in my modest celebrity fashion scans. I wonder if she is consciously making a point or if it's just a fluke.

Fashion Police

Didn't know there was a Nigerian fashion week till now. I would totally wear this.

I like watching Fashion Police because I like Joan Rivers and Kelly Osborne. I don't share their taste in clothes much of the time but they know their style! One of the girls at church put together a modesty fashion show to display how to cover the body and still look stylish. Some of the choices I loved and some left me scratching my head. So I set out to find things I would wear that would make Molly Mormon and Kelly Osborne both proud.

Add a little cami and I love this. I love this. I love this.

Ok just kidding. You bothered with a cardigan, lady? Really?

Kidding again. This would work in places where they really do have 'fashion police.' I think they are called morality police. Serious. Not kidding.

Tis the Season

I can smell it in the air. And a box from Rod's Western Palace confirmed this feeling in my bones.

A horseshow's coming. Athens TX Oct 21-22.

More bling. White and raspberry on a dark sorrel with flaxen mane.

Cattlemen's crease in my hat. It may seem like I'm a rhinestone cowgirl with this getup. Would I be my parents' daughter if I didn't like to dress up? But Glory knows I'm the real deal and that matters the most in the arena. I am sort of really excited.

Bryant, My Remedy, Sickness & Turkey Rollups

Bryant my nephew lives with us on weekends when he is not compelled to stay on base at Ft Hood. It's nice to have him around although I've never seen his hair this long. He jogs a lot.

Here is my non-surgical remedy for the "what-are-you-talking-about?" wrinkles I have between my eyes. They don't cover the ones above that area or my heavily lidded Grandpa Ence eyes (no one told me that the older I get, the more I would remind myself of my Grandpa) but it's the best I can do with a trip to the scrapbook section of Michael's where they sell craft bindi.

I have been sick this week with the souvenir cold Cyler brought home for me from NY. My daughter has missed the lunches I pack, especially since after her whining 2 weeks ago, she has been making them herself. A note inside the bag means more when you don't write it to yourself I suppose. I missed being a mom eventhough I did enjoy catching up on my Bollywood movies.

The freak-of-nature aka "14 year old bottomless pit for a son" has a weird schedule. And an insatiable appetite. He leaves Thursday at 640am comes home 11pm then leaves 540am Fri then I see him 5pm. I don't like it. My mommy love aside, what is this about when Soren has eaten his stuff, some of Ellery's, some of mine and the extra I was hoping to save for lunch tomorrow--then he looks at me with that "come hither--I WANT MORE FOOD" stare. It's stressful--like how I felt when I taught daycare preschool and would wake up in my bed, sweatily dreaming that I had run out of engaging things to occupy the kids.

One way I am coping is portable freezer foods. I have made spinach/beef hot pockets and good ole breakfast burritos. T-day turkey rollups were last week's attempt. 24 turkey lunchmeat slices sliced at a "4" (Walmart has a numeric guide for thickness now at the deli counter. I like it.) Then I prepared a batch of herbed Pepperidge farms stuffing with lots of extra onions and celery. Sliced cheese, 2 packets of instant brown gravy and a can of cranberry sauce. Spoon stuffing on turkey slice. Spoon a bit of gravy over and top with cheese then cranberry. Rollup. Freeze in batches. He can eat them cold or warmed up. Done. Don't look at me like that anymore Soren.

So a prospective-buyer lady came to the barn yesterday (when I was on my sick bed) to try Glory out. The horse I try not to love but do anyway. Yeah that one. Dub told me that she took him out in the pasture and, . . .he bucked. 3x. He has never bucked with me so I had 2 conflicting thoughts in my head. "No, no bad Glory. No buck. That is not good manners. Have you forgotten what I have taught you?" AND "Good boy Glory. That's right you love only me and cannot stand to have any other on your back. Good boy, I'll love you forever and I'll wear raspberry colored chaps as we gait into the sunset together." I miss him after not seeing him for a few days, I love his sweat and how he rips the velcro viser off my head. How he canters and how he flexes at the poll. I like that he is left handed. I do realize that I am ridiculous.

Sewing Not Sewing

I got to sewing and found I needed to spend some sewing-time not sewing. I cleaned out a drawer.

Decided which projects I wanted to finish. I decided not this one. I like the deconstructed knot--it makes me finish the pattern in my mind. Who am I kidding? This pattern is hard and my eyesight is going. Finishing would blind me for sure.

And figured out a layout for blocks that Cyler's mom had done before she passed away. There's a baby coming on his side of the family. Maybe these amish inspired blocks would work for a baby.

Bad News

A Tennessee Walker stallion passed away this past weekend. The Feltners at Starland, his breeders, have operated their facilities here in Texas for almost 20years. Thirty acres. Coin Bad News was 28. He made good babies. 7 World Grand Champions--I am riding one of his grandbabies.

Here he is at 24. Dub called him "the old stud." Look at that slope in his shoulder. His blaze is one I have seen on other horses and I immediately know where they came from. I am learning the differences between being a rider, being an owner, being a trainer, and being a breeder. I am a rider. All are labors of love and require a certain amount of blood, sweat, tears, and money. Are horse people a dying breed? It takes so much labor and land to support an obsolete mode of transportation. But as a rider, I am so grateful for breeders and trainers. Twice a week they make it so I can feel excitement and freedom.

What happened to hippie gyspsy

She looks how I feel. Or how I felt this summer. Or how I want to feel: "There's a chair, I know. But I'd rather sit on the ground, splayed legs, hair in the eyes and drawing in the dirt with a stick.

We hit the school schedule and I'm going through withdrawals. Sleeping, eating--everything has been rearranged to look nothing like my hobo life this summer and it's been tough getting back into the zipped up-girdle-tightbun-necktie rat race.

I miss my kids when they are at school. There, I said it like a sappy mom with no life outside of her spawn. I know they are not on earth for my entertainment but I'm just saying.

But I haven't heard once this week that they are bored, they haven't fought over the TV--they're too tired to put up a fuss about curry lentil soup. They're pretty docile. I do like that. And I do like my new 9:15pm bedtime. After my first insomnia attack this past Monday, I think about my bed more during the day then I think about food-which says a lot.

Someday after I play this rat-race character all out, I will live in a place that looks like "Hip Pocket Theater."

And sit with this guy under a patio umbrella and listen to Joe Satriani, Janis Joplin, and Old Crow Medicine Show.

Tevia, Woodland Park and Half-Baked Monks

The Garden of the Gods. I thought it was named because those sandstone formations look so out of place, the gods must have put them there. No. The name stuck when an enterprising young capitalist remarked that the area would be great for a biergarten fit for the gods. I love history-it makes way more sense.

We are back from Silverthorne, Colorado Springs, Woodland Park CO. Cyler tried to hide and stay in Woodland Park but I made him come home with me. Now he wants to move there. Doesn't he know that 80% of the residents are seasonal and that the rest are either ice-pick toting climbers with shark teeth on their boots, or neo-pagans who must live by a geyser to preserve their ritual powers?

Our neighbors were gracious hosts. We ate and slept well. I was kind of nervous about us all being there in a condo built for one family. I stressed about Soren not being patient with the 11yr old boy, about two families with different cultures, and both with Germanic matriarchs with control issues living under one roof. For 2 days I took the pill I use for performance anxiety--my doc and I discovered it helps me calm down and focus so I don't get so nervous eventhough I have never been diagnosed with ADD. (suprised? me too). But that with the thin air, I was yawning ALL THE TIME. I couldn't get a lung full up there at 8700ft above sea level. Not a pleasant signal to my hosts and not symoblic of what I was really feeling--joy. So one day I scrapped the med and tried a cup of coffee. NO YAWNING. I played Dungeons and Dragons with the kids and they had fun--my character is a female 6' redheaded human orphan named Bamki who grew up in a monastery (the kids call her Bam Ki-Ki referring to Bon QuiQui that that latina comedian does). She left before her training was over to have a "walk about." In the first hour of play my character lost half her hit points jumping off a roof and landing on her face. Reading over this, I am convinced I have ADD.

So here we are back home-both thinking we should maybe move somewhere else. Old news to our friends--I think of all the good things about living in St George. Then I am reminded of how confused my mom was that after 3 days I only had a red bra and a pink one with purple birds to wash in terms of underwear. I just kept quiet, not wanting to tell her that her 40-something, well-travelled daughter with a master's degree prefers to go commando. Overfamiliarity is probably the worst thing about living in UTAH. That and the dry air, no trees, state income tax and the little-bitty airport.

Woodland Park is a beautiful town. Half hour from a great airport, trees and mountains everywhere, clean air, property available close to schools/everything a SAHM needs, good horse culture. No one will question the lack of underwear in my laundry basket. The worst thing about it is again the dry air-and oh, the winters that last from November to April. A minor (MAJOR) issue for me. I can see Cyler there. He was born for a place like this. He apparently married a tropical amphibian who prefers to have moist warm skin all the time. What are we going to do? "A bird may love a fish, but where will they make a home together?" --Tevia from Fiddler on the Roof-- Since I am the one that needs moist skin, I guess I am the fish.

And so began our last-hours-of-the-drive-home arguement:

Husband: "We need to save $"

Wife (appalled): "Here is THE LIST (aka sad ways I justify my cushy SAHM existence) you can refer to in case you ever have the slightest inclination to suggest that I waste $":

• I use baking soda for shampoo sometimes
• I get GreatClips haircuts most of the time
• I cook at home most of the time
• I make my own home cleaning/spa products
• I groom my own dogs (a feat I tell you, a feat)
• I weed my own yard (a feat I tell you, a feat)
• I give Ellery piano and horseback riding lessons myself
• I don't get botox or cellulite treatments although I am in hellaciously desparate need of both
• I don't have a housekeeper (this one is truly sad, not faux-heroic like the others)

I went on to ask what more I could possibly do so that he can buy dirt in Woodland Park and make me live where I may develop a drinking problem or become a hermit against my will. Poor Cyler-I see that now I may have been defensive.

Reviving Ophelia, or rather, Reviving Blogjournal

It's time for me to get back to the task of journaling. There are too many things I want to remember and share. I have friends that I have captured on film that haven't seen the light of blogger day. I am more realistic about how much people care about my never-to-be-humble opinions, but they are still mine to document-so I am coming back to blogger to map the trajectory of life.

I need to remember my family. Write what I feel about them. Chronicle what I learn from them and how they help me to want to acheive balance. My sisters Melissa (above) and Valerie (below)--working moms, faithfilled, peace-loving, with laughs I can hear myself in.

I need to chronicle my various crushes on dark exotic men. Hrithik I still love, but Sheik Hamdan is an excellent horseman. He wins my OCD attentions this year.

I wonder if Sheik Hamdan saw that I am trying to be a good horsewoman, he would grant me honorary place in his harem. A white mormon, married mom of 3 in saddleseat habit would be an entertaining novelty, No?

Red Thread

I know how this Red Thread feels-you will too I think. What a book! It will take one second to read. Please do, people.

Lalala! I found a treasure

Of cotton fabric!

See Hawthorne Threads if looking at fabric and touching fabric, and thinking about what you can make with fabric is like eating a gorgeously dusted lemon bar with shortbread crust.