stuff n stuff

wanting comfort food - sweet potato fries are in the oven, but it's not fast enough. have eaten two 100 cal packs of chips so far. In various forms of pain, wish I weren't. Listening to Harry Potter on my ipod, downloading P90X exercise videos. Will do laundry, dishes, housecleaning at some point today. Right now, want to walk gingerly and drink beer. Will go visit the garden. Want to hang dry my laundry for some reason. Wonder if I have strong enough yarn? Maybe I will work on finishing Kim's baby blanket. The bulk of it is done.

these are a few of my favorite things

The things that are important to me!!! We have relationships in general, and mine with Adam to be specific, food, good food, community food, potluck food shared with friends in my backyard, ceramics, esp the process of it, and ideas and journaling, my garden and self-sustainability, my dog and myself hanging outdoors together, sparkpeople and the idea of goal setting, exercise, nutrition and meeting challenges, my job, my work, and the people I do it for, textile arts, heritage arts, yarn yarn yarn, the dogs and camping, my family all gathered together, and friends, singing, being goofy, and marina, specifically.

today I ate a cucumber from my garden. yum yum yum.

have a pretty damn bad headache. Please do not develop into a migraine. Please.

After work, appt. the Roxana's show.

Tomorrow, Santa Barbara til Monday!

Very excited. Very glad to be traveling. Very glad to be traveling with people who want to relax.

briefly...

Ack! Again, I got very little sleep. This time it was mostly for good reason though - Adam came home, brought me a treat, and we stayed up late watching a movie. Then, of course, I was too tired to sleep. Or something, however that works.

Today I have a doctor's appt, and I have all my gym stuff with me, so I will go from the doc to the gym, and feel GOOD about that. I haven't exercised since Monday. It is time!

I've got about 8 inches of Kim's baby blanket crocheted! I'm enjoying crocheting it. It's weird how sometimes the most rote, never-changing thing is the most satisfying. I'm enjoying the sameness of this stitch over and over and over again, and the volumn of fabric that it is creating.

big deep breath

The last few days have been absolutely exhausting in an emotional sort of way, which feels like it's crossing over into physical. I got home from work today and just couldn't keep my head up, so I went to bed. I slept for a few hours, so now it's 9:30pm, and I'm strangely groggy. I am thinking I will find an old comforting movie and go to bed again soon. I was supposed to do a 2 mile run, but if I go to bed before 10, I could get up before 7am and do the run in the morning.

I've spent a lot of my evening tonight looking at the Good Vibrations conference website - where I will be speaking at in September. I'm suddenly aching for a good unschooling conference. My mom and sister went to the HSC Conference this last weekend, and it was so odd to hear them talk about it... my first boyfriend was Josh Engle, and his youngest brother (there are 4 of them) is just about my youngest sister's age - and he and his parents still go to the conference also. My mom/sister stopped at their house on the way home, just like we used to when I was going to the hsc conference, and it's just so funny to see that little echo in their experience. I could get ridiculously nostalgic for HSC conferences, but I just don't have the energy for that right now.

However, I do have the energy to say that I am who I am because of conferences like HSC, Live and Learn, Good Vibrations, etc. I am who I am because of groups of unschoolers getting together and taking over hotels so that even those drab pigeon wall colors and carpets end up looking like peacocks and birds of paradise flowers. I am who I am because I had pink hair for most of my teens, and so did most of my friends. Because we had people piles, hugged and cuddled a /lot/. Because we had talent shows, because we wrote poetry on our pants, because we spent so much time online waiting for that one weekend.

I miss being so tapped in to the unschooling world. I saw a new HSC magazine at my mom's house and missed knowing every person who was writing for it. I'm giving a talk about being a grown unschooler and I am suddenly feeling like I should be reversing the talk - asking the audience how I can stay as connected as possible when I am working full time every single day and I don't have kids of my own.

When I exhausted the Good Vibrations webpage, I moved on to Sandra's. I hit "randomize me" and found my mom's page of writing. Then I spent a fair amount of time reading my mommy's articles about unschooling and parenting. It's so funny - some of the articles she wrote many years ago, but they still apply. She's a smart cookie, my mama. She wrote articles on soothing frustrated children, and as recently as yesterday I had wandered into her house looking for soothing, and yup, she followed her own advice.

"my heart is a teacup with hairline cracks" says Witch Baby, and I feel not exactly that way, but more like I am very small, sitting on the edge of one. Either way I lean, I fall. I'm not good at this balancing act. I don't know which direction I want to go. So I am just going to sit here, for the time being. Hoping that it's just those two choices and that the third isn't that the cup is going to crumble under me.

I don't think I am as maudlin as that sound. I think that's part of growing up. I was very upset yesterday and made a list "what would a grown up do?" Yes, part of it involved crying to my mother, but other parts involved making appointments, trying to go to sleep early, and going to work and doing my job.

::::::
I have one zucchini that grows larger every day. I have 1 small pickling cucumber and one loooonng japanese cuke. I have a few small jalapenos, and probably upwards of 70 green tomatoes. The eggplant has blossoms, so do the honeydew. The basil has gone to seed. I am saving up money to buy wood for a new, and deeper, box. I'd like to have potatoes, garlic, onions. Maybe a whole box just for melons and squash.

The remainder of tonight and tomorrow will need to be rejuvenate-Roya day. I am in need of some gentle loving-thyself. Exercising in the morning will be a good start.

photos from the backyard

My puppy n me



My garden. It's getting huuuuge. Tomatoes, jalapanos, marigolds, white eggplant, chives, cucumbers, zucchini, basil, rosemary.



My puppy dog is getting so big...



I have a tank full of chylids, a bloodthirsty boyfriend and roommate - this is the two of them ridiculously and giddily excited about feeding small fish to slightly larger fish.



grapefruit, lemons and cucumber from my yard/garden

breakfast

breakfast:

1 western alternative bagel (success story: put in freezer so it didn't go bad like all the rest of my bread)
1 wedge laughing cow (success story: bought in bulk at costco)
3 slices turkey bacon (success story: bought in bulk, 3 slices only 2 pts!)
3 tablespoons egg beaters (success story: scrambled eggs in one minute in the microwave? yeehaw)
1 small cucumber (success story: picked from MY GARDEN!)
dash of tapatio

5 points. and yummy. and yay.