moving things around

I'm sort of blog happy lately.

In order to try and get some actual "gigs" I'm making a blog just for my music. You can find it here.

How Death and Dying is Like Labor and Birth (an assignment for my doula course)

My Grandmother died almost exactly one year after my first vaginal birth after cesarean. She was the most accepting and loving member of my entire family. I do believe that she chose to die the way she did in order to give us all time to accept her death and to say goodbye. She spent three weeks hooked up to machines before she passed. It was probably quite a harrowing experience for her but it gave us, as her family watching her, so much peace to be able to see her and hold her hand and say goodbye.

My birth with the Explorer, my second born and my first vaginal birth, was very similar. It took three days of labor to birth him. I feel like I needed those three days, as difficult as they were, to come to terms with what was happening in my own body. When the Explorer was born, I was so tired and so happy to be done. Obviously I was happy about my new baby, but the prevailing thought in my mind was relief that the pain and exertion were over.

I feel like my Grandmother, when she finally passed, felt some relief. She had rheumatoid arthritis since age 13 as well as lupus. Most of her life was spent in pain, ever increasing until she died. I was living in San Diego at the time, 2000 miles away. I flew out to spend the three weeks watching her in the hospital and finally flew home after that three weeks. She died while I was on the plane to San Diego. I was very sad at her going. I still miss her every day. But the part of me that worried about her being in pain, or being sick, or being unhappy, that part of me is glad for her. Just as I felt relief when the Explorer was born, I feel relief that my Grandmother is no longer suffering.

It was a struggle for my Grandmother to live and it was a struggle for her to die. She had to labor, there in the intensive care unit, we all had to watch her and know that we were powerless to stop it all. In the same way, my birth team at the Explorer's labor and birth could only watch and support and know that it all had to happen. I had a team of family, neighbors, midwife, and doula to support me. My Grandmother had a team of family, neighbors, doctors, and nurses to support her. I got a baby at the end of my struggle. My Grandmother got peace. We both got a reprieve from pain and suffering. We both got to rest.

Video 18

a million wondrous things...

Wonderful things are happening here in my life. Career wise things are blooming profusely. Bet you didn't know I had a career. Well, turns out I do. For many years , since the Artist was a wee babe, I've dreamed of one day becoming a doula. I even attended doula training (with DONA) back in 2000 when we lived in San Diego. I had the hardest time finding clients and babysitting so I never did become certified. I attended Birthing from Within mentor training in 2002. Still, could not find clients. Then we moved to Indiana. I briefly toyed with the thought of putting myself out there and planned two birth art workshops. No one came. But I had two beautiful baby girls and felt pretty busy as a mother of four. We moved to Wales where I spent my time getting used to having a house full of children and enjoying the beautiful Welsh countryside. (I wake in the night still with a deep longing for it.)

So then we wind up here. The last place on earth I wanted to move to. Maybe not the last place, but certainly toward the bottom of my list. When I had been here about 8 weeks I met a woman, a doula, who had also been here about 8 weeks and had attended 8 births! She supported her family doing birth work! She said all the doulas she knew were way overbooked and it would be very easy to find work in this town. This information inspired me. Months later when recounting this story to my best friend, Candy, she suggested I just call this doula up and offer to do paperwork and filing for her so I could kind of get to know how to start my own doula business up. So I did. It has been an eye opening experience for me. I feel like my doula mentor (because really that is what she has become to me) is getting the short end of the stick! So I told myself, once I find suitable childcare, then I will pursue training. Suitable childcare has been found! So I told myself again, once I find funding then I'll begin training. I was awarded a scholarship through Birth Arts International and am now training with them.

So I'm seeking doula clients (if you know anyone). I've also put together a six week course for parents planning a vaginal birth after cesarean. I'll not post the links here because I feel a little weird putting my location out there for anyone to see. Those who know me are free to contact me for more information if you want.

I'm sure you've noticed all the singing videos I've put up. I'm putting myself out there for sure. I brought a demo cd to a local coffee shop yesterday and have been singing open mics here and there when I get the chance.

Things are looking good. I am deeply grateful for that.

Video 41

Video 43

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies (with a rice free option)

Seems like some folks have multiple allergies, not just issues with gluten, but also with other grains. This recipe takes that into account. So far I have only used rice and sorghum flour, but I imagine one could use others as well. I'm also going to mess around and see if I can come up with an egg free version. Right now I have a batch in the oven for a Valentine's Day party at the Artist's play rehearsal tomorrow, so I'm reluctant to do too much experimenting for this batch.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup rice or sorghum flour (or a blend)
1/2 cup corn starch
2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
2 tsp Kahlua (or vanilla extract, I keep Kahlua around to use in baking as I prefer it sometimes.)
2 eggs
2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 Fahrenheit. Mix the butter and sugar. Add the eggs. Add the xanthan gum, baking soda, and salt. Add the rice/sorghum flour. Add the cornstarch. Add the chocolate chips. Drop onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 375 F until it just barely shows a little brown on the edges. You do not want to overcook these!

Alternately, you can make a sort of log out of the dough and freeze it for later. I brought a plate full of these made from frozen dough to a playdate and it was promptly gobbled up. (And nobody noticed that it was gluten free.) If you want to bring a plate of these somewhere but hope to have a few left over for midnight snacking, you'd better just leave a few at home because you are unlikely to bring home anything but an empty plate.

Working with the Place Value Apartments

Place Value Apartments

Last night I made this big posterboard creation to help cement the idea of place value for the Explorer. He's been doing this type of math for some time now but still often needs prompting to begin the addition or subtraction in the ones place.


It should be pretty self explanatory how I made the apartments, but if you have any questions, just post them in the comments and I can explain further.


Because it is so large, I'll have to post it in three sections.


First we have the Billions house:

Next, the Million house:

Now the Thousand House:

And finally, the Hundreds House:

I'm having problems with Blogger, so I'm going to put some photos of the work we did in a separate post.

Blizzard!

No pics of the blizzard but we are all well. We spent the day with some lovely friends sledding and chatting and playing. Turns out my sled from when I was a little girl is very very fast. Growing up in the American south I didn't get to use it much.

Now we are cozy inside watching the snow. A chicken is in the oven, a bowl of "jacket potatoes" (British for baked potatoes) waiting on the table, a hearty salad, and baked fish for the non-chicken eaters and after dinner we will have hot cocoa with whipped cream and sprinkles.

Bring it on, Mother Nature, bring it on!

75 years

This year is the 75th anniversary of our local Quaker meeting. Tonight there was a sort of kick off celebration. I was, of course, late (with very good reason and totally worth it!) but I arrived in time to hear a song written about our meeting.

Now some background. For those of y'all that haven't moved around a lot, let me just explain things to you. In my experience at about the six month mark of being in a new place you begin to miss the old place very very much. It sort of, well, eats your soul this deep longing for the old place. Now add, I don't know 3 or 4 old places and one begins to feel a bit chewed up inside. To say the least it is unsettling. I miss Wales like you wouldn't believe. Seriously. After the Arizona shootings I spent the day crying in the bathroom wondering what kind of messed up country I had moved my family back to. (Ok, now hormones did play a small part in this day of bathroom weepiness. Not to mention the 2 hour podcast on the subject I kept listening to.) Before that we had traveled down south to see family and to Indiana to see chosen family. So I was in a bit of a post holiday meltdown of missing people and places. (I'm also, strangely enough, homesick for Ireland a place where I spent just a week. And that week we were mildly ill with mono!)

But I digress, tonight at the 75th Anniversary kickoff, this wonderful singer songwriter sang a song about our local meeting. When in the first verse he mentioned the name of our town a bit of warm hometown pride started spreading in my heart and by the last verse I was weeping happy tears. You see, now I do feel like I've found a new home. Does this make Memphis, California, Wales, or Indiana any less home? Nope. But it does add a new home to the list.

Soon as I got home, I did what I tend to do when a musician inspires me, I pulled out my guitar and sang. I sang and sang. I sang the songs that made my mind visit the lands I longed for, songs I had kind of shelved for a while. Below you'll find one of those songs. I am forever grateful to the members of my community for bearing with my homesick longing for Anywhere but Here. And with love I offer this song, from a land I've yet to visit (but is at the top of my list), to all of you.

Diolch yn fawr i bawb

Now Westlin Winds

Technology mishaps

I'm not sure if I've mentioned here about the death of my iPod touch. It actually happened twice, only the first time was my fault and I got it repaired. But the second time, well I just figured it's not the right time in my life for a tiny gadget that costs over $100. The little girls dropped it in a bucket of apple cider vinegar. Now, granted, there are plenty of times when I wish I still had that iPod touch, but overall I think it's one of the best things to happen to me. I no longer have that constant temptation to just "real quick" check email or facebook or whatever.

I do have an iPod now. I use it for music and podcasts. It's one of the earlier nanos. As for all the notebooking and stuff I did on my old iPod, well now I use a notebook. Yep, I've gone old school. I have a notebook and calendar. If I need to remember something, I just write it down.

One of these days, perhaps I will do a long notebook post.

Then more recently my laptop bit the dust. It's salvagable. I mean, we are pretty sure the info stored on it can be retrieved, but it will need a new hard drive. We don't have the extra funds at the moment to do this, but we will do it eventually. For now I'm on the Lord of Sound's computer in the evenings or on weekends, and those aren't the most convenient times for being online so my online time has really gone down. This is a very good thing! If I need to "look up" something, I just write a note and do it later. This has also cut back the boys' computer time. They think this is a bad thing but I think it's good. It means more time outside or reading a book or playing legos together.

I'm rethinking my usage of technology and trying to find a balance that fits my life better.

I did get a nook for Christmas (comes with insurance so if another Apple Cider Vinegar Incident occurs, I'm covered) and I'm LOVING it. I'm finding myself reading more. That's always a good thing. The Artist has been reading a bit on my nook, too. I think he may need to get one next Christmas.

Fairy doors and Winter Wonderland...

Last week the little girls and I went to a fairy tea at a local bookstore/coffee shop. We drank tea, ate biscuits (when you have them with tea, you call them biscuits not cookies), read fairy stories, and saw a very funny magic show. It was very fun, but would have been more fun with friends. We will be sure to bring friends next time.

On the way back to our car, a shopkeeper told us about these little fairy doors all over downtown. Here is one we found.

And now, after much anticipation, we have snow! Lots of it! Of course, since we are homeschoolers, I can't make the boys walk uphill both ways to school in the snow like I had to, but they did walk uphill in the snow to go sledding on Sunday afternoon.

Wordless Wednesday

This is our house in Indiana. Those little boys are ours. I forgot how little they once were.

Too bad it doesn't snow in Michigan. At least it doesn't stick.

Why Quakers don't celebrate Hannukah

To conclude our Hannukah study last night, the boys and I planned on making latkes. Since I had forgotten (what with sick kids in the house and all) to light our menorah the past few days, yesterday afternoon I thought I'd light it to get the candles all lined up how they are supposed to be. Thing is, I forgot about it and the whole thing went up in flames!

So then we have our traditional type meal we have when we decorate our Christmas tree: cheeses, meats, vegetarian meats, crackers (Corn Thins actually), and lox. I serve the latkes with this. Since the Explorer won't eat lox and barely touches cheese I let him choose his meat earlier that day in the grocery. True to form, he chose ham. It didn't dawn on me, the whole ham is not kosher thing, until after we ate. Not that I was going for kosher, but it still seems sort of wrong somehow to serve ham with latkes the same evening after you set fire to a menorah.

We did play dreidel, only without the gambling aspect.

So, it was a sort of Hannukah study that would be unrecognizable to any truly devout Jewish family. But we still learned a lot and had fun.

(And the advent wreath still stands!)

my friend is giving away something!

My friend is hosting a giveaway on her blog. It's a lovely blog, it is. I have enjoyed it for years and frequently (as you can probably tell if you read both) "borrow" ideas from her.

Advent and Hannukah (and some learning room pics)

I know that I promised long ago a post on our new educational methods. Basically we've moved from and eclectic classical lite to a Steiner inspired / Waldorf approach.

Now, before you start asking questions, let me tell you that I'm not qualified to answer them. Basically I'm not an anthoposophist by any means, but Steiner's educational methods seem to work well with our family dynamics. I don't have the time or energy to explain it all right now so I'm going to assume that you, my beloved handful of readers (ok so two that I know of) either are familiar with Waldorf methods or have googled Rudolf Steiner and Waldorf education.

But next year, well, I'm going with a pre made curriculum, still going to stay on with the Waldorf method for sure as we all seem to enjoy it and the children seem to be really thriving, but I'm tired of coming up with everything on my own.

So, with that in mind, I'm going to share what we've been doing this week. For years I've been a member of an email group (via yahoo) called Waldorf Home Educators. The list owner, the lovely Mrs. M, is a Waldorf teacher who loves Waldorf philosophy so much that she shares her wildly creative lesson plans and musings for free with those of us on the list. Can't thank her enough for that! She recently posted lesson plans for a four week block called "December 2010 Stories of Light" It's lovely, really it is. We started this week learning about Hanukkah. Now, as this block is geared for grades 2 to 3 I had to kind of ramp it up a bit for the Artist. So tomorrow he will be writing a detailed report about Hanukkah. We have other bits we do every day as well as all of this, you know your regular reading, 'riting, and 'rithmitic. As well as whatever interesting thing we happen upon.Here is a picture of the menorah that the Explorer made. Tonight at dinner we said a little poem and lit the first candle. I'm not sure if the center one is supposed to stay lit or not. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.



Here is a photo of our chalkboard. Ideally I'd like a real honest to goodness blackboard but as I can't find one in my price range (ahem, as close to free as possible), these adhesive blocks of chalkboard material will have to do. Below and above are the cursive handwriting alphabet I put up just this week. We (the boys and I) are all learning a new kind of cursive. I thought it might be good to learn together and sort of help each other along and it's been great. The Artist has been able to write and read cursive for quite some time now but prefers to write print. The Explorer has been begging to learn cursive since last school year and the Artist decided he'd give it another go if we all did it together. We've not learned all the alphabet yet (I had to consult the book for the wall chart) but we are enjoying learning together. I think the boys like that I have to practice, too. Also, you'll notice that the letters are in purple just like the chalkboard. The poem on the chalkboard was written by the Explorer and I wrote it up on the board in both cursive and print so that he can decide which "font" to use tomorrow when he copies it onto the "good paper" we will make his "Stories of Light" main lesson book from.

I know I promised some advent information and I will. I found this site and decided it might be nice to do a Jesse tree. I have fond memories of having a Jesse tree at church when I was little as well as fond memories of advent (both at church and at home) and so I decided this was the year I'd actually do it. (Ok, a few days late, but still I did it!) Now, Quakers don't tend to do a lot of these kind of rituals. Our services are quite simple, and I like it that way obviously otherwise I wouldn't call myself a Quaker. But this is home and I thought a bit of holiday focus was in order and it wouldn't hurt to brush up on our Bible literacy. I don't know that we will make all the ornaments as listed in the chart on the website, in fact I know for a fact a few of them I will skip, but still it's a nice tradition and we are "having fun playing with the pencils and filling out the forms on the bench." Plus there is a lovely lovely red twigged bush in our back garden / yard that made a lovely filling for a vase.You see a dove, a symbol for peace. We did those on Monday. Yesterday, Tuesday, I was feeling bad and so we did not very much and nothing on this project. Today we were really feeling creative and we did the apple (cardstock covered with bits of tissue paper) which symbolized the Garden of Eden story. Now, mind you, I'm no new earth creationist. But I find the whole apple and snake story riveting anyway. (And yes, it's totally possible to believe in both God and evolution. Really!) Then the rainbow symbolizes the promise God made to Noah after the Big Flood never to flood the earth again. (Noah and the Ark being hands down the Explorer's favorite Bible story, though he prefers the animal parts to the part about the rainbow.)

Now our advent wreath is only a wreath in the symbolic sense since there is no greenery involved and barely a hint of even a circular shape. As it happens most years round about the week after Thanksgiving, people like me who are-definitely-going-to-do-advent-this-year, find it hard to find the required pink and purple candles in the shops. So, I got a brilliant flash of insight (though to be honest, could be that I read this somewhere) to decoupage tissue paper onto clear glass votive candle holders and use them instead of a wreath. So that is what we did. The pack of tissue paper I bought at the dollar store did not come with purple so we layered red and blue. Also we are using tealights instead of votives. Now, granted, you don't get the cool uneven candles that you get with a real wreath with tapers, but it's less messy in the long run and we had fun with the glue. Also, turns out, if you give the tiny goddess some glue, a q-tip, and tissue paper, she will quietly occupy herself for hours. Seriously. This girl had some fun gluing today. She did the pink (of course) votive holder you see below as well as a giant apple of her own (not pictured).
Earlier this week we went to the dollar store (which is where I got the "silver" tray and the aforementioned tissue paper) and the Explorer found this grow your own crystal tree. Basically it's salt crystals that he grew. But it looked so festive in our window and was very fun to watch as we watched the snow come down for the first time since we arrived in Michigan. Here is a photo:


And since I know you are dying to see more, here is a blurry photo of the big alphabet display on the opposite wall of the purple chalkboard.

You may be wondering why there is no mention of Miss Mousie in this post. That would be because she has been sick all week. The tiny Goddess only today started feeling better. Miss Mousie on the other hand just kind of slept and cried and nursed. Basically lots of, "I want to hold you, Mama!" or "Please can I nurse, Mama? Please can I?" So pitiful. I finally gave her some ibuprofen this afternoon and she's been terrorizing her sister for the past hour so I reckon she is feeling better. I didn't give it earlier as she was just running such a low grade fever that I didn't want to interfere. I don't tend to medicate for fevers unless they are high or unless that person is prone to night terrors and sleepwalking when fevers hit, and in that case that kid never runs a fever on my watch!

Oh, would you look at this! We did do something educational on Tuesday!




And I'll leave you now to ponder how the mini fig got into the jello.

Happy Hanukkah, Nadolig Llawen, Feliz Navidad, and Buon Natale!

Wordless Wednesday (yes, it's been a while)

Thanksgiving

As you can tell from my last post, we have much to be thankful for.

This years' Thanksgiving started out as a quiet one. Well, as quiet as one can get with our rowdy crew. But then the Accident happened (see my last post) and now we are joining with that family for Thanksgiving. So we will be serving ten children and four adults. But, I serve a crowd that size quiet often since, as my friend B says, "We hang with a big crowd."

However, if you happen to be in the British section of our local Hiller's grocery store and hear mournful moaning, that would be me. Because as much as I am thankful for friends and friends-who-are-family here, I long for a traditional Welsh Thanksgiving.

Yes, my dear readers, you read that correctly.

A traditional Welsh Thanksgiving is very fun and I suggest everyone try it.

First, you must have at least five countries represented. Our five were: Spain, USA, England, Scotland, and of course Wales...and please don't make me give you the Wales-is-not-a-part-of-England speech!

Then you have the traditional food: turkey (brined a la Nigella Lawson), candied sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, vegetarian lasagne, mashed potatoes, southern cornbread dressing, cake with candy corns on top, tortilla (Spanish not Mexican, it's basically a sort of potato omelet, It's lush, it is!), tea (naturally!) and lots of friends and children. I think we had 15 children and 15 adults. It was so much fun! It was my first year making a turkey and one friend of ours, a vegetarian for years, was overheard saying "I see why people would want to eat turkey, that looks good." and a few months after his wife told me that she wished he had eaten some of that turkey because he talked about it so much afterwards! The children played football (that's soccer in American) and well, I'm not sure what else they did. I think there were light sabers involved at some point but I can't be sure.

And obviously the traditional Thanksgiving caroling. (Ok, so nobody sang along but me, still we did play the song!)

It was lovely. Thanksgiving always is for me. But this year should be much quieter.

Happy Thanksgiving! (Wonder how one would say that in Welsh?)