no poo on hold

I have too much going on to deal with my itchy head right now. Suffice it to say, the salt does not help. I'm breaking out the nasty coal tar shampoo tonight.

On other fronts, some funniness:

The tiny Goddess, being super excited about the Eating in the Living Room Because Daddy's Not Home started running in circles around the sheet we had lain on the floor chanting, "Run, -aster, -aster!"

I handed Miss Mousie the remote while I took the (not so) tiny Goddess upstairs and she put it on the Welsh language tv channel. What's super cool is I understood two little phrases, da iawn (fine, ok) and nos da (goodnight).

I also have my firefox browser set to Welsh. Why? Because when I installed the updates I thought I was so cool. So now I can say tab, new, window, bookmark, cancel, and ok in Welsh. Well, say is an overstatement, I can read them in Welsh. My pronunciation is so bad that I have to translate back into English for Welsh speakers.

I got a call from my Stitch and Bitch buddies. They had gotten my email saying why I wasn't going to be there and they wanted to check on me.

Community.

It's a good thing.

and just as I was beginning to lose hope...

I have a weekly knitting group I go to. (Stitch and Bitch is what it's called but I don't call it that because I don't want the children picking up on the word bitch.) Remember in the last post, I mentioned I had some leads on kindred spirits? Well, two of them go to my knitting group. With the exception of this past week, knitting group has an interesting dynamic. All of the women there are either ten years younger or ten years older than me. I've gotten quite attached to two of the women who are ten years older than me.

Another lead on a kindred spirit is this woman who does this sort of mail order cooperative natural foods thing from her house. She is into music, and morris dancing, and healthy living. When we picked up our order from her months ago, she and I just chatted and chatted.

Well, guess who walked into knitting group on Monday? The natural food lady! Also she brought with her a woman who has much in common with me children/parenting wise. Now of course, I can be friends with anyone, but it is nice when parenting values match up. Plus this woman has kids (six kids ranging in ages from 14 months to 20 years!) my kids ages.

So now while I'm full of possible leads on friends. I still have to work at it. You know, follow up on phone calls, respond to emails, just basically show up. While I have resolved to myself that I won't be the only person holding up a friendship anymore (and in doing that have found so much peace!), I still have to do my part. Saturday the natural foods lady is having this open house thing so the Artist and I are going to go over there and help her for a few hours. Provided we are not still sick. (Right now the Artist is very sick and I don't feel so well myself.) I'm also thinking I might see if a few of the group from knitting club would like to come over for dinner.

Friendship isn't just something a person is good at or not good at. Anyone can be a friend. Anyone can be a good friend. It just takes the minimum of effort and it is worth it. I just have to remember that in the beginning a friendship takes a little bit more tending to make it grow.

Building Community is a skill not a talent.

This is my mantra lately. I know it's true. I know that finding friends and community isn't just something someone is good at or not good at. I know that as long as I keep an open mind and keep putting myself out there, I'll find what I'm looking for.

Really, though, I've already got a bunch of leads on possible kindred spirits and we are already involved with a home ed group.

The thing getting in my way now is illness. Right now I'm the main one who is sick and honestly I know it's a little bit my own doing. I knew right when I started to feel bad I needed a day of rest. Instead, I decided to be a martyr and take an afternoon here, an hour there instead. And so, over two weeks later I am still sick only this time I have either mastitis or a plugged duct. Both girls are overcoming pinkeye (which they got from me). All this physical illness makes me have little flare ups of depression (which is also a physical illness). All of this gets in the way of my community building.

I still maintain that it is a skill not a talent and will be posting my thoughts on that later, but for now I have a naked two year old (screaming at me), half naked baby, and a boy telling me how hungry he is. (I know it's crazy, but if you don't eat lunch, you will be hungry later. Plus in a house full of food, seems like a person could avoid being hungry.)