blaze

(this is just for me)

Main Entry: blaze
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: fire
Synonyms:
bonfire, burning, combustion, conflagration, flame, flames, holocaust, wildfire

Main Entry: blaze
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: flash of light
Synonyms:
beam, brilliance, burst, flare, glare, gleam, glitter, glow, radiance

Main Entry: blaze
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: torrent
Synonyms:
blast, burst, eruption, flare-up, flash, fury, outbreak, outburst, rush, storm

Main Entry: blaze
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: burn brightly
Synonyms:
beam, burst out, coruscate, explode, fire, flame, flare, flash, flicker, fulgurate, glare, gleam, glow, illuminate, illumine, incandesce, jet, light, radiate, scintillate, shimmer, shine, sparkle

Main Entry: burn
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: be on fire; set on fire
Synonyms:
bake, be ablaze, blaze, brand, broil, calcine, cauterize, char, combust, conflagrate, cook, cremate, enkindle, flame, flare, flash, flicker, glow, heat, ignite, incinerate, kindle, light, melt, parch, reduce to ashes, rekindle, roast, scald, scorch, sear, set a match to, singe, smoke, smolder, toast, torch, wither
Antonyms:
cool, extinguish, put out, quench, smother, wet

Main Entry: burn
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: be excited about; yearn for
Synonyms:
be angry, be aroused, be inflamed, be passionate, be stirred up, blaze, boil, breathe fire, bristle, desire, eat up, fume, lust, rage, seethe, simmer, smoulder, tingle, yearn
Antonyms:
stifle, subdue

Main Entry: conflagration
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: large fire
Synonyms:
blaze, bonfire, burning, flaming, holocaust, inferno, rapid oxidation, up in smoke, wildfire

Main Entry: declare
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: make known clearly or officially
Synonyms:
acknowledge, advance, advocate, affirm, allegate, allege, announce, argue, assert, asservate, attest, aver, avow, be positive, blaze, bring forward, certify, cite, claim, confess, confirm, contend, convey, demonstrate, disclose, enunciate, give out, inform, insist, maintain, manifest, notify, pass, proclaim, profess, promulgate, pronounce, propound, publish, put forward, reaffirm, reassert, render, repeat, reveal, set forth, show, sound, state, stress, swear, tell, testify, validate, vouch
Antonyms:
deny, disavow, retract

Main Entry: display
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: public showing; spectacle
Synonyms:
act, affectation, arrangement, array, arrayal, blaze, bravura, dash, demonstration, example, exhibit, exhibition, expo, exposition, exposure, fanfare, flourish, for show, frame-up, frippery, front, grandstand play, layout, manifestation, ostentation, ostentatiousness, pageant, panorama, parade, pedantry, pomp, presentation, pretension, pretentiousness, revelation, sample, scheme, shine, showboat, splash, splendor, splurge, spread, unfolding, vanity
Antonyms:
hiding

Main Entry: disseminate
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: distribute, scatter
Synonyms:
advertise, announce, annunciate, blaze, blazon, broadcast, circulate, declare, diffuse, disject, disperse, dissipate, proclaim, promulgate, propagate, publicize, publish, radiate, sow, spread, strew
Antonyms:
collect, gather

word for 2010: blaze

this is year 3 in the word department. 2008 was complete, 2009 was thrive - 2010 looks as if it is supposed to be BLAZE.

i don't know where that is going to take me. thrive went places i never could have imagined. hope blaze doesn't burn my house to the ground.

here's what it looks like in the visual thesaurus: BLAZE

thesaurus.com shows me that this is going to be a dangerous year.

it started with a piece of art that lisa samson posted to her facebook. it was of a tree in all four seasons - the fall season (where it feels like i am in my life) said BLAZE. this connected deeply with an ah-ha i had years ago at linwood house when i participated in "the path" with many blogger friends. we did an exercise that asked us which of the four elements we resonated with - earth, wind, fire or water. i knew immediately that i was fire. that metaphor has been one of the best tools i have ever used in understanding of self and my journey.

blaze called to that and i have been pondering it for the past few months. like thrive i tried to shove it away, but it just keeps coming back and nothing has arisen to replace it - and because i have run out of days it seems as if, like an unwanted cat that insists on following me around for the next 365 days... so welcome blaze. for all the good and the bad that you are i embrace you - teach me things about myself and my relationship to god and those around me please.

the secret life of termites

so much richness in the comments of my last post. thank you. i have missed this online give and take very much.

sonja mentioned that it sounded as if one of the legs of that 4 legged stool had termites - that made me laugh out loud! god bless you sonja! we have been apart intentionally from these folks - as we all decided as a group to disband - it was the "re-banding" without us that hurt so badly. but termites is exactly the metaphor for this situation - i do feel hollowed out from this - and i know that a 3 legged stool will stand on its own - but how i long for that healthy new wood to be formed and brought into support the other three.

patchouli said ""pissed" has some power; peace has life." - peace, perfect peace. elusive peace...

i realized after typing the last post that i had taken on a new unhealthy addiction - the compulsive and obsessive thoughts around these relationships were not letting me go. writing about it took away some of their power - but it has taken a very intentional effort to not let this keep consuming me.

can i say again how very sick and tired i am of this morphing my addiction does? how unidentified it slides its way into my day like a seed into a crack and begins to innocently grow until it needs fed and watered and starts to take hold in uncomfortable places. SO BLOODY SICK OF THIS.

feed me seymour...

i am handling this like i would handle temptation to obsess about sex or food - when i realize my head is in that space i take it captive and evict it from my head. just wish i could figure out why that crack is there in the first place and spackle it up... maybe a mosaic patch would be more artistic?

anyway - i'm keeping the lights on and calling my orkin man and we're going to deal with these termites once and for all :D

living with the lights on

i really don't know how to title this post - i usually have a better idea of where my writing will take me - so far this one is called "pissed" - it might not end up there - but it's the best i can come up with at this point. it's more "injured" or "wounded" - but the grief is turning into anger and a rage has taken the place of the weakness i have been feeling.

i make a point in my recovery to have structure built into my life so that i am not left to my own defenses. i have intentionally planted and tended seeds that should be bearing fruit in my life and instead of harvest i am left with famine. it makes me angry, and oh so sad.

i have found that therapy, support groups and some kind of what people from my background call "fellowship" (hate that word, but too fried to try to think of something else to call it) give me a good 3-legs when added to my fourth of working my program have a structure and stability that makes for serenity and sanity in my life.

i have been working my program, but my meeting has become incredibly frustrating as 3 of the 4 of us are in major relapse and while their words say they want a meeting what they mean is that they want ME to maintain the meeting so that if they ever work up any semblance of desire to play at recovery i'll be there to support them - but if anything is actually required of them they really don't want to bother. (see, it's called "pissed" for a reason)...

my "fellowship" has been a community of couples and families who have met together for the past 2 years to share a meal and our lives together. since the fall this has collapsed. you see one of my best friends had been "virtually" cheating on the other of my best friends (the couple i talked about being enmeshed in codependency with in the last post) and he did it on my computer - yes MY computer - asshole. this isn't just the run of the mill guy trapped in addiction (previous to this i had no evidence of addiction at all) - he is a senior programmer for a major corporation, a bible professor, fighter for womens rights and a father and husband who to most accounts is quite stable - come to find out that the "womens rights" thing is really mostly a pick-up line and the cross-gender friendship i had been building was mostly a sham to get me to fill in the gaps for attention that his wife - my other best friend didn't seem able to do.

this happened right before our two families were to go camping together this summer. i didn't trust my gut enough to cancel our involvement in the trip and it was the most uncomfortable situation we as a family have ever participated in. we got tarred and feathered for their inability to live in the light and i am still trying to get the shit off me.

i would have NEVER attempted to have a cgf with another sexual addict. NEVER. it is why i kept getting triggered and could never understand the cause. it fed a deep place in my soul to have a male computer programmer care about me spiritually - and validate me spiritually - the call on my life and the education i was participating in - my computer programmer father was never able to and has actually been vehemently opposed to my spiritual life and has never voiced any pleasure or approval, let alone pride in my accomplishments or life choices. his validation was a narcotic to me and somehow he knew that and it took me far too long to figure out. his brain works like my dad's and he understands things like my dad does. we had an easy shorthand in conversation that seemed so natural.

i was accountable to my husband and three of my friends who know me better than i usually know myself for the duration of this friendship - i did not want any of this to stray into dangerous territory - i was so determined to have a cgf to prove that i was not an animal, that i was not dangerous - that it was possible to live and peace with all men - and myself - and it has blown up in my face.

because of my desire to not tell anyone elses story i have kept the real cause of the falling out to myself and it now looks as if i was the obtuse one - as if i had done something wrong. see his wife - my other best friend - liked the role i played with her husband - i did all of the heavy emotional lifting - he had never been so stable and easy for her to manage. what a fool i am.

now i am ostracized while the lot of them meet and eat together and we're left outside of the invitations. the irony in this is that THEY (the couple) keep inviting, they keep trying to rebuild the broken relationship (not a new, healthy one - but the old broken, co-dependent one) - but all of "our" friends leave me out - and i have NO idea what they think. i am crushed and sad and getting angry. i want to shake them all and clear my slate.

but i won't because it would hurt her. i can't expose her pain and shame. i won't do it. it's not my story to tell. but the pain of being ostracized is overwhelming as this is such a small community and i am not leaving it. we are settled here - it feels like a test of all of the glorious rhapsodizing i have made about community and singing it's praises - those words feel like ashes now and i bear the burn scars.

liam tells me that it's easier to leave us out because we live "with the lights on" - we don't tolerate dark corners in each others lives, don't keep our eyes averted from the ugly places - and so we're the constant reminder to the things they'd like to pretend never happened. what they don't understand is that we know that those dark places are there - are willing to sit with them and still love and accept. it is the denial of the darkness that we hate - not the corners.

a beautiful picture

my friend patchouli left the nicest comment on my last post - she read between the lines of the pain and frustration i was voicing and painted this beautiful picture - it moved me deeply and i didn't want it to get lost in the comments so i am posting it here:

These are the words that I believe describe you. What a beautiful picture they paint.

"it's taken away a lot of the need i had to vent here"

"only know that this place rarely feels like home anymore."

"this is new ground for us and we are growing up and taking responsibility for ourselves in new ways, but but it can be terrifying at times and we have few crutches left in our lives to lean on"

"all is not lost"

laugh
leisure
new friendships
healthy, whole
art
creating
soothed
confidence
happy
proud
beautiful
gift to myself
embraced
possible
imagine

THANK YOU PATCHOULI - i really needed to hear my words put that way.

3 months, 6 months, 12 months...

it feels like a year since i have really written anything of note here. actually probably more like 13 months. i couldn't post that last piece without some update so that those of you who might still have my rss feed in your readers would fear that i had my own descent into madness. nothing like that, although these past few months have been more difficult than i'd care to admit.

13 months ago i began journaling every night before bed - one page - and minus one night in the hospital w/ buck when he held onto life by a very thin thread last february i have not broken the chain. it scrapes off the crud and has been the best tool i have ever used in my recovery. i am usually quite incoherent lately when i am scrawling that page, exhaustion at the end of the day depletes any real journalistic beauty - but i sit on the edge of that bed and force myself to write - and it works. i guess it's taken away a lot of the need i had to vent here. or maybe it's gotten me to a deeper place where even an anonymous blog is too open to air my life? i'm not sure - only know that this place rarely feels like home anymore.

buying our home was a true high point this year, but dealing with trades and finances has been brutal. it has only been in the past few weeks that we have had any semblance of normal back. many of the weeks/months were marked by much fear and anxiety as neither liam or i are from financial backgrounds that had any stability or training. this is new ground for us and we are growing up and taking responsibility for ourselves in new ways, but but it can be terrifying at times and we have few crutches left in our lives to lean on.

living without finances, food or alcohol to ease the pain and fear is a very ragged place at times. our margins wear thin quickly and the edges cut and bruise easily. i had fallen into a strange codependence with a couple and was the buffer for their relationship. it got weirder and uglier and i was so enmeshed into their lives very little of my own was being lived. i guess i take my addictions where i can when limiting my regular options. the pain was just too real to bear alone... that is gone now too and the bleakness of the longest day of the year presses in on me.

looking so forward to the days getting longer, even though winter must be weathered in the midst of this personal storm.

but all is not lost. we four laugh and leisure well together. living far from extended family is difficult during the holidays though. community has crumbled as i stepped away from the codependency and while new friendships and interactions are arising to take their place in healthy, whole ways the vacuum is still quite real and present and sitting with it today brings tears and grief.

i have been pouring myself into art and creating these past couple months. it has soothed my soul on the days where nothing else could or would. i am awakening an artist within and finding beauty and long lost confidence amidst the lies and tapes of old. i am ready for the holiday preparations to be over so that i can return to my paints, markers and pencils. i created two gifts for my children and i am so happy with them. they are framed and finished and beautiful. i also made a gift for myself with mixed media - an old forgotten 1/2 painted dollar store canvas, a favorite christmas card saved, rhinestones, vintage letter stickers and acrylics turned into a dark, moody holiday painting that i am truly proud of. it was a gift to myself for st. lucia day.

i never imagined that my word for 2009 would end up being about lack instead of abundance, but thriving even amidst the famine is truly where thriving becomes thriving. i have embraced that word this year in thought and deed, and although friends are few and far between i am finding that thriving in solitude is more possible than i had ever imagined.

painting my fear

this artist, lee price, has captured the madness of eating disorders so powerfully i felt naked and sucker punched while looking at them. it has been over a decade since my own descent into this hell and they took me back instantly. it was visceral.

many are titled "self portraits" so she knows this pain personally.

Lee Price: American Figurative Realist Oil Painter

frequently wrong

important reminder from patty:

"Finally, we begin to see that all people including ourselves, are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong, and then we approach true tolerance and see what real love for our fellows actually means. It will become more evident as we go forward that it is pointless to become angry, or get hurt by people who, like us are suffering from the pains of growing up."

(AA 12 &12, step 10, page 92)

one of these things is not like the other...

i have always felt quite a kinship to that beloved furry monster :p

deep in my bones

i love this picture, the press it's getting and how it makes me feel deep in my bones.

i have a huge disconnect with my own body image. i regularly have liam take pictures of me so that i can see myself without my minds eye getting in the way. i realized that this woman in the picture is the size my body is now, i can hardly fathom it. she is so beautiful, and so comfortable in her skin. i pray that we can raise our daughters and sons in a world that doesn't tell them that this is broken or fat or unlovely.

Glamour's Plus Sized Win: Tipping point for more to come?

Mark Scandrette - Love-Making as a Spiritual Practice

great article and thoughts:

Mark Scandrette - Love-Making as a Spiritual Practice

Roger Ebert's 12th step

Roger Ebert celebrates 30 years of sobriety and writes an un-anonymous 12th step post, it's really beautiful:

Roger Ebert's Journal: My Name is Roger and I'm an alcoholic

blogger in need of help

Many of you need no introduction to my beloved friend Claudia Mair Burney - better known to many of us in the blogosphere as the Ragamuffin Diva.

There is NO ONE in the world, (yes, even Annie Lamott) who writes my soul like this woman. She has wires and words into the heart of God like no one I've ever read before. Her story is one of pain and triumph and at the base of it all is a heart of a lioness that beats to an awesome drummer.

Mair has been through the ringer of roller coaster land these past few months - with the highest highs (her novel Zora & Nicky nominated for a Christy Award) and the lowest of lows - their old Eagle Spirit got stolen a few weeks ago.

Claudia, Ken & family are saving all their pennies to get down to Lexington to an incredible intentional community there - think Will & Lisa Samson - and she'll be doing work with women who have been trapped in human trafficking. They need to get out of Detroit ASAP and get down to Lexi so their babies can get into school and start their lives surrounded by a strong, beautiful community.

Here's Claudia's post: Will You Join Me In Love?

Life in Inkster, Michigan (think Detroit) has been rough and I really want to speed their progress if at all possible. So many of us support amazing causes and families overseas - I thought maybe, just maybe that generosity might help a little closer to home. Lots of small donations can make a huge difference online - if this could go viral we could really get that family a real start in the deep heart of Dixie. Are you with me?

Will you help?

Here's how:

1. Please use your blog, twitter account, facebook update - any online social networking you use to draw attention to this. We need to love on this family - Claudia is about as discouraged as discouraged can be right now - she needs to feel the love more than anything.

2. Pray - This family needs every level of support - this is a huge move with lots of details on both ends that need to be put in place and tied up - can you please ask God to prepare a place for them and a way to get them there?

3. Give - even tiny amounts online can help - lots of people giving small amounts can change everything.

.

Click ChipIn to donate

Trust me, this woman has already begun to make a big impact on the world around her - a strong community supporting them could make everything change.

Here's just a small sample of why she's stolen my heart:

The Naked Prophetess

For the Journey

Incarnation

we buy a home today

i have been horrible at blogging lately. i mentioned on my other blog that i didn't want to have to blog the heartbreak of not getting our house in case it fell through.

well, that also left out documenting the process if it didn't - and it didn't, or did, anyway - it's real. we bought an 85 year old craftsman bungalow that we adore and can't wait to move into.

it's been a glorious process, everything we needed was at hand - it's a beautiful story of redemption and i really want to take the time to document it. i've been journaling the process, but i need to flesh it out.

we've been given $ for a reno of the kitchen too, so we won't be moving in right away. we've got all of july to fix it up, paint, prettify and move. i couldn't be more excited.

it's been 14 years since we have had a home to call our own.

i have blogged more details on my other blog - leave comment if you don't know where that is and i'll contact you with the url.

thanks for celebrating with us. couldn't have done it without you.

capturing the memory

i'm at that point in parenting where i'm not "allowed" to talk about my kids anymore. i hate it. so i'm blogging this here so that i remember it.

we took a drive yesterday after a picnic just because we all so wanted to be out and not heading home yet.

we drove through a part of town we don't frequent often and there was a couple playing tennis.

buck says "OH, i didn't know they had tennis courts here"

mom - "i didn't know you liked tennis buck, did you want to learn how to play"

buck "oh yeah mom, it's like ping pong, only you get to stand on the table!"

:D

frozen by thinking

okay - have identified a major character defect in my life - too much thinking. not enough doing. damn. s.o. s.i.c.k. o.f. i.t.

we have looked at MORE HOUSE than anyone in the history of this little burg - and because i don't have a deadline i can't act. i keep saying 'maybe something else will shake loose' or 'this one just isn't it' or 'i don't have peace' - but mostly it's just that i think too much and do too little.

HATE IT!

we're walking to see a privately listed house tonight - i'm too ashamed to call my realtor to re-see the two that i'm THINKING about now... i've wasted so much of his time. he's a great guy, and so helpful - but i'm pushing the edges of his patience, i can tell...

i told him i was going to come down to his office to do some filing or something... i know it's his job - oh well. i have made a ton of progress on my step 4 by NOT THINKING about it and just doing it - so small victories i guess.

just tired of being frozen.

happy blogiversary to me...

i have ALWAYS forgotten my blogiversary and wanted to make sure i didn't this year. emerging sideways is five years old now and i can hardly believe it. this place has been a wonderful tool that opened up the world for me when i needed it most.

the greatest gift it has been was showing me that i wasn't alone. i have always felt so unique (and not in a good way) and the beauty of the internet is that it explodes the world by drawing it closer together. blogging is a self-sorting endeavor. readers stay around if they resonate with what you write, and that usually means you are kindred spirits on some level. finding kindred spirits has changed my life forever.

thank you.

i have not needed this blog as much lately as i used to and have even debated deleting it at times. and that may still happen one day, but for today i am going to celebrate five years of pouring out my heart and soul and trying on new ideas and thinking through life and working my program. five very good years.

image of three very good gifts blogging has brought me - erin @ biscotti brain, deb @ abiding and the non-blogging but still ultra wonderful lynne (mike todd's sister, who i met blogging)

recovery math

gosh darnit, people like me

i have always had a hard time with affirmations. my rational mind coupled with my bullshit meter really make it difficult for me to not roll my eyes when i even think them or the few times i've been brave enough to look myself in the eyes in a mirror and say them OUT LOUD. i have gotten better, but still find myself thinking back to my beloved stuart smalley memories and feeling pretty pathetic.

so i was surprised at how moving these affirmations fell into my soul. they are beautiful and artfully composed - and my favorite part is the instruction to "click boldly" for the next affirmation to appear.

the one that i really liked was

"My Higher Power demonstrates through me what He can do"

realmental
affirmations

come on...

(cross posted at my other blog too)

Argh.

There, I said it. Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh.

I hate when I find out information that I don't really want, that I wasn't ever looking for and that could, dang it all, change everything.

I was doing some research for ADHD children and came across The Feingold Diet. I read about it and found that there is a part of the diet that eliminates all foods with salicylic acid - and as a side note mentioned that people with allergies to N.S.A.I.D.S. (non-steroidal anti-inflammatories - asprin, ibuprofen, etc.) should probably avoid these foods too.

WHAT!?!?!? How did I not know this? Don't you think this would be something an allergist (who told me I was allergic to NSAIDS) might mention this say, a dozen years ago when he told me I could die if I ever took Motrin again?? Do you know how extensive this list is? Can you imagine never, I mean NEVER, EVER eat a peanut butter & berry jam sandwich again? Never enjoy another raspberry (my favorite of all time) or a fresh picked strawberry, or living in wild blueberry country, never, ever, ever have blueberry pancakes again? No more almonds, no more avocados, red grapes or cherries.

How 'bout trying to give up cantaloupe, raisins, dates, olives, mushrooms, green peppers and tomatoes - I will never have pizza again? COME ON!

I almost hope that it doesn't make me feel better when I give it a try. I can't even imagine how I could live like this. I am the girl who lived on highly refined sugars, chocolate and fast food for most of my life and gave that up, lost 14 sizes and enjoys a life filled with amazing fruits and vegetables now. I haven't had chocolate in 9 1/2 years - and now I have to give up peanut butter & raspberries too? DANG!

Shall I keep going? How 'bout mustard, dill, curry powder and Garam Masala - I'll never get to have Indian food again.

This is brutal. I've been avoiding it for over a month now, I don't want this information and I want to give it back. But deep inside me I am suspicious that I am affected by this and my body needs to find out if it feels better without these foods. So I am praying to be willing to be willing to attempt a fast. I can't even imagine what I could eat, there is just so much that I love now that I will lose.

As someone with an eating disorder, messing with my food is a scary and overwhelming prospect. This will take a lot of intense prayer and dedication and I just am not sure I'm up to it. I just really want to know if it makes a difference. I know that I feel better without all of the junk I used to have in my life. And yes, there are times that I miss chocolate, but I don't miss how crazy it used to make me feel. So this will be a journey, and I don't know when it will actually begin.

First I have to find some alternatives, good alternatives for my standard meals and snacks. I have found that creating a vacuum is not healthy for me and impossible to maintain over the long haul, unless I replace what I am reducing with real, live options. If you have any recipes or suggestions I am open to them. And any prayers and encouragement would really be appreciated.

the peace of a closed door

found out early friday saturday that the woman who originally offered on the house met her conditions. after i went through friday with a very experienced carpenter i was actually relieved. he helped me to understand that some of the repairs, if they uncovered problems could easily extend the house well past it's possible equity and far beyond our limited resources.

i was surprised at how okay i was with the info. reaching and hoping doesn't mean i turn off my brain - just that i risk and stretch. thanks so much for the sweet comments on the last post. nice to know that my absence at blogging didn't mean a loss of my favorite readers. but it did mean the loss of my memory to actually check in to see the comments :p aging brains are for the birds...

what was really cool that came from this experience is that i am no longer afraid to ask for help from people like carpenters and builders and the local man who has been shepherding us through this process has been so affirming of my abilities to handle these men. i had asked him to be the general contractor if we ever got the house - and he assured me that i was up to the job and that he'd stand behind me and coach me if it ever came to an incidence where i felt bullied or over my head.

the other cool thing was that we realized that we really liked the new, modern feel that this house had because of the interior renos - things we might not have ever done for ourselves as we can tend toward the "good enough, and that'll do" side of things. we realized that there are other fix-ups out there - and we just need to find one with some good bones to start with. amazing what a bit of stretching will do a for a soul.

miles and miles have passed

i can't even remember the last time i have sat down to really blog. life has become so full, in a good way, but it has kept me from this thing that i love called blogging. i was emailing with erin (biscotti brain) and told her that in the last 24 hours i feel like i've given birth to myself.

on friday i found out that the university i attend was looking for a kind of dean of students/chaplain position and both liam and a good friend encouraged me to apply. i know they have some internal people applying for the job, and they will most likely have a much better chance, but i knew that my gifts were a good fit for this position and that the process would be helpful for me. i realized also that i have not done a resume for myself in 20 years! 20 years! i have not been paid to work (except casually for projects) in since i had kids and our daughter just turned 13. previous to that i worked for the same employer for 6 years. needless to say it was an effort to turn all of the volunteer work i have done into a career.

some good friends held space for me and challenged me and gave me the much needed push to put this together and yesterday i faxed it off to the president of the school and felt a mental exhaustion very similar to the physical exhaustion i had after giving birth to my kids. i know that this was part of the "thrive" process and i think that april 20th, 2009 was a birthing day for me.

yesterday we put in an offer on the home of our dreams (needs lots of work, so there might be a few nightmares before the actual dreaminess happens), applied for a mortgage and i applied for TWO jobs! after i sent off the resume i was blog reading and one of the gadget blogs i read is looking for an editor. i could do that job for free (don't tell them) because i would enjoy it so much, and even sending off the email was fun. don't know if any or all of these doors will open, but being willing to risk was so important.

the house we had been waiting for (it was a bankruptcy of a failed flip by one of our good friends) finally went on the market last week, but i couldn't move forward on it because i truly believed in my heart that i did not deserve to live in such a grand home. one of my best friends here was furious with me for thinking that way. when we went to move forward we found out that there was an accepted offer already on the house. i was crestfallen. i tought it was another couple from our church who i knew was looking too. i was at least happy that we were going to "keep it in the family". our broker though encouraged us to still bring our carpenter on site and put a bid together in case it fell through.

while standing across the street with my broker and carpenter a van drove up and a woman got out. turned out she was the lady who had the offer in - and she is a known quantity in the community. i was upset that it was not my friends who"won". i had met her casually years previous at her garage sale where she proceeded to tell me (a complete stranger) about her husband's nervous breakdown. i know if i skeedaddled she would give way more information to "my guys" there after i left.

i spoke with my broker later and he said that she (unasked) gave the information that she was having trouble with funding - so he said GET DOWN HERE MONDAY A.M. and we'll put the offer in... we did and while there may be others that offer that we know nothing about we have most likely the least unemcumbered offer of the bunch. we probably won't hear until later in the week as banks are very slow moving (as we know from waiting about 8 months for them to get the house on the market).

i realized after my friend was so furious with me that i had stopped reaching. stopped hoping. i had thought that contentment meant "making do" - and while there is something healthy in that, there can be a lot of broken too. i was content, and i was not "hope-less", but i was not hoping any more. i was not reaching. i was living in fear of disappointment. i told erin that in the 12 hours following i realized that i truly was strong enough to hope again. i was strong enough to have what i dreamed of, and strong enough to bear the disappointment of not getting what i was reaching for - but that it was the reaching that was the important part. so i have begun dreaming again.

so yesterday i felt like i grew up, stretched out my arms and said HERE I AM. as i finished my journal writing last night i wrote with a smile "I'm thriving! I'm thriving!" we'll possibly see how thriving and disappointment can go hand in hand next week... sigh. no risk, no chance, no hope. i want to live with hope, and i am strong enough to be disappointed.

Learning from temptation

this is something that has become one of my most useful tools of late - instead of shaming myself because of temptation i am learning what it has to teach me instead:

Desire is often talked about as something we ought to overcome. Still, being is desiring: our bodies, our minds, our hearts, and our souls are full of desires. Some are unruly, turbulent, and very distracting; some make us think deep thoughts and see great visions; some teach us how to love; and some keep us searching for God. Our desire for God is the desire that should guide all other desires. Otherwise our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls become one another's enemies and our inner lives become chaotic, leading us to despair and self-destruction.

Spiritual disciplines are not ways to eradicate all our desires but ways to order them so that they can serve one another and together serve God.

Henri Nouwen

fools names and fools faces...

buck came home from school tonight and told me he slugged a kid. in his eleven years he's only ever once been pushed to violence. it seems that two punks kids in his class chose today to call him names. one called him 'turnip' which has a form of our last name to it, the other kid started calling him 'tinker' and it ended up as tinkerbell. after about the sixth time buck gave him a shove and felt so bad about it he told me about it first thing.

i loathe violence. i know that buck is one of the tallest, most mature kids in his grade, so he's not going to get bullied, but pestered is sometimes as bothersome. i encouraged him to be more creative than violence, to use his wit and sense of humor to remind these boys that they should think twice about pestering him.

i asked what their names were to help him begin to think of better comebacks than pushing. as he told me the one little boys name, liam and i looked at each other across the room shaking our heads and trying to keep from laughing because the same exact thought ran through both of our heads. the little boys last name was erskine - i said "that boy should be very careful he doesn't mock last names because he could wear a doozie for the rest of his school days" of course, as good parents we did not breathe a word of it to him, but liam joked afterward about having to call the boys father, "er, mr. foreskin, it's about your son..."

porn and conservatives

no surprise to me - when my political & religious views were so bound up tight i had a much bigger struggle with porn. through my recovery i have learned that having opinions that are so stringent made me so legalistic - the steam has to go somewhere - and with their horrible view on women this isn't a shocker.

New Scientist - Porn in the USA - Conservatives are the biggest consumers

via queer messages

update on buck

i realized after ang left a comment that some people might not be on facebook where we've been placing most of the updates on buck. holding my breath as i type this, but he might actually be coming home TODAY. unbelievable.

his primary care doctors, the pediatrician and surgeon have both gone south for spring break and the plan of care they left seems to indicate that if his chest x-ray and CBC today pass muster and the extramural nurse is in place buck can head home today with a pump for his antibiotic. he will keep the picc line and they will be able to continue to draw blood there instead of him having to keep getting poked about.

throughout this his t1 diabetes has been the least of our worries. his bsl's and insulin doses have maintained consistent through this and it's almost been a t1 vacation of sorts - very little carb counting and for much of the time he was even on an insulin drip that they had honed to a science.

i have been up since 5:00 - pink has been sick with a head cold/cough/throat thingy so disinfecting everything was probably a good idea. keeping house hasn't been top on my list or liam's during this survival mode we've been operating in.

i floated around yesterday in space - got groceries and wandered the aisles of a couple stores. it feels surreal to not be constantly on alert - regularly engaged in the care and keeping of the other. it is a mode i function in well - and have a difficult time stopping. i don't know what this next week will look like. the kids are also on march break, so we will have a gentle re-entry. unfortunately the week after all three of us go back to school as my intensive begins monday - i have the easy stuff out of the way - it's the deep things i have left - and weeding through that with the kids home next week won't be the easiest - but i will manage.

i am looking forward to having two stimulating weeks for me though - i just wish i had a wife to take care of all of the stuff that needs to be done! dang.

Lenten truth

Sometimes we do Lent, sometimes Lent does us.

Ang York-Crane

f@%k lent

most of you know that i casually keep the church calendar and have made quite a point about lent these past few years. maundy tuesday caught me totally off guard - i was in line at the hospital caf and saw they were serving pancakes and just about cried. no ash wednesday, no planning, no praying, no intentional marking of these precious 40 days. i felt ashamed, guilty and frustrated. how could i have lost something so big. i joke that every year christmas sneaks up on my mother in law. like it floats around on the calendar like easter and she just can't seem to remember when it is.

that's how i felt with lent this year. i see so many delving deep on their blogs and i can't even read their beautiful lenten thoughts.

fuck the desert. i'm sick and tired of the damn desert.

i switched with liam yesterday to come home and collect myself for the weekend. there was a wonderful email from erin:

"Looks like Lent came early for you this year. I don't know that anyone would choose to give up their family (in that way) for so long, but it feels from here like some desert wandering."

it's exactly how i feel. (thank you erin). winter is kicking my ass and so is this hospital stay. i finally breathed fresh air yesterday (for the first time in a week) when i walked to the parking lot to head home. i'm wiped out. we just keep getting creamed by bad news and i'm sick of it - i'm sick of the pressure people around me put on me unknowingly for me to have some good news for them because they're praying so hard and their faith in god hinges on the health of my son. fuck the desert.

we were told yesterday that he could go home with an antibiotic pump on monday if he was fever free for 72 hours. we had made it 24. by yesterday at 2:00 when he spiked a fever we were both a puddle of tears. so much pressure on a 10 year old boy who wants to be home by his 11th birthday wednesday. fuck. fuck. fuck.

what could live in his body after all of the mass spectrum antibiotic to cause a fever after this just terrifies me. he has nothing left to fight with and neither do i. his spine is poking out his back like a baby dragon that has just hatched from an egg. my precious, vibrant, beautiful son has been reduced to an ashen, waxy, hunched over boy who is so tired of being a specimin that other people crowd around to poke, examine and talk about like he wasn't even there. i see him withdrawing and it frightens me. i am so damn scared.

i have a wonderful friend who tells me that the railing i am doing at god is precious to him - it shows how much faith i have. i just need spring, new creation and green right now. life, beauty, color. everything feels so grey. so i am taking in beauty, color and life for lent. fuck the desert. ya'll can nest there if you want to - but i've given up enough right now and i just can't spare any more.

powerlessness

i realized as i read my daily reading from yesterday (about powerlessness) that it is truly where i am at. smack, dab in the middle of powerlessness, more than i have ever been in my life. i don't like it at all.

in the midst of all of this i have realized that my addictions have morphed (with all of the push ups they've been doing shape shifting gets pretty easy) and begun to look much more subtle than they used to. i think the issue that i dealt w/ below has a lot to do with my sexual addiction rearing it's head in a very different version of itself.

on feb. 13th at around 7:00 i realized that i had a wicked case of heartburn. i haven't had heartburn in years. i got a wake up call when i faced the fact that i was truly tempted to purge. if you know my story you'll know how despicable vomiting is to me - but it was my addiction changing itself. it also meant that i had overeaten and used food to comfort myself that day. i hadn't eating any of my trigger foods, but i cringed at the thought of telling my sponsor about it and was tempted to lie (or omit) and i realized that if i had something to hide, it meant i had something to hide. secrets mean shame for me, and shame always plunges me back into my addictions - so i have reset my abstinence date to feb. 14th. clean abstinence is far more important to me than a big fat number.

i have been abstinent for one week.

i also broke the chain of writing on the 12th (think they might be linked?) i was just too tired to put pen to paper and didn't want to have to look at my fear for buck and the powerlessness of the whole situation. dang.

so, just for today i am embracing my powerlessness. i head back to the hospital and liam assures me that i will see a boy who looks far more like my son than the one i left behind. i had horrible sleeps while here at home. ironically i slept so much more deeply at the hospital. sounds strange, but i realized that it was the assurance that the nurses would come and knock on my little lounge door and wake me if something went wrong. when i awoke at home the fear and anxiety was oppressive. powerlessness. it has nothing to do with geography, but being closer to him in proximity will be quite a relief. thanks for your prayers.

and i thought i was cracked open last week...

oh my. this has been a hellish week. i feel like i've gone from the frying pan into the fire. our son buck (who is t1 diabetic) was vomiting all last week and they finally figured out that he needed to be in hospital. they didn't know what was wrong, but knew it wasn't right. fast forward - ruptured appendix and abscess removed and the recovery has been 1 step forward 2 steps back all week.

poor kid. it's excruciating to watch your 10 year old son have to endure this kind of pain, confusion and prodding. the medical care has been outstanding and he has a dozen of doctors on his staff. he's been in picu the whole time and the nurses have come to adore him. but somehow in the big important things happening to him they weren't understanding that he hadn't been getting real nutrition for the past couple of weeks - and so his body is literally breaking down. they put in a pic line yesterday and have started him on tpn - the most basic form w/out the fat so that he can slowly build back up what has been lost. how does a child in north america become malnourished? it doesn't make any sense. and please this is not socialized medicine - his care is stellar - it's just that surgeons have been so concerned that the infection in his gut would rear it's head and they would have to operate again that keeping him off of food was important because his bowel isn't working.

so he literally has 4 iv lines running into him and he's retaining so much fluid - it's horrible to watch this vibrant young boy trapped inside this body that isn't working. i hate this.

liam took two days off so that he could man the post as he heard in my voice that i was running so thin. i got my period yesterday and knew that i couldn't break down in front of buck so that i wouldn't scare him. i didn't want to leave his side, but knew that if i didn't care for myself i wouldn't be able to care for him. liam walked me to the car and as i got in i realized all of the picu noise, alarms and buzz was gone and i was truly alone. that is usually a good thing, but i have had so much head time lately - too much thinking and not enough processing - that i realized i needed some input. i turned on our 21 year old stereo and tried to find a station. i haven't turned on a radio in over 7 years. i really love silence and my thoughts, but knew that this wasn't the time for it. i was exhausted and needed to be alert for the next 90 minutes.

i found a dreamy enya like song and thought 'okay, this will work', paid for my parking and headed home. by the time i hit the highway the old stevie nicks song landslide was playing - i haven't listened to the radio in 7 years and THIS is the song that comes on the radio? i started to keen. i could barely see through my tears to pay the bridge toll and stay on the road. the next song was luba's "every time i see your picture i cry" and i began to scream "YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM" over and over at the top of my lungs.

i am flat out cracked open and have no place safe to hide any more. this has stripped me bare to my core and everything feels like it's on the line.

i am home, drinking my own fair trade scandanavian blend with my wonderful daughter on the computer next to me - we have been given the blessing of a snow day and will be spending it together some how. we both need this, and so i needed to get this off my chest this a.m. so that i could be present for her and not terrify her with the depth of my deep emotions.

please pray. i can't seem to find god in this. that is my prayer. (other than heal him NOW) - that we would all see the places that god is with us in this moment. to know that he has not abandoned us to our pain and fear. we have all been face to face with our deepest fear this week and it is horrible. i want to be face to face with god in this fear and i can't seem to find him.

clarity

ah the return of serenity is such a beautiful thing. why do i ever give it away?

i don't have a ton of time to tell you everything that has been happening since my last post - but purging that all out here was what i really needed. i was able to step back and look at it again and find the areas that were true, and the areas that i was truly being graceless about.

grace is such a beautiful thing.

stepping out of the shame and away from the addictive behaviour was also life giving. funny thing is that much of what was going on had little to do with the relationship - but so much to do with my compulsion to avoid what i needed to be working on. i was so enmeshed (thanks pen) in other peoples stories because i wanted to avoid my own.

i am working on fear in my step 4 and have class assignments dealing with grief and suffering - i was trying to avoid them like the plague - and once i realized it, admitted my powerlessness and started working my program again god met me in such an incredible way. i may blog about it, but it was one of the high points of my walk with god.

funny thing is that the rush addiction that i was getting from this was so similar to any of my other compulsive behaviors - once i saw it and asked for help the clarity that came after was so priceless that i realized that it had little to do w/ the cgf and far more to do with the walls i had placed around myself out of fear that god would not be trustworthy enough to meet my needs.

i have to go - wish i could pour it all out here - i just wanted to thank you for praying, encouraging, pushing and caring about me and my journey. have a lovely sunday!

denial works until it doesn't

p.s.f.d.*

i am reaping the whirlwind today. i have been walking in new territory this past year and i am finding myself ill prepared for it. this past year i have found myself. i have become comfortable in my own skin and i have navigated many new things. community and friendship have become so important to me. living inside myself has been very new for me and it has opened up a lot of different doors in my life. some good. some not so good. i don't know where they go, but there are definitely a lot of new doors.

writing about this is torture, but i have no place else to navigate this. i want to crawl in a hole and weep. i feel cracked open wide because when denial stops working it leaves a big pile of shit in the room that i feel so unbelievably stupid for not noticing before - and it was right there all along. p.s.f.d.

i am surrounded by really incredible people in this community. i have made some amazing f2f friends. one of those friendships was a cross-gender friendship (cgf). i have been reading dan's faith dance blog for quite some time now and am inspired by the thought that men & women aren't dangerous to each other and can truly develop friendships. so much of my broken comes from ugly male behavior, and so safe men in my life are important and healing.

i had crossed a line emotionally with this man. the husband of one of my best friends. on a scale of other peoples issues this one probably ranks really low, but because i closely monitor my serenity i can feel when it goes off the rails, and i lost it and found that it was because this relationship had become an addiction for me. this is mostly about me. i'm not sure how much this has to do with him per sey, but his dysfunction and my great need do play a role here - but most of it has to do with the rush. that heroin that shoots through my veins with the fresh, new, long ago familiar feelings that i haven't felt in 20 years. p.s.f.d.

all along this friendship i was telling 3 dear friends about all of it and talking to liam the whole time. i know i am only as sick as my secrets and deeply want to live in the light. but i have found that when those secrets are buried deep in denial no light can expose them until the denial goes away.

in an attempt to bring things into the light i had a conversation with this man that actually turned things more intimate than stopped them. i feel like a fool. i told a confidence about a mutual friends marriage struggles as a guise for trying to keep us and another pair of dear friends from falling into the same ditch. i really thought i was doing the right thing - but have to admit that i hid behind that to share something that would bind us together somehow. i exposed one of my best friends deepest shame for my own purposes. these are the ugliest parts of my self. i hate to see them, let alone expose them to others. but i believe that they cannot be redeemed unless i do.

so i had to confess my broken confidence to one of my besties - the woman who had fallen off the rails. i immediately called her to tell her - i had kept her secret for months - why now? why ever? i so longed to be trustworthy. i was so angry at myself for breaking faith. it was one of the hardest conversations i have ever had.

next i told liam. he was forgiving. (but too forgiving. a bell went off in my head. this should be bothering him more. he's not getting this. it's not registering. why isn't this registering? why isn't he angry?).

i also IM'd with martha and she called me on the carpet. let me know that i was kidding myself. i truly thought before that that bringing things into the light would keep things from going south. i really did.

after our IM i realized i wasn't being honest. that it wasn't just this ONE conversation, but that i had become emotionally attached to this man. p.s.f.d. it had become an addiction. the rush of the attention. feeling noticed. talking about big ideas and deep theology. p.s.f.d. every one of my hooks was sunk deep into this rotting fish (the addiction, not him - although he is not innocent in this either).

i have tried to do everything in the light and be as accountable as possible. but my dear friend martha told it to me straight yesterday. just because it's accountable doesn't mean it should continue. p.s.f.d.

so today, just for today i am grieving the loss of a really important friendship. a friendship that really did heal some deep places in me. it taught me that i was trustworthy. that the hay/fire didn't have to explode into deep passionate sin. for most of this it wasn't taudry or innappropriate. but i have crossed a line emotionally.

i had a conversation with liam this morning challenging his well constructed front. i pushed and it crumbled. he told me that he's been uncomfortable all along, but hasn't told me. how can this be so broken? i have talked to him about this from the beginning hoping that if i did it would strengthen our marriage and keep the cgf healthy. i was wrong. his denial sat right next to mine. p.s.f.d.

so where do we go from here? i have no idea. i am just doing the next right thing. just for today i can face this. i can try to sit with the level of emotion i have and this great big steaming pile of denial and begin to detox and find healthier ways to feed this starving part of my soul. liam is doing good work. i know at some point we will find a way in and through this, but for now my hope is hanging by a very thin thread.

*abbreviation for four cuss words to express the deep level of frustration and disgust i am having over this situation.

new skin

i finally just couldn't stand that old light house any more - so i have new light houses - it's so funny to me that the land-locked girl called to the sea and found it - so now that i am a sea girl i thought it appropriate to keep the lighthouse theme going. this one is a bit more me than the misty photo. unfortunately i lost all of my widgets and lists - oh well, they were probably really outdated anyway. enjoy!

time capsule

i have received and finally sat down to watch the documentary that i participated in long ago - september 2005. you can search my archives to read the posts from that time if you like. i am not linking to it here just in case someone connects my real name w/ this blog. i'm just not ready for that.

i was not prepared for the level of emotion that it brought up in me. seeing my face, my rosecea skin and seeing the face of the man who created the images that were so hurtful to me, and seeing the image again really flattened me out.

i don't have time for this today. i'm off to a retreat and have tons of responsibilities. i just want to crawl back into bed and cry. or slam the door shut and spend the weekend escaping and remembering that it isn't me any more. i forget sometimes how bad it was. this was a "good" reminder - good as in efficient, not good as in nice, warm and fuzzy. mean people suck. especially mean, mysoginists who mock women and their pain. the director told me that this prick has a young daughter. poor girl. i want to hunt him down and hurt him. i've never had a face before. never had a face for anyone who ever hurt me.

it will be very difficult for liam to watch this. i told him i wanted to see it alone first. i am so glad that i wasn't in a theatre at a film festival seeing it for the first time. what a relief. i haven't seen the whole film yet, just my episode. it is beautifully done and so gentle with my story. i am well spoken and brave. i am proud of myself for telling my story. i just wasn't prepared for having to listen to him. what a horrible man. i hope that the daughter's mum has enough sense to keep her away from him. prick.

well, i'm off to slam the door on this until next week. please pray that i am able. i really wasn't prepared to feel so leveled by this. b.r.e.a.t.h.e.

forgive me...

got an email and a phone call before my meeting last night... all the regulars bailed on me. i opened the doors, pulled out the literature. set up the table. read everything out loud. led the meeting. read step 5 from the AA 12 & 12 (oh man did i need to read that chapter, what a beautiful collection of thoughts and words!) and closed the meeting. alone. but what an complete blessing that meeting was to me. i was pissed and full of resentments heading into that meeting, but felt so full and alive afterward. i showed up. it's my recovery and i'm working MY program. not anyone else's.

i can't seem to get away from everyone looking to me like this is MY meeting all of the time. it wears really thin sometimes. i'm not sure what to do to stop this and get anyone else to step up. the woman who asked me to start this meeting with her is in major relapse. she still shows up to the meetings most of the time, but is so angry and bewildered as to why she just isn't getting it this time around. and i think that she is really angry at ME. and that makes me really bewildered.

when i read this today i think i got a clue. i think that somehow something got shifted on to me that shouldn't have been mine. i didn't ask for it and i don't think that i attract it, but i think it got put on me anyway, and that because i haven't picked up the mantle she is really pissed at me. anyway, i don't want the job, i'm not taking the job and i will continue to show up, one day at a time to work my own program.

these words of wisdom are from henri nouwen:

Forgiveness, the Cement of Community Life

Community is not possible without the willingness to forgive one another "seventy-seven times" (see Matthew 18:22). Forgiveness is the cement of community life. Forgiveness holds us together through good and bad times, and it allows us to grow in mutual love.

But what is there to forgive or to ask forgiveness for? As people who have hearts that long for perfect love, we have to forgive one another for not being able to give or receive that perfect love in our everyday lives. Our many needs constantly interfere with our desire to be there for the other unconditionally. Our love is always limited by spoken or unspoken conditions. What needs to be forgiven? We need to forgive one another for not being God!

Ted Haggard/Oprah Interview

I'm watching the clips from the Ted Haggard/Oprah interview on the Huffington Post - and I don't know what happened in the whole show, but the truth and honesty he is using in the clips they show really touches my heart deeply. The lack of shame he is sitting with as he tells his story is beautiful. I don't know about any of it except as a fellow addict I find deep connection with his story and am so glad he has found some semblance of recovery.

Godspeed Ted! You're in my prayers.

The Huffington Post: Ted Haggard, Oprah Interview clips

shadow pain

i can always tell when i react (or overreact as is usually the case) that it's rarely about the situation that i'm currently in - but it's about the unresolved junk from my past that is pushing my buttons. i call it the shadows. they lurk behind whatever it is in my present that makes everything look bigger, darker and loomier (i just made that word up) :D

identifying and taking away the shadow helps reduce everything to it's natural size and stops it from looming over me and pushing my buttons. hope just put this quote on her blog and i really liked it alot:

"Life work is always about learning to respond to the events in our present life with the emotional intensity appropriate to the event and not with the emotional intensity that was appropriate to tragic situations twenty or thirty years ago........Serenity or living in a state of recovery is all about letting yesterday be yesterday and today be today. Recovery is training ourselves by practicing daily disciplines to act in the present as the present and not from the emotional stance of a thousand past yesterdays"

Earnie Larsen

via Hope

ugly theology

if you have read my blog for any length of time you will know that i have the utmost loathing for mark driscoll and all he stands for. that he made the nyt gives me shivers, but the article nails the ugliness that calvinism brings to the body of christ. if you are involved in the emergent discussion i recommend reading:

who would jesus smack down?

the enemy of truth

this is rippling into my consciousness today. from the OA For Today daily reading:

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

John F. Kennedy

My food addiction was acquired so I could survive and cope in earlier, painful circumstances. Thus began two myths: First, that pain was to be avoided at all costs, and second, that eating would relieve the pain free of charge. These myths were useful then, but they are insanity today.

As I become willing to accept the truth that is revealed to me in this program, the myths I clung to so desperately lose credibility. I no longer need to be anesthetized; I can stand still and feel my feelings. I don't think something is wrong if I'm not happy every minute.

For Today: The more I accept the reality of what is, the more comfortable and serene my life becomes.

where is the myth that i am believing that is stopping the truth from setting me free today?

argh!

upgraded my other blog skin and was headed to fix this one too - but i will loose ALL OF MY widgets for this one when i change. ARGH!

anyone know how to save widget info before a switch? my other blog didn't have anything of meaning (except a blogroll that i have to recreate) - but this blog has TONS of widgets and they're not save-able like copying html code from old blogger templates - each one has to be reinstated individually. what a p.i.t.a. ARGH!

i have a cool modern lighthouse template that i was changing this to and this blog REALLY needs a facelift. anyone navigated this one before and have any tips you'd like to share??

oh - and btw - happy new year! :D