We've been married for one year today. At this time last year, I still didn't even know if we were going to get married.

After rereading my marriage story, which was first shared in a friends-locked post here, I decided to share it again to mark the occasion. I'll keep this posted publicly, at least for a little while, so some of my non-lj friends and family can read it if they like. I can share it a little more now.


( Quite long )

( Pictures )

X-posted from dailyrumi, and last year.

http://ahavah-ehyeh.livejournal.com/187488.html

Exactly one year ago, my world collapsed when a truck driver plowed into my mom's stopped vehicle. Suffering devastating brain trauma, she remained in a coma for six days, dying on Mother's Day. PLEASE watch the road, every day.

Put up your papers, hang up your phones, take a deep breath, slow down, and please pay attention when you're driving.

I finally started that cut I've been talking about since New Year's-ish. Mostly I cut a bunch of communities, but also a few friends who seem to have left LJ. I haven't gone through and cut all of the dead journals, but I do plan to. I'm basically dropping anyone I haven't heard from in the past year or so, especially since mom's death.

I've enjoyed the time I've spent with everyone. If I drop you and you wish I hadn't, please let me know. If you feel like moving on, feel free to go with my blessing.

Thanks!

Well, tomorrow is the trial of the unrepentant mother-killer. This will be the end of the first part at least, and we (me and my sisters) will finally be able to get up and speak to him. Boy, do I have a lot to say.

Please be with us and lend us your prayers and energy. I just want to see justice done. It's not likely that he'll get jail time, maybe just lose his license for a year, so I don't know why he's being so difficult about it. This has been so hard, but I've been trying to get my heart back in the right place.

I miss my mom. I want to do right by her, and I want the system to do right by her.

I just deleted ten pages worth of spam from our wedding website guestbook. That was about 100 times more comments than we actually got. I may update it. Maybe not.

If you want the actual wedding, it's here in this friends-locked post. Long, though.

Silly me, searching for pictures in the middle of the night. All I do is piss myself off.

We're supposed to have a real wedding this year. I'm not even sure it'll happen anymore.

And I had to get up, because when I lay down in the dark, I can't stop thinking about my mom. The one scene, over and over again, where they wheeled her out under my nose when I arrived at the hospital, and she was so tore up that I didn't recognize her at first. Me crying, hyperventilating, and Tina and Lyz seeing me and knowing it was very very bad.

Why does that keep coming to me tonight?

It's bothersome. On many levels.

We have a birthday party to go to in the morning, and I can't get to sleep. I lay there and I see her broken face. How I didn't run to her, because I didn't know it was her, and they pulled me away when I realized. Because of the freckles on her arm, since her face wasn't mom's.

I haven't really thought of that part for a long while. I don't like to think of it. And I sure as hell don't like it constantly floating in my face at three a.m. when I'm trying to sleep.

Why tonight?

Because the lawyer's office called to schedule another chat with me this upcoming week? Because I watched a stupid episode of Scrubs where their wedding was ruined, and they ended up getting married in the hospital?

I just want to sleep. I don't want to have to see that again. The brokenness.

I've done so good lately.


Now I understand a little better why mom took sleeping pills.

x-posted from _haiku_

I know why I'm mad.
It's the last I'll have of her;
don't want to let go.

x-posted to unsentletters

Oh, Mom,

I love you so much, and I'll never stop.

So many people prayed for you. I only hope you're at peace. I'm getting there.

♥

your eldest

Have you heard of Found Cameras and Orphan Pictures, which can also be found here on lj at foundcameras? Today they have found one couple's wedding photos, and another couple's War Era Wedding.

Then there's a plea from someone who was in an accident near Yantis, Texas. Their camera was lost and possibly floated away. Their infant daughter was killed in the accident, and all their most recent pictures of her were lost with that camera.

Found Dogs Update:

After keeping them two days, we began to notice some medical problems that needed dealt with. I emailed back everyone who contacted me, apologizing for wasting their time and explaining why we didn't feel it was in good conscience to give them out on a free site. None of the rescues would help us, so we ended up taking them (just about an hour ago) to the Humane Society. They were our last option, due to their use of euthanasia, but they are professionals who promised to give them medical care, work on the female's aggression, and try to make them placeable. The first 72 hours will be care only, and then they'll try to place them. They say the male should find a home quickly, as sweet as he is, and the female should be easy to place if they can get her over her aggression.

Thanks for all your help and prayers! I feel much better knowing professionals are taking care of these pups.

Also, if you just happen to be coming by from my email sig link - stop getting pissy that I won't give you the dogs. We have their best interests at heart. When you take it personally and cop a tude, it makes us all the more certain that you do not.



LiveJournal/Cyberworld Update:

I've found old "friends" and contacts dating from over ten years ago. I'm carrying around years-old emails from ex-boyfriends and ex-crushes. This weekend I am doing a TOTAL cyber clear out. If I haven't heard from you recently (oh, say since my personal shit began hitting the fan), then I will be removing you from my cyber life.

If you really want to stay, let me know. It's all cool.

{Also, since it's come up: If you're one of the somehow innumerable friends who are either getting married or have a mother in dire condition, I hope you know that I love you and am squeeing/praying for you as appropriate. I still find it hard to find words, so I haven't really been commenting. That's not because I don't care; it's because I care too much.}

Anyways, I'm letting it all go. It's nothing personal at all. I've realized I'm carrying around massive cyber baggage and it will all be culled...



Real World Update:


...in anticipation of a very important releasing & healing ceremony I have planned for my mom's birthday. I've gotten steadily worse, and I'm going to reclaim control of my life.

If I disappear, it's only til I feel better. I considered scrapping everything and starting new, but I just shelled out a pretty penny to get a permanent account. So yeah, I'm here permanently. Breaks are good though. We'll see how it goes.

So if I seem irky, callous, or have dropped you from IM or networking sites and broken your heart, I'm awfully sorry. I'm just trying to give myself a fresh start for the new year.

As always, if you want to leave first, feel free. I know I suck lately.

x-posted from dailyrumi

(30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273)

come on sweetheart
let's adore one another
before there is no more
of you and me

a mirror tells the truth
look at your grim face
brighten up and cast away
your bitter smile

a generous friend
gives life for a friend
let's rise above this
animalistic behavior
and be kind to one another

spite darkens friendships
why not cast away
malice from our heart

once you think of me
dead and gone
you will make up with me
you will miss me
you may even adore me

why be a worshiper of the dead
think of me as a goner
come and make up now

since you will come
and throw kisses
at my tombstone later
why not give them to me now
this is me
that same person

i may talk too much
but my heart is silence
what else can i do
i am condemned to live this life

therealljidol offers us an Open Topic this week. I've decided to use this opportunity to update my What is Reiki? post, only this time I'd like to focus a little more on how reiki has affected me personally. Reiki is one of my biggest passions, and it's changed my life in so many wonderful ways.

Reiki (pronounced “ray-kee”) is a form of healing that uses divine energy to heal on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. Reiki is a Japanese word meaning “divine life force energy”. A Reiki practitioner acts as a channel for reiki energy, offering healing by laying on of hands. Reiki practitioners of level 2 or higher can also give distance healings.

An attunement is the process that creates a Reiki healer. A Reiki Master opens the student to the Reiki energy through attunements, preferably after teaching a class or series of classes on Reiki. However, even if no class is taught and the student only receives the attunement, s/he is still open to the ability to channel Reiki. From then on, all the person has to do is hold their hands on someone with the intent for Reiki to flow and it will flow.

I met my Reiki Master in 2003, I believe, at a Unity church I was attending. I grew up in Asheville, which is a pretty energetic hot spot and has become something of a new age-y town. I'd seen reiki fliers all over the place, but I never really knew what reiki was. K'Sitew was able to explain it to me. He told me he had founded the Medicine Reiki tradition, and briefly explained how that differed from Traditional Reiki. K'Sitew had been attuned to Traditional Reiki long ago, and after living with the Cree for twenty years, he saw how reiki energy and Medicine wisdom could be really complementary.

I was very intrigued. I knew we had Cree blood on my mother's side, though it's lost in the pale sea of strong Irish blood. It was more the energy work part that drew me, and I felt a wonderful energy from K'Sitew himself. I'd always been very open to energy, but I kind of floundered around trying to uncover what that meant. Having a teacher would be a dream come true. And then K'Sitew told me he happily offers scholarships, and I embarked on my reiki journey.

I received my Reiki I attunement in March 2004, about a year after the birth of my first child. In Reiki I, you learn the history of reiki and the Reiki Principles. Reiki I opens you up as a reiki channel and enables you to give hands-on healing. It's primarily for self-healing. While reiki itself is a soothing, healing energy that is often used for physical illness, people who receive the actual attunement process usually find that their lives change much more drastically when receiving an attunement. It brings you into better alignment with your life path, and sometimes this includes things like physical detoxification and past traumas being brought into the present to work through and heal.

I had a minor detox that many Reiki I's say they experience. They were mostly cold-like symptoms – a runny nose, feeling tired, using the bathroom more often. It didn't last long and I knew to expect it, so I counteracted it by drinking lots of water and resting for a day. I did have a lot of issues come up with my then-stepfather, with whom I'd always had a problem. I had to rededicate myself to cutting him from mine and my daughter's life, even if it meant hurting my mom. We stopped visiting. Mom could come out to us if she wanted to see her granddaughter. This was the last time I had to make that stand – mostly because I stuck with it this time, fully committing myself to my vow that my children would know only a family of love, and also because they ended up finally divorcing some time later.

I immediately felt a difference in my energy work. I felt things more clearly, and I understood them much better. I became confident in my abilities, because my intuitions usually seemed correct. I practiced on Josh, who was a great sport. He'd lie on our bed while I fumbled my way through the worksheets, trying to remember all the hand positions. I did my two daily self-healings, happily went along offering even just a moment of reiki to random strangers (we're supposed to practice on others). I reiki-ed our car, our dog, our baby, stoplights. Just to see, you know. One of my very favorite activities was nursing Eden while I opened up to reiki energy and did a chakra meditation with her. I've always intuited with colors, and I'd practice beaming different colors to her when she was tired, cranky, or sad. I'd hold her and fill her with pink mommy-light, or rock her with a soothing sleepy blue, pour in a healing green when her tummy hurt. The more I used reiki, the more it taught me.

I took my Reiki II in May, just two months later. I was an eager student and signed up for the very next class. Reiki II was just wonderful. I learned distance healing, which I had already done my whole life in my own personal energy work. I applied reiki to my own techniques after Reiki I, and I found it quite effective. Still, there was no denying an increase of power after my Reiki II attunement. I was not just holding a person in my hands, mind, or heart; I was often feeling a definite and powerful connection, especially if it was someone I loved.

During this time, my uncle was diagnosed with cancer. He was so far away in Illinois. With his permission, I made distance healing for him my daily practice. I included any and everyone who wished or could be talked into it. I applied my distance healing practice to the prayer list I was on. It was anonymous, through the church, so I was able to practice settling into Sacred Space and connecting with strangers, asking permission to do the reiki work. I find asking the 'Higher Self' to be perfectly acceptable if one can't literally ask permission, but I find that too many healers misunderstand or abuse that practice. They'll use “asking the Higher Self” as a way to circumvent permission from someone they know would be uncomfortable with reiki energy. I always include the caveat that I intend the energy to go to Gaia if someone prefers not to accept it. Our Earth needs healing, and she has never said no.

Only once did I get a strong and emphatic NO. Reiki II's distance practices also urge us to move beyond space and time to heal old emotional or karmic wounds. I had been doing a lot of healing and releasing work with my issues with my stepfather. Eventually I got to the point where I felt like I could joyfully offer him healing for our relationship as well. He and mom had split, and he'd long since fallen off the wagon and no one knew where he was. I did some self-work too, making sure I could offer with a light heart. I connected with him and told him I was working on forgiveness, that I wanted to move on and was offering what I could if he wanted it. Not only did I get a NO, but the NO was in big bright red and slammed up in my consciousness on a thick stone wall. Point taken.

I had to wait a while before Reiki III was offered. Reiki III is the Master/Teacher level, which enables the practitioner to teach each level of reiki and pass attunements to others. By the time the class was offered in February 2005, I was three months pregnant with my second child. I wondered if the attunement would have any effect on the baby. From both my doula and reiki backgrounds, I feel pretty emphatically about informed consent. It was my child though, and I'd been waiting eagerly for a Master class. I figured it was meant to be the way it would be. I asked K'Sitew if he thought the baby would be attuned too, and if so, would it be a level one or a Master attunement? He said he had no clue, but it would be interesting to find out what happened.

My attunement to energy was much stronger by this time, but my Master attunement was really indescribable. It was so strong, and I felt a bit dizzy and lightheaded for some time after it. I was in a sparkly haze. I remember things only vaguely after that, but the power of it stays clearly. I was so thirsty. I drank a lot of water. I remember smiling a lot.

K'Sitew said that he had seen four hoops. Medicine Reiki is also sometimes called Hoop Reiki, because we utilize Medicine Hoops in our practice. K'Sitew said he felt I received my Master hoop and the baby received hoops for all three levels.

I had been throwing myself head first into my new reiki practice, but I had never lived with the Cree. I didn't understand Medicine energies, except for what stories I picked up here and there from K'Sitew. I always invited any guides and totems into my work, but I'd never had a clear awareness of them. That is what changed with my Master attunement.

Within a week, three different people (one was a stranger) recommended Sandra Ingerman's Shamanic Journeying: A Beginner's Guide. Listening to Universe, I went and bought it, and thus embarked on my shamanic journeying path. I did a whole lot of reading after that, but I also started journeying and asking different energies themselves what they were and how they related to me and my path. It was truly an awakening. I was able to actively connect and work with my guides, and I have done successful journeys for others.

When I went into labor with my little Reiki Master (we still did not know the sex), it was also exceptionally powerful. I passed my very first attunement while I was in labor. I wanted reiki, and I wanted it from Josh. That is what I remember most from Ivy's birth – the cool, blue-green waves of reiki that Josh held me in during my hour of active labor.

It was over two years before I felt comfortable enough with reiki to hold my first class. That was done with my mom and sisters, and it is a memory I will forever cherish. I finally opened my own reiki school in January of this year, when I felt ready to devote much more of my life to my reiki path. That was derailed after mom's accident, but after several months of actively healing, I'm ready to start picking up the pieces again.


****

Click here to receive reiki healing, any time.

I said in my intro that I would try not to be bleak, so when I saw our first topic for therealljidol was Saying Goodbye, I tried to just make it not about mom. Lord knows I've had many goodbyes in my life, and a great many of those recently. Somehow, it always comes back to this. In The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion calls it 'the vortex'. I can't even call it that, because that word takes me down that path of remembrance. I wouldn't have chosen this topic as my introduction to the competition, but I guess you know what they say: When you've gotta swallow a mess of toads, swallow the biggest toad first.

Friends, you've probably heard most of this before. In fact, you may have seen some of this under various filters. You can feel free to pass this on by. (Unless you're considering voting for me, in which case please read and enjoy). New friends, I should probably warn you that this could be triggering for some people. I understand if you pass it by as well.

So many goodbyes.

The Last Real Goodbye

It was several weeks before I was able to think about our last 'real' goodbye. It had been several days since we'd seen her, so we stopped in on the way home. I don't remember what we were doing in Arden, or where Josh was. It was just me and the girls. I mainly had to borrow the internet. We discussed the plan for the week. The kids were a bit tired and frantic, and I could tell they were killing her head. I scooped them up and said, “I won't hug you since you're sick, but I hope you feel better. We'll see you tomorrow.” I so wish I'd hugged her.


Goodbye to Reality

The next day, we loaded the girls up for a trip over the mountain to our friend Tracy's house. We had to write down the directions with mileage for my mom. It was several weeks before I had all the pieces of the puzzle, though I knew she'd been hit heading back to work on her lunch break. When I finally saw the accident report, I was well out of that week of shock. I saw the approximate time of accident, the time the police report was filed. It became an irrational point of focus for me: What time did we get to Tracy's house?

It was just after lunch. We were nearly there when it happened. Two out of three turns were left turns. As she sat waiting to turn left onto Ledbetter Road and the 'moving truck-sized vehicle' rear ended her going (at least) 45 mph, was I writing Turn Left? Was I telling her to turn left at the exact moment it was do it or die? Turn left, turn left, turn left. Did she hear it? She couldn't turn yet, but did she hear it and see him and try to take off? Josh and I were laughing and talking about her, I remember. She was going to keep the girls Friday and Saturday, then take them up to Tracy's house Sunday - Mother's Day – and Tracy would keep them another night or two so we could honeymoon in Cherokee. We were saying, “Isn't she wonderful, when it's a two hour drive to Tracy's from her house?” Was I writing Turn Left and joking “Mom will be driving more than we are altogether” at the very moment she stopped driving for good and her brain slammed into her skull?

I knew that was a bad path to go down, but it became my central concern. I remembered that a couple years back I'd read about a couple who never turned left. They meticulously plotted routes and alternate routes to their daily destinations, as well as every vacation they took. They would waste gas and extra time making sure they never turned left. Why on earth? I wondered, and apparently such a higher percentage of accidents happen when someone is turning left that they deemed it prudent to just stop. This couple was well into their seventies, at least when I read the vaguely-remembered article.

Turn left, turn left, turn left.


Goodbye Everything

It hit me when I finally got in there to give her reiki healing. I don't remember which day it was. I let it flow as much as I could the whole time I was in the hospital, but one day I went in alone to give her a full body session. I started at her head, the side that wasn't stapled back on from the surgery. I didn't want to touch it and cause her pain, but I had to feel her soft, strawberry-blond hair. I'm glad I did. It wasn't falling out yet, I know that for sure. I was glad to feel the energy flowing strongly again. I did a lot of work with her heart, but the first lightning hit me when I moved to her sacral chakra.

This is where you came from. Can you really help her leave? Are you helping? “I hope I'm helping, momma,” I whispered. This is everything you've ever been since you've ever been. It hurts to see her like this, but at least you get to say goodbye.

She jerked a little. Nothing to get excited about. They call it 'posturing', only the basest motor reflexes, and the nurses make sure to repeatedly tell us that posturing is not good, and she's not doing it in response to anything we say.

I know better. It happens every time I say my daughters' names, every time I mention Grandma or mom's boyfriend - it happened A LOT and was accompanied by a tear when I said that Grandma was flying in. If that's all she had to give us, I truly believe she was giving us what she could.

I moved my hands from her womb, just held her hand for a moment. It closed on mine a couple times. Posturing.


Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.


I Can Say Goodbye To Expectations. (Now)

They all came. Mom's five brothers and her sister, their spouses, and a few of their kids. Grandma, who said years ago that she wouldn't be able to make the trip again. I expected mom – us – to rush to Illinois for Grandma, not the other way around. Grandma was Matriarch, the center of all I knew as family. I may have been a momma for five years, but she was Grandma, and mom was Mom. I was still just her kid. I can't be Mom yet. I still called to ask how to cook something. Mom was supposed to die after she got to do some things for herself. Happy with a long life, surrounded by the three of us and her grandbabies, too. All of them. They'll always resent me a little for getting the grandma side of Mom.

She was supposed to light my side of the Unity candle. I'm glad she was still at our wedding, but that's not how it was supposed to be. I was so touched to have the whole McDivitt clan singing for me, one of the few non-musically talented in the family, it was a moment I would have basked in as a child. I did love it. I put aside sadness for Josh that day – the day he saw mom for the first time like that, yet stood beside her and married me a couple hours after. It was our day of joy, and I felt so guilty for watching the video and resenting how much it sounded like a funeral. I didn't realize how heavy and sad my voice was. I have trouble listening to them sing Amazing Grace for us.

Eden read her first chapter of a book the other day, Dick and Jane's Something Funny. We went over it twice and she just had it. She practiced all the way to pick up Josh, so she could do it without messing up even once. That night I hugged her tightly and told her how very, very proud she made me. She positively beamed – and then her face crumpled, and she said, “Oh mom! I wish my grandmother were here,” and we cried together. I don't know what I expected, but I didn't expect that. So I am trying to get past expectations. I'm no longer a child; I'm Mom. Maybe not the best one, but I learned from her.

It's hard saying goodbye to everything I ever was and everything I ever expected.

Wish You Were Here

I stopped reading articles about grief, because most of the ones I found don't take a holistic or spiritual approach to the process. They talk about survivors grasping at straws, creating signs where there are none because they're too stressed and fragile to handle reality. I reject your reality and substitute my own!

I know the truth of what mom and I had.

From the moment she was literally wheeled under my nose when I arrived at the hospital, I knew mom's passing would be as strong as her life. When every song playing during visiting hours are some of her favorites, or some she used to sing to us, when she 'postures' every time something about the family is said, when she shrugged when I asked her a question...Believe what you want. I'll believe my truth. When I started to doubt it, and I got overwhelmed and ran away, the only words I heard people calling after me – through every hall – were, “Thank you.” Lest I doubt (and I did), someone cried out “Thank you, Amanda” as I waited for the elevator. It was a nurse, calling back to another. It was 2 am and I saw no one, but I heard the messages just fine. I got the point, and quit doubting.

Sometimes I expect to hear from her. She was a channeler, after all. One definite thing I learned from her is that things do exist on the other side, and some people are blessed with the ability to communicate. I don't look for her. If it happens, it happens. In the meantime, I appreciate it that Wish You Were Here comes on every time I start thinking of her when the radio is on. I resented when I realized that that connection was gone, her presence in my life was gone. Not there. Then I appreciated it when I suddenly felt her again, and I knew it was her, though different. I even think I understand it, though it's not something I can explain.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.


So What Do I Have To Say About Goodbye?

Always hug. Just don't cling too tightly.


If I hold you with my emotions,
you'll become a wished-for companion.
If I hold you with my eyes,
you'll grow old and die.
So I hold you where we
both mix with the infinite.

I have fallen quite in love with ljsecret. I finally caught another submissions posts! It's been too long. I am stoked. I had a few saved up.

I always wished some of the sweet secrets could be posted for me. I think it happened recently. Seems like it might have been about me. If you come back, random person, I hope we can be friends. Your kindness cheered me considerably on a very bad day.



That's just so sweet. Whether it's me or not, it's pretty true that just an effort to reach out can really help people.

Mine aren't that nice.

Mwaa ha ha.

I debated over whether to make this short, sweet, and nice or raw, unfettered truth. Well, if I'm going to do this thing, then I'll do it all the way. Plus, it's much more gratifying that way. And you should know what you're getting into up front. You wanna meet the real me now?

Ahavah_Ehyeh: My username translates to “Love_I Am”. I found them in a list of the Names of God years ago. It was what I strove to be. I named my journal “This Path” because I am just sharing my path, and I think we learn from those we see along the way. I share, but I don't proselytize.

Me: Amanda, 27 years old, Female, Married, two daughters: Eden (5 and a half) & Ivy (3), Dog: Achaiah (8), Cat: Cinder (a couple months). I'm fantastic.

LJ: I'll probably clean up my friends list and communities soon, as I've only recently returned to the internet. I haven't been able to keep up with it at all, but that's changing. Still, I only add folks who introduce themselves and let me know they've added me. I love making new friends! Just have trouble keeping up with them all.

Label-y Identification Blurb: writer, Medicine Reiki Master, birth doula, homeschooling housewife, newlywed, hippie deadhead, spiritualist, Unitic, kinky, switch, southern belle, snark-master, supreme ruler of all existence

Writes: nonfiction, poetry, spec fic (fantasy, science fiction, alternate history), erotica, fanfic (mostly rpgs). One day I will be a submitter. Well, I've had a few things published but never for real pay.

Fandoms: Kushiel, Firefly, Earth's Children (but not so much lately)

Other Passions: I'm in love with Keller Williams (the musician, not realtor). And Rumi. I'm a struggling Flybaby. I'm on a deadline with my mission101 list.

Favorites: Colors: silver & blue, Song: Ripple (Grateful Dead)/Best Feeling (KW)/Terrapin Station (GD) tie, Author: Orson Scott Card

Edit: I think this is the best post I've ever done

Hates: politics, trolls, country music, liars, anime

Pertinent stuff: I lost my mom in a pretty traumatic way recently. I'm still dealing with a lot of emotional/spiritual/legal stuff from that. It happened during the week Josh and I got married. We got married anyway (friends-only), but we are still planning the “real wedding” because our kids need to be a part of that. It currently takes up quite a bit of focus on my lj. You don't have to read all my other stuff, though it's likely to leak into LJ idol. Just a heads up. I'll try not to be too bleak. Vote for me anyway.

Find Me if You Like Me: Add me, I kick ass

Facebook

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10 Things! I do memes:


1. I've never seen a Woody Allen movie, ever.

2. It bugs the snot out of me that Mexican restaurants don't make carnitas properly.

3. I am one of those crappy people who order things like Venti skim two-pump caramel machiatto with whip. It's embarrassing, but so, so yummy.

4. I've really come to hate the term (not color) green when used to portray supposedly environmentally sound building/buying/thinking/etc. But I especially loathe it when writers feel the need to italicize it or “put it in quotes”. Everyone in Asheville is trying to be part of/cashing in on the ”green” phenomena, and most of the places and products touting ”greenness” aren't really doing anything special. They recycle, or use cloth napkins instead of paper. You should be already! Yet they still buy 3 pages worth of advertising in each of said papers, post fliers, keep their lights on after closing time (via Progress Energy, not windmills or anything), and import their vegetables from California. Stop trying to be ”green” if it's just a bandwagon you're jumping on! It ain't easy being ”green”. If I see one more paper littered with ”green” specialed-out at least half a dozen times per article, I may throw myself a very ”green” protest by recycling your ”green-washed” publications via a giant bonfire on the sole 2.5 acres of our drought-plagued forestland that hasn't yet been bought out by condo developers. But don't worry! I'll place the resultant ashes from the newspapers/forestland on my compost pile.

5. I have never been a cat person. I had a cat twice as a kid, but I've always been a dog person. Now I have Cinder, who is growing on me despite my protests. Not too much. She shits too often in all the wrong places and still has these allergy/kid-biting/trying-to-usurp-Josh's-affections problems. Even if I'm only on yellow alert (kind of liking this kitty), I have a cavernous fear somewhere inside that she may one day make me start liking LOLcats. (I'm sorry, guys. I know you all love them, but they're unsettling in their inexplicable popularity and apparently endless variations. Not to mention, the faces/poses are just plain nightmare-inducing.)

6. I have cried over four of my lj friends. I've cried a bunch when I've read something heart-wrenching, but I've actually cried over four of them. I'm not saying who, because I'm fairly certain they have no idea.

7. If I could meet and talk with any one person on this earth, it actually wouldn't be KW. It would be, hands down, H.H. The Dalai Lama. I passionately and whole-heartedly hope to meet this man while he's still around.

8. It truly boggles me that Starbucks can be found everywhere in North Carolina – and, indeed, the known world - except for any local area West of Asheville.

9. I have a secret sex blog. If you aren't already on there, I'm not telling you where it is. As soon as I have the internet, that thing is coming back with a vengeance. Not because I have the internet, but because I actually have a whole lot of greatness to post. I am posting this publicly for one reason and one reason only: You Are A Stupid Fucking Cunt. (ha ha, you have to be friended to see)

10. I'm different than I was when we last met. My eternal optimism has disappeared on a quest to find itself. If you see it, let the door hit its ass on the way out tell it I'll see it in a few years. In the meantime, if you ever had any doubts if you liked me, now's the time to skeedattle. I'm not gonna try to whine all the time or anything, but when I get back, I'll really be back – and I'll be calling them out like I see them, getting it out as I can. I tried recapturing the light & love, and it'll happen one day, I'm sure. In the meantime, I'm the kind of gal who lives in the present. I named my journal 'This Path' for a reason, and sometimes our paths take some unexpected twists and turns. Still part of the journey. I don't want no lip.

At least I'm still honest, right? With one notable exception, I've had that going for me for about ten years now.

*huggles*

That's me.

See my previous list and mission101. X-posted there.

When I started this project back in September 2006, I quite fervently decided that I would do none of this silly rearranging my list. Oh no, I would set out to do exactly what I aimed to do. I would do it or consider myself Fail.

We must grow or be conquered by life. Point taken, life. I should know better than to feel all staunch and high and mighty, than to continue to let my perfectionism defeat me when it comes to trying to get better.

Since I began this project, I have gotten engaged and spent considerable time and energy into planning a wedding. That wedding fell through when my mom was in a horrible car accident four days prior, and though we got married anyway, I still have the 'wedding' part to replan. I also spent several months really doing nothing in the wake of her death (Mother's Day, 2008). I've kind of dropped my SCA plans altogether, which I barely ever dipped the surface anyway, and my doula work has taken a back seat to my writing and reiki as I deal with these other issues. I've also left my church, so all remaining goals related to that – and correlating to the wedding – need to be dropped or revised anyway. I'm also still up in the air about whether I'll have the time & resources available to do Meals on Wheels or Body for Life this round, but we'll see.

So I have revisited and revised my goal list, though I've decided to maintain the finish date of May 30, 2009. We were married May 9, and I want that new part done by our first anniversary anyway! Then hopefully everything regarding my mom will be settled, and I can make my second list with a fresh eye to the future.

My last update was New Year's. I'm a bit surprised that I have so few done yet! It seemed like more. Yipes! I have many in progress, but I really need to buckle down. If anyone wants to be motivator/encourager/accountability buddies, please let me know! I'm great with both virtual hugs and haranguing.

I have eight months to knock out 83 more items. Go me.

Start date: Saturday, September 2, 2006
Ending date: Saturday, May 30, 2009

Strikes to indicate items completed and italics to indicate items in progress. Bolded items are my new additions.

27 / 101 words. 27% done!

Miscellaneous

1. Organize this list (Done as I posted - what can I say? I need instant gratification)
2. See Keller Williams live (Nov. 5, 2006 - The Neighborhood Theater in Charlotte...it was awesome!) (Also 10/25/08 - pics & vid!)
3. Learn how to make a compost pile Summer 2008
4. Plant a garden
5. Find a female friend *Waves* hi, lahermite!
6. Find another female friend
7. Send a message in a bottle
8. Make a scrapbook

Doula

9. Get my DONA, Int'l certification Got the call 5/20/07 - I'm certified! :D

Reiki

10. Get a portable massage table 12/24/07 Thank you, K'Sitew!
11. Teach a reiki class Done July 1, 2007 for my mom & sisters. Friends hear the Voice Post. Reiki Masters on my Level 3 filter can see the class outline. Total classes held: 3
12. Participate in a Full Moon Hoop Ceremony July 07
13. Participate in a New Moon Hoop Ceremony Oct 07?
14. Lead a Medicine Reiki Ceremony
15. Get attuned to Violet Flame Reiki (October 21, 2006, 1, 2, & Master levels)
16. Make a Manifestation Grid
17. Find a new place to hold Reiki Shares
18. Complete my distance course

Writing

19. Read 101 Books
20. Get an article published
21. Get a short story published
22. Complete NaNoWriMo Nov 07: 12,643
23. Submit to the Writers of the Future contest
24. Get a paid LJ account Thank you, simplydorei! 06 – I have maintained paid status since.

FLY-ing

25. FLY consistently for 28 days
26. Get Flylady calendar & sticker kit August 26, 2008. It really does help, too. I'm going to start listing monthly goals to work on.
27. Get both FlyLady dusters
28. Get blue FlyLady water bottle
29. Try all of the sample menus in Saving Dinner and see if there's one I'd like to subscribe to Tried several, and Josh was not a fan.

Home

30. Make fruit baskets for the kitchen
31. Take a Home Depot class & fix something on the house
32. Redecorate the bedroom
33. Get a bed ~ Thanks to lahermite!
34. Get the kids' room fixed up Yay to Josh for clearing out the 'junk room'.

Family

35. Start a piggy bank for the girls This has to be done again. Apparently I did it once, but I'm not sure why we no longer have them.
36. Make a basket for Ivy
37. Take the girls camping
38. Take the girls to the ocean
39. Go to Cherokee
40. Make a gingerbread house with the girls
41. Take family to IL Check out my IL Trip tag!
42. Start a homeschool routine with the girls Check out our “official” First Week of Kindergarten and my homeschooling & unschooling tags
43. Offer to braid Josh's hair 3 times I
44. Take Josh to Carowinds
45. Go a full day without scolding or yelling
46. Finish reading Little House series with the girls/Order Little House on the Prarie dvds I made this one entry since we're already almost done with the series.
47. Find a reliable, relatively local babysitter
48. Get a new digital camera

Personal Improvement

49. Make lasagna
50. Learn a new language
51. Learn a song on the guitar
52. Read the Complete Idiot's Guide to Beating Debt
53. Read the Complete Idiot's Guide to Investing
54. Invest in the stock market
55. Take a Continuing Education course
56. Take a small business course
57. Pay library fine & return all books that aren't mine Done two or three times now, whoops
58. Pay all of my bills early I've done good recently – let's see if it lasts through the whole month.
59. Pay off an outstanding debt Eden's doctor bill - Oct. 2008

Spirit

60. Learn about & visit at least 5 other churches
61. Fast for a week
62. Participate in a drum circle
63. Hold another releasing ceremony Here, and with excellent results!

Love

64. Clean up a road My girls and I have done this once for Earth Day 08. We will do it again.
65. Be a Secret Santa
66. Leave a book
67. Take food to the food bank
68. Bake something to give away at least 6 times 10/27/06, 06/08

Month Long Projects

69. Do Bellydancing videos three times a week (Health)
70. Meditate every day (Spirit)
71. Do a shamanic journey every day (Spirit)
72. Make breakfast every day (Family)
73. Keep a journal (Personal Improvement) I am keeping a homeschool log and blogging more, so I consider this working even if I can't seem to keep long-hand journals.
74. Fast 2 days/week (Spirit)
75. Volunteer for Meals on Wheels (Love)
76. Write a letter/wk (Love)
77. Write 100 words/day (Writing)

Six Week Projects

78. Do Flash Challenges at Liberty Hall every weekend (Writing)
79. Reiki Gaia every day (Spirit)
80. Do at least one Random Act of Kindness/day (Love)
81. Send a card/wk (Love)
82. Do EFT every day (Personal Improvement)
83. Drink 64 oz of water/day (Health)

Three Month Projects

84. Take the family somewhere new every week (Family)
85. Do Body For Life (Health)
86. Do the 4T Prosperity Program (Personal Improvement - Sept 10, 2006 - Dec 06)

Wedding

87. Finish thank you cards from the first time!
88. Find a new place to hold wedding
89. Send out save-the-dates
90. Invitations again
91. Find a fourth bridesmaid
92. Have some sort of real music plan this time. Dj, band, kazoos, something.
93. Interview and hire a professional photographer
94. Have a real cake, freeze the top layer, that whole shebang
95. Take a Dance class with Josh
96. Have that bonfire/drum circle I wanted. Book separate reception place, if necessary
97. Attend a Wedding Festival Sept. 25, 2008
98. Have wedding by May 9, 2009
99. Have a real honeymoon
100. Research Married-Across-The-World idea. If viable, book two more spots

101. Make new 101 list! I'm kinda-but-not-really counting the revision on this list. I still have to make another once this is completed.

( Here are the ones I took out: )

It's funny how Beatles songs were playing every time we left my mom after visiting hours. This was the first of like two dozen. Several people commented on it. Usually they were ones she (&/or we) loved, and most we remember her singing. She was such an awesome singer.

I'm going to be writing the whole story. Not so much her story, as my story with her. A lot of this is likely to be emotional and locked away. I'm sure I'll be creating a special Christy filter. I know I have several wonderful new people who have been checking in through friends or communities. If you're interested in continuing the Christy(Amanda) story with me, just please add me first and let me know. I'll be honored and delighted to give you access.

Thank you guys so much for all the support. I was very close to my mom, and this has really been the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm so grateful for all the loving energy. I honestly might have turned feral without it.

Christy



Arden - Carol Christine Christy McDivitt, 50, of Arden, died Sunday, May 11, 2008, from injuries sustained in an auto accident on Long Shoals Road.

A native of Sterling, Ill., she was a daughter of Emma Ivey McDivitt and the late Everett McDivitt, of Morrison, Ill. A graduate of the American Institute of Holistic Theology, she had resided in the Asheville area for the past 20 years and was a grower for Van Wingerden Greenhouses of Horseshoe, N.C.

Christy loved horticulture, natural healing, naturalism, spirituality and great music - especially the blues.

Surviving in addition to her mother are daughters, Amanda Trancoso (Josh) Mack, of Leicester, Tina Marie (Adam Bazzle) Trancoso and Elizabeth Kate McDivitt, both of Arden; brothers, Ron (Linda) McDivitt, Mike (Linda) McDivitt, both of Morrison, Ill., Terry (Carolyn) McDivitt, of South Beloit, Ill., Pat (Patty) McDivitt, of Milan Ill., and Tom (Luann) McDivitt, of Prophetstown, Ill.; sister Bonnie (Chris) Schnaiter, of Mendota, Ill.; granddaughters, Eden and Ivy Mack.

Services were held Monday at the Unity Center in Fletcher, N.C. and other services will be held later in Illinois.

Christy had a beautiful smile and a great spiritual presence. She touched the lives of everyone she knew. A beloved daughter, sister, mother and boo-boo, she is cherished in both life and spirit.

Asheville Mortuary Services is caring for the McDivitt family.