The bike needs a name. I'm still a bit bumbly on her, so I don't feel we're really speaking to each other yet. Josh is threatening to name her out from under me. I'm improving though, so I think she'll have a name soon.

My learning-to-ride saga has been fun. I'll admit, I was quite scared. Everybody asked me, “Well, have you at least ridden a dirt bike or Josh's mini-bike or anything?” Nope. I never even got the hang of roller blades. Balance and me have never done well. I would have started learning on Josh's mini-chopper, but it's broken.

My bike is nice though. When I first sat on it to try everything out before we bought it, I was surprised at how light it is. It's a Honda Shadow just like Josh's, but Josh's is much heavier. We thought this was a pretty good bike for me to learn on. My feet sit flat on the ground when I'm on her, and she's all dented up so I don't have to be too afraid of learning on her (unlike Josh's mint-condition bike). I thought it was light, but boy, my upper body has been feeling the work-out of learning to hold her up and steer her!

The first day was, well, I sucked. By the time we got it home and got me out on it, it was already pretty late. I only had about half an hour or forty minutes to play around before it got dark. Josh taught me the basics, and I'm pretty sure he was surprised at just how basic my lessons needed to be. Josh had at least ridden one once and looked at magazines for years, so he knew pretty well much how they worked. He had to teach me how to turn it on, the brakes, I didn't even know motorcycles don't have reverse (which is why it's such a work out pushing that thing around). So yeah, my first day sucked hardcore, but at least Josh was nice and patient about it. Keia laughed a lot, but Josh said he didn't do much better the first time he road Josh's mini-bike, and he'd also ridden dirt bikes before.

So anyways, day one was a lot of start-stop, start-stop. I couldn't control how much gas I was giving her, so once I started going, I was going. Then I'd get scared and slam the hand brake, then I'd bow up like a dog taking one, then struggle to keep the bike up &/or not hitting anyone. Finally, we just kept it in neutral and Josh held on to the sissy bar like he had to do with Ivy on her bike, and I practiced trying to steer and keep her up as we went down the driveway. Then he'd walk me through turning her around, and I'd actually drive back up the driveway. I got okay controlling the gas if I was driving up our slight little incline, but since I couldn't really stop, I could not give her gas while going downhill. It wasn't bad for the first day though, even if I felt bad about Josh holding on to us. He didn't want me to crash first thing though, and I did eventually get better at steering.

The second day, we felt comfortable enough to practice on the long stretch of dirt road just below our house. I had to get better at stopping somehow, and I needed more room to work than our driveway gave. At first, I just practiced going slowly with my feet hanging down, so I could just stop with neutral & my feet. Eventually, I got comfortable enough controlling the throttle to be able to put my feet up. I even managed to stop on my own just before getting to the hilly part of the road. Then I put it in neutral so I could coast down the hill again, and that's when we went down. It had rained the night before and washed a little groove between some rocks on the dirt road (mountain dirt roads, for those not familiar with them, always wash out in even the slightest rain). I hit wet sandy dirt and lost control. I felt myself lose control and panicked, slamming the handbrake. I went down hard on my knee (on a rock), and the bike landed on me.

We hadn't even been out there an hour before I laid her down. Only problem is, she'd been laid down several times before (all those dents that made it a good “learning bike” ), so the foot peg was a little loose already. Well it did some funky bending thing into my gears and stopped wanting to go into neutral. I was hobbling and hurt fairly decently – although going down was not near as bad as I thought it was going to be, at least not at that speed – but Josh wanted to take it into the shop to make sure it was okay. I wanted to keep going, but even he was having trouble with neutral, and he flat-out refused to let me back on it til we were sure it was safe. I'm not normally the type of lady who lets her husband make flat-out refusals on my own things, but I actually found it incredibly sweet.

So I followed him up to the closest bike shop, where we'd bought supplies but, so help me, I will never take it there for work again. It had only messed up with neutral once on the way up, but Josh still wanted to get it looked at. It was pretty busy, so they guy said we'd have to leave it. It was 24 hours before they even put it up on their rack and looked at it, and I had stopped by and called to tell them I'd pay whatever for overnight shipping on parts or whatever so I could get my bike back right away. I was so pissed when I called the next morning and they hadn't even looked at it yet. We went to go pick it back up, because I'm not putting up with that shit, and they'd looked at it and said there was really no problem. Whatever. The guy's a punk. We took it across town to MR Honda and bought some of those crash bar things, just in case, and the guy there looked at it and in like two minutes of wiggling told Josh that the connector pad thing was just rusty. He came home to put the crash bar thing on and just had to take a little sandpaper to the pad before he put it back together. Bike worked fine.

I had no idea how expensive bike stuff is, either. Ten dollars for oil? Two hundred for the piece of metal you put on just to dent up, instead of the bike? Ridiculous. I'm glad Josh already had me a helmet, and I was able to find boots on sale at K-mart for fifteen bucks instead of a hundred and fifty. It's insane!

Anyway, my pretty little bike is back and wasn't even really messed up to begin with. And I'm barely limping, so back to riding! After Josh got my training wheels crash bar situated, we went up to a wee little community center over the mountain from our house. It's one of those tiny things way out in the boonies where there are rarely cars and I've never seen a cop that far. This is my practice lot. I practiced first gear and stopping, and the dreaded turning. I say dreaded because leaning over on those things really scares me. Since it's a small lot, too, I don't have any room to get out of first even though I now want to, so doing slow turns was tricky. I mastered that shit last night, though! I am now ready to find a bigger parking lot and move up to shifting. Hopefully I can still do all right stopping when I'm moving much faster. We're going on recon today to find a suitably large and abandoned lot, so wish me luck on that for 4th of July Saturday. Ha! I may have to just wait until next week, since I was unable to make it to the DMV for my permit yesterday like I thought I would.

That's where it's at. I've gotten exponentially better each day, and I've really only spent an hour on it most the longest time. Pretty soon I'll be ready for riding the road! We're both looking forward to being able to ride together. It's been a dream of ours for years. It's going to be another year or so before we can afford sidecars, which are also way more expensive than I expected, but at least Josh and I will get some practice riding together before we attempt to take out the girls. They're anxious too, though. We can't wait! I'm so glad we're actually on our way to getting goals accomplished. It's a good thing right now.

My facebook friends already know what I've been up to, so I thought I'd better share with all my friends. Guess what I did!

( I got a motorcycle! )

Ordinarily, today would be my birthday. Not today though, not really. I renounced it.

It's unconventional, I know. I've gotten several wonderful birthday wishes, and I'm very grateful and surprised to be remembered.

Why would someone renounce their birthday? It started as a joke, really. When Josh and I were picking wedding dates, we were waffling between April and May. Now, my mom's birthday was always right before Christmas, and quite frankly she always got gypped on presents. I joked that with our anniversary, Mother's Day, and my birthday all within a couple weeks of each other, maybe I'd just change my birthday.

Then everything with mom happened. Happy, overly-celebratory May kind of soured. Now our anniversary and Mother's Day will always be tied with her death. There's no way out of that. I think I actually forgot my birthday last year until Josh wished it to me. It sucked. People called for well-wishes, but everyone was still crying. It was just another anti-climactic day. Mom had always said birthdays didn't really matter once you got older. They're all just the same.

So, something about that little joke stayed with me and I decided it was a damned good idea. Josh and I actually argued for several months about this. He says it's a bit idiotic and you can't just up and change your birthday. Legally, I suppose he's right. I look at it like changing my name when I got married, though. Everything did change, and I'm a new Amanda. May is so overwhelmingly sad. Our anniversary, and Mother's Day (which she actually died on) will never ever again be as happy as they should be. I renounced the whole damned month, really. If there's supposed to be one day that's supposed to be about celebrating and happiness and partying - for me - then I should get to pick a day that can be that.

It's liberating, really. Since I renounced it last year, I dedicated 2009 to The Year of the Birthday. I have to test-run these things to make sure I'm making an informed decision. Here's my criteria:

1. Not May

2. Nice weather, preferably grill weather (I got spoiled on Memorial Day weekend, what can I say? Of course, it's pouring today, so there you go.)

3. Can't use anyone living's birthday, unless they offer it

4. It has to gel astrologically – either with what I currently am, or with what I'd like to manifest into my life. For birth chart purposes, I'll still stick with having been born in Davenport at 4:20 pm.

So far I've had one test-birthday. I celebrated on April 27, which is a month early and was actually my due date. We had an absolute gorgeous day, and we went up to my sacred spot. I've considered myself twenty-eight since that first birthday this year.

I'm considering trying out June 3. It's just a week later, so still in the ballpark. Since I'm definitely very Gemini, I would just be switching months. I may try June 10, too, just to have another celebration. I was originally born on a Wednesday, which lines up this year, so I should try out the Wednesdays in my area. Lyz suggested I use Papa's birthday since he's not using his anymore. That was mom's dad, and his birthday was June 25 – right in between Lyz's and Josh's. I'm not sure if Josh wants me encroaching on his birthday, though.

My options are open. I'll be holding auditions through, I don't know, maybe October. I considered switching to my half-birthday, but it's too close to Thanksgiving and my ex-stepdad's birthday, so the Gemini-Sagittarius nemesis thing resonates for me. Better to stay clear of the holidays, although Halloween has always been my favorite, so I wouldn't mind snagging some of that.

So there you have it. And if I've inspired any of you to seek your own liberation, feel free to use May 27. It's open. There really is a benefit to having it both near Memorial Day weekend most of the time and at the end of the school year. It served me well for twenty-six years. I think I will do a little “thank you and goodbye” ceremony tonight, just to complete the circle. I'll let you know when we officially ring in the new one.

Eden got her first library card this week. We checked out an Encyclopedia of Reptiles & Amphibians (to learn about our lizard friend in the garden), an Encyclopedia Brown book, and another Little House book, These Happy Golden Years.

Then yesterday, Beltane, she up and declared, "We need to have a Boo Boo ceremony tonight." So I readily agreed and told her we'd try to have a fire that night. Later on though, Lyz called and invited us over to her new place (and made us dinner). I had forgotten I'd promised Eden a ceremony until she reminded me, so even though it was past bedtime when we got home, I told her we'd stay up and do one. It was too late for a big fire like we'd planned, but Josh lit a coal in his little rock fire-bowl thing he has. Eden ran in to get her basket, as she already had everything prepared!

She'd written four notes for Boo Boo (that's my mom, by the way). I didn't look at them since it was dark, but I saw they had drawings and stuff on them. Eden said she'd written them in secret ancient writings that only totems and guides can read. She said a prayer to start the ceremony, and then I shook my rattle to call in our guides. She gave a note to me and Josh, and she got two since sissy was asleep. We all said a word to mom and offered the notes to the fire, and it was really very beautiful. I could really feel her presence, and I told Eden what a proud grandmother she was. Eden said she could feel her hugs. I could too.

Oh my god, I am so sore. Twenty minutes of mostly stretching kicked my ass.

On January 31, I wrote a friends-locked post titled Here's the Thing: I Have One Fat Ass. Out of that post came my community fitfriends, which is now in it's 15th week. After two months, we started over again from the beginning.

This is what I looked like at Christmas, a month before I started fitfriends:



This is what I looked like yesterday, which pissed me off when I saw it:



Not so good.

I've made some very healthy changes. I drink at least two big glasses of water every day now, and I'm clearing up my sinuses with the help of a neti pot, and I'm getting out of bed most days and doing something around the house or yard.

But I'm still snacking too much, and drinking way too much (which is a huge part of the problem, I believe). I still have awful trouble with my depression, which leaves me unmotivated and I tend to wallow and eat on my all-too-often “off days”.

Luckily for me, I've started getting back on track this past week and a half or so. Even when I can't find my motivation or energy, I set the timer and do something. Most of this has been focused on getting my house back in order. Now it's time to buckle down and really get me back in order. Flylady really helps me in so many ways, and it's working out just right now. My house is more tolerable, and Flylady has declared the May habit-of-the-month to be “Moving in May.” In April, I've made my bed everyday – and Josh has gotten up and covered it on many an off-day. I can really tell what a difference it's made in both of our attitudes after just a couple weeks. Well, for May I resolve to finally get myself together and, like thousands of other flybabies everywhere, I'll dedicate at least fifteen minutes a day to moving and getting healthier.

I've been stretching more, and occasionally working in the garden or taking a family hike. Well the weather is definitely nicer now, and there's no excuse to be glooming around the house all day. And I have to say, that tv show “Biggest Loser: Couples” has really been helping motivate me to do something about my predicament. Looking at their before and after pictures of their last sixteen weeks – they look freaking awesome, and here I can't stop gaining! But yes I can. I will. The very least I can do is work out for fifteen minutes every day and see if that helps my energy and mental/spiritual levels.

I've been looking at this site, Cool Running: The Couch-to-5k Running Plan, which is a two-month commitment. I like walking, and I always wished I could run (isn't that great?). I hate working out in front of people, but going for a walk/run will be good for me – and Achaiah, if I take her chubby butt along. I also have been trying to get back to being able to do push ups and sit ups. It's heartbreaking that I can't anymore. So in addition to walking actively again, I'm going to get in “drop and give me 20” shape again. My arms start buckling around four these days. That's sad.

I thought I was dedicated before. Well I'm really dedicated now. I've bitten the bullet and posted before-fat-ass-pics. I promise to move every day in May, even my bad days. I will make real weekly goals that challenge me.

Feel free to make this jump with me! Can you dedicate yourself to fifteen minutes of healthy movement every day for one month? If you want, come over to fitfriends, where I'm so lucky to get a lot of feedback and support. Feel free to check in on me. I owe you a picture on May 31.

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!

I started listening to the Grateful Dead when I was fourteen, right after Jerry died. I was sad that I never got to go to a show and hear them live, although I did go see Bob Weir's band Ratdog back in 2001. I like Warren Haynes and I thought he did a great job filling in on guitar and vocals. I just wanted to hear the music live, and I was not disappointed. (Well, except by the seats...)

We drove down with our friend Keia, and started by first meeting my dear friend sneezythesquid for dinner. I think the Squidman was one of my earliest livejournal friends, so it was nice to get to meet him in person. We didn't get to hang out too long, but we did snag some pics.



After we left him, we found a lot across from but not at the coliseum, and we parked up. I wish we'd had more time to do the whole lot thing more too, but maybe I'll get a next time at that too. We did find some ladies who were giving away free tapes, and that was really cool. We snagged a couple of those. That's why I love the Dead and deadheads – it's all about sharing the music.

Now here is what I always expected a Dead show to look like:



While it wasn't quite a psychedelic as I might have hoped, I will admit that I had the best darn vibe I'd had in many years. We saw quite a few families together, and I never would have brought my kids to a Dead show at that age. Even if you didn't come with a groove, the sheer overwhelmingness of standing in it assured that you left with one. There was a teenager behind us with what was presumably his parents, and I heard him exclaim at one point, “Wow, this is so intense!” It was cool.

I thought I'd get better seats, but we ended way up in the nosebleeders. You couldn't even see their screen all the way unless you ducked down (and I did for a couple of shots). I was there for the music, and it was awesome. Some bitch tried to pick a fight with me at the bar, and that kind of sucked. We had some loud and obnoxious drunks squeeze us in a bit during the second set, too. That was disappointing, but for the most part it was a very nice atmosphere.

The opened with The Music Never Stopped, which was an awesome choice, then flew right into a Jack Straw (which is a favorite of mine) and a very bitchin Estimated Prophet. Phil Lesh had this awesome bass that glowed an electric blue color. I didn't get very good pics. I'll share mine, but some much more awesome shots can be found here. Another wonderful thing about the Dead – the show went up on the Live Music Archive by the time we got back to Asheville.



( Pics )

Even better was the tangible Jerry-love that settled over everyone as they broke down into “He's gone! He's gone, and nothing's gonna bring him back! He's gone...” It was very moving. I held a lighter up as my candle for Jerry, and I think that's the first time I did that at a concert.

Then they played Touch of Grey, which I remember as the very first music video I ever saw.



They rounded out Set 1 with I Need A Miracle and then a very awesome Truckin'. The first set was really something special. The energy was fantastic.

Set 2 was pretty good, although I do admit to being peeved by the pack of drunk kids. One of them wasn't a Dead fan, I guess. She just wanted to yell talk the whole time.

The boys opened with a jam that went into Shakedown Street, then All Along the Watchtower and Caution. The Drums>Space portion was pretty cool. I'm usually not a big fan of the drum part, but there were some really exceptional portions. Especially when Mickey (I think? I couldn't hardly tell from where we were) played this huge thing in the back. They had a space theme going on the projector, and from what I read they were trying to conjure The Big Bang.

After that, they played Cosmic Charley – another favorite of mine that I completely knew I'd hear that day. Then New Potato Caboose, Help on the Way, Slipknot!, and ended with Franklin's Tower. (Very good live.) Then they did their fake exit, and we cheered them all back. It took a bit longer than I expected, but they came back out and did Samson & Delilah for the encore. I had hoped they might pick a longer, jammier song (okay, I did have my hopes on Terrapin Station at some point), but it was pretty good.

At least the good thing about nosebleed seats way in the back is that we were in the first of the swarm to escape. We actually got out of there pretty quickly, but we still didn't make it back into Asheville until about four. It was a wonderful concert. I've just either got to get closer next time or get a better camera.

( More pics )

Greetings, Fellow Travellers

Sep. 11th, 2005 at 11:38 PM


I am just another seeker on the path. This journal will be used to keep record of my travels. We all have something to share.

I'll try to keep this as positive as I can. Creation is made by thoughts-words-deeds. This is where I will share my thoughts, putting them into words, and hopefully create something positive. If I revert to a diatribe of self-pity, forgive me. We all wander off the path occasionally.

I am Ahavah. I am a Stay-At-Home-Mom: a doula, Reiki Master, and writer. I just had baby # 2. As so often happens with life-changing events, I've had to take stock of where I am and where I want to be. I think sometimes we all have a tendency to forget Who We Really Are. By keeping this log, I aspire to be a bit more mindful. By exploring my journey here, keeping track of my goals, and sharing it with you, I have the added impetus of public accountability.

And most importantly, though we each have our own paths, we do not travel alone. I'm going to put myself out here for anyone who's interested (or unfortunate enough to stumble upon it...) If something speaks to you, or if you have insights of suggestions to share, please do so. Our paths have now crossed. Maybe we'll walk together a little ways.

When we woke up this morning, Eden yelled, “Hooray! I've always wanted to be six!”

I think I'll always consider her birthday my “Mommyversary”. Every morning on her birthday I wake up and think something like, “Well, my water broke by this time six years ago.” I love that I remember all of my births with pride. I look forward to showing Eden the pictures and going over the story again. I love how that nervous feeling of excitement becomes perfectly present in my tummy again.

I'll do her birthday pictures later, but for now I would just like to share my birth story for all my new friends who might not have seen it before. There are some naked birthy pics, and although I don't really consider that 'not safe for work' (says the doula), I guess I should warn for naked me any time that happens.

"People asked me if I was afraid and I laughed. Are you kidding? I'm a birth goddess. I didn't doubt for a second. It's what I was made for."

...because it makes me so happy. This is a shot from Eden's birthday party pics. They're posted on facebook for now, but I'll try to link some here sometime soon.


♥

I've had the roughest year ever, and part of that roughness was the loss of my spiritual home. Both of them, really, if you count church and mom – and maybe I should. I've been slowly but surely getting back on track. However, I think it's time to take advantage of that 'wherever two or more gather' energy and get back on my spiritual track right now.

I've really only celebrated Lent once before, and that was years ago. (I 'gave up' cussing.) Mostly this round, I want to focus on my inner healing, like I imagine Jesus did during his forty day fast. I'm kind of a metaphysical Christian. I don't necessarily think Jesus was 'tempted by Satan'. I think everyone has their demons, and he faced his and overcame them and became a vehicle for the Christ spirit. So I want to face mine and overcome them, and hopefully get more aligned with the Christ spirit.

An interesting thing about Lent that I only learned last year, or perhaps it was the year before, was that the Sundays during Lent don't actually count. They're feast days. This awareness may help me stick with my own program for forty days, knowing that you're actually supposed to have a day of respite and celebration each week.

As part of my fitfriends community, I've been making goals to focus on each week and have slowly been integrating more healthy habits into my life. One of the things I've been doing is logging my food intake, and I'm trying to learn about healthier diets and make changes that I and my family can stick with. My Lent project will overlap this a bit, and I'm going to be focusing on both physical and spiritual changes.

Here are my Lenten goals:

1. Wean myself from coffee/caffeine in preparation for fasting
2. Start baking more healthy desserts to replace Little Debbie addiction
3. Eat more immune-boosting foods
4. Increase my water intake
5. Practice portion control
6. Fast Easter weekend

7. Do a Reiki self-healing every day
8. Stretch daily
9. Meditate for at least 5 minutes daily
10. Meditate with the sunrise & with the moon at least once a week
11. Perform a healing for someone else, or for Gaia, daily
12. Study and honor Jesus daily

Wow, thank you guys for all the awesome energy! My back has improved so much so darn fast.

Josh went to the drugstore to get me a heating pad, and left me with a staff in case I had to hobble to the bathroom. I intended to do just that, and suddenly I was able to walk better again! I still had to use the staff, but I'm shuffling quite quickly now, and I can even walk around without it as long as I go carefully.

I felt so much better, I was even able to make the bed and fold up the laundry piled on the couch. Our laundry basket is actually full and sitting on the floor. I couldn't do those, because I still can't bend over to pick it up, but I got everything that was already sitting up on the couch.

Josh has returned with my heating pad, and it's really helping too. Still, after having such a hard time yesterday and an even worse time this morning, I did not expect such drastic improvement. I chalk it up to you all beaming greatness my way. Thanks so very much!

I never felt old, before last year.

I found my first silver hair in August 2006. I remember this, because I was driving to Florida for ladysmith's birth and I found a beautiful shiny thread on the upper left of my head. I loved it. I always thought I would look great with salt-and-pepper – or even silver or grey! - hair.

My mom was one of those women who fear and hate aging. She never celebrated her birthdays, and I couldn't understand it. She cried when she turned forty. Actually, she may have cried at thirty, too. It always made me sad, and I said I'd never feel that way about getting older. I enjoy the thought of getting older, torn between the vision of aging gracefully like an infinitely wise crone and being the crazy lady who screams expletives and chases children past her yard with a potato launcher. Either way, I look forward to it.

That said, I didn't expect it to happen so darn quickly. I also remember the first time I actually felt old. It was May 9, 2008. My wedding day. I was dressing and putting on make-up in the hospital bathroom, a private one I had scoped out for just this occasion. It had that wonderful florescent lighting that let me see each and every crevice in my face. There were more crevices since I'd first arrived after mom's accident. By the time I was in the unforgiving bathroom, preparing for my marriage ceremony, we'd already made the decision to pull life support the next day. I took a deep breath and looked at myself, and it wasn't my normal face. Everyone always said I looked like mom with dark hair. When I took a breath and looked at myself that day, I looked like Grandma with dark hair.

Those grief-lines have abated a bit, or maybe I just wear them better. If you'll recall, my sisters and I went out for a salon day afterwards and got cut, colored, the works. They hadn't noticed, but I'd noticed that during that long week, my one silver hair had turned into a head full of grey. I recently cut my hair again, but I wanted to cut the color out, not touch it up. Some of my highlights are still there. My first bright silver hair is back. I stopped at Tina's house Friday after going to the laywer's, just to drop off some of her things I'd gotten from mom's. I only stayed a minute. As she hugged me goodbye, Tina gasped and her chin dropped. She reached out, grabbed it, and whispered, “You have a silver hair!” I totally saw her thoughts ripple across her face. First she was shocked to see it, then she looked at me and realized for the first time that I had aged, and then she realized that meant she had aged. (Her birthday is next week, only twenty-five. Still, I know I read it right.)

I laughed and said, “I had that one a while ago, remember? There are more, but I think they're still colored at the moment.” She just nodded and said quietly, “I remember. Sorry, I was just surprised.”

“I know.”

But today...oh God, today, I believe I went and threw my back out. I bent over and lifted one leg to put through my panties, and boy, that was IT. My lower back on my right side just spasmed uncontrollably and I had to grab the bathroom counter to catch myself. It reminded me of when I was in labor with Ivy. I couldn't stand back up. I managed to finish dressing and stumbled to fall on my bed. We had to go to the store, as we were nearly out of most things but especially toilet paper, so we went to Walmart and tried to stock up on some of the cheaper things. I thought walking a bit would help, and at first it did, but after I sat down to drive home, it was so excruciatingly worse when I got out of the car. Josh tried to get me to buy a freaking cane to help me in Walmart and I refused to do it, and now I'm wishing I had. Maybe I'd be House-sexy.

I am not an infinitely wise old crone yet, and with this pain, I'm certainly not up for chasing anyone with potato launchers. Right now I'm a twenty-seven year old girl who feels like an eighty year old woman. I hurt. And my crevices are coming back.

“That's nice, but you colored outside of the lines right there.” I peer at the paper. Where? Oh that, up at the turtle's head. I was almost finished. I just got sloppy. “You should really try to stay in the lines.”

I like to color, and I'm good at it. I choose surprising colors and I mix them, make shading (even the background), and I don't leave any white. Sometimes I mess up - maybe the tip isn't sharp enough, and just the smallest smidge feathers outside the lines. Then I take my crayon and I outline it real heavily, to make it look like I did that on purpose.

Then I start outlining inside the lines. It looks better that way, and it all stays even.

Everybody likes it, and my friends all start outlining too. They think I'm clever.

Eventually I realize that colored pencils are much better, rarely sneaking over that printed black. The outlining phase has run its course. I just start lightly on this side of the line, until I make it to safe ground. I experiment with blending, but I always seem to leave smudgy fingerprints outside those stupid little lines.

Smudging runs its course. I put away the coloring books for a while.

I like hopscotch, but I hate those little cracks inside the blocks. I take extra special care making each block even, but then sometimes those little sidewalk cracks have to creep in and ruin the whole thing. I work with them, extending them, turning them into a part of this art. It has to look right. It has to look even. “Come on, can we just play?”

“Just a couple more minutes. I'm almost done.” It's a little vine with flowers, curling around to flow into the zero on the ten. Just a few more...I can't mess the whole thing up now. I'm almost done.

I love art, and I can't understand it when my grades start to slip. “Amanda, you really need to finish your project.” I work on it longer than anyone!

I can't mess it up. I can't get sloppy. “That's just laziness, Mandy.”

It looks real good, doesn't it? Why did she give me a C? “I'm sorry, Amanda. I gave you extra time to complete it.”

I doodle on my homework. The doodles have to be even. If the pen leaves blots, I write the whole paper over. I copy worksheets onto notebook paper and tell the teachers it just got too cluttered as I was working out the problems. I swear off Bics and their stupid random blotting. I throw out a journal they ruined, too.

In college, I have an art teacher who hates realism. Say what? She gives me crap grades even though I'm doing a great job. She can't even draw anyway. She lectures me about not doing anything spontaneous. I turn in my journal that week with a collage of Dopey porn, pouring an arc of purple jizz across two pages onto Snow White's quivering breasts. I take a white-out wand and scribble all over it, making the biggest unholy mess of my life, drawing a gigantic middle finger and dotting it with sprinkles.

It was hard, letting go like that and doing artwork so freely. That bitch gave me a D.

I drop the class, buy a fifty-nine cent pack of colored pencils and a Noah's Ark coloring book, and spend a few therapeutic hours coloring oh-so-very-carefully.





This has been my Week 16 entry for therealljidol. If you enjoyed it, please consider voting for me if there's a poll this weekend.

I hate starting posts with definitions, but since there are several ways of looking at this word, I wanted to narrow it down to one to focus on. This is the one that seems to stand out for me:

Having a decided purpose; determined; resolved; fixed in a determination; hence, bold; firm; steady.

I had a decided purpose once, but boy, 2008 really set me back a bit. If I look at this word and myself honestly, I just plain wasn't determined, resolved, or steady. In fact, 2008 has probably been my worst year ever, when it was supposed to be my best.

After seven years and a beautiful family, Josh and I finally got married. But the week of my wedding, mom had her accident. Even though we got married anyway, and I love him more than ever for it, the hardest thing in the world was standing there committing our lives together while my mom's was seeping away, knowing we'd put off a honeymoon to pull life support instead. She died on Mother's Day, and our church, where Josh worked, saw fit to 'let him go' the day after. Then our car broke. I don't believe I've ever had a lower point in my life, not even when I was homeless.

I didn't care about purpose at all. I had just started my own Reiki school, and I stopped doing that completely. I couldn't care less about finding doula clients, and I know my recertification isn't all that far off. I've almost completely abandoned my Mission 101 list, and it's due to end in May. I look at my goals, and I still want to do most of those things, but...I just don't care.

I should. What happened to my decided purpose?

My Solstice and healing ceremonies helped. I have left the darkness behind, and I move into 2009 with a clean slate. That's really why I don't want to move on with those goals of the past. I need a fresh start. Maybe I'll make another goal list, but it will be a rededication to what's important to me. I cannot have lists of old 'Musts' holding over my head if I want a new beginning.

So today, on the first, I start with just one. I wrote my Personal Mission Statement several years ago now, but it's been so long since I focused on it that I can barely remember it. That is the first thing I want written on my clean slate. Right now I have only one resolution: To return to my path, and keep going.



My Personal Mission Statement

I am a Divine precipitation,
dedicated to remembering and exemplifying Truth,
and to glorifying God with all of my thoughts, words, & deeds.





This is my entry for this week's therealljidol topic. If you enjoyed it, please consider voting for me. I'm in the last tribe. Thanks!

I did not do any Christmas cards this year, and I only got presents for my family. I'm sorry.

You have my love, though!

:)

I also haven't contemplated Christmas dinner. Josh got himself a little ham. I better figure something out before the stores close early. I need to make a new fake fireplace, too. Josh made me throw the old one away.

Super thanks to lessthan90sheep! You provided the first presents that are under the tree. Presents, hooray! ♥

As mentioned in my earlier post, we taught the girls about Winter Solstice this year. Since I already told you my plans, I'll just share this as a picture post! This is actually the first big ceremony that we all held together as a family. (Josh isn't usually the ceremonying type.)

We started by taking a piece of paper, cutting it into fourths, and 'writing out the darkness' of this year that we wanted to offer to the fire. The girls immediately got sad about Boo Boo, and I reminded them of our healing ceremony at her house and said that now we can throw all that sadness in the fire if we wanted. Then we took the papers outside to the fire, and they were excited to stay up late and get to go outside for this.

Getting it out:



( Thanking the dark for it's time, and welcoming the light )

Equus was awesome. I loved it! Very dark and bizarre, but then, so am I. We saw the Wednesday matinee. We both kind of thought that it got off to a slow start, but eventually the actors found their stride. Our seats were pretty darn awesome. We were right in the middle of the orchestra section, smack dab in front of the stage. It was smaller than I expected, too, so even though we were in row K (ten rows back), we were so close to the stage. This was important to me, since I'm pretty short. Not as short as some, though...but more on that later. The point is, I had a great view.

For those of you for whom this is the most pressing question: Yes, we saw Daniel “Harry Potter” Radcliffe's willy, and it's respectable. He has himself a nice little body. My personal favorite was his ass, and right above it, where it meets his back... Sorry, I think I had a Wash moment, but it was very yummy.

I was mostly astounded by the amount of control he had over his body. It was amusing, because he came out at first all shirtless and in jeans, and he spun around looking at all the wire-headed horses, and I could see that he was totally flexing quite a bit as he turned this way and that. Oh, Danny, you're so darned cute! But really, he just had amazing physical control in the way he used his muscles, the way he moved, and the way he used his body to convey the growth/moods of his character. There was a hypnotism scene where this really showed, and you could see him clenching in anxiety and very slowly loosening into his trance-like state, then immediately jazzed up and bouncing off the walls as he shows Dr. Dysart (Richard “Don't fucking call me Uncle Vernon” Griffiths) what happened the night he blinded six horses.

Richard Griffiths really carried that show, I won't lie. We went to see Daniel Radcliffe, but it was Griffiths who really knocked our socks off. And once we got to reading the play bill, we realized that Kate “Captain Janeway” Mulgrew was in the play! Neither one of us knew that ahead of time. Even her performance, like Daniel's, started off a little slow, but both improved as the show went on. We have decided that Kate Mulgrew just exudes sexuality wherever she goes. It was kind of hot, even though we thought she and Daniel/Alan Strang's mom (her name escaped me right now) were over acting. I kind of think that was a directorial flub, to be honest, because Kate has a stage presence like she's never really “off”, so I think the director made some of their acting choices that left us unimpressed. But yeah, most of that floundering was in the beginning, and the play was so awesome that we were drawn into it pretty well. That is until...

Okay, during the first part some rude ass left their cell phone on. (Why do these people not listen to the repeated pleading/threats of the ushers, security, and the intercom speaker lady?) The actors pushed through it, even though it was pretty obvious that it put them off a bit just like it did for the audience. I mean, this is a nice, intimate theater, and it stopped the stride. The person cut it off quickly though. Then the VERY BEST part of the play came in Act 2, courtesy of the completely awesome Richard Griffiths. Someone else left their cell on after intermission (and five minutes worth of “Turn off all pagers and cell phone” announcements). This one was louder, musical, and completely and totally disruptive – and it just happened to fall at a moment where Griffiths was gazing out into the audience, thinking a moment before he turned to address Alan again. This time, he waited for the person to quiet their cell. They didn't. It rang again, and Griffiths turned his head just a bit so that he was gazing right out towards the person. It rang a good three or four times, one of those awful jingley-songs, and Griffiths just stood there, glaring out at them like, “Hurry it up, asshole; I'll wait.” We wanted to just burst into applause. It was one of those big awkward waits, and I would have hated being the person on the receiving end of that glare, even if I was hidden in shadow. I stole a glance at Radcliffe, and he looked like he was trying not to grin. It was awesome.

The hottest parts of the play, in my opinion, were not the scenes between Alan & his psuedo-love-interest Jill, but between Alan & his favorite horse, Nugget. Watching Daniel rub and hug all over Lorenzo Pisoni in a body suit was more compelling than the sex scene between Daniel and Anna Camp. In fact, Steph and I thought they really didn't have much chemistry together...and this led her to suggest that the Tribbiani Theorem might apply here, and perhaps the costars are banging. I don't know, but I thought Camp was actually the weakest in the play. I wasn't impressed with her.

We learned that to catch autographs, you had to wait outside the door – but only after the night performance. We'd hit a matinee, so we went to dinner and then bopped over to Strawberry Fields for me before heading back to catch the cast as they came out around 10:45. We headed back to town with plenty of time to spare, and it's a good thing, too! As we came up out of the subway near Times Square, we got swept up in an honest-to-goodness mob! Apparently they had the lighting of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, nearly every side road to our hotel & the theatre was blocked off, and we were stuck in throngs of actual thousands of people, just being swept away where it took us since the cops wouldn't let us escape. I understood how that poor fellow got trampled at Walmart, because I literally could not stop even when I tried. There was a kid on one side of me, and that made me nervous. I nearly got into a fight with a hootchie on the other side. Finally we ducked into a corner with a friendly policeman who was also trying to hide.

After much searching – and inadvertently seeing that damned tree, which I'm pretty sure is several blocks in the opposite direction from our hotel – we finally found a Starbucks to tuck into and call our families, who had expected to hear from us about an hour or hour and a half earlier. We managed to wait out the rest of the craziness and make it to the theatre on time.

We were so, so close! We were behind like the first two people who got Daniel's autograph, and they moved so we could pop up, but then he just kept moving down the line. Since they separated us in the 'pens' with ticket holders in one pen and random teenage fangirls in the other, we thought we'd actually get an autograph. There was a small crowd, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. Still, I was right there next to him asking, “Sign these, please!” and he passed us on by. Two hours in a mob, Daniel Radcliffe! Poor Steph looked so heartbroken. Hearing her rage against the little hobbit boy (for he is a wee, wee little man) was amusing, but not really until much later. I promised I'd get his autograph one way or another, which I think helped convince Josh to go back up with me a couple days later.

Richard Griffiths came out and we got his autograph, though. He really was a bit of an ass, but he was friendly to me so I got all fan-gushy. I do that, you know. (Hell, I thought me & Bob Weir had a 'moment' when he looked at me from the stage. Richard Griffiths actually chatted with me!) He upset the little fangirls, refusing to sign their Harry Potter books because “I'm not here for Harry Potter, sorry.” I kind of respected him for that, but I also see why poor Dan just signs anything they hand him. I chatted him up and told him how awesome I thought he was at the matinee, and we had a little conversation, so that part helped assuage my Daniel heartbreak.

Sadly, my successful mission happened without lessthan90sheep, but when I told her Josh actually agreed to go back, she overnighted her playbill to our hotel so I could get her an autograph. I had a good plan too, for now I realized that only the front people get autographs. I heard he was sick Saturday, and it had also started snowing, so I was afraid maybe he wouldn't sign at all. I was one of the first people there in the pen, before the play even let out. I copped a squat in the middle front, where I could cling to the rail without being pushed back when they moved it up to the doorway. I did not fail!

I'll admit, I kind of set it up, too. I'd heard the first time, when some poor chick brought five huge Harry Potter posters, and the door guy was just like, “You can only ask him to sign one thing, you know.” I was willing to come back two nights in a row, but I was really hoping I could just get him to sign mine and Steph's. I mean, I love Steph, but it was two New York trips, a mob, and snow by now, and I flat-out told Josh I refused to leave the city without this boy's autograph for the both of us. So when I heard he was sick, and he came my way to sign, I told him, “Oh, thank you so much for doing this! You have no idea how hard it's been trying to get your autograph.” He laughed a little and did the 'no problem' thing, so I mentioned how we'd actually come up for the Wednesday matinee and had thought it was really great.

He thanked me and started to move on, but I asked him to sign Steph's too. He was apologetic and said, “I'm sorry, but they'll only let me sign one each.” I had really expected success, though, and I guess I had a look on my face that again conveyed that, “A fucking mob, Daniel Radcliffe!” sentiment. Aloud, I said, “Oh please! My friend Stephanie had to go back to Arkansas.” He was sweet about it and went ahead and signed them both. I was so relieved, I showered him with very fervent thanks. I think he's double-sweet, because the crowds and the ass-kissing seemed to make him uncomfortable, but he was pretty chill when we were just chatting. I really do think I underestimated him previously as both an actor and a famous young person, so I'm really going to enjoy seeing how his career turns after HP is all over and done with.

I hung out and also got my picture taken with Richard Griffiths this time. That was cool. I appreciated his willingness to do that, although I wish I'd taken the time to dress up a bit before the second attempt. Oh well. This adventure also allowed me to catch that dance battle I'd wanted oh-so-badly ever since stepping foot in the city! So subway breakdance fun, Dan's autographs (both!), and a picture with RG. All in all, a very fun and worthwhile trip.



On our way in to the play: Dec 3 matinee.

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