Strategy, Cleverness, And Adaptability

Yesterday after my third trip back and forth from my new house with carloads of stuff, I was in my current house. It was raining and kind of yucky outside and I glanced out the window in to my almost ex backyard. I saw the most beautiful fox. Not an Chester County mangy fox either. A big, red, fluffy, gorgeous fox. He or she sauntered on the outside of the fence in my back yard and then took off up through my neighbors yard. It made me really happy.

I think you see these kinds of different animals when your energy is somewhat in sync. Or when you need to learn something from that animal. Like a reminder of sorts.

Many cultures have different view on fox sightings. In China they believe that foxes symbolize afterlife and the sighting of one is a sign from the deceased. I believe that more than I care to elaborate on. One Native American interpretation is that the fox is a wise and noble messenger.

It is said that the color red in the fox is a solar emblem. That represents passion, desire, intensity, and expression. Yes, yes, yes, oh and yes.

Here's my favorite part about the reminders that foxes are meant to give: think outside of the box, use your surrounding to your advantage and be very mindful of it, use all your resources, the resources that are physically apparent and especially the ones that aren't. Remember that at times it takes an usual way to reach your goal. You just have to be creative about it.
I can totally relate to all of that. I'm glad I saw that fox and I'm glad that this information was brought to the forefront of my mind in the particular period of time and circumstance that I am in.

"The fox is a wolf that sends flowers."- Ruth Brown

Yup. Yup. Yup.

Death, Divorce, And Moving

I've covered all these things in the past year. Some more than once. That's the truth. I have my own divorce (which is seemingly pleasant), my best friends divorce (which is the stuff horror movies are made of), two significant deaths, and now the move. Oh yeah, also, I'm starting a business with every cent of what would have been my life's savings. I am expecting fire works after this whole thing is over.

I'm also going with the super human effort of trying to move absolutely everything I physically can move myself. I'm getting made fun of that by some people (you know who you are) BUT, but, but, my mover's can't come until Friday. The week after is my time to get ready for our studio opening. I need this done now.

My Mommy is helping me. And some of my friends. But mostly it's just me. Me packing up a lifetime's worth of stuff. Me hauling it back and forth. Me, bound and determined to have my new place (which I love) all ready so it is not heaped on me all in one day. I want to be moved in Friday and be actually moved in. I don't know which part of my psyche is making me do it this way. I guess it's the obsessive part. The part that made me have a supply house full of art supplies in the first place.

It makes me think back to when I moved in this house. I was nine months pregnant with another baby 14 months old. Marc had just started a brand new job. I moved us myself that time too. I am feeling this odd sense of deja vu. Kind of.

I kind of cried to a friend last night about it. Just quickly in an e mail. My favorite thing was his advice. It was simple advice but it made me smile because he is a big athlete who refuses to do yoga. And he told me to breathe. That's a yoga term! We made up breathing. It all comes back to yoga.

YoGA. Riggghhhttt... (hi Lisy :) )

What With the Funnel Cake... ( another ramblin' post)

Today I had lunch with two incredibly funny women and a special appearance by my Mommy. It was special cause it was an Asian restaurant and she doesn't do Asian food. She was there because she had been right next door taking pictures of our PLAYroom. Which is so cool...

So as usual we got on the subject of yoga and the benefits of it. This past weekend I was in Colorado climbing a mountain (cause that's what I do). I repelled up and down the whole thing twice, I mean three times. Fine!  we just hiked up and once we were there we played yoga at the way top. Cause that's what I really do.

While I was there I asked my Colorado friend (who shall not be named, just like Voldemort) what the obesity situation was in Colorado. I was thinkin', judging from that hike, it had to be better than Philadelphia. Our version of the FlatIrons (named for not anvil looking type things) is the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. One time, long long ago in a movie called Rocky, Sylvester Stallone climbed them and since then, judging by the obesity rate in Philly (here's a fun fact friends: Colorado is the only state that hasn't had a 20% increase in obesity over the past 10 years, Pennsylvania... not so much) , it seems to be the exercise of choice. One time, up the steps and you're all good. Fat but damn good!

So as we are discussing this very disturbing issue my Mommy tells us that there are recent studies that say that our military will be weakened by state of obesity in our country. Children are becoming so over weight that will not be able to serve.
I chimed in on the fact that overall Pennsylvania is one of the "over weight" states.
Our very funny friend Marnie said, (please put on a Jewish accent when you say this) "No surprise there! What with the funnel cake."

Don't even get me started on the funnel cake. And the fried oreos and the huge bowls of fries with the cheese covering it. I'm sorry (you know I'm not) that's just gross.

Children are important.
Here's my Top Ten Rules on Kids...
1. Love them
2. Teach by example
3. Set a good example
4. If you're their parent try and remember you are shaping their perception of life
5. Love them
6. Be their advocate cause probably no one else will
7. Love them
8. Teach them the art of kindness and compassion
9. Listen to everything they say.
10. Love them.

P.S. Lay off the funnel cakes. Food is not love. Exercise is love for yourself. Self love is important. Just ask Jerry, George, and Elaine.

Laughative

"What's a regular Joe?" Chase asked me this morning as he was getting ready to walk out the door to the bus. He had heard someone say it on the news that was on the tv in the kitchen.
"A regular Joe? It's just a normal guy. Just a person like anyone else," I answered.
"I don't think anyone is a regular Joe," he said.
Oh how that makes me smile.
"You don't? I know what you mean. No one is really 'normal', right?" I said.
"Especially not the people we know," he said.
This made me laugh.
"What? Are our people a bunch of kooks? (you know who you are)" I said.
"Yes. Especially your and Saige's friends," he continued, "You guys attract the crazies."
"What? Who? I want names. Name names," I demanded.
Then he rambled off a list as long as his arm.
"Oh. Fine. You got me..." I laughed.
"Well, it's not so much crazy as laughative," he said, backtracking now.
"Laughative?"
"Yes, you guys laugh all the time.  Every time Sue or someone comes over all you guys do is laugh. That's why I like hanging out with you," he said.

He shoots! He scores!
I love my baby boy.

Stalking My Own Daughter

I totally stalk my own kid. I stalk her on Facebook.  I don't think that's weird. It's the year 2010. Did you know that? Well it is and kids are busy on Facebook. They do all the Facebook "apps." That's probably the wrong word but I'm just the mother, what do I care? They all have a "Lover of the Day." I'm not even kidding. My eleven year old child (I mean twelve year old) has a "Lover of the Day." What in the hell is that?  A fantasy love interest? I thought you had to wait until you were married to get a hold of one of those. Apparently these days all you have to do is touch a button and there they are! I've seen other of my daughters friends that are my "facebook friends," with the same thing. Your lover could be a boy or a girl or maybe a fan page. I'm not positive about that one but one time I saw someone's "Lover of the Day," was a dog face. Cause that's not weird.

Besides "Lover of the Day," they all have long lists of "children" and who their "parents" are. I'll tell you what, I'm not listed on her Facebook page as parent. And I know for a fact that I am. That's more than I can say for my ex husband. I'm totally kidding! I'm pretty sure. I'm just kidding Mommy. I'm just entertaining myself now with this rambling bit of nonsense.

Like my old blog, I am going to bind this up and give my children a little taste of who I was to read about when I'm dead and gone. I like to think in my head that they are going to fight over it.
"No I want Mommy's blog!"
Then the other one will say, "But she mentioned me more! She loved me more! She told me all the time that I was her favorite."
And then Thing One will say, "YOU LIAR (All caps Dr. D. style) Mom loved me best! I was her favorite! She told me all the time."

Then at some point they will come to realize that I told them both that every day. Then they'll rip the blog book in half and it will gather dust from then until the end of time. With any luck, Mickey's great great great grandson will refrain from peeing on it.

I forget why I started this but I'm sure it was really important and I'm sorry (Sima and Sue) that I can't remember now.

I Will Miss That Tree

I have spent over eleven years living in my house. I know that because we moved in exactly two weeks before my son was born. He will be eleven on Monday.
Time flies.

I'm getting a divorce. My husband is moving in here with his girlfriend. I really don't care.
I liked my house for the time that I lived in here. I love my neighbor across the street. I love how close we were to the major highway that takes me other places. For a while I loved my new pool. I'm so ready to go now though. It's done. It's over. It's time to leave. I am so fine with it that it's almost weird.

 The good thing is that because I am fine with it my children are fine with it too. I found a way to make them excited about divorce. That's not easy, friends. It takes a little work, a lotta smiles, and the fact that you are going to live right across the way from four professional soccer players to get them all revved up.

So much has happened in the past year. Good things. Sad things. Bad things. It's all just life though, right? One big circle. Life and death. In between you gotta be happy. You have to figure out a way to make everything okay, even when it's not. You sure do if you're an adult and you have children. Children need you to smile. They need you to watch out for them. They need to watch you and make sure you're okay so they can be okay too. You need to do your very best job to not fuck them up even when everything else has seemingly gone crazy.  I think that is a mother's job and I take it very seriously.

My daughter asked me if I will miss our house. I could look her in the eye and say with complete honesty, "No." I will miss one thing about our house though. This is the truth. I will miss lying in my bed in the Spring time, looking out the window and seeing the pink Dogwood tree bloom.  It's a beautiful tree. It makes me happy when I know it's going to start blooming. Chase and Saige love it too. We talk about that tree when it's at it's best. It's so pink and fluffy that the petals look like cotton balls. It has grown so tall over the years that it blocks the whole second story window. It fills it with Spring. I'm glad this is the last thing I will remember missing when I move. It will remind me that trees bloom every year. It doesn't matter what happens to you in between. Just like the tides come in. The earth revolves and children grow older. (I'm getting older too) Life goes on.

I'm so excited.

Just Another Easter

We had a very traditional Easter this year. Well, kind of. On Saturday night Chase had a sleepover friend here. After I fell asleep they played the kitchen game and made each other drink raw eggs until apparently Chase threw up. So although technically, if we were using exact words that is, we didn't dye eggs. I think because there was still a non traditional use of them that must count for something.

Then on actual Easter Sunday, I made Chase and his buddy (cause Saige had stayed over Haleigh's house) pancakes. I chopped up little tiny Hershey's bars and put them in there for them. I believe they ate those and some starburst flavored jelly beans for breakfast.

Then my children went with my husband and his girlfriend to his parents house for the afternoon. All very normal.

Clearly with all these other activities we had missed our E portion of our traditional C&E religious happenings. As an alternative, Saige and Chase and I made the group decision to watch the new Twilight. We feel we made a good decision. It gave us the chance to talk about why Bella would choose a vampire over a werewolf which lead into the "you can't help who you love," discussion. Saige was clearly on "Team Edward," while Chase thought that was ridiculous and couldn't figure out why she wouldn't like Jason the very muscular werewolf. It is a toss up, isn't it? Jason's got that whole 8 pack abs, no shirt thing going for him, while Edward is pasty and you can barely hear what he's saying. The thing is, I think he's really the "bad boy." You can't be a teenage girl and not want the bad boy. It's like a rite of passage.

The teenage years are going to be scary. I think next year I'm really going to push the whole dying eggs thing again.

I Love Dogs

I really do. Sometimes my own drive me crazy cause they're messy and can be annoying and boss me around, but I love them so much.
I have had at least two dogs at a time since I was 24 years old. That's a long time in dog years when you consider I am 40 now. And in that time, always, at least one of them, and most of the time more were big huge german shepherd dogs. I love a German Shepherd. I also love Huskies and Golden Retrievers and Beagles and Jack Russells and Bulldogs, oh and Pugs. I love Pugs. And of course whatever kind of dog animal creature that Mickey is. I love him best of all right now. I'm not sure what he really is, but he's cute as a button.  I really love all dogs. Except Poodles. I don't quite get the whole Poodle thing. I do like when they are mixed with other dogs so they're not straight Poodle. Like a dash of olive juice. If a Poodle has a little dash of that I can deal with them.
My last big huge German Shepherd dog, Lucy, died about a month ago. It makes me so sad. I am getting ready to move into a town house and I can't get another big huge German Shepherd dog right now. Although it wasn't always easy with her, she was a big furry shedder, and rambunctious, she got in the trash, she had seizures, she also bit a couple people (which is never fun) although that was years ago and I don't think should count anymore.
 Even with all that, I loved her so much. I could take her running early in the morning or at night and not worry anything would happen to me (cause she's a biter, remember?). If I was sad I could wrap my arms around her and bury my head in her furry back and she would patiently wait for me to be done, every time I said her name her tail would wag, she understood full sentences of what I was saying to her, and in all the time I owned her I never locked a door to my house. It just wasn't necessary. Honestly to this day, I don't own a front door key. It's a good thing I'm moving.
Years ago I promised myself that when my current dogs/creatures "go," I will never get another one. It's to hard. Seeing them get sick and worrying about them, is so hard. I had one dog, years ago, named Buddy, that I still cry about when I talk about him. That pain doesn't ever seem to go away.
It's just I love them all. Maybe it's the energy that surrounds them. It's so pure. I have a big thing about energy and chemical reactions to people. Does that extend to dogs? I know my friend Lisa's dog "talks" to me. He really does. He doesn't do it to anyone else. He sees me. Right Lisa?
 I have started spending a lot of time with my dog creature, Mickey, in the dog park. I love going there. Mickey tolerates it. He doesn't really care either way. It's me that wants to go and see all the dogs. I love to watch them play. I love to see the relationships with their owners, I love to see how they react to one another. I think it's fun. It almost fills that need I have to get another dog.
Almost...
Just kidding Mom. I promise. Kind of.