Priorities

This is my sweetie, meddling. JP turned one year old and is busier than ever. So, am I. The girls stay with me five days a week and while I had considered returning to work, I have no time. At this point, working outside my home looks like picking up overnight shifts and sleeping five hours before receiving the baby.

While I know people do this, it is not the best plan for having free available attention on a regular basis. No, there is not time for a nap as after school pick up is at 2:40 pm. Then snacks, play, review of day, dinner, baths, relax, and bedtime. The girls stay overnight twice a week as well.

We are back up at 6:45 am to prepare for school drop off for the kindergartner and wreaking havoc for the baby. In a world of free exploration, there are no playpens. Or, without playpens baby wreaks havoc. Either way, I live in a daycare. I provide a happy, healthy, safe environment for my grand-daughters to grow and explore the world.

With this goal in mind, I realize it is time to reshape my budget to adjust to the income I presently earn, rather than the one I had planned to bring home.

By commitment, I give 10% first. In the past I was saving 10%, then paying bills with the rest. As I barely earn what covers my expenses, I have saved less. Thankfully, my savings will serve as a safety net should the need arise (to pay bills). I have run up a bit of debt compensating for my lack of income, but am paying it off consistently.

This blog is dedicated to my process of enjoying my life outside of being a wage slave. So, I've been managing on two days work a week, some part-time contract office work, and online earnings. I cashed in my i-Say points for $10 gift card and am working toward my next $25 PayPal gift card with Swag bucks. When I need something I search Amazon first because I keep a credit there (through Swag bucks) and use Swag bucks to place orders (shop and earn) then PayPal to pay for them, unless I have a gift card for the store. Finally, I have a gold bracelet I am going to sell this week. I rarely wore it. The saddest part of selling jewelry is that I cannot get back what the giver paid for it.

In what spare time there is, I drink beer and crochet on cool evening. In the picture up top, JP is wearing her new slippers. Generally, I write in my head. By the time I get back to paper or computer I have forgotten what I thought. Life is busy, hectic even. My time is filled with love and laughter, cookies and tea, and little girls who love ribbons and bows or sticks and mud.

Nap time ends in a minute...

Make today a great day!!!

Namaste

Harder than I've Ever Worked

My Garden Grows

I quit my job so I could write, travel and drink beer. No sooner than I had returned from San Francisco, my family called me to come "home" and tend my father and brother. My mother had been ill for several months, but was in the hospital and had received a terminal diagnosis. Since then I have been traveling between my personal space (home) and the world of my family of origin.

It has been an emotional roller coaster and I have a series I have been working on called, Notes From the Rabbit Hole. It addresses the insanity I have experienced for the last four months. I have been cooking, cleaning, and sorting in the world I left in 1977. There is more stuff than I could ever imagine. My mother died on March 2 and my father said, throw it all out. No way! There is incredibly cool stuff to share, pass along, or add to my collection of things I really, really need.

I've washed dishes more times in these four months than I have probably in the last three years. I schedule my chores for once a week and make due. But to keep my father from getting up at 6 AM to do dishes, I emptied the sink each night. The recycle staff know me by name. There is a facility that will shred confidential papers while I watch and wait, so I am there every week. We are clearing from 1995, sometimes earlier.

I am traveling. Guess I should have specified where. Some weeks I come home on Monday and return on Tuesday. Today I am home until April as my DA and I will be traveling to San Francisco. I am so ready for both downtime and personal adventure.

I have a standing commitment to drink beer with a friend. It started as Tears and Beer. I needed a place to release the overwhelming feelings and what I thought was my major support failed. I was expected to find levity, but there is a time to laugh and a time to cry. I needed to cry - to weep and wail, bitch and moan.

And I am writing. Not always posting, but my pen finds paper and words flow forth. It takes both time and space to write consistently. Thinking happens on the fly. Sometimes I make notes, but there is work to be tended. No job I have ever held required as much effort as this process and yet, it is precisely because I understand how to get things done that this has gone as well as it has.

Making Sauerkraut

In the midst of all these changes, I continued to make my yogurt. I experimented with Milk Liqueur and have three batches of sauerkraut fermenting. Even while I am away from home, my garden blooms. I have been blessed with five months to spend time with my dying mother, reconnect with my siblings, and help my father reorder his space for this new phase in life. There is still the visit with my daughter and travel with my grand-daughter yet to come. My life is full and I am blessed.


I opportunity was offered and I accepted the time and space to live freely.

My favorite coffee - Cafe Bustelo

Legacy

I am adult child sorting out my life. Not that I am a child - by no means. But this time away from working has been filled with family situations. My frequent journeys back to my childhood home have both enlightened me to issues that span generations and opened a deeper passion to love and be honest with my children. I have lived by this principle long before their births, but in those moments when I deeply disagree with their life choices, I am reminded that I taught them to think for themselves and to live life fully. Who am I to direct their paths? They are adults and I would not leave them a legacy of hoping for my love and acceptance. They have it - given freely and daily.

I have lived much of my life outside of the parameters of my childhood teachings. I began in opposition until I found a way to separate from their teachings and identify what I believe. Every step was a struggle for and movement away from religious indoctrination came with the threat of eternal damnation. But worse, life was outside the umbrella of grace. Easy, how all that just comes back. A word here, a thought there, and a whole new clearing mission begins. These are not the teachings of love, compassion or understanding. This is the imposition of fear.

When I travel back I say nothing of my life that does not fit neatly into the standards. I speak lightly of my passion, which then sounds like mere interest. And I am not asked, nor do I share my thoughts. I am there to be of service and support. But what of here? Do I write under a pen name still protecting the tender egos of those who would so easily cast me into hell? Do I stifle my creativity because others may take offense? Am I destined to shun the light that the dark may be preserved?

To know me, you would find these ridiculous questions. And yet, time, maturity, and the quiet have spoken in a different voice. Having given up my brazen outlandish behaviors and chosen the comfort of home, I wonder now at the cost of this next step on my path. I will take it for sure, but with forethought to the consequences.

“While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.” Stephen Covey