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I've decided that I need to start structuring what I put on here so that I don't go weeks without posting anything at all or just wandering around and reading all of your blogs and not doing anything of my own, so here's my new weekly installment: Thursday's Cool Site of The Week!
I spend so much time surfing the web I think I have a massive Cyber Sunburn by now so I figured sharing some of the cool stuff I find with you guys would be fun! (that and I think my husband is getting a little tired of the "honey come look at this cool stuff that you don't know what it is and it's going to take me an hour to explain it to you" right when he gets home)
Anyone else who wants to try this go right ahead I would love to see what you guys find out there in Cyber Space.
So here's what I found this week!
I'm looking at starting a new hobby. Ok, this isn't so much a new hobby as a really in depth combination of a bunch of them. As some of you know I've been flirting around the edges of gardening (a moment of silence for Tom the tomato plant, you were valiant to the end my friend) and have recently taken up making my own herbal teas. Well now I'm going to take that a step farther and actively begin learning about herbalism (and not just as a player skill in World of Warcraft, lol). It is something that I have long sat back and wished I knew more about. I would love to have that kind of skill at my fingertips and it's about time I got off of my overly rounded patootie (yeah even geeks use that word sometimes) and did something about it. Oh and by the way I want to give a huge shout out to my friends over at Diving Women and their new virtual bonfire forum. They have given me a lot of resources and advise for getting my own herb garden going inside this winter and how to plan for the spring!
So far I have not found any live classes in my area, which has stymied me a bit (and if anyone out there knows of any in the California Inland Empire area I beg you to give me a shout out with the 4-1-1) but I have found a solution that I feel is workable. They have different stuff for different skill levels and a forum community that you can ask questions and is populated by a bunch of really skilled people.
I have actually found an awesome online site called HerbMentor.com that provides videos along with the intructions and work in a multimedia type setting. There are a lot of really cool aspects of the site and I think that for a remote learning experience it will be the best available. That and at 10 bucks a month it won't break our budget. That and they offer a 10% discount on bulk herbs from their affiliate shop to members so it has extra perks, which rocks because I have a hard time finding bulk herbs in my area and they sell them by the pound and have a HUGE selection.
So for a ton of reason's HerbMentor.com is my Cool Site of The Week!
Thursday, December 2, 2010
travel Log 12-2: 30 Days of Truth, Day 4
Day 04 → Something you have to forgive someone for.
Probably one of the biggest things I need to work on about myself would be learning to forgive people that I never really met. I need to forgive my biological parents for not being different people and not keeping me. I can't know what was going on with them, or what the situation was. I was adopted the day after I was born, and it was arranged from a month before my birth. I need to learn how to forgive someone without really know why they did what they did to need the forgiveness. That isn't as easy as it sounds....
Probably one of the biggest things I need to work on about myself would be learning to forgive people that I never really met. I need to forgive my biological parents for not being different people and not keeping me. I can't know what was going on with them, or what the situation was. I was adopted the day after I was born, and it was arranged from a month before my birth. I need to learn how to forgive someone without really know why they did what they did to need the forgiveness. That isn't as easy as it sounds....
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Travel Log 12-1: 30 Days of Truth Day 3
Day 03 → Something you have to forgive yourself for.
For me the answer that has the most meaning would be that I need to forgive myself for being selfish, or what I see as selfish.
I can say with complete integrety and depth of meaning that I have abandonment issues. MASSIVE abandonment issues. How this ties into this post you'll see in just a moment.
My 2 older children were from a previous (extreemly failed, trust me) relationship and are not biologically my husband's. That relationship broke down shortly after my oldest had to have heart surgery at 9 months old and before my daughter was born but was on the way. The court battles for my oldest and, as then, unborn daughter began almost immediately. My ex's family was vindictive and controlling to an absurd degree. My entire family was dragged through the mud, police were unleashed upon our household almost weekly, in summary it was a nightmare.
The end result was that we would split custody 50/50. One week with me, one week with them. Now they live over 3 hours away and so I had absolutely no way to check on the kids and they refused to answer the phone when I called.
My son started going when he was just over a year, and my daughter when she was 3 months old.
As you can imagine this had my abandonment issues rearing their heads pretty quick. And I ran and hid. I stopped bonding with my children as closely as I could. I went to school. I socialized.
Don't get me wrong, I was there. I loved them and held them. Took care of them when they were sick, but was I as close to them as I could have been? No. I kept that one careful step back because letting them go to their father broke me apart every time. Every time after I let them go I would be huddled in the corner crying for hours( I know there are thousands of moms who face the same thing all the time with a lot more grace and courage, but those are things I'm working on learning and had no grasp of 9 years ago).
Now I'm trying to rebuild that bond that I let slip away years ago. They don't go to their father's as often anymore (for various reasons), and we're slowly but surely getting to where we should be.
But the loss of that time will always be, to me, a supreme act of selfishness that I can never make up for but must learn how to forgive.
For me the answer that has the most meaning would be that I need to forgive myself for being selfish, or what I see as selfish.
I can say with complete integrety and depth of meaning that I have abandonment issues. MASSIVE abandonment issues. How this ties into this post you'll see in just a moment.
My 2 older children were from a previous (extreemly failed, trust me) relationship and are not biologically my husband's. That relationship broke down shortly after my oldest had to have heart surgery at 9 months old and before my daughter was born but was on the way. The court battles for my oldest and, as then, unborn daughter began almost immediately. My ex's family was vindictive and controlling to an absurd degree. My entire family was dragged through the mud, police were unleashed upon our household almost weekly, in summary it was a nightmare.
The end result was that we would split custody 50/50. One week with me, one week with them. Now they live over 3 hours away and so I had absolutely no way to check on the kids and they refused to answer the phone when I called.
My son started going when he was just over a year, and my daughter when she was 3 months old.
As you can imagine this had my abandonment issues rearing their heads pretty quick. And I ran and hid. I stopped bonding with my children as closely as I could. I went to school. I socialized.
Don't get me wrong, I was there. I loved them and held them. Took care of them when they were sick, but was I as close to them as I could have been? No. I kept that one careful step back because letting them go to their father broke me apart every time. Every time after I let them go I would be huddled in the corner crying for hours( I know there are thousands of moms who face the same thing all the time with a lot more grace and courage, but those are things I'm working on learning and had no grasp of 9 years ago).
Now I'm trying to rebuild that bond that I let slip away years ago. They don't go to their father's as often anymore (for various reasons), and we're slowly but surely getting to where we should be.
But the loss of that time will always be, to me, a supreme act of selfishness that I can never make up for but must learn how to forgive.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Travel Log 11-30: 30 Days of Truth, Day 2
Day 02 → Something you love about yourself.
While this one is a little harder for me I have to say that the truest answer would be my creativity. I love being able to make something, or transform it, or just generally think up silly stories for the kids. It is a large part of the joy in my life and a gift. My life has had a pretty fair amount of darkness in it, and I have spent my share of time hovering around the edges of despair, but being able to write, draw, and craft have pulled me back too many times to count.
While this one is a little harder for me I have to say that the truest answer would be my creativity. I love being able to make something, or transform it, or just generally think up silly stories for the kids. It is a large part of the joy in my life and a gift. My life has had a pretty fair amount of darkness in it, and I have spent my share of time hovering around the edges of despair, but being able to write, draw, and craft have pulled me back too many times to count.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Travel Log 11-29: Jumping on the Bandwagon
A lot of you out there are doing the 30 Days of Truth series, and after reading so many of your installments and how they have helped you I've decided to hop in.
So here's my first installment-
Day 01 → Something you hate about yourself.
This is a question that gets a lot of answers from me. I have a really hard time with self image and can't really say very much positive about myself without adding a disclaimer as to why it isn't so great after all. I can't remember a time when I wasn't like that and it drives my loved ones crazy. This is something I have been actively working on for some time, so some headway is being made, and blogging about my exploits here has definitely helped =).
But now that I've rambled on I would have to say that something I can be ok with hating about myself would be my over worked sense of perfectionism. I have a driving need to make things "perfect" but that doesn't really exist. Perfection is in the eye of the beholder and not universal. I will not be graded on my life or my creativity (that has become a bit of a mantra to me, lol). The more times I say it the better!
So here's my first installment-
Day 01 → Something you hate about yourself.
This is a question that gets a lot of answers from me. I have a really hard time with self image and can't really say very much positive about myself without adding a disclaimer as to why it isn't so great after all. I can't remember a time when I wasn't like that and it drives my loved ones crazy. This is something I have been actively working on for some time, so some headway is being made, and blogging about my exploits here has definitely helped =).
But now that I've rambled on I would have to say that something I can be ok with hating about myself would be my over worked sense of perfectionism. I have a driving need to make things "perfect" but that doesn't really exist. Perfection is in the eye of the beholder and not universal. I will not be graded on my life or my creativity (that has become a bit of a mantra to me, lol). The more times I say it the better!
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