katiemae_days

freewriting randomness

Well, not being twenty something anymore or for that matter thirty something, sleep is among my list of essentials for feeling energized and well being able to think. This week, I experienced not one but two nights of insomnia. Oh, I'm not gonna whine and go on about lack of sleep but man I will say  I was toast and not crisp perfectly toasted toast either more like a piece of toast that fell in the sink and got wet.  I've been able to function fairly well actually, but thinking, coming up with any sort of rational answer or finishing a thought yeah perhaps there I could do better. So here's to trying to write.

Day one after little sleep went pretty darn well. I took my girl to swim lessons which by the way rock. More on those soon. We then came home to meet our good friends who were coming to spend the day. The girls played and us mamas talked and talked all afternoon. That night, my friend over at "Sweating the Small Stuff" and I went to see Julie and Julia. I'm reading the book too. Usually, I'd not read the book and see the movie at the same time but I expected to have finished the book by now. Trouble is, I put it down somewhere and can't find it. Must have been sleep deprived then too. The movie was sweet and light and perfect for a 'girls' night at the movies.

The funny thing about all of this insomnia..I found out I am not alone in my awakened in the middle of the night blues. I've talked to four or five women who are experiencing the same. Hormones raging? What the heck is going on? 

At 5:45 am Tuesday morning, after my second night of little sleep, I went to core boot camp at the park. Glad I did. Got my bootay kicked with about 1000 lunges in every different variation one could imagine. Somehow, the sleep deprivation had not yet kicked in fully and I could lunge and push-up right along side my boot-camp peers. My  friend in class who was also not sleeping this week recommended Melatonin, a somewhat natural wonder helpful for calming one's mind before bed and allowing deep sleep to set in. Sounded good to me.

Part of the problem I recognize.. each night when I've hit the sheets, my mind has been anything but quiet. There I was rolling from one side to the other all the while analyzing web code in my head. CSS2 to be exact. Configuring layouts in my mind. What has happened to me! I guess bedtime has become my time to create. I dream of my future portfolio, the colors, the type, the layout...ooh stop me now before I get too racy.

Seriously, though it was hours before I fell asleep and when I finally did enter the land of nod at I'm guessing 1am, my husband woke me up on climbing into bed at three. Yep, he's a night owl and was for hours prior in his office recycling papers and organizing. Let me please, not touch that with a ten-foot pole. Suffice it to say, the man is a collector. And a good one at that. Anyway, I woke up when he got in bed and fell asleep subsequently snoring in a matter of 3 seconds and me well I could not fall back asleep.

Finally, Tuesday night I fell asleep at 9:45pm and slept all through the night. No melatonin just me being bone tired forced me into slumber. I couldn't think straight anyway, so my mind was definitely quiet. Yesterday, after my restful night's sleep I swear I was more tired then any of the previous days. I think the sleep deprivation set in. Still, we had a good day. I rallied what energy I had and powered through. By 8:30pm, I was fast asleep and again slept through the night.

I think I know what my insomnia is about besides some drive to code web pages in my head. I am choosing this time to work out any kinks or pondering our job situations, plans for growing my work-life, my little one entering a new school. Truth is, I feel positive and good about all of these changes but somehow whatever natural questions and what ifs come to mind I carry with me toward insomnia. Time to get off that train headed for mind-numbing exhaustion.

I've not yet hit the bottle of melatonin but its there when I need a little calming potion for any leftover kinks from the day that might pull me away from slumber.

For now, back to regularly scheduled sleep and sweet dreamin. Sweet dreams to you too.

green is the color...

Green, Green my favorite color. green in almost every shade is a color that for me resonates down deep. Sitting in my yard, taking in the variation in shade and tint of luscious green grounds me down. I dreamed as a kid of living in a cottage  surrounded by plants and trees, flowers and shrubs wild yet not un-kept.  There, in the cottage I imagined lots of windows and doors with views and openings to the outdoors free and easy, that would make the the line between outside and in murky. Flowers growing tall and wild, paths within. I painted a scene from this dream when I was in college and have the picture still in my to frame pile.

We live now in a sort-of cottage more like a super old sort of craftsman with a garden growing a little bigger each year. The lines between outside and in are not so murky..call it the architecture of the early 1900s. Still, we do have lots of windows from where we can enjoy our garden when inside. With flowers growing particularly tall this year and more plants added to my wild beds, I'm feeling a little bit of my childhood dream come to life. My architectural tastes have changed a little since then but my love for lushness outside has not. Oh green, how you make me feel so good.

So, in honor of my favorite color and the practicality of eating more of our summer's garden harvest, my girl and I cooked up a tribute to green in the name of fried green tomatoes and zucchini and fresh braised kale. We had a dear friend for dinner to celebrate green. Well I didn't actually say I that when I invited her but now looking back clearly that's what this evening was about.

I know making excuses for lame photos is unnecessary but I am making excuses . I miss having a more stealth camera where I can play with aperture and speed and move beyond auto. I'm shooting with a tiny point and shoot that I'm having fun with while saving still for my DSLR with an additional lens. I still experiment as I can but I dream of the camera to be in my hands soon. Come on ebay!

So what's on the green plate which by the way is my favorite piece of pottery we own?  Fried green tomatoes made with one brandywine heirloom tomato  and zucchini both picked by my girl right before our cooking session. Green tomatoes I don't particularly enjoy raw and well zucchini either so I went ahead and dipped the green delectables in egg and cornmeal until I ran out of the latter and switched to polenta. I fried them very lightly in grapeseed oil and served them up hot. We ate french green olives and us big girls drank a glass of Malbec to round out the suite of the pre=pork roast and kale main course.

 

 

Honestly, I cringe a little to look at these photos because they don't do the taste justice and I don't have a lot of time right now to dress them up in Photoshop. I have a slice of time to myself this hour and the photos are as is because of that. Suffice it to say the greens were finger-licken good. The pork roast rocked too dressed  with rosemary from our garden and garlic. 

So there, our anthem to green and our garden and sharing the bounty with dear friends.

of hollyhocks and fairies

Ok so we just got back from one of my favorite places on earth, yes earth I said. I know that sounds dramatic but I feel this way about Mazama, WA. If you've been reading my blog this summer, you know may how I feel about Colorado. Mazama, just outside the North Cascades National Park reminds me of Colorado. The mountains are nothing short of magnificent, rising high, jagged as they meet the sky. Glacial Lakes, look like emeralds among this beautiful landscape. I love this part of Washington and have often dreamed the wanderluster that I am of living in this area someday. I quiet down here perhaps in the simplicity of the surrounds, the basic beauty of what is.

We set off this past Sunday to visit friends who are building a cabin in the magical woods around Mazama. I was proud of myself for packing lighter for this road trip than in any past. But for the love of Pete, I forgot the doggone camera. So do I have pictures of our hike along Windy Pass in the rain? Nope. Or my girl and her pal dressed up like the Ingalls girls playing in the Big Woods of Mazama? Nope. Or my girl feeding our friend's baby boy? Nope....Or hmm how about our needle felting lesson around the picnic table outside the cabin where my girl and her pal and yes me the mama learned to make hair and faces for their new dolls? And that would be a nope...again..So no pictures to share from our weekend in the mountains. I guess this set was solely for my mind's album of snapshots.

For now, I'm sharing pictures taken from my garden today. These hollyhocks well they send me. There's something magical about these big pink blossoms bursting from their tall green stalk. Not hard to wander why Jack wanted to climb his beanstalk. If not in Mazama to find my inner quiet, well there's always my garden. I can wanderlust all day long right here where I am and climb the hollyhock stalk for a little afternoon break-away.

 

 

 

See that rock? Well there's a little slice of Mazama. And though I was hesitant at first to take the rock, I did make sure it was ok for me to snag it, legal and all that and most of all not damaging to the natural order of things up their high in the hills. And this small boulder was from the roadside not the trail and definitely not the National Park so I felt even better about my find. Now there's a little justification for bringing a little slice of wonder right here at home.

There's more of a story attached to this rock than I can share right now. But know this, this rock that now sits in my garden ready for ground cover to crawl all over it is a reminder for how grateful I am to be where I am and for who is in my life.

Bees and butterflies are everywhere. Seems that we've created a wildlife habitat among these wondrous stalks, the lavender and salvia too. My girl snapped this photo of a bumble bee loving his/her way through the butterfly bush.

 

And finally, a glimpse of our afternoon fairy housebuilding under the butterfly bush. We wanted to let the fairies know we were home. Ahhh what magic it is to wander along with my girl right here in our own front yard.

fear and the art of being uncomfortable....

Presenting Live: another post from my streaming consciousness. This one on fear at least that's wha'ts on my mind right now.

I wrote about fear awhile back in this post. One thing I love about writing this blog is whoa mama does it provide the opportunity to see where I've been, what the heck I've been thinking about and yes what I've been doing. I reread the post to know where in my mind I was May 14, 2009. In reading back, I gave myself a good reminder of my tools and a little encouragement to keep walking towards what scares me. Putting into words that which scares me is still hard. I think mostly because I don't know how to put words to it.

Are you confused yet? I might be. Anyway, I digress..

I started exercising more regularly recently, meeting with a group of peeps early early in the morning at nearby park that sits right on the water. We work out..more specifically we work our core. I love this time for myself, for my body, to for my mind. I am feeling the burn quite certainly while I try to do one more plank style push-ups or raise that 15lb kettle bell for one more repetition. I am treating myself to this class because I know I need it. I like moving, exercising and being strong and for awhile I've been more removed from that place than I would like. I know for me the discipline of having to be somewhere at a certain time and having an expert provide the exercises that will help me strengthen my core works even if it costs a little.

I write about exercise for a couple of reasons. One is that to exercise as I mentioned helps me feel strong in my mind and body and what better way to walk towards fear than with a little more strength. Core strength for mind and body. Secondly, exercise promotes endorphins and well let's face it  they make me feel goo--ood. I guess while working my core deep this morning, I stirred a few emotions: a little fear, uncomfortableness and yes excitement.

I have loved so far our summer. Not working and being available to my girl. I love the freedom of loose schedules of hanging out at home, the park or beach or making play-date trades with other friends. I love our ability to hit the road if we feel like or stay home and take walks around the block to search for fairy treasures or do art all day. I realize this summer is somewhat luxurious and a first for me in a long set of years that I haven't worked outside our home. I like it this way. Somehow, whatever work I create having summer-freedom feels important to the design of that next paying gig.

So back to the topic at hand...fear and the art of being uncomfortable. When it comes to this journey in my transition well the edges of these two emotions are quite water. Deciphering one emotion from the other is not easy. I think of late I've been feeling a little bit uncomfortable with the unknowns of being with out a traditional job mean right now and yes that can lead to fear.  I continue to feel for the most part positive and trusting in my intuition that things will fall into place as long as I keep stepping toward what feels right.

I am working very part-time right now and from home designing a website here and there. I've had to learn new web skills fairly quickly to build even a basic website and that has given me a jolt of uncomfortableness and yes even the much dreaded feeling of stress. Yet, now a week into a new website design and build I'm feeling proud of learning some new skills and ready to take on a little more. I'm wiser now knowing and admitting I love the design part of web development more than the build though I like understanding and figuring out the code that makes good web design.

Being uncomfortable in this gig that I also am enjoying quite a lot too has given me the opportunity to pause and take stock in what I love. I love to design. I love to write. I love to take pictures and always I want to be exercising these passions in my life avocationally or otherwise. What I also love is to listen to people and help them reach down inside to figure out their calling or goal in the short-term or long. So what to do with that. Well, I think I'm getting somewhere with it. I use to work as a career counselor and while I don't want to go back to that particular specific job, there are parts of that work I love and  know are a core part of what drives me. That is listening to stories from daily life. Truly, a passion. So at this new place in my life, I'm looking at piecing what I love from past work in a new direction. I am reluctant to say yet what it is because I'm in the midst of researching the nuts and bolts. I have to make decisions soon and take some big steps and commit to a little more training. I know I'm feeling more ready to get back to earning towards the family pot in a more substantial way but in ways to flow right for my family as a whole. 

Uncomfortable? Yes, a little as I walk through this transition. It can get hot in here--but the visual is so strong for me to not turn back to what I know but rather keep walking through the fear toward what is new in possibility and opportunity.

I'll write it out very soon. For now, I can shake a little more fear and uncomfortableness out as I put it out there in this blog. Vague still as it may be.

Thanks for tuning in.

weekending around...

The record high temperatures from last week seem to have gone back from where they came and degrees more usual for this time of year have made their way to the great Northwest. Here's a few shots from our weekending around. The Papa has been away for a week at a training in Montana. I love Montana but my girl and I opted to stay and town and create our own set of adventures. Which we did..

Saturday, we head to the beach north of here and spent the day searching for rocks and shells and other treasures. My girl is all about planning and building houses for the fairies right now well that and "Little House on the Prairie" books. More on this in a separate post.

And while you may think this a plastic pool, well really its my new watering can. You see, our town has put an emergency water restriction into effect.  Due to high levels of algae in our main water source, city officials have put the ca-bash on watering landscapes. So, with the pool water sufficiently  inundated with grass and bugs and dirt, I'm re-purposing the pool water for use on our edible gardens and trees and native plants the Papa sells from time to time.

Once the night air made her presence, my girl and I got to watering and checking on our gardens. There's one thing about unseasonably hot temperatures not usually experienced in these parts, the sun has infused a major growth spurt into our edibles. I'm sure the goat manure compost and rich soil don't hurt either. But our purple cauliflower one-half this size last week was ready for harvest. And as we peeked and through the wilds of our overgrown vegetable beds we found the cutest, fuzziest edamame pods just beginning to form, cucumbers on the vine and our brandywine tomatoes growing bigger by the day.

 

Well there you have it, a snapshot into our weekend. The Papa is home, my girl is thrilled and has set making all sorts of exciting plans with her favorite dude. Tales of fairy house building and Little House days to come.

Happy Monday....