Positive Vibrations

I need to be channeling Bob Marley in a big way. And not just in the weed smoking department.

I've been so negative that it's really slowing me down. This summer it seems has been one of constant stress, disappointment, frustration and rampant negativity. It doesn't help that on top of my own b.s. it seems many of my friends and family are having a tough time of it lately too. The media certainly doesn't help either. I usually make a point not to read the news (not having T.V. keeps me away from seeing it) just to keep my head out of the 'fear fog' as I like to call it. Now and again though I'll get sucked in by some perfectly horrid tag line out of crazy curiosity and I'm always sad I did. Sensationalistic headlines are rarely highlighting some wonderful achievement or some beautiful miracle. They are usually showcasing the dredges of humanity, some horrific event that has happened. And what I don't need is any more proof that people are strange and horrible. I really need to start focusing heavily on positivity and drawing that energy to me. Dwelling on my families problems and trudging through my own then drowning in the sea of sorrow that is humanity is just messing with my head. I've been fighting this depression that I know so well, it knocks on the door every so often and if I'm not careful it sneaks in and takes up residence on my mental couch. It's a rude house guest and I swore I'd never let it in again after the last time it crept in and kept up residence for two years straight. Now, that was some tough times. Nothing like now. Thank the Goddess. I shall endeavor to fight the good fight.

Well, that's enough of that. Moving on and moving up.
I do have some good news to report. I finally couldn't keep my thoughts to myself and I talked with my man about my baby issues/questions. He said all the right things. For a change of pace. It was such a relief, especially due to the fact that I had wicked PMS and the hormonal surges held me captive in a dingy on high seas. One big wave could have capsized my raft and thankfully he didn't. Again, for a change of pace. I'm being hard on him but historically...well, let's just say it's not usually that smooth. He's as excited about this next venture in our lives as much as I am (he wanted to have a baby all along, it's me that took 11 years of our relationship to decide I did too) so he is willing to make the sacrifices that come along with a baby. We're thinking we'll look more closely at planning a time to start 'trying' which is a funny way to put it. I guess it's more like we'll not concentrate on not getting pregnant. Whichever you prefer I guess. Firstly I've got to get some health questions answered and get in better shape. I need to get my blood sugar problems figured out so I don't have the risk of getting gestational diabetes. More on the doctor dilemma another day, that's another source of negativity that I want to stay away from today.

I am making some progress on the magick front. I spent all day last sunday with Swan having a great session and hanging out. She is such a grounding force in my life, a wonderful teacher, an inspiring friend and an all around kick ass human being. Her and her man are just simply wonderful. They always feed me new & exciting food and wines every time I see them. I've renewed my commitment to the study of Witchcraft and am actively working towards creating a daily spiritual practice. This is something I've been yearning for my whole life and never really implemented. Next time I post will be to give a detailed account of the prayer beads she had me make and all that goes with that exercise.

Alas, I've got to get ready to head to the cubicle maze that is my job so I'll have to get into that later which will be a nice break from whining about my problems. I'm sure all four of you who read this will be glad to move on too! Thanks for sticking in there with me~

Brightest blessings to you all and may the Goddess hold you close and whisper in your ear~

All is Love
Love is all
Blessed be.

Oooooh baby baby it's a wild world....

Let me just start by saying, I had other ideas for this blog. Because not many people have a real, true understanding of what Wicca/ Witchcraft/ Paganism is I don’t have hardly anyone in my life I feel comfortable talking about my training with. I wanted a way to catalog this amazing experience, maybe find an audience who can relate or expound upon what I’m going through. I never intended to make this a personal ‘boo-hoo’ blog. I’ve been careful about what I post cause we all know that once you put something up online it’s there. Maybe forever. And I also want to apologize if people are here to be a part of the Wicca/ Witchcraft/ Paganism dialog and are left wondering, what is all this crap about babies? Let’s talk about the moon and spells and such! Well, I’ll be getting back to that, I promise.

Right now? Today? My mind isn’t on those things.

I’m still in a funk about the baby question. Okay, don’t run screaming, we are going to go down that road again and I must warn you that I talk about my period at the end. There, I said it. Now……

I’ve been wondering lately about hormones. Fun topic huh? Well, it’s been a health concern of mine for so long I can’t hardly remember when it wasn’t. What’s troubling me right now is that I have been wondering if it isn’t hormones that is pressing this baby issue. Okay, I’ll back up and explain where this comes from. Right after I lost the baby last year I was still all a twitter with the pregnancy hormones which kept screaming “BABY BABY BABY” and had me convinced that as soon as we got the green light to go ahead with another pregnancy that we would be trying RIGHT AWAY. Well, better sense prevailed and we realized that we *still* had a lot of stuff to get in order before we trundled off down that road. Waiting was the right thing to do. Here we are, a year later and while we are getting closer to being ready to try again we’ve decided it’s best to wait till I get some of my health issues in order, till we are closer to moving near my parents (our volunteer daycare) and about a hundred other reasons. I believe I mentioned in a previous post how I’ve been agonizing about wanting to have the baby NOW….and then, at some point I began to ponder…is it really the best thing for us to get pregnant? Not just now, but ever?

Here’s the facts, and feel free to chime in with your ‘two cents worth’ cause I could really use some help here.

We are moving to be closer to my parents who have graciously offered to help watch our baby since it’s unlikely I’m not going to have to work. This is spectacular, right? Yes. It definitely is. The problem? It’s impossible to think that me having to work will be temporary when we’ll be trying to buy/build a house, have a baby, and transition into new jobs essentially all at once. I really don’t want to be a full time working mother, even if the daycare is my very own kick ass mom.

I don’t think I’ll be able to stand missing out on EVERYTHING. All of the times I was a nanny and I would get to see the first steps, hear the first word, get to cuddle with them as they napped, teach them new things, I would think to myself that if this were MY kid I wouldn’t miss that for the world. Now, to be fair, the people I worked for didn’t NEED to work, they chose to because they wanted MORE and weren’t content with less.

That will not be the case with us as we are not starting out with anything and wouldn’t be able to get by with even just the two of us on one income. So, I would be doing just what I always said I thought was fundamentally wrong. Having a baby that you can’t raise yourself. Why would someone do that? Because they want that baby and come hell or high water they will get it! Is it the best thing for the baby? No. I know that. All of my years in childcare tell me so. The kids suffer and that is a fact. Now, if we had gotten pregnant by ‘accident’ like before then it’s out of my control. But at this point we’re making a decision to have a baby. Different thing altogether. Plus, my parent’s can’t get stuck raising the baby full time. I’m sure my mom would love to help out especially in the beginning but she has stuff going on too and giving up everything to raise our baby long term isn’t right.

The other problem that has been plaguing me is that my man has always wanted to be an artist. He’s amazing at it. The problem there? Let me count the ways. Here’s a few, he’s made little to no contact with the art world and has absolutely no job prospects in this field. He would/will have to start from ground zero to make this happen and doesn’t want to try to work a full time job and do it in his off hours. He’s terrified of getting stuck in some job he doesn’t give a shit about just to put food on the table and never ending up realizing his full potential. I totally one hundred percent get that. We’re a little late in the game to wait to have a baby until his art career is lucrative enough to support our family. If that ever happens. The saying ‘starving artist’ isn’t just a cliché. It’s for reals. I know a ton of them. I’m surrounded by them. So is he going to resent me if we do go ahead with the baby and his art career doesn’t take off? Am I going to resent him for chasing his dream while I’m working 40 hr. weeks and missing out on our child’s childhood?

And then, there are others who say “you can’t over think this, just go for it and it will all work out.” Or, “you can’t plan for the future, you just do the best that you can.” All this is fine and good but is it the most responsible way to look at the choice to have a child? Even though, yeah, it would all likely turn out just fine. I think most of the world gets pregnant by surprise. But I also know that it makes it really tough. I know a hundred families who have/are struggled/struggling through unplanned children. Many relationships don’t survive. Dreams of art careers die. Mothers end up working through their children’s childhoods.

And so I’m right back to where I started, do I really want to have a baby or is my body simply following historical protocol by tricking me, telling me it’s time to procreate against all odds? Do the cons to having a baby outweigh the pros? The answers my head gives me are different than the ones my heart is giving me. I was a week late ‘starting’ this month and I was completely torn 50/50. One part of me was really really hoping that maybe I was *magically* pregnant (therefore releasing me from this huge decision) and the other part of me was scared and sad that I haven’t gotten my health taken care of and for all the other above mentioned reasons. And when I finally started? There was a part of me that was disappointed. I’m a freakin’ wreck.

Advice?

Discuss.

Love Hoodie Love

I always get such fascinating tidbits from one of my favorite blogs:

Lady Lavona's Cabinet of Curiosities (you'll find her in my sidebar of blogs that I follow)

And just look at what she's turned me onto now!

The designer's name is Lindsey Thornburg:

This woman has done what I've lusted over forever- a HOODIE CLOAK.

In three different lengths no less!!! The mid length is the cutest me thinks and I WANT I WANT I WANT ONE!!! Of course as she is a designer one can only purchase her things at boutiques and only in New York apparently.

So I did what any sensible (read: sewing & monetarily challenged) girl would do in this situation. I asked my grandma to make one for me.

Because, while I have every intention of one day learning how to sew I'm not kidding myself by thinking it will be any time real soon and I would desperately love to have one of these by Autumn!! We'll see what she says, my grandmother is a freakin' whiz at all types of sewing though she usually insists that she have a pattern to make it perfect.

I'll have to make sure I purchase my very own fabric though because while she can sew a sweater for the devil himself and make it adorable she has the WORST taste in fabric & colors. I keep telling her that while I appreciate all of the things she has knitted/sewn for me over the years that if she would just make everything BLACK it will be a winner for sure (read: no longer banished to totes in the storage unit). What was the very next thing I received? A pastel pink & mint green knitted throw. Bleck.

If I had to pick one color actually can't stand it would be pink. Pretty much everything she makes for me is some shade of pink. And since she is a bargain shopper to beat all she usually picks up her yarn/fabric out of the clearance bin so not only is it pink it's usually some insanely hideous shade of pink that no other human being wanted.

Oh, I hope I hope I hope she'll make it for me...I should look around online and see if I can find a pattern for this...

p.s. don't hate me for getting excited about Autumn already, I'm in the minority here, I know. At least Giggly is with me on this!

La Mer

I'm missing the ocean.

We went camping this weekend and I did get to float down a fantastically lazy river.....

Alas, all it did was make me miss the ocean even more.

I miss the sound of the waves, the vastness of the sea-as far as the eye can see, the cool salty spray, the plaintive cry of the gulls, the sound of my feet as they make their way across the sand....

I hope one day I will get to live near the sea~

Baby Brain

On the subject of my summer funk-

(Sorry for those of you who are tired of me musing about my quasi- depression)

I’ve been noticing that there is one thing on my mind an awful lot. I’ll give you a couple of hints:

They cry a lot.

They are irresistibly cute.

They must be fed, dressed, changed, molded and loved 24-7.

No, it’s not another husband…

Of course it’s babies.

And for those of you who know through blogging or from our personal relationship, we lost a baby a little over a year ago. What is strange to me is that while I’ve always loved babies and have been a babysitter/nanny off & on since before puberty I never thought I wanted to have my own kids. This sentiment carried on until I actually got pregnant and then I reassessed my reasoning and realized that I do want a baby, what I did not want was to be a shut-in mom like so many I had known before. (It’s such a long convoluted story and I think I already covered this in a subsequent post..)

Suffice to say, I’m on the baby train now. And what makes it even more appealing is that I am working a job that is not physically demanding, has amazing benefits with ample maternity leave. The hang up? We don’t want to have a baby and then immediately after the maternity leave is up ship it off to daycare. My mom has graciously offered to be our daycare when we do have a baby but it’s got to be when we are all finally living in the same state. Now, this is the plan, we are counting on it and working towards it but we are all at least a year off from moving. The husband and I are waiting for our company to relocate and give us our severance package before we move. My parents have had their house up for sale for nearly a year now trying to move....Who knows when this will all come together…

Everyone I see these days either has a newborn baby or is pregnant. My ovaries keep telling me “Just do it. Go for it. You’re ready now. Do it.”
And then my brain says, “What the hell is wrong with you? You’ve got to think this out and do it when the time is right. You can’t afford daycare, you don’t want to send your newborn baby to be raised by a stranger, you don’t know when the company is shutting down so get a grip on yourself sister!”

And so, in protest, my ovaries are staging a riot. They keep barraging my brain with thoughts of babies. Constantly. I find myself feeling resentful of others who do have babies. I feel like the ‘Grinch Who Stole Christmas’, my heart feels very small and lumpy when I find myself being resentful of other people’s happiness. Especially about babies, I feel like some sort of monster.

I had heard about women like me, I certainly never thought I would be one. And yet here I am, getting weepy over cute baby clothes, scowling at pregnant women, talking myself into & out of getting pregnant right now….it’s all so messed up. I buy baby stuff if it’s super duper cute and really cheap. I’m convinced when I do have a baby it’s going to be a girl so if that’s not the case then someone better have one cause I’ve amassed a little pile….

And though I’ve kind of sort of talked to my mom & my man about all of this I feel so….embarrassed about it I just keep it to myself mainly. I really really want a baby but in order for that to happen right now everything needs to be drastically different. I find myself being snippy with my man and I wonder if I’m not feeling resentful on some deeper level that he’s not as ready as I am? He wants a baby too but he isn’t feeling the big push I am. He keeps telling me he’s got to get his career figured out first and get some financial stability before we get pregnant. Before we actually got pregnant he was the one who was excited for us to get pregnant. Is he scared we’ll lose another baby? How long does he think we have to do this? We’re getting older every day and the thought of having our child graduate high school right around our 80th birthdays is not appealing.

Is this all hormonal? Is this all just yet another cruel trick played out on us women? Are we helpless against the onslaught of our hormones and our conditioning? Is it cellular memory to want to have babies?

Shit, it’s just too damn hot today to continue to ruminate on such things…
Thanks for sticking in there with me as I sort through this mess~