Spring Flowers!

I've been going to the chiropractor every week since I got back from our trip.  My sacrum is out of whack and it really hurts.

After an adjustment I take a walk in Child's Park in Northampton to let the adjustment settle in before I get into my car.

It has been sweet to see the shrubs and flowers opening up in the bright sunlight.

A flowering Quince

F

A Magnolia with huge blossoms!

Bright bluets and crabapple buds.

In Cambridge today while Lily’s science class is spending the morning in a lab at MIT making lego cars. I’m in a café where I just got settled and then found out they turn off the WIFI from 11-1 for lunch hour. Oh well.

Adjustment back to life from vacation was a bit jarring (what a suprise!) I was in Boston all last weekend with another wonderful installment of my aromatherapy training. I left home at 6am and spend the day in a windowless room with wonderful women learning about the science and magic of oils. I spent the night at my parent’s which was fun and I got to bed at 9:30 and slept like a log before heading to my next day of aromatherapy. We got 8 new oils. I love the cypress. I’ll get to know the others which have alot of antibacterial properties; good for room sprays, diffusers and hand sanitizers. My teacher Kathy Duffy LPN reports she hasn’t been sick with a cold or flu since she started using essential oils many years ago. I’m ready for that. They work by boosting your immune system and killing the bacteria/viruses/fungus that make us sick.

Then I finished up the semester with my nursing students. I had pledged to do no work on vacation so a big pile of responsibility met me at home and I am still recovering and digging out. I got home from Boston and prepared a lecture on “neonatal withdrawal from drugs in the hospital setting” which I gave three times to three different groups in one day; quite draining but fun to talk about something I (sadly) know a lot about from working on OB . Then I had last minute grading and filling out of evaluations which requires me to really organize, using different color post-its to figure out who passed in what and correcting last minute care plans which I abhor.

I have been teaching nursing students for the last 5 years. Mostly I have taught OB one day a week in the fall semesters. The school where I teach had really encouraged and then pleaded with me to get a master’s degree in nursing because I cannot continue teaching without one. They were going to pay for it and reiterated over and over again I would only have to be in school part time. People I work with are kind and helpful and whenever I talked to them I would think, “I should go back to school. They would pay for it!” Then before I even got home I would be thinking of all the reasons why I couldn’t/shouldn’t. It was one of those times when, if I took a moment to listen to myself, it was very very clear I did not want a masters degree in nursing education. (Even now I feel guilty writing that!)

When I talked to people they told me all the practical reasons I should do it. But I feel so clear that I cannot take classes in nursing leadership with my limited free time. I cannot. Taking classes part time mean it would take me 8 years to complete the degree, taking one class at a time. That makes me want to spit! There is no way. I know I will lose that part time job. I know I will not be able to teach anymore. That’s fine. I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings but it’s not really my thing. And part of being over 40 years old with two children who don’t need me all the time is that; it is time for me to do my thing. Whatever that thing might be. It is not time to get a degree I don’t want for a job that is OK. Phew.

So this year that teaching job hired me to teach the LPN students (I couldn’t go back to my regular gig teaching OB without a master’s) which has been fun. I enjoy working with people and seeing them transform into nurses. But I got word that I will not be there next year. I’ve got a few more weeks in the hospital with them and then a few weeks in lab. Teaching has been taking up a ton of energy in my life since August, working 2 days a week and doing lots of paperwork and planning. I rarely write about it because my work as a nurse is so private and I don’t ever want to violate anyone, patient or student, by writing or talking about them. But I have spent 9 months working too much for my liking and feeling like the rest of life is dragging along behind me, half shut in the car door and fluttering in the breeze. I am thrilled to soon be less busy and create some time to take a breath.

I have been learning to listen more and more to my intuition and my body.

People (including Rob) keep wondering what I will do for money now that my teaching job is coming to an end. And I’m pretty sure I can always pick up some hours at my regular job in OB, which I enjoy. But I am hoping to start building some sort of healing business in the next few months. I’m not sure what it will look like, but it is time. That is the feeling I am getting over and over again. So, why not?

It’s time.

I have been doing Reiki for 14 years!

It’s time.

I’m thinking about flyers, looking for space, finishing up my emotrance training, which is a wonderful simple energy healing method I am learning and working toward my Aromatherapist certification.

All those things really excite me! I have been drawn to healing and plants my whole life. I just kept telling myself I couldn’t just follow that love; that there wasn’t money in it or I didn’t know enough or I didn’t want to be weird.

But I’m done with all that and ready to go.

Walk in the woods

After flipping over many logs Georgia finally found a red backed salamander

Rob showed me a well he found the other day on a bike ride.  It was fed by a spring.  The water was deep and dark and felt magical, like it was connected to the peaceful center of the earth.

Easter afternoon at the grandparents

Easter egg hunt

Japanese Andromeda looks like little piece of corn.

Georgia in her fairy wings

Grandma and Lily hunting for eggs

A cozy fairy house in an old white pine

Pansies

Easter morning

Chickies, bunnies and eggs oh my.

Violin blog

 Here was a wonderful blog post from a violin blog called shaft of sunlight that inspired me to keep moving forward and appreciating the shafts of sunlight, the moments of quiet gathering and of motivated me to create more of those moments in my life.

http://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20124/13362/

Easter Eggs

Flowers for Winifred

We gathered daffodils from our yard and brought them to Winifred now that we are back.  After I posted about Winifred last month I received an anonymous comment:

Winifred Hadley. Died in Boston, on Tremont Street. Seamstress. Typhus fever. Many friends in Dummerston and Brattleboro. Well liked.


I loved getting this message from the ether of the internet.  And somehow knowing how and where she died grounded her even more in this world.  And well liked.  It says so much. She knew how to laugh.  She was kind.  She was missed.




















Yesterday we drove by and her arms held a big bouquet of Lilacs!

Oh Winny.  I love that so many of us are looking after you.
And maybe you are looking after us, too.

Welcome Home!

When we got home and woke up the next morning, our plum tree was still blooming!
And the forsythia was still glowing brightly.

We hadn't missed spring!




















Everything seemed so quiet compared to the racket of Culebra.  I missed the Coqui! (We finally figured out, in the airport heading home, that the bug/bird that kept us awake all week was a tree frog native only to Puerto Rico!  The Coqui.)

Coquí (Puerto Rican Frog)

Here's a photo from Wikipedia.  Very cute.

San Juan

Blue Cobblestones after rain

Coffee shop with really delicious strong coffee.  I am fully addicted.  I think about strong milky coffee all the time.

Wandering around the forts of Old San Juan

A coffee.
And another banana shake.

Flying off the Island

Fear of nausea and desire for adventure found us on the tarmac boarding a tiny plane back to San Juan.





The pilot telling us the fire extinguisher is under his seat.  Not sure what to do with that information.

The views were breathtaking and the turbulence was minimal.  We all enjoyed it and even Rob said he'd do it again.

Ahhh relaxation

What a marvelous relaxed rhythm we moved into as our week came to a close.  Hanging out on the deck, painting on the porch and watching the tiny planes take off, like the one on the left here.










We were so relaxed and the lack of internet access or ability to write on my laptop (Word malfunctioned and wouldn't let me write!) was annoying but probably a blessing that forced us to enjoy and be present in what surrounded us.


We even got used to the mysterious creature that peeped all night just outside our bathroom.. The first night I thought is was Rob's cell phone or some alarm going off.  We snuck out to scare it away but we couldn't find it.  We asked the landlady about the constant night long piercing sound and she had no idea what we were talking about, "Maybe it is an insect?"  she pondered in a bored voice. 









Georgia doing her homework and the girls painting on the porch.