Possom day

On Friday I saw a POSSOM !
No coat Mamas hat.
love being cold.

lily

Three Questions

I finally sat down with Rob and we went over George Kinder's three questions. Kindle is a financial planner who asks these questions of his clients and then tries to build a life and goals based on their answers.

Here they are from Get Rich slowly website :

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/02/15/george-kinder-three-questions-about-life-planning/


"To help clients discover the deeper values in their lives, Kinder poses three questions:

1. Imagine you are financially secure, that you have enough money to take care of your needs, now and in the future. How would you live your life? Would you change anything? Let yourself go. Don’t hold back on your dreams. Describe a life that is complete and richly yours.
2. Now imagine that you visit your doctor, who tells you that you have only 5-10 years to live. You won’t ever feel sick, but you will have no notice of the moment of your death. What will you do in the time you have remaining? Will you change your life and how will you do it? (Note that this question does not assume unlimited funds.)
3. Finally, imagine that your doctor shocks you with the news that you only have 24 hours to live. Notice what feelings arise as you confront your very real mortality. Ask yourself: What did you miss? Who did you not get to be? What did you not get to do?"

Well, there we were at the Wagon Wheel enjoying our burger and salad while my parents watched the girls. I was surprised by our answers....

The first question with unlimited time and money was fun. Neither of us would work regular jobs. Rob would start some company based on food or bikes and work half time. He'd go to the gym more.

He quoted Johnny Cash's song "Oh bury me not", saying, "I'd be no slave to whistle, clock or bell" He would to support enterprise, cool business opportunities and "have money to lose"

We both wanted to garden and have enough time time and money to travel a couple times a year and we both wanted to be around the house, picking the kids up from school.

I'd like to write, take walks, and, secretly I'd like to become a wizard (whatever that might mean) I'd do yoga and I'd probably be a doula or a hospice volunteer or both. I'd get better on the violin and sing songs. I'd have chickens, goats and dogs running around a bigger yard and house that we designed. I'd meditate 30 minutes a day and be home in the evenings. Ahhhh

The second question was trickier

Rob wanted to work less and have me carry the insurance. He wanted to pick the kids up from school; but pretty much maintain the life we've got.

I wanted to have a family trip to Europe and one to a warm Spanish speaking country. I wanted to be caught up on my photo albums; clean up my mess and backlog (this really shocked me, but I wanted to leave the girls a clear history, including pulling together all of the really old family history stuff I've got in my bedroom closet!)

I wanted to decrease chatter and rushing, become frugal with time and money - spending the bulk of my waning time with family, animals and nature. I wanted to work less.

Third question

Rob would stay with the family those 24 hours. He had no regrets other than missing out on the stuff that would go on without him.

I felt sad, like I wished I'd done more singing, music playing, painting and meditating..and of course that I had more time with family.

I felt strangely cleared and peaceful after, even though we were running back home and I was rushing off to work. I felt clean, like I'd had a good cry. It was such a relief to realize I have everything I want, that it's simple and close by. Suddenly being frugal seemed peaceful and appealing. Playing boardgames in the evening with my family - my beautiful family - seemed like a huge gift.

Here's my horoscope from last week...

from Free Will Astrology

http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/20100114.html

Sagittarius

"You can have it all," says fashion designer Luella Bartley. "It's just really hard work." That's my oracle for you, Sagittarius -- not just for this week, but for the next three months as well. According to my reading of the astrological omens, the cosmos will indeed permit you to have your cake and eat it, too, as long as you're willing to manage your life with more discipline, master the crucial little details everyone else neglects, and always give back at least as much as you're given.

Hmmm, I like the idea of having three months to organize.
The house is cleanish
The lice has been murdered by mouthwash (we hope)
Monday (my day with childcare) is not a holiday from school for the girls.

I am feeling inspired to make a pronouncement.
I overdrafted my account for the very last time yesterday.
There.
In the past (until this morning) I have been lackadaisical about balancing my checking account.
So when the babysitter cashed her $200 worth of checks from this summer on January 20th (Yes, that's 8 months later! Akkkkkkk!!!!) my bookkeeping was not up for the challenge.

I wish I could take Ritalin to do my bills, but I'm not up for hunting that down, so instead I am going to work on a system.

Yodlee is up and running with all of our accounts and debts, which is thrilling. I can open it up and get everything on one page.
Now I just have to keep track of checks I write (I do that) and then monitor if they have been cashed (I don't do that).
Then the next step is learning how to pay bills out of Yodlee and then, eventually, getting enough of a money cushion I can sign all my bills up to be automatically withdrawn.

What a relief that would be!
Monday I'll clean out my file cabinet and toss old useless junk making it easy to file new stuff.

Cleaning house and heads!

So the cleaning lady has come twice! She came for over 3 hours the first time and just cleaned the floors and bathrooms. Everything had been neglected so long that I was scared I overworked her. (When I came home after the agree-upon three hours she was still here, finishing up the bathrooms.) But, thankfully, she came back two weeks later and was here for 2.5 hours. My goal is to get to 2 hours every other week, so we'll have to tidy up well before she comes, so she can motor through the house.
She cleans the bathrooms and the floors. Oh my lord, everything feels shiny and new, the air smells of Murphy's oil soap. Luckily, I got a raise at work (Go nurse's union!) and for now I'm going to use that to pay her. I know I should put it towards debt-pay-off, but having her come this past month has really helped us feel less slovenly and overwhelmed

Well, actually we do feel pretty slovenly about the lice re-infestation. Yuck! Just one week after the initial discovery and treatment, the girls and I all had it. Apparently these lice are hard to kill (What? You don't want me to come over for a playdate?) and the pesticides don't work. Uggh. I had been pretty mellow about the whole thing the first time, but this time I was really disgusted by the grown louse I found in Lily's hair. Nasty!

After much on-line research I compiled our treatment program.

First spray hair with full strength Listerine (original for blondies; the mint will turn their hair blue.)

Let dry 2 hours with shower cap on while children complain of stinging scalp (I did it too, it just felt cool. No mercy. Keep it on for 2 hours and then comb out hair with a nit comb.)

(I know no one really wants to hear this, but one becomes rather obsessed reading all the weird on-line suggestions and endless stories of lives almost being destoyed by lice infestations that were cured with mouthwash and prayer or some such combination.)

Then shower and use Denorex - extra strength, which is thick and irridescent, and brown - which is strange. It tingles the scalp and smells medicinal. Leave on three minutes.

We keep running out of hot water with all three of us rinsing out this odd junk from our hair.

Rob is avoiding treatment because he has almost no hair and I didn't see anything living in his scalp, but he liked the smell of Denorex so maybe he can use up the rest.

Then use Suave Coconut conditioner. The girls liked this, it was slippery, smelled good and didn't hurt their heads.

Rinse, then another run-through with the nit comb.

I tried to make this part quaint, sitting in front of the woodstove and drying off.

Then we all had shiny fluffy hair that smelled of mouthwash, coconuts and pine tar.

Not a nit to be found among us.

Then to sleep on our pristine pillows.

Now we're doing coconut oil and a combing through every couple days.

The chunky hard oil doesn't rinse out well, so they look like greasy headed kids, but I'm hoping we're done with this fiasco.

So sweet when they're not fighting!

Here they are watching TV on Saturday morning. Lily has been using a sleep mask to block out the light from Georgia's night light at night. I thought she was just complaining, but she does fall asleep faster with it on...

Health in the New Year

So I canceled my Weight Watchers membership this month. I wasn't using any of the services and it was costing me 39.95 a month. It worked well the first 6 months but then once I started trying to eat more wholesome foods, the sneaky trick Weight Watcher's foods weren't as appealing anymore. I'm still trying to eat primal and to track what I eat I'm going to use Fitday instead.
http://www.fitday.com/

I pulled this card from the Goddess Oracle and I loved it.
http://www.kriswaldherr.com/decks/gid/index.html
I've been trying to think of health as aging well - with balance and grace. I need to be spunky for my grandkids and, because I had my children when I did; I could be pushing 70 when they come along. Yikes! Makes me want to lift weights!

(All contents © Kris Waldherr 2008. All rights reserved.

Kris Waldherr, the artist who makes these cards said I could put them on my blog as long as I included this link to her facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/l/;KrisWaldherr.com. )


I have to bribe Georgia to go on walks with me. Here she is in the stroller happily eating fruit snacks. I'm going to try and walk 2-3 times a week, do some yoga and lift weights twice a week at my 9.95 a month gym near work.

For primal fitness
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-primal-blueprint/
the only other thing I need to do are sprints which are extremely unappealing to me, but I better just suck it up. They take about 20 minutes once a week, in the spring I'll play tag with the girls.

Oh Haiti

So much destruction in the news.
Kellie recited this Rumi poem in yoga class today.
It keeps coming back to me.



The way of love is not

a subtle argument.
The door there

is devastation.
Birds make great sky-circles

of their freedom.

How do they learn it?
They fall, and falling,

they're given wings.