Cookie rolls

I would guess she loves the feel of the cool slippery snow.

But maybe something peed there last night.

Georgia starts violin!!

Georgia's arms finally grew enough to be able to play violin!  She is ready and quite proud.   She is learning how to hold it as Lily watches patiently.

Spotted Salamander

What a lovely find on a cold damp afternoon.  The Spotted Salamanders is so big.  This one was about 6 inches.  Wikipedia calls them "stout."

Wikipedia also says, "Spotted salamanders are fossorial, meaning they spend most of their time underground. They rarely come above ground, except after a rain or for foraging and breeding. During the winter, they hibernate underground, and are not seen again until breeding season in early March–May. Ambystoma maculatum has several methods of defense, including hiding in burrows or leaf litter, autotomy of the tail, and a toxic milky liquid it excretes when perturbed. This secretion comes from large poison glands around the back and neck. If a predator of the spotted salamander manages to dismember a part of a leg, tail, or even parts of the brain/head, then it can grow back a new one, although this takes a massive amount of energy. The spotted salamander, like other salamanders, shows great regenerative abilities, even being able to regenerate limbs and parts of organs.[5

Georgia (the friend to amphibians) was way ahead of us on the walk so I carried this specimen to her and it felt so sweet and quiet in my hands.  Her wide apart eyes give him a sweet face.  Georgia was thrilled and carried her gently around until we passed the spot where we had found her again where Georgia placed her down in the leaf litter again and she continued on her way..

Time to head home

I stopped at the New Jersey Turnpike and got a Starbuck's latte after a couple of hours of driving.

I'll be glad to get home to my family. I've missed them.
But I have had a really amazing experience at the conference.

I feel sad to leave all my fellow energists. It felt good to be with people who get me and can talk about energy, starting a new business, and using my intuition. 

It was great healing fun.

The lights of the bridges and cities were so beautiful as I drove through city after city to finally make it home at 1am.
Goodnight!

Conference

The conference has been amazing!
Silvia is very very funny.  And a bit of an interesting genius.
Everyone in the group is so friendly and kind.

I am so thankful..
Thankful I made it here.
And for all this time to focus on my craft.
Thankful for all the earnest open healing people that are here.
I had to get up in front of everyone and do emotrance on Silvia.  And I did it! 

 Silvia and me

We covered so much material and learned  from lecture but also doing energy work and clearing on each other again and again and again.




I felt so free, feeling lighter and clearer as each day went by.







Here we are all in the hotel lobby.

Emotrance/EFT conference

I just had an adventure!  I went to a four day conference on energy healing in Baltimore with Silvia Hartman, the creator of Emotrance and many other healing modalities.

I spent the last two years completing her distance learning program in Emotrance, all the while hoping I could someday attend the annual conference in England, but then I got an email saying that Silivia Hartman was coming to the US!  She would be doing a four day energy intensive conference for the first time in 10 years!  I had previously purchased audios of her conferences and lectures in England and found her a very engaging teacher, although the first time I listened I was shocked by her frank, blunt and very funny manner that includes alot of swearing. (Of course, I fell for her!)

Sure, I wanted to go, but we couldn't afford it, really.  But my intuition was going wild.  Yes. Yes. Yes.
It would be the perfect way to complement my training in the technique and she was doing a certification course in EFT tapping, too, which is another favorite method of mine for relieving stress.

I tried to stay calm.
We'd see what happened.
That night Rob and I went out for  a new moon walk.  It was really dark but I wore my new headlamp and we could see the snow sparkle all around us in our little beam of light.
We talked about our days and I told him how the creator of Emotrance was coming and I really wanted to go.  It cost $800.  More than we have to spend on non necessities.  He said, "Maybe you should go."  I couldn't believe it.  I told him it was near DC and he encouragingly suggested that I could drive.  It wouldn't be so bad. I could do it.  Oh my god!  I can't believe this!  I'm going ??!!

My excuses for never following through on my alternative healing dreams throughout my life have always been financial.  How would I pay for insurance if I became a homebirth midwife?  Can I really pay thousands of dollars to become an herbalist when I don't know anyone who goes to an herbalist? If I become a yoga teacher, would I make any money or would it just be a hobby, a hobby I invested thousands of dollars in?
Always financial.  It always cost too much to do what I wanted to do.  But it was finally just pissing me off.  I wanted to end that trend.  Now, with so many examples, it just seemed like just a lame excuse.

Just before we went to Florida was the last day to sign up with discounts and a special gift of DVD training.  I asked Rob if he thought I should go ahead and do it.  He looked pained but said, "Whatever you think."  I signed up shortly after.  I used my credit card.  I was going to the conference.  I was going to be away from home for 5 days! (It would be the longest I've ever left the children other than being hospitalized for sepsis.) I rearranged my work schedule.  The next day I asked Rob about child care after school while he was still at work those afternoons while I was away.
He looked stricken.  "You did it!?"  "I didn't think you'd do it!'
I said, "Yes. Yes I did it."


So I drove 8 hours, through New York City and into Baltimore.  I brought everything I might need.  That's the benefit of bringing a car, right?

Hello Manhattan!

  

 I was almost there and then got totally stopped in traffic in the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel.  I had to pee so badly.  I had thought I'd be there at 6pm and have a nice evening, but instead I was stuck in the tunnel at 10pm. 

But I finally arrived and everyone at the hotel was so friendly.  I had a huge amount of stuff to bring up to my room, but the bell boy helped me do it all in one trip.  I brought all my essential oils, my crystals and any book I might feel like reading. I settled into my room with a fridge and a microwave; it was really nice and cozy.  There were two big queen beds with fluffy pillows.  I took a bath with my oils and happily unpacked in my pjs.

Final Aromatherapy Project and Exam

Yikes! I have been working hard on my Aromatherapy class for the last 16 months and now I really have to work.
I have been compiling case studies on each of the 33 oils we learned about, using them on friends, family and myself to get to know each oil's distinct and individual personality.   I've been writing them up and printing them out for my final exam date on March 9th.

I also am finishing up my project, where people compared a deodorant I made with Cypress and True Lavender with their conventional deodorant.  They filled out surveys each day after using both and after 5 days they passed it in.  The project gave me greater respect for all the work that goes into research in the real world.  The finding of subjects, the researching of the best formula, the finding of research to back that up, the obtaining of the products needed, the writing out of instructions and consents, the making of the actual product to be tested.  Goodness me!  Then finding everyone who volunteered and handing over the product, skin test vial and paperwork, then the collecting.  I thought that was all the difficult part, but the compiling, separating and evaluating the data took a great deal of brain and computer work.  Wow.  Then I had to use Excel to make graphs and remember how to make footnotes in a paper that turned out to be 32 pages long.

It was a tremendous amount of work and I won't even tell you about how after I had written 80% of it and saved it, the entire paper disappeared into the abyss of my laptop's memory and I couldn't find it.
(This experience has really re-enforced that I will not go back to school unless I really really love the subject, like I do aromatherapy.)






Look at those pie charts!  Pretty impressive, huh?
So staying up until 2am trying to find my paper while crying (I did find it, finally.  I hit a button and it was suddenly there!) and trying to manage a sick child on the couch, all in between working most of the week, got me sick.  Not a shock, really, but I was furious.

I don't look furious here, as I steam, but as the cold descended on me (a cold I had seen Rob suffer with all week) I was livid.  I had just wanted sickness to hold off until after my three hour exam, but it did not.

I know you don't need to see this, but I need to vent.
Really?
What a nasty nasty cold!

Off I went to Boston at 5am in my car that was finally (hopefully) fixed in the tail end of a snowstorm.  (If I hadn't been so overwhelmed by my class and family sickness so that I fell really far behind on my blog (hence the calm retrospective tone of this email as opposed to pissed off and weary) you would have been subjected to the saga of my 7 visit car-repair debacle where I got to know everyone at the dealer and had many loaner cars that smelled hideously of new car, but I took no photos and I don't think you want to hear about it.  You are spared.))

The doors for the exam at Boston Medical Center locked at 9am and after that she could not let us in, even if we were only 2 minutes late, so of course I was worried.
I made it!
The car did not break down.
I got there early and I sat in my running car and studied.
I had studied like a madwoman for the last two weeks.
(Rob asked before we went to bed, "So when this exam is done; can we have you back?")
I held it together for the three hour exam, tissues in my sleeve.  I was that annoying woman sneezing and blowing.
Then I presented my research project to my teacher and an outside evaluator.
Then I was done.
Glory Glory Halleluiah!