Stumbling Toward Enlightenment

"Put love where there is no love and you will find love." I came across this quote recently from St. John of the Cross. It so captures all that I have learned over the past year and hope to put into practice moreso in this coming year. There are a few people in my life who have made it so hard for me to love them. And yet. And yet I've seen miracles happen in my relationships with them that I have prayed for over the years. This year seemed to be my year of answered prayers. And if I learned one thing, it is this: Sometimes you just have to love someone where they are . They may not be where you want them to be. They may be selfish, or narcissistic, or just plain mean. But sometimes, even when someone is incapable of appreciating unconditional love, you can still love them. And this doesn't mean that you should go back for more abuse, or go out of your way to please them, or include them in your inner circle of Important People. This doesn't mean letting those bo...

Okay, I'm tired of hearing all of the economists and TV pundits bemoaning what has become of our economy. I'm tired of reading all of the headlines that speculate about when exactly our nation's shopping obsession is going to start up again and when we can all take a collective sigh of relief and go back to being the spenders that got us here in the first place. Seriously, people. Here's the deal. It was great that we had an economy and all, and I would love to see people employed again. I think it sucks that there aren't enough jobs and that people are struggling to get by. However. I've never known a time in my thirty-four years on this earth when people have been so thrifty, so fiscally responsible, so cool with the fact that they're not going on a shopping spree this Christmas season. According to some random news reports I've read lately, there are more handmade craft gifts this year than ever before. More families opting out of the gift-giving rat...

About a Book Drive. Like, putting one together. I'm not sure how I'm going to go about it, but a few things happened last week to put this in my head. 1--I saw a KRON news report about a rich dude from the South Bay who donated dozens of dictionaries to high school students recently. He just said that he felt it was important and he realized that not enough students had dictionaries. So cool. 2--There is a woman in my area named Anna, who goes by the nickname "the Lemon Lady." She has single-handedly collected 13,000 pounds of fruit from people's yards (with permission) that were otherwise going to waste, and donated them to our local food pantries and shelters. Also so cool. 3--I was sitting there the other day reading to my two year old. He was enjoying it so much, and bringing me book after book to read to him, and I thought to myself about all the kids out there who have no books and no one to read to them. That really saddened me, and I realized that books ar...

I can't believe how long it's been since last I wrote. Six months, a new baby, and a multitude of computer issues later, here I am! The holidays are upon us and I find myself burrowing into a new season, my favorite. What I'm realizing much more than in years past is how much my mom passed on to me. I never really saw it before, but I really sense her spirit when I bake for my loved ones, put out the holiday decorations that my son so enjoys, even just doing the laundry--it is all an act of love. I see that now. Realizing that fact is what got me through those early days of grief, and instead of dreading and avoiding the holidays, I chose to embrace them and throw myself totally into them. Call it sublimation, or redirecting of energy or whatever, it works. As a mother, I'm seeing now for the first time how much of my mother is in me, especially when noticing how differently people "mother." I've been blessed with a multitude of awesome moms around me (aun...

Okay, I'm done ranting. Promise. I'm hot tempered as it is, and these hormones are not helping. In other news: One of my favorite people is coming home today! My husband's cousin (actually more like a sister) is returning after two months overseas. I've always been grateful to have her in my life, but I didn't realize how much I depended on those daily emails, phone calls, texts and general feeling that she was close by. She's like the sister I never had, and boy will it be great to have some tea and catch up! And what a relief that she'll be there for the birth of our second son just like she was for the first. Welcome home, duggy duggy! Other than that, t.i.r.e.d. I can make it until about 3:00 before my dogs are barkin'. I was so glad that I was able to make it to a birthday party yesterday that started in the late morning...anything later than that and I would have had to stay home and nap. Although the birthday-hosts are good peeps and would have to...

Allow me to vent a little about the medical community. Here are the stats: I'm 38 weeks pregnant, no complications. At my check up today, the nurse practitioner suggested that I start considering induction--because, you know, it would be easier to schedule labor around my 2 year old's routine. I call bullshit. Inductions are almost standard practice these days, not because the baby is in distress or because the mama is at risk or anything like that, but because the doctor needs to keep her appointment schedule running on time. This is also why most inductions are scheduled in the early evening--so that the doctor can deliver the babies in the off-hours, thus freeing up her daytime hours to attend to her overbooked office patient load. Going into natural labor just isn't time-efficient. Secondly, inductions require pitocin, which leads to very painful contractions, and very often, higher C-section rates. It's a vicious cycle, and one that I want nothing to do with. I to...

Alright, I've been in nesting overdrive lately. And I'm exhausted, which is not a good combination at all. So I decided that I could be productive and crafty all while sitting at my sewing machine. You can't beat that. So here are a few things that I've made over the last several days, mostly for the baby. (Some cool Dia de los Muertos oven mitts will be posted once I finish those.) I've been feeling way too guilty for not making anything personal for Kiran before he was born, but hey--I had a lot going on. Plus, I'm sick of all the baseballs and trucks that the baby stores offer. I cruised the baby aisle at TJ Maxx yesterday and realized that one side of the aisle was completely pink, while the other side was totally blue. *big sigh* Really, people? So I guess since I can't afford the hip Rockridge boutiques with all their cool gender-neutral stuff, I'm making my own. Who says boy things can't be pretty? Craft on. ...

Today's headlines included yet another story of financial ruin and suicide, as seen in this story .* Haven't there been something like 5 or 6 of these suicides in the past year? They all have the same things in common: they were all men, high up in the ranks of major financial institutions, and either lost everything, were accused of making other people lose everything, or lost enough to send them from being billionaires to 'mere' millionaires. What saddens me is that this man, for example, felt badly enough about his financial loss that he preferred death to bankruptcy. That living like the rest of us was such a terrifying thought that he'd rather hang than have to downsize from a 10,000 square foot house to a 5,000 square foot house. He would rather leave his daughter without a father than lose out on his Freddie Mac shares. Oh the shame of it. And it is easy to assume that he had issues with depression or anxiety prior to this, but it doesn't seem like these ...

While not my official hometown, it's close enough. And it seems that Tracy is having a rough time of it these days. First there was the Sandra Cantu story, which has been horrifying to hear. Then, SFGate.com gets wise to the Tracy theme and suddenly decides to report on this atrocity (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/14/BAJA1728CA.DTL&tsp=1),* which was reported months ago by the Stockton Record but suddenly has new appeal to Bay Area news sources no doubt because of the Tracy link. Something tells me that if anything untoward happens over the next several weeks in this unfortunate town, it will be all over the news. And no, it doesn't mean that Tracy is going to hell in a handbasket, it's just how the media works. They love their 'themes'. The scariest thing about the Tracy doctor is that this is my mom's former employer--and was for several years. I mean, seriously, WTF? Sexual harassment is bad enough, but sexual battery? It woul...

What a great break from the encroaching heat...and just when I had reconciled myself to the fact that the summer season is nearly here. It's 8am and I'm loving the water that drips off the ivy hanging outside my window...the storm clouds that hover overhead...the feel that I'm somehow closer to the ocean...If you're reading this, you know me, and if you know me you know that I detest the sun. I know it is the weirdest thing in the world and that most people absolutely live for the sun, but let's just say I won't be taking a tropical vacation any time soon. In fact, I'd much rather vacation in Harry Potter land. I love the feel of cool ocean air on my skin, the smell of the rain hitting the sidewalk, sitting at my window sipping English Breakfast while I read a one hundred year old trashy novel. This is probably our last rain of the season, so I'm relishing it before my summer blues hit again and I can no longer indulge my obsession with all things cozy. ...

You know what I realized just now? That no matter what name we choose, we're going to get beef about it. If we go with an Indian name (leaning toward Naveen), most Americans are going to think it's wierd/exotic/unpronounceable. If we go with a typical American name, we're going to get lip from other people in our lives, who pretty much think everything other people do is weird. I'm already tired of explaining to people what we're naming him and why. I had this problem the first time around with Kiran, and here we go again. I guess we should only be making ourselves happy, but a little positive support would be good.

Things will be so different this time around. As much as having Kiran was the best thing to ever happen to me, the circumstances were so difficult to overcome that I feel like I'm getting a second chance this time. Bringing Kiran home and beginning our lives together was exhilarating, but I can't help to look back on all the ways in which his birth was the hardest time of my life. For one thing, I was still in the middle of tremendous grief, having lost my mom just six months prior. I mean, preggo hormones are bad enough without dealing with the shock of losing a mother and becoming a mother in such a short time. What compounded the loss was the fact that I was left in charge of cleaning out her house (my childhood home), settling her financial affairs (pain in the arse), and driving back and forth to Stockton by myself with a five-week-old to meet with estate lawyers--all in the first sweltering days of Stockton's early summer. Needless to say, I did a lot of nursing in pa...

The answer: I don't know, since we still haven't picked one out. We had just as hard a time picking out Kiran's name, which means 'ray of light' in Hindi. Given that I had just had a very dark year, he was indeed my ray of light. This time around, I'm still stumped. I've looked at lists of Spanish names to represent my side of his heritage, but I hate all the Spanish names I've seen. I mean, there are about ten male Spanish names that are used over and over again, and does the world really need another Miguel? American names are okay, but the naming websites are ridiculously full of Aidens, Braedens, and Jadens. So. We are back to considering Indian names, which we weren't going to do a second time, but there you have it. We have a list going, and although I know that most parents are pretty tight-lipped about their naming choices prior to the birth, I'm putting ours out there and asking--no, begging--for advice and suggestions. So...In order of ...

So I've gone against the grain and decided not to have a big traditional birthday party for my 2 year old son. Well, make that any party. We will be instead taking him to a kid's discovery museum with one of his best little toddler friends, which I personally think he'll get more out of. Several things factored into my decision: that I'm hauling around an extra 30 pounds that make me feel achy, tired, and out of breath, that he's 2 and doesn't even know it is his birthday, that I have no energy to clean the house before and after a party, and that kids' birthday parties always somehow fascinated and repelled me. I guess this makes me the worst mother of the year. Or ever. Next year, when he's writing his own guest list, I'm sure I'll do the suburban mom thing and order personalized plates and napkins. But never a jumpy house--never, ever a jumpy house. Someone please stop me if I start considering one of those things. We don't have a big en...

After visiting a needlepoint shop with some crafty friends this weekend, I am all fired up to start making something, but what? I really like the idea of re-purposing, so if it can involve a trip to my local Salvation army that would be a plus. Also, it should involve yummy fabric. The possibilities are endless and I want to start something that I've never done before: I'm currently obsessed with the idea of making a penny rug, as I'm going through a New England/American Primitive stage right now, but I've always wanted to learn Hardanger, or maybe a blackwork sampler, perhaps a Bargello seat cover, or oh! Assisi work...What's a girl to do? I guess I should attack my stash closet and see what I've already got. Here are some pictures for those not familiar with these lovely arts. ...

That is all.

About a year ago, I had a dream that someone (angel? spirit guide?) whispered to me that there was a little boy waiting for me, and that as soon as I was ready for him, he was ready to come to me. We were still a good six months from deciding that we were ready for number two yet, so I hastily shelved the idea to the netherregions of my mind. However, as crazy as this may sound, I always knew I would be the mom of two boys. It was a feeling I had deep inside, and when the ultrasound tech told me that there would be another little boy coming home with us, I couldn't stop the tears. Maybe it is because I grew up with so many women, perhaps it is because I just lost my mom and with her, a very complex mother-daughter relationship and am not sure I want to transfer over any of my issues to a daughter, perhaps it is because I am burned out on all the princess stuff out there, but whatever it is, it just feels right . It is strange, because so many of my acquaintances (not so much my f...

I was watching Dr. Phil this afternoon and he featured a woman who is showcasing all the classic elements of a mid-life crisis: she recently left her overbearing husband and is now enjoying life while living in a camper tent with her younger boyfriend. She claims she is happy because she is living her own dream and no longer tied to all the material things that supposedly bogged her down. Her daughters, all in their 30s, are very concerned and thus appearing on Dr. Phil. This is something that has been bugging the shit out of me for some time now, as I have parents who divorced once the kids were "out of the house." This seems to be a pattern with baby boomers, and it needs to stop. Message to divorced parents of grown children: Just because your kids are out of the house and living on their own does not give you the license to stop being parents. It kills me to see how many people of my parent's generation pat themselves on the back for enduring a marriage until their ch...