In Memory of my Loving Mother

8/23/1948-4/6/2010


Rest in Peace my sweet mother, you are forever in my heart.
You taught me so much and now I take with me all the wisdom and strength you gave me.
You were the head of my woman clan!
The stronghold of the triple Goddess!
Our sweet Serafin will know you through me, I promise that.

Thank you for your strength and courage.
Thank you for holding my hand.
Thank you for taking care of me when I was sick.
Thank you for taking care of me when I was not sick!
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for your love and kindness.
Thank you for understanding!

I will miss the calls.
I will miss the hugs.
I will miss the dinners.

The shared looks of understanding.
The laughs.
The stupid baby voices.
The beeps, the snarls, the funny faces.

Now, I speak out loud to you, . . .
or I write to you in my journal, . . .
I pull a medicine card, . . .
or I talk to the pendulum and ask you questions, . . .

I know you are still here.

You are all around me, . . .
inside and out.
You are not here, . . .
but you are everywhere!

My beautiful mother!

Thank you for giving me this precious life!
Thank you for teaching me the most valuable lesson, . . .
to LIVE!
You will always be in my heart.
Love and light.

Craigslist = BFF

Want to get rid of a door? Or maybe some old pillow stuffing? How about a kitchenaid mixer that's been around since the 40s? I may be exaggerating just a bit with the above title, but I do think Craigslist can be handy. In the past year I have made close to $700 just trying to get rid of stuff that's been sitting around our house for ages. Not bad eh? I've posted everything from books, to cloth diapers, to much larger items such as a stroller and the kitchenaid mixer mentioned above. It's amazing what people will take. While I'm mentioning craigslist, I may as well plug my latest item "for sale", . . . does anybody want this stinky baby butt? It poops and smells a whole lot!



Just kidding Serafin, Mommy loves you no matter how much aroma comes from that big old diaper butt of yours!

"Bye bye VHS tapes, I hope you become something new and exciting!"

Ok, so I'm really starting to see the difference between certain recycling facilities. In an attempt to get rid of two boxes of old VHS tapes I made a bunch of calls and was referred to this place by Waste Management. This facility, which shall remain nameless, was in East Oakland, and although they seemed to be doing their job, I wasn't very impressed-- I should have taken the hint when their web-link popped up a warning for Malware on my computer.

That morning, I was all excited to learn about a new place. I packed the car full with the VHS tapes and some other items that hadn't made it out of the house during the first round of E-cycling. First of all, to put a damper on the experience, I got totally lost going down there, and for all of you Bay Area natives, you know East Oakland isn't the best place to get lost in. I ended up parking the car at International and 92nd and calling the hubby to map it out for me and give me directions. Finally, after 45 minutes of driving around, I made it, but admittedly, was kind of cranky at that point, nothing to do with them, but more due to the fact that my butt was sore from all that driving.

Anyway, back to the story, this was another lot, but 10 times bigger than the last, and for good reason, they recycle so much more; plastics, cardboard, metals, . . . I found myself wondering if maybe this is where my recycled goods went to when they get thrown in the bin at our house. There was a huge fork driving around the lot, lifting pallets around, I'm sure there was a method to the madness, but it all looked like a big mess to me, which made me kind of uncomfortable at the thought of leaving my stuff there. There did appear to be some organization of cardboard and plastics, however most of it appeared to look like one huge junk yard, almost like a landfill, everything mixed in with eachother! Do they really go through and organize all that stuff? Unfortunately, although I brought my camera, it was a bit drizzly out and the guy that I spoke to didn't speak very good English, so I felt kind of awkward making too much conversation with him, plus, I had Serafin in the car and didn't want to subject her to the rain by wandering around and taking photos.

After a brief interaction with him, however, I did learn that the "goods" do get organized and then get shipped over-seas, probably to somewhere in Asia, an assumption I am making considering the company has Chinese characters all over there website, again, that's just an assumption. So that was about all I managed to get out of the guy. He did help me unload the car which was nice because one of the boxes must have weighed about 50 pounds. Although I gave them the VHS tapes, I kept the other stuff. I will be going back to the ACCRC for that, I would prefer to do my best to keep my trash in California.