I love my bread machine!

Just throw the ingredients inside!

Wait a few hours! . . . .

and, . . . .

VOILA!

Home baked, whole wheat flax bread!

Yum!

Quick update, . . . projects are on the way!

I've been feeling very crafty these days. I have been taking on a lot of projects all of which are long and I am in the process of completing. A few things you can look forward to reading about in the upcoming months are, . . .

-Making pure organic lavender oil, I'm finally getting around to straining my lavender oil which has been sitting on my shelves for over a year.

-Re-upholstering: A new and exciting love in my life! My aunt is teaching me how to do my dining room chairs properly. I attempted to do one of them on my own last summer and it didn't last long (particularly in our house with a baby, two dogs and three cats). I am in the process of ripping out the old fabric, old staples and nails and picking new fabric, something I love doing! Here are some possible fabric choices, . . .

-Felt letter idea for the munchkin! I'm making a "blackboard" out of felt and velcro, it may take me a while, I'm only on an uppercase "M" and of course we need to do lowercase as well. Then comes the "blackboard" making.

So, . . . I've got my hands full. With the holidays coming up, things are even more busy. I'm also taking a yoga intensive course in the beginning of December, another deepening into my practice which I still claim has saved my life and my body. Yoga = amazing stuff. On top of it all, I'm missing my mom more than ever, they say all the "firsts" (first christmas, first birthday, . . .) are the hardest. So far it's definitely true, there is nothing easy about the process of grief. That said, I'm incredibly grateful for all I have, have had, and can do in my life. What a lucky chick I am! Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Love and Light

I've had some stuff brewing in my head lately. I thought it would be nice just to get it all out, plus you might get to know me a little better, . . .

In the last couple of years I've learned more about myself than I have in a decade of living. It's funny how things happen in your life that "wake you up". From becoming a mom and experiencing the love and bonds a parent has for a child, to losing my own mom and dealing with feelings of loss and even abandonment; there is no doubt I am processing a lot and taking on life in it's rawest form. Never mind all of he logistics I've had to learn, and fast, as a repercussion of these two events.

A few days ago I got all cozy on the couch and decided to watch Avatar for the first time. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. Not only is it beautifully done but the message it sends is something that really resonates with my own heart. As I grow older and I come to experience life in it's different stages (i.e. happiness, sadness, pain, . . . ) I have begun to realize how connected I am to this earth, that in fact I am a part of the earth, that I, along with all the trees, the animals, the bugs, am one of mother earths creatures. As I live my life, practice my yoga, cook food, chase after Serafin, walk amongst the trees, give birth to creativity, I have finally begun to really feel mother earth and how alive she is beneath my feet.

In Avatar there is one scene in particular that stands out to me (if you haven't seen it you may not want to read on). In the final scene, Jake Sulley (the main character) lies under the Tree of Souls, surrounded by the indigenous people of Pandora who are chanting and praying for him to leave his human body and enter his avatar (see the picture above). You begin to see the earth latching on to him. In order for his soul to change bodies, it must leave his human body, travel through the earth to Eywa (the mother goddess) and then travel back to his new body if it is meant to be. I know it's only a movie, but it really drew home the fact that we are all just energy. That we are born, we live, we move, we feed our bodies, we rest, and then one day our energy leaves our body and goes somewhere else. Energy moves, energy can't die, it can only be released. To me, that is such a beautiful concept, true re-incarnation. The energy within us is not even "our" energy! It is only borrowed for a short period of time, a lifetime, and then given back to the greater cosmos where it then moves somewhere else.

When I lost my mother this last April, despite the fact that she is not here with me in her human form, I feel her in a different way. She lives on inside me. She lives on in my heart, in my memories. I see her in the flowers when I walk or in the sky during a beautiful sunset. Her energy is everywhere to me.

In a lot of ways dealing with the experience of loss and really feeling what I need to feel in my life has shown me how beautiful life really is. As the saying goes, "what doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger." I miss my mom, and at the same time, I am incredibly grateful for the experience she is giving me now. Since she passed, I have become more rooted in myself. I have less fear of dying. I feel stronger. I feel! I have begun to really look at my life and make decisions about what is important and what is not. What is serving me and what is holding me back. Really, it has been an amazing experience. At times I feel pain and it can be difficult, but then there are other times when I feel very full of love and open to this world.

I am blessed to be alive. I am blessed to have every second of this life in this beautiful body that is serving me well. Thank you body. I am blessed to have all of you in my life. You are my teachers. I learn something new all the time. I am simply blessed.