kidlet updates and some morbid wonderings

I've apparently been in a blogging funk or something. I keep thinking about doing it and then not following through. So this is me just walking over to the computer and pounding something out.

Zay had her birthday this month. She's a three year old now and it's pretty incredible how fast these kids grow. Her especially.. since she's been about 2.5 yrs old people have mistaken her for a 4 year old. She's a tall one. Her speech is really ratcheted up a notch of late as well and she loves practicing her words by looking at flash cards and naming things. We were watching the Simpsons the other night and there was this part where Flanders and Homer were riding these horses that were running and jumping like ninjas (ninja horses!) and Zay said approvingly, "Nice one nee-hee." (Her name for animals is the sound they make) It was hilarious.

Memer is growing by leaps and bounds as well. She's very adept at cruising along the edge of the coffee table and is VERY INTERESTED in eating. She gets mad if we don't share what we have. It's still primarily her chewing and spitting things out.. not a lot of swallowing going on but she's working up to that. She's also becoming more diversified in her expressions. She's got this mischievious scrunchy grin that is crazy cute.

Quinn is quite a smarty pants and regularly astounds me with things he knows but that I have no idea where he learned them. He picks stuff up like a sponge. He's also testing the limits of his independence by refusing to do what I ask of him regularly. It's frustrating but I try to remain calm and explain things and dialogue with him instead of just being mad and threatening him with loss of privileges every time he does it. I will admit I'm not always successful with that though.

I've recently been kinda freaked out by some weird health issues I've been having. For awhile I was having some serious joint aches, especially in my elbows and shoulders that I didn't understand. I started taking a daily magnesium suppliment and also flax oil and that seems to have helped. Additionally, over the last couple months I've had about 4 or 5 headaches that are unlike anything I've experienced before. Throbbing on one side of my head, blurry spots in my vision and nausea. I think they are migraines and it really stinks. The last time I felt on coming on I thwarted it by downing a dose of magnesium and a multivitamin with a big glass of water. Now for the last couple days I've been feeling dizzy upon waking in the morning. It's when I open my eyes and stretch first thing, it makes my head spin strongly. Very weird.

As a disclaimer I must say I'm rather paranoid about morbid things.. it's just this weird thing about me.. I ponder dark possibilities frequently and today it was the possibility that I could have a brain tumor. It's nothing new.. I've been freaked out by the possibility before but this time these weird head things going on with me are adding fuel to my morbid wonderings.

The thing is.. I don't fear dying for myself. The fear that paralyzes me is that my children would be left without a mother. That thought is horrifying. My babies need me.

I've always imagined and felt that I will die as an old woman though so I find comfort in that strong intuitive sense of what lies in my future.

So.. sorry to get all dark there for a moment but it's what was on my mind today.

Gotta go lay baby down.
More later.. maybe tomorrow.

erm

yeah.. so I totally repeated myself there about the house buying. Goes to show how often I reread what I've written previously. I wrote that like it was breaking news even though I'd already blogged it. oh well. I'm forgetful like that.

Another August

August is a month that significant things always seem to take place in my life. It was August 10th of my 17th year when I first witnessed a human being take the breath that marked the beginning of his life. It was in August of my 19th year that I was pronounced clinically insane and committed to the psych ward of the hospital for two weeks after an LSD trip gone very wrong. Then on the 7th anniversary of witnessing that first breath of life, I watched as my son's father took the final breath that marked the end of his life. August is a month that will forever feel heavy and thick with significance for the rest of my life.

August of this year has been marked with a happy development. We became homeowners. My mother extended us a generous offer and we were able to buy the house we've been renting for the last 3 years. Another life changing development in the month of August.

outings

blech. That cold weather snap left everyone in our house besides Q with an annoying little cold. Sore throats and congestion. That's not supposed to happen in the summer. arrrgh.

Ah well... life must go on. Zay just went on her first outing with a friend. The girl across the street is five and invited Zay to go to see a Sesame Street stage production at the Carlson Center. It was last minute.. they were literally heading out the door for it but Zay really wanted to and is pretty comfortable with the neighbor mom so I let her go. I think she'll have a good time.

Quinn's buddy headed upriver with his uncle today so he's bummed that everyone is doing something fun but him. So we're going to head over to the farmer's market for something yummy.

look ma! I can spin!

Lately I've been feeling the itch to change my appearance. I feel as though I've allowed myself to slip into a more "normal" or mainstream appearance and I don't really feel like it's true to who I actually am. I feel as though I'm not standing in solidarity with all the other freaks and geeks out there in the world by masquerading as just your average mom with small children when the truth is I am actually quite different than most people in my ideas and ideals and general outlook on life and society. I've been toying with the idea of a nose ring but I have concerns about it getting yanked on by my small children. I'd like to get a tattoo or two but they are expensive and I have concerns about injecting strange substances into my skin. I doubt they have organic tattoo ink.. I'm not sure it's a good idea even if they did, from a health perspective. I know that it may seem silly to be concerned about tattoo ink but then to go ahead and slather a bunch of bleach on my hair but I figured it's been 8+ years since I dyed my hair last and that it was probably the easiest way to alter my appearance drastically without costing an arm and a leg and not being too permanent.

Well, it was my paranoia about my hair becoming brittle and strawlike that threw a wrench in my plans for purple hair. I left the bleach on my hair for 45 minutes and I could see that parts of it looked pretty light. I thought it was light enough to show of the purple in a few key spots and so I prematurely rinsed. I should have left it in for another 15 - 30 minutes. As it was, when I put the manic panic in it only gave me some very subtle purple highlights. Not at all the dramatic change I was hoping for.

Ah well.. Maybe I'll try again in a month or so.

I got closer to setting up my online shop a few days ago. I now have a new checking account that is exclusively for my store paypal account. This is to avoid any possibility of a paypal glitch wiping out rent money. Now I'm just waiting for the debit card to arrive in the mail and I'll be ready to start listing stuff. Woohoo! I've got a variety of fiber art, wood burnings and paintings ready and I'm thinking about maybe figuring out how to do prints so I can sell some photography, digital art or prints of original paintings or burnings.

Another thing I've been doing lately is learning to spin. I made my own drop spindle and spun up my first yarn. It was and is still very challenging but it's quite fun learning and playing with the oh so soft merino wool. I'm still pretty darn slow but I think my first attempt came out rather nice. I'm now working on some beautiful blue and brown roving that I bought from Allspunup.etsy.com and it's just wonderful to handle and gaze upon. I was a big fan of fondling yarn before this but making it myself just brings it to a whole new level of enjoyment. I'm now fantasizing about a spinning wheel. Something to work for I suppose. They are pricey and it will motivate me to get busy creating things to sell in my shop.
Here's a small portion of the roving after I fluffed it all up in preparation for spinning.
Playing with this wool has been my beacon of light the past day or so amidst all the barfing. Quinnster and Zayzae have been fighting off a nasty stomach bug they caught from our neighbors. No fun at all when they only thing that stays down is water and maybe some toast or crackers. It's especially difficult for Zay because nursing is such a source of comfort for her and she's not able to keep the mama's milk down. She's doing surprisingly well understanding that right now having nummies= throwing up and therefore she's not begging for it and has been drinking water instead.

So it's late and I really should be going to bed.
One last thing... my brother transferred some really old home movies to digital and uploaded them to YouTube. I'm the one with the thick bangs and pony tail. Interestingly Quinn runs just like me it would seem.

random thoughts

Today I babysat my nephew Evyn. I took all the kids up to my mom's house to get some help with all the kids and it was really nice. Got some knitting on my cardigan accomplished and helped my mom get signed up on myspace so she can keep in touch better with my brothers. It's wild how many people are on that now.

Hm.. I'm having a hard time with this regular blogging thing. I find I just don't know what to write about. I mean, there are so many things that I could ramble on about but when it comes to focusing in on one thing and doing it, I just hit a block. It probably doesn't help that children demand my attention about every five to ten minutes so it's hard to keep a train of thought. I should try and blog after they are asleep.. The tricky part is dragging myself out of the cozy bed instead of just lying there with a good book and drifting off to sleep myself. That's how things go most often...