New Year!

Welcome, 2011!!! I am so frickin' glad to see you! 2010 was not my favorite, not by a long shot. You, 2011, you I have high hopes and expectations for. You will bring new starts, new changes, new chances. You will bring new friends! You will carry me back to the Rockies. And you will not pull any rugs out from under me, okay? Can we shake on that? Alrighty then.

New Year's Eve was a very chill event this year. Really, it usually is. We don't go out in the crazy crowds of drunken revelers. Some years, we've spent drunkenish revelry safely at a neighbor's house while kids sledded the teensy hill at the end of the block. But mostly, we're major New Year's Eve homebodies. This year was amplified by it being Friday, and I had done quite a bit more than usual on Friday this week, and I was tired. I got some silly string and some sparklers, some orange juice to mix with my icky-tummy Fresca. We mixed some virgin mimosas, toasted with Connor, chased each other around (well, me and Connor) with the two cans of silly string, then swept up the carnage, got him in his pull-up and his puppy-footed jammies and froggy boots, and out on the deck we went with sparklers. It was about 7:30. We yelled, "Happy New Year!!!" and hooted and hollered and danced about with our sparklers (one each. It went quickly). I'm sure the neighbors suspected we couldn't tell time... but who gives a rip?

Then back inside, I retreated to my upstairs domain of Tylenol and cough syrup, Connor went to bed shortly thereafter, Jim came up at 11:59 and we counted down from 10, the end. Yay! 2010 goes into the books. 2011 is HERE! I have been so anticipating 2011. Why, you may ask? So many things are in the works for this year! And when I can say, "This year we're going to ________________" it just feels so much more imminent and real than saying "Next summer we're going to ________________". I'm going to try out a few of these, just to demonstrate...

This year, we're leaving west Michigan!
This year, my treatment will be over!
This year, we are moving to Montana!
This year, Connor will be 5!
This year, I will sew, open an Etsy shop with the MI-Ties, and begin to rely on my craftiness rather than the establishment for my income and well-being.
This year, Connor will go to kindergarten! (Holy holy holy shit!!! Already?! Finally?! Time is sooooo weird watching a kid grow.)
This year, I will learn new outdoorsy skills. Maybe kayaking? Maybe whitewater rafting? Definitely skiing once the snow falls in Montana.

See? See how much more imminent and real it sounds when you get to preface a statement with 'this year'? And I get so much hope and energy and motivation from those words: 'This Year'.

Also this year, no resolutions. Only resolve to remember some things...

I can trust the universe.
I am capable.
I am talented.
My life is more full when it is more simple.
Taking care of myself IS taking care of my family.

So:
Simplify
Trust
Accept the challenges that find their way to me with grace
Take risks
BE fucking PRESENT

I will turn 45 this spring. That feels like a nice, solid, strong number-place from which to launch into the world again. A good place to go find my bliss, my grown-up bliss this time. My authentic, true, honest self. And having made that determination... I feel free, and alive, and purposeful.

Wishing all good things for all those that I love, those that I know, those that I'm going to meet on this next leg of my journey.

Spring has sprung

Oh yay! Spring has come to Michigan! There are crocuses and little cute dwarf irises in the yard, the ivy has been mostly cleared out of the beds, and I'm ready to embark on an almost-first... growing food! I've tried a couple times... like in Arcata. But that was lifetimes ago, and it kinda was an epic fail, so I don't really count that. This... This will be different. This is going to have some actual, idunno, THOUGHT put into it? And I'm really really really hoping that Connor will eat something of a vegetable nature if he has a hand in growing it. He wants to plant beans. He wants, specifically, a bean stalk. So, a bean stalk he shall have!

Of course, the universe being fond of me as it is, on Thursday, when I was just about ready to leave the house for a seed-purchasing mission, foiled my plans. Seriously? Give a girl a break!! There I was, putting up the crock pot after the week's round of bean preparation, and I was then planning to rid the counter of lunch crumbs, and we were off! Stroller out of the garage, off to the the lovely neighborhood market with the lovely produce and what appear to be lovely seeds. Don't really know, but they look lovely. BUT... as I stepped off of my kitchen stool there was a crazy-ominous POP, what felt like (and proved to be) a tear in my calf muscle, and POOF! Just like that... all my lovely plans scrapped. Thankfully, I managed to get to all the various and sundry folk that needed to inspect said calf muscle yesterday, established that it is the muscle separating from the tendon (ooooooo! sounds soooo fun! I know you're jealous!) and not the achilles tendon (YAY! No surgery!), and got my fashionable walking boot to complement my ensembles for the next 6 weeks. Upside: I'll be fully mobile pre-beach season. Downside: dancing on my birthday next Saturday looks unlikely.

*sigh*

Just noticed that the grandboy is outside without pants on again. Good thing his shirt is really really long.  Not that we care... but our neighbors might be offended. Don't know. But this is Grand Rapids. Land of the helicopter parents and super churchy folk that view nudity as next to depravity. Never mind that he's 3. His penis is flappin' around as he leaps from the deck. Ack! Evil! I expect the stake-burning is imminent.

Meanwhile, I've been daydreaming and researching and planning how to manage a relocation to Missoula, MT. Fell in love last summer, totally surprising myself. Montana?! Are you freaking kidding me? But no. No kidding. Love that town! Has everything I want in life and then some. And we are tired beyond measure of living by anyone's terms but our own. Soul-crushing. Screw that. We're both at the age where we're needing to take the leap, or cash it in for this life. Forty was kinda pushing it when we tried this 9 years ago, but now Jim is pushing 50! November! I want to take the leap. I've never lost the desire to sell everything, and move to a place I can live in relative peace, more in tune and in touch with the earth. So, dammit, I'm gonna! Only, a little more responsibly this round I think. Like, ummm, plan? Go there a few more times? Make some friends there maybe even? Oh. And save some money for the transitional period. But it's much closer to family, most especially Cassady. She and Connor are just too far apart.

Anyhooo.....

Somewhere along the way of my research I found the most inspiring blog. Dig this chick. What a great site! Gives me the actual idea that I can in fact find a way to do the things I've longed to do for what? Decades? Yes. Decades. Jezuhs. Two year plan probably.  Yeah. Sounds good. Or maybe 15 month plan. Yeah. Sounds even better!

So, I'm going to hopefully keep this blog updated and current, and use it to think about this whole Missoula thing, to document my process, to share my muddling through this parenting a grandkid thing, and to hopefully get some stuff out of my head so my brain can work a smidge more efficiently. I ain't expectin' nothin' big, but maybe it'll give me something of mine mine mine all mine.

Oh! And to journal all my gardening and preserving foibles and failu... I mean, epic successes and magnificent pickles. Yup. That's what I mean.

Peace, Old friends and New.