Flower Child Muses

Even though we still have a few weeks left...the kiddos are all back in school, and I can feel the summer winding down around me. My heart is so full, despite the pain of the world around me. Or maybe its because of all the anger in the world that I am flooding myself with positivity and light and love. I can't bear to wallow. It's been 8 weeks since I blogged, and in all honesty it's because we've just been so damn busy. 4th of July, concerts, bbqs, births of babies, and just general cherishing of each other. I started a new job a little over a month ago. And while of course I still want to be a hippie and work for myself from my home, the stress relief has been immense. My previous job might have been making me sick with stress. I was having major GI problems, and it got to the point where my fibro was flaring and I felt horrible 95% of the time. We are still trying to dig out the root cause of the tummy troubles (basically we are down to either GERD or Celiac...

It's been miserably hot here in the mid-west the last two weeks. Evidently we are trapped in a heat dome, and therefore have had consistent highs in the 90s...which for Kansas City in June, is not typical. It feels like it's August already. This makes me nervous for when *actual* August arrives. I vaguely recall August of 2012, when the drought started and we were living in Wichita. I'm pretty sure we had something crazy like 15 days in a row where the temp got over 100. It. Was. Miserable. For now, I will just keep being thankful for air conditioning. Little man has been playing t-ball for about 4 weeks now, and he had his second game a few days ago. I got a new camera (a Canon EOS Rebel SL1) and I've been taking it out for spins, playing with settings and getting used to the hundreds of things I can do with it. I love that I get shots like this. Yes, he has his glove on his head...he's 7. Right out of the box, it's amazing. And I'm pretty sure ...

I am finally getting to the point where I can put words to what I'm feeling, how I've responded and am continuing to respond to the horror that befell 300 of my LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters this past Sunday morning. Part of me still doesn't have the words, but I have to get it out. I have to pour it out on this virtual page, because there are moments when it threatens to crash over me and drown me in sorrow. This has shaken me. I fell madly in love with, and married, a man. Because of this, I get to be protected by my heterosexual relationship to 99.99% of the world. As my friends who love me, and quite a few family members know though, if orientation is a spectrum, then I am somewhere in the middle. Part of me processing this horror, has been stepping back and just trying to support my dear friends and loved ones who don't fall in the middle...I feel like every. damn. day. they are fighting for their loves. For their rights. Sometimes for their lives. They have ...

We went to see Florence + the Machine last night for Buzz Under the Stars Night 1. It was blessed. Flo took me to church and shook my soul up, and soothed my weary heart with her voice. It's my second time seeing her in concert, and I think each time is always going to be like a religious experience. It's magic when an artist moves you to tears over and over. Yesterday was full of excitement and love and peace. Today (tonight really), my funk has started to rear its ugly head again. I feel...listless and restless and ready to explode out of my skin. I've been perusing my favorite website, Rebelle Society , reading beautiful essays and poetry that resonate deeply, reflecting my worries and fears and anguish back to me and forcing me to look. Forcing me to accept that I'm hurting and scared when I want to just keep pretending that I'm all good. Accepting my slump, I feel, is the first step towards pulling out of it. The cycles of depression I go through ...

That is my life at the moment. We have been so busy- and it's not going to stop for awhile, at least another week. I told Jon today that there's a very large part of me that wants to say "Screw it" and splurge on a vacation for us this summer. My batteries need recharging. And for me, that means we get the fuck outta dodge and either go breathe in some mountain air or bury our toes in the sand at the Gulf. That means we go make memories as a family away from the every day bullshit. Either this... Or this...doesn't really matter to me, both are beautiful. I feel like I'm in a bit of a funk right now...not satisfied with work, feeling trapped and stuck. I can't be UN-stuck for awhile, so I'm maintaining and every day I get just a little more frustrated and anxious and sometimes it feels like I can't breathe. I also told Jon today that I can see the desire to buy an RV and just travel around the country, wandering. Of course that ...

I'm not going to lie. I'm totally starting this blog post on Monday night, and I will be wrapping it up/publishing on Tuesday (edit here...or Wednesday...). You see, I just listed 12 new things on Amazon, edited some pictures and put up some Etsy listings, made dinner, fed my boys, and I'm. so. tired. But everything needs to get done. Like yesterday. Interesting fact though, speaking of Amazon...I couldn't figure out why none of my listings were showing up in search. In my head, I'm going "What the h, Amazon, you invited me to open my shop finally, what's the deal?" As I dug and dug, I realized that in the handmade section, only 3 main categories were showing up...wait a second... Turns out, the new categories aren't actually "live" yet. And Amazon hasn't told us when we will be live either. I did get an email this morning telling me to make sure my Artisan profile was done and I had listings up in the shop within the next...

It's Super Tuesday NY Edition! Super-Mega-NYC Tuesday! Or something... If you've paid attention to CNN/MSNBC/FOX in the last 48 hours, that's what the 24 hour news stations are pitching, anyway. Right now Bernie has Hillary under a 20 point lead. With 45+% to still report, I'm feel *somewhat* confident that it will get under 15%. Berners (yeah, I went there) knew this was a likely outcome. Onward, forward, etc etc etc. Sometimes I think America doesn't deserve Bernie Sanders. Or maybe we just aren't ready for him. God knows we need him though. Moving on. Kansas City FINALLY had a good day of rain yesterday. It was glorious. I came home from work, set the kiddo up with a snack and threw on grubby clothes and spent most of the evening outside in the garden, playing in the mud (it had stopped raining by this point, at least) and pulling up phlox. Yeah. You saw that right. Phlox. The bane of my gardening existence. See, our house sits on a .76 acre lot i...