Fashion friday, according to Ellie

I just picked Ellie up from school and apparently the newest and greatest fashion craze is to wear your jacket....backwards. Yes, backwards. And Ellie, being my little fashionista was out there in her blaze of glory, red jacket on backwards, conspiring with her fellow backward jacket playmates. Oh kids...You are too cool.

What ever happened to Fashion Friday?

Three words: Mommy got lazy.

But we're back and mommy's not feeling so lazy. In fact, mommy is feeling pretty good. In pondering upon my feeling-good-ness I started thinking of all the very ordinary and extraordinary things that life is sending us these days.

A new (old) job on Monday where I'm returning to a team of people that I have so much respect and admiration for.
Some really swell friends, both my size and Ellie's size
Neighbors, really freaking awesome neighbors/friends
Blue Moons
Weekly trips to the library
Our 6pm ritual of playing Jeopardy
Some quiet moments
Friday night Thai takeout
Ellie's first "job": to bring in the paper every day
A husband that I can always count on
And the topper to every list is my sweet little bundle of 2 year old love. She is funny, empathetic, playful, smart and more and more creative. I do love that sweet child of mine.

Happy weekend to you!

Leggings and shirt: Gymboree
Dress: Gap (acquired from thrift store)
Shoes: Osh Kosh
Glasses: Dollar store
Necklace: gift from one of Ellie's friends

It's thursday night, time for mommy's special time!

Today was one of those days that I just wanted soooooo baddddddly to have a moment to myself. Ellie was sick, and the snot was running big time, and we were up at 2am making hot tea and forced sinus rinses wide eyed, me trying to convince Ellie that the world is sleeping at 3am and she should be too. And she still is up at 645 with "Mommy, it's light out now. Time to wake up! Can I have a cough drop now?" (Yes I introduced cough drops last night as I was freaking desperate and now the furniture is all sticky with toddler hand to mouth cough drop usage because she can't wrap her head around the fact that you JUST SUCK IT. It's not a toy to rub all over your hands.)

Poor kid was covered in runny snot all day, eyes puffy, and to make the scene more let's-stay-indoors-all-day-guilt-free was the fresh blanket of 6 inches of snow that I had no idea was coming. Today I was hoping for quiet book reading and Disney movies but a little snot does not stop a 2 year old from her awesome magnitude for fun making, in fact, it makes it worse as each idea that enters her thoughts must be executed right then and there in the exact form and function in which she has pictured it in her little 2 year old brain. If she wants her tent she wants it NOW and with perfect pillow placement and if the pillows somehow get involved with the door hatch and it doesn't close all the way then mommy can and will sit through the ensuing tantrum and abandon all efforts of reasoning. You pick your battles in life, and today I didn't have it in me to patiently explain the reason that lemonade poured in one glass tastes exactly the same if it's in another glass, among other reason-free arguments that were avoided systematically throughout the course of this very long day.

Today we never made it outside. When Mike came home I felt like a zombie stepford robot wife with a monotone "How-was-your-day-supper-will-be-ready-soon" robot voice. Grateful that Ellie had another being to beg the attention of. "Daddy watch me!" as she does some ridiculously simple thing like put her arm over her head. "Mommy watch me!", she drinks from her cup. "Daddy watch me", she twirls. "Mommy watch me", she puts her finger on her nose. Or wait, her newest one is she'll moon me. Which I admit does crack me up but I don't want to encourage that behavior; I do my best to stifle my laughter and educate her on how that's inappropriate; I really don't want to get THAT call from her preschool. But she knows I think it's funny. She ain't no fool.

But it's Thursday night now and as any friend of mine knows Thursday is when Mike plays trivia and I get to enjoy the sweet, sweet, SA-WEET sound of silence. I get to read a book, write a blog post, watch adult programming like Parks and Rec and let the loud whiny sounds of Caillou and his fake 4 year old laughter fade away into the night. If I was a drinker I'd probably have a glass or 4 of wine. But lately one poured glass of wine for me turns into vinegar, abandoned in the reckless joy of all of the things that I am able to do without a child trying to sit on my lap or beg for my attention.

Ah Thursday night, you sweet little carrot. I just love you so.

(Which is ironic because [major side note] I have a huge pet peeve about people professing love or writing letters to inanimate objects. Dear snow, I didn't know you were coming today. Dear traffic, please don't be too bad. Dear week, TGIF. Ah, it kills me! And yet, I romanticized sweet little nothings to my dear little Thursday night. )

I'm such a hypocrite. Dear Thursday, don't hate.

I never saw a mountain that did not give me pause

I never saw a mountain that did not give me pause.

I'm a humble servant bowing to a king.

Delicate mountain flower, climbing through the rocks,
growing to become beautiful. Inspiring others,
the flowers around him, the animals that pass by.

Small, unique life,

a piece of a mountain, 

a piece of a landscape, 

a piece of a heartsong.

Earth, its dynamic life force,

only moving forward through each wise cycle.

Summer, the tall, firey beauty

Fall, the elegant elder

Winter, the strong dark giving way to fallen petals and seed.

Spring, the young ones

the young ones who make their way up to the sun,

to shine their glorious faces,

to experience their own life.

Sunandrainandwindandpeopleandandstruggle

They live. They die.

And the rain, it comes, and it cleanses our hearts

And it pours from our eyes

And it enters our bodies.

and we touch each other

sharing in the heartsong of each glorious flower,

grieving when the beautiful songs we are used to hearing

succumb to winter.

And when the strong hand of grief

let's loose its grip on our heart

we are free to keep listening, 

free to sing from our own hearts the heartsongs we remember so well.

Mountains are songs,

waiting to be sung

born from songs we never forget.

--Summer Nicklasson 2/20/12

What is my life's purpose?

I just googled that.

One of my findings was to do an exercise where you write all of your ideas for what your life's purpose is. Just free write. When you get to the one that makes you cry then you found it.

To be a mom.
To be a hospice nurse.
To help people die.
To educate people
To be a nurse educator
To care for dying people.
To help people feel better.
To be an oncology nurse.
To master finance (?)
To be a mom.
To be an awesome mom.
To be a writer.

To be a writer.

To be a writer.

*sniff*
Ok, I didn't cry. But everything sort of slowed down and morphed into this weird feeling of clarity.

I wrote it again: To be a writer.

I liked the way it sounded. I liked the way my fingers felt as I typed it.

So there it is, right? I found my life's purpose!!! Hahahaha, I wish it were so simple. I wish I had a novel in me that I could just tuck away into a cabin and emerge one month later victoriously with my completed, highly accoladed novel.

Instead I re-contemplated going back for my nurse practitioner degree.
Oh, and I got a job today, well, I was re-hired by the hospice that I first started with (and left it fo da money yo).

I'm excited about my job. About the people I'll be working with (love them so), about my territory. Still a hospice nurse, but with a much better company. It ain't about the money, I just learned this lesson the hard, punch-you-in-the-face kind of way.

So that's good. New job, only four days a week. I don't start until the 27th so I'm kind a just kickin it.

Kinda trying to figure some stuff out.

Trying to figure out where I want to grow as a person. What I want to be in the world. What makes me happy. My God, WHAT MAKES ME HAPPY?

Obviously Ellie. Duh.
Being a part of that very poignant experience of someone's last days makes me happy. But it's not joy.

What gives me joy?
This blog. Letting words spill from my mouth onto this blank slate. Creating. Discovering. Trying to be better. A better person, a better writer.

This blog has kept me from going off the deep end. It helps neutralize sticky situations. And see, IT JUST MAKES ME HAPPY.

What is my life's purpose?
Well, being a good mom is numero uno.
But one level down from that?
Words. Maybe my life's purpose is words. Maybe it isn't.

But that's the closest I came to crying.

Now I need a cabin.

Getting my knit on

Ok so after a full year hiatus of picking up my knitting needles, I. AM. BACK. Honestly I was doubting if I'd even remember how to cast on. Turns out, it's like riding a bike. 

I just finished this little sweater/dress for Ellie. It's a size too big but at the rate she's growing I don't reckon that will be a problem soon. Pattern here.

See this flashlight? Goes with her EVERYWHERE! Especially the bathroom where she insists on sitting on the toilet with no lights on. And at night. And all day long. 

What is love on this Valentine's Day (and every day)? *** with an epilogue

It's Valentines Day. A hallmark day created for love. So what is love?

For me, It's a fullness in my heart. A smile that forms on the inside.
It's a feeling of wanting to take care of someone, or help them take care of them self.
Compassion.
True love is selfless, it's an aura that envelopes your being
I believe that love is a place where you transcend.
It's where you become the world, feeling the world, loving the world.
outside of your box of "this is me". Outside of jealousy and pain.
Outside of wanting to contain it, outside of wanting to run from it.
In stillness, in compassion, in random acts of kindness you see it,
this ethereal love,
this love that knows no name other than love.
And when you feel it, when you really feel it,
your heart will swell, and peace will overcome you.

My God, it's so beautiful.

I've learned a lot about love in this life. I've learned about the pain from attachment to people,
the pain from jealousy, the pain from expectations, the pain from trying to contain something that is already free and floating all around us. This is what we do and I wouldn't say that it's bad. We want to feel good, trying to hold on, trying to make sense of things that sometimes are just so simple we can't understand them.

I try to remember that love is pure, easily accessed, and when I stop trying to control it, it lifts me up to the top of gorgeousness.

I do my best, anyway. I've no where near mastered it.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone. Peace to all.


****Right after posting this I discovered that a very kind and beautiful man that I have met several times in Telluride has died in an avalanche. I looked at this picture that I had taken of him and his son and I sobbed. Deeply, truly sobbed. And I thought, how cruel life can be to take this father away from his son, away from his wife.

I find it ironic that I just wrote this post on love. How I let myself feel it, that transcendent love.

And I realize, so poignantly, that to love, as a human, is to suffer.
We love and we are vulnerable. Pieces of our hearts connected to others. How do you not form attachment to the people that you love? Maybe the most evolved Buddhists can do this. But I can not. Nor do I want to live in a state of non-attachment. So love, this beautiful, grand gesture, this gorgeous light that fills your being, it has a shadow side, too. People that we love leave us. And we suffer. To know love is to know suffering.

But still we do it. We love. We put our hearts outside of our bodies, connect them to people, to the world, to the pain of the world.

I'll miss this very kind man. I mourn that his son will not grow up with his very cool dad, Nate. Please say prayers for his wife and son.

And send love.

This is true love.

When the Universe listens

I experienced something at work recently, something that I don't care to elaborate on, but I will just tell you that I am not working there anymore. I'm home. I'm job hunting. I'm doing yoga. I'm knitting sweaters. I'm cross country skiing, I'm playing so much guitar. I'm playing with my daughter. I made arrangements with her school for her to only go 3 days a week now. We go to the library. We make valentines. We make huge awful messes. I clean the house. I still don't cook, well anyway.

Sometimes things come your way, maybe not in the way that you intended, but they come because there was a part of you that was asking for it to come. It's no secret that I was unhappy in my job and that I was not balanced,. Right now I'm getting that balance back. I feel like me. I feel....happy. I really do.

I'm job hunting right now and I've gone on several interviews. It is likely that I will stay in hospice because well, it's what I know, it's what I'm good at, and I have experience and my hospice and palliative care certification. BUT, I will not work with a company that will not work with me. I can't handle 5 long brutal days a week, not in this line of work, and I've found that there are companies out there that are willing to be creative in schedules. Companies that actually value you as a person and not just an employee.

That said, today is Wednesday. I dropped off my daughter, I went to yoga, I came home and fell asleep on the couch for 2 hours and then I got up, picked up, made a new playlist on spotify, sent out a resume, did a load of laundry. And MAN is that not awesome or what?

Anyway, here's to changes. Here's to your heart asking for things to happen and the Universe listening. I have faith in this Universe. I have faith in abundance. And I am so filled with gratitude for my beautiful life.