Back Soon

Jimmy Buffett - Trip Around the Sun

Trips Around the Sun

Happy Birthday to my fellow Lionesse, Pamela, my true blue pal I met on the tennis courts at UWF in 1986, found out we had the same birthday and became fast friends. 

Happy Birthday to my father, 93 years young, whose official birthday was August 8.  We had dinner and a cake, a few presents but there shall be extended celebrating this Saturday and we pray there is caramel cake involved.

Happy Birthday to my Aunt Mary Nelle, 91, my father's sister, whose birthday is actually Saturday.  We hope you have a wonderful time where you are celebrating.  We tried to get together with Aunt Mary and my cousin but bad weather pre-empted the drive.

Happy Belated Birthday to my sweet niece, Jennifer, whose birthday was over-shadowed this year by sad events.  Better days are ahead and your family gathers around you in a circle of support and Love.

And Happy Birthday to Me!

Summer's Growing Old

Before long, I will be standing on the curb of our street panting excitedly, a big goofy grin on my face, awaiting the (long-anticipated) arrival of the big yellow school bus.  True to form, however, after Liberty gets on the bus, I will walk back inside and get that empty feeling, look around his room,  give his giant Pooh Bear a squeeze and shed a tear or two.  It never fails.  I am so happy to be getting that child back into a school routine and I know he misses school, too, but at the same time, we have had our summer days where we did not have to get up on time, and sometimes just hung out at home, Lib playing games with toys in all corners of the house and me cooking while I Love Lucy is on, working a jigsaw, transcribing medical notes here and there, doing some reading, short trips to the grocery.   There is something quite lovely about the summer in that respect.  We did miss our beach severely this year; but God willing we will be able to at least go over there again soon (maybe even tomorrow!) --a story for another time.  

Having endured what I have now deemed the "2-martini haircut" today in which my sweet boy morphed into Mr. Hyde's younger brother - hideous kicking, screaming, biting my shoulder;  a full blown tantrum, I would say that I am more than ready for school to begin.
Not once did Robert the Archangel of Hairdressers complain or get upset.  He just said he felt like that this morning before he had his coffee.   He is a GEM of a person. 

And so, eventually, (within about half an hour or so 5 minutes), the empty silence will become the bless-ed, bless-ed silence.   The sacred temple of silence.  

Ahhhhh.  To sigh all of those unsighed sighs...

These days, I crave peace and quiet and time to myself, something I rarely get in the summertime except when we are at the pool and no one is there with an annoying radio, and I can just hang out in nature and watch the lazy clouds slip by and the occasional hawk on the wing.  Liberty learning to swim has been a major gift to me, not only because I know he won't drown in the water, but because I can sit in a chair or swim to the deep end, or you know, just relax, close my eyes,  let the sun bake on my skin for a minute or two.  I have not been able to do this for 7 years.

Speaking of swimming, here is a tip from a blog I just happened upon:  Take equal parts of Epsom salt and warm water and put in spray bottle.  If you cannot get your child in a bath right away, just spray it on the skin.  Simple, but brilliant.  I keep Epsom salts over at my father's house so Lib can get into his bath right after we swim.   But, how nice to have a spray bottle handy, too!  You can make your Epsom salt cream from  here too.  Chlorine can really effect some kids, I know it does Lib, and so it's important to detox it out as much as possible. 

Tomorrow is the birthday of Yours Truly.  My sis from NY flies in on Thursday.  My niece drives over on Friday, and on Saturday there shall be partying.

After the fun has been had, the child launched, and we shift into autumn, in the coming weeks I will report on my son's continuing success with high-potency probiotics, the ongoing tweaking of supplements to give certain things at the appropriate times which about drove me bonkers, and the introduction of curcumin again.  Some exciting things are happening but it's too early for me to spill about it, so stay tuned!

White Sage and Rodney Yee

I have an old Rodney Yee Yoga tape, circa 1998 called, "AM/PM Yoga."  Actally, Patricia Walden instructs the evening yoga part, but Rodney does the morning yoga segment. I have used this for years for stretching my back, and for flexibility.  It does not take much time and he moves you through a series of yoga poses and stretches to wind up in meditation pose.  Plus it is filmed on the beach in Hawaii and Rodney has a flawless beautiful yoga body. What's not to love?

I burn some white sage to clear the area and my mind and put my purple yoga mat and strap on the floor.

This morning, guess who loves the whole deal?  Liberty watched me while he sat in the rocking chair.  He kept putting my hands back in meditation pose when it was over and cried when he thought I was getting up to turn it off.  So, I started it again.  It has his rapt attention right now.  There is a soft singing voice, a harp and Tibetan bells in the background.  He is now lying on my purple yoga mat and just turned the volume up.

Roll Around Heaven

I just had to post about a book I recently read, Roll Around Heaven.  The author is Jessica Maxwell.  This woman is a hilarious writer.  I loved this book.  In fact, I am going to read it again.  It is the story of a woman who had no spiritual beliefs, in fact was turned off to God and religion at an early age, who basically has an incredible spiritual awakening after her father passes away.  It reminds me a lot of things that happened to me when I moved to Virginia in the 1980s when I also had a huge "accidental" spiritual awakening.  I laughed my way through this book.  The interesting thing about Jessica is that she was an adventure writer before she wrote this, traveling to places like Argentina to learn and write about fly fishing or golf or even salmon spawning somewhere.  What a cool profession!   The book is really a chronicle of her many adventures with people she meets but it actually starts off with her conversations with Lory Misel, a pig farmer in Oregon who came to speak to her writing class she was teaching who turns out to be an authentic spiritual master that blew her mind.  She winds up going to his house every Thursday just to talk about God and spiritual matters which she calls "Thursdays with Lory."  Her best friend describes her story as "Lucille Ball trips over God."

Meanwhile, back on the home front, Liberty is doing incredibly well (knocking on wood 3 times).  Finally treating him properly with natural antifungals, probiotics and even possibly a new item, LDN cream (low-dose naltrexone) has really seemed to turn this child around.  He is suddenly doing age-appropriate things and is more present.  And, finally, the constipation that he has suffered with for so long appears to be clearing up.  I have started juicing and also making smoothies just to get some fruits and vegetables in him lately and that seems to be working, too.

So, some good things happening.  We are also gearing up for school starting August 23 but before then, we have lots of birthdays to celebrate:  My father will turn 93 Sunday, his sister and my aunt will be 91 this month and  yours truly will be, well let's just say I am having a birthday, too.  No need to discuss my age before breakfast.  And my sister from NY is coming down, too and that means there will be lots of fun and laughter.  It's Party Time.

Check out the book, you'll be glad you did!