Holistic Mommy

So... Just 2.5 months ago, I returned to the $10/day childcare program which I quit back in the spring. The predator that had recently been hired was finally fired (shame on the organization for allowing that to happen for as long as it did) and I brought a new manager back with me. She's fun. Upon my return, I found that the infant/toddler childcare program I had been spending most of my time in had completely fallen apart... Plummeted. The new manager says to me: "OMG, every time I go in there, the babies are crying. They just cry all day long. You can hear them all the way down the hall. There are no toys. The staff ignore the parents when they drop their kids off in the morning... I'm so scared to bring my child there." She brought her little one (18mos old) only during my shifts so I could intervene on other staff if/when necessary. So... First things first, babies don't cry in my presence. Period. I don't allow it. It's not that I particularly say an...

You'd think with AI becoming a thing over the past 365 days that adults wouldn't be posting their kids info and photos online. Here we are, however, in the first week of school of 2024; adults are logging into Facebook to relentlessly share their kids, age, year, name and photo are shared for all the world to see. Some people will tell you, "Facebook is just for my friends and family" ...Uhh, no it isn't. And working with families, others will tell me, "I signed up for Facebook because that is the way my family seems to share info about our grandkids." Dang, what a position. I feel you grandma's and grandpa's. I do notice how families use, or misuse social media to 'keep in touch'. I don't think they're keeping in touch at all... Every family is sure to have showoffs. Internet is addicting. There is gratification about showing lovely pictures of happy times and cute kids. Someone in the family will start 'sharing' and othe...

I've really gotten into the new whitegirl trend -- refinishing furniture. You know how it goes... The trend found me. You see, I don't buy anything new -- as everyone knows. Clothing is from swaps, sewing machine bought on consignment, furniture pulled off the side of the road, art supplies from Facebook Marketplace and house paint? It's from the recycle depot. There is such good paint being thrown away (can you believe it!). I realized today that the 'Behr Ultra Flat Matte' paint sample I salvaged years ago is actually high quality chalk paint. Anyway, my furniture-flipping days are upon us. And it all started with a kitchen table...  Followed by a nice chair (before and after)...   Four fucking lamps (before and after)...   A shelf (otherwise known as an 'entryway bench')... And now, this 'tea tree' green side table... Paint still drying... I operate very stealth-like and am limited to when the landlord is not home. Given that they are taking onli...

So a girl walks into a bar, and... It's open mic comedy night. She has one of the 25 spots, and... Only three of the comics are female. 23 male comics talk about their penises, and... They're gross. These aren't her people, and... She contemplates that it's four hours to better comedy clubs. Not sure she wants to invest that much into healthier venues, so... Through anger and cognitive dissonance she stays. The worst she can do is a little bit better than the trash on stage tonight, and... Tells herself,  'I'll do my bit, then leave' Like Beyonce, she'll mingle with no one, but... The organizer forgot to add her to the list. 'Bullshit' , she thinks, and... Spirals into more anger and cognitive dissonance. They're so bad that she wonders why she is here, so... She decides to leave. She plans her exit, and... Wonders should she do it tactfully or just turn and go. There is no where else to do comedy, and... Her anger grows more. It is 4 hour...

This is a satisfying. I used up an entire palette of watercolour paint. It takes a very long time to use up paint. I think I've had this for 15 years... I can't believe this day has finally come. The satisfaction in my soul right now is explosive. Now what will I do with my next 15 years?

A friend had a good idea not too long ago. "You should do face painting at the kangaroo farm! My friend did it one year and made a ton of money!" I happened to be receptive to this at the time. I have actually gone through great lengths to learn about face painting in the past. In fact, I still have a sealed box of Snazzaroo face paint sitting at home waiting for it's moment to be opened.  I contacted the kangaroo farm... "Sorry, we have a face painter with us this year... Best of luck in your endeavours!" I let it go -- but remained open to any opportunities. Now, one month later an opportunity has risen! Face painting this weekend (that is FOUR days from now) and again on the First of June. That is, like, a week and a bit from now! I turned to Fairy Fox Designs on YouTube and got insight into what to put in my kit:   This is quite a list. Now, I know I don't have to have everything at once but I will give a good effort to put together an 'above and bey...

Right now I'm watching comedy, writing comedy, blogging and sewing a fish. I don't mean I'm doing these things today -- or this week. I'm doing all of these things right now. Watching comedy is a part of my homework for writing comedy. I am sitting on my yoga mat -- which doubles as my pattern cutting and pinning area. I have jokes coming through, finally, but now we're onto Bernie Mac and his voice is distracting me. I should turn it off and put on solfeggio tones; however, that will bore me. I will keep the comedy on. Now, I am pulling up the pattern for the fish... But first, I'll get that blog post out of my head. I want to show some of the things I've been sewing... Here you go:

I kept a blog for nearly six years. The entire time, I wanted, I asked -- I begged for people to leave comments. Comments are validating and fun and when I saw notification of a new comment, or best case, three comments received, it was an exciting morning. This is what I blog for -- the comments. Now, it is 2018. The internet has sucked all of humanity out of our communities and households. People spend way to much time indoors. I do not want people commenting or tainting my funny, beautiful blog posts. Bring your burning comment to your dinner table --  or staff room, the cashier line-up or to your bank teller. This is a one-way blog -- but I'm grateful to spark conversation in your life. Now it's 2024 and I am starting to write here regularly again. I didn't realize I have been getting comments all of these years. I have to moderate them. There were a lot. Bots, spam, who-knows-what. Glad I wasn't paying attention. I deleted them all. And I'll delete more in ano...

In celebration of my new job I made bean bags today. This is my second attempt at creating these little corn holes. I made a set last year for other children I work with... Those ones didn't turn out so well. Eventually the corners gave way and beans began to slip out. A true sensory experience to randomly find beans throughout our space over a period of a month and  half. Eventually we tossed them -- ha ha get it. These new bean bags are solid. I sewed them on my Janome QDC 8100 and followed the instructions a lot closer. I'm stoked to bring these into my new play place this week.  

My first art submission. Overdose Awareness Response Team booth at Arts Alive. I sewed patio cushions.                             One of my portal dreams. We lived here for three weeks in the Fall. I returned to stand-up comedy after exactly one year away.

I think I'm supposed to move over to WordPress. What do you think? In the meantime, I have this to share: I went for a hike today. My friend took a couple of pictures of me because it was my first time up there. Both pictures have something going on around my head... Do you also notice the monkey in front of me in the second picture? Here are zoomed in shots:  

 

Mortgages, hey? I dunno. I let go of home ownership when Little One was young. A home at that time was over $800,000. I couldn't even cover groceries let alone build savings. We got through it though and over the years, I stayed true to my value of providing for her a magical childhood filled with incredible memories. Now she is older... I get to revisit home ownership. I am currently petsitting on a farm in my hometown (population 1500) for the next three weeks. Where I am situated there is food storage, cold food storage, greenhouses, a giant garden, fruit trees, lush marijuana plants, a well-stocked pantry, pets and three months of food stored... Wandering out of the land of impossibility and back into our rural mountain town, possibility returns. Living in a metropolitan area for the past 15 years, I witnessed so many humans putting all their life energy into mortgages. The level of joy and quality of life in those locations is underwhelming. Renting for life has been an incred...

I realize that sewing has been something big inside of me for a lot of my adult life. My mom (Little One's grammy) was a seamstress; thus, sewing was a part of our lives growing up. She didn't teach us to sew (and none of us were too interested in sewing). Sometime around my early 30s, however, as I got into graphic design, typography and screen printing, I developed an incredible love of working with fabric. Sewing became something that I finally just had to do. My mom clearly saw the inner textile artist in myself and Little One, however, as she wanted to give me her Pfaff Creative 1471. It never made it to us, however; she died before it did. (I later found out my sister hijacked it) Now, I've had some crappy sewing machines over the years and recently, as I was working on a crappy Singer Prelude (given to me by the same sister), I simply had enough. I went to Facebook Marketplace to find a machine. I found one, gave the seller a heads up that I may come by later -- but ...

So here is a fun story: When I was very pregnant and living very, very far away in buttfuck nowhere, I signed up for a quilting class. I wanted to make Little One a quilt. I hadn't much sewing experience, however, my mom was a seamstress -- so I knew I had it in me. The class was held over three weekly sessions. It was an ongoing wonder if I would make it to the end or go into labour before that last class. Sure enough, I gave birth to the most joyful human being before I completed the quilt. 16 years later... This past week, and in a town far, far away from where I started making the quilt, a Repair Cafe came up. It included members from a quilter guild who would be available to mend quilts. I grabbed the unfinished quilt, brought it in and said, "I started this 16 years ago and need guidance in how to finish it." Long story short, I think I just joined a quilters guild and will learn to finish the quilt on Monday! My kiddo is 16 years old this year. I will gift her the ...

As many of you know, I like food and I like healthy food. I went years without eating sugar. From around my child's first year of life until six years ago (about 9 years total), if sugar was on the label I did not purchase it; I didn't bake with it and I just didn't eat it. (I did, however, have organic, dark fair trade on hand at all times.) Through this, I got to the point where sugar was something I had no interest in, nor any craving for. My child was not raised on sugar -- it was just our norm. When we changed cities, however, this changed drastically. Moving is something that always affects my eating and cooking habits as without my stores and shopping route of little markets, I get thrown way off-track. It takes a lot of leg work to rebuild that. Also, while working from home all those years, I had full control over my meals at all hours of the day. Work and school environments, however, are notorious for offering despicable choices of food. Sometimes I cave and some...

Over the course of her lifetime, we have gone up to the headwater to collect spring water. This came about after going hiking and adventuring with a friend who wanted to show me the spring. With very simple access, it is just on the side of the road of one of our favorite outdoor play places. We've been passed it numerous times and I had never even realized it! After being shown this spring, I dreamed of having spring water as our regular drinking water. The reality however, is that I was not able to get there regularly nor did I think it made sense to drive that far to gather our water. We continued to drink tap water and with great gratitude made trips to the spring when we were out that way. Recently, and after a decade after being shown that spring, there has been a big shift in our lives. There is a huge sense of heading to the springs regularly. This has been floating within me over the past week or two. Soon after, we found ourselves at the spring filling our big jugs for ...

We carved pumpkins today! I wanted to make an evil gerbil. I needed a reference and our gerbil, Sparkle, provided a great one. Little One also got to work on something awesome -- I call hers, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'. She says it has acne.

This bike is, by far, the best item a housemate has left behind. It is a Nirve Aloha Beach Cruiser. Let me tell you this kid absolutely rocks it. If my phone wasn't broken I would be able to share pictures of her riding it in true confident-kid-on-a-beach-cruiser style with her big floppy hat and sundress.

Through thick and through thin, we got Little One up to the top of a mountain everyday for a week this summer. She volunteered in tbe outdoor recreation program where I was working. Can I tell you how incredible it is to witness your growing youth out in the world. Such a kind, aware, filled-with-life human she is -- she turned heads up at that camp this week. She received big kudos from managers and supervisors throughout as well as an offer for employment next summer. The best part, of course, is the staff skipass she has earned for this winter.