Those pesky journals

I've been re-reading the journals I kept all through the 1980s, finishing in the early 1990s. A few years ago I numbered them all with white-out but I didn't open them. It's been several decades since I looked inside them, except for an occasional perusal to find some event I almost remembered. You can click to enlarge but there's not much to see in this picture.

I am reading a journal dated fall and spring 1985-86. I visited my mother's home at Christmas 1985. I found this lovely description of my mother, who died in 1993, which is almost as if written by a stranger (I don't remember writing it at all!). Mama was born in 1923 and died before she turned seventy. I found this description of her, dated "Saturday night after the Winter Solstice 12/21":

I watched Mama today make fudge and noticed that she "fudged" often on her no-sugar diet. She often waxes eloquent on her lack of a sweet tooth, but I know better. Somehow it doesn't count when you're cooking. But I watched her being happy today, too. We worked hard, her harder than me; she made four loaves of homemade bread (yum!), more cheese balls, and, of course, the fudge.

Tonight I watched her become animated as she talked with Richard about her golfing days. I thought of her damaged heart as she poured in the alcohol and sugar, but somehow it didn't matter in the way it did before. I recognize her loss to me will be great, but as hard as it is to picture this vital loquacious woman gone from the face of the earth, no one can deny that she is enjoying herself today. She lives close to the edge and I admire her immensely -- once I remove my judgment about what she should be doing... Many lessons here for me to learn for myself.

A description: She sits in a chair as though at a bar after 18 holes of golf, relaxed and talkative. Her left hand holds her drink, her right gestures characteristically, almost royally, as she tells her story. A flush creeps into her cheeks and across her nose, giving the illusion of health. Ruddy-bright, eyes sparkling with good humor and wit. Her torso is thick, but somehow she carries it with good grace, and the long slim legs give her the look of a dancer, a chorus girl perhaps. One can imagine her as a young beauty queen. And she is still, to this day, a beauty.

When she is home during the day, unmade-up, no prosthesis covering the mutilation performed a decade and a half ago upon her body, she is even more interesting. Her left shoulder is higher than the right, the scar tissue having drawn tight across the collarbone, and the strange flatness across her chest is somehow protective of that area. Great trauma has visited this body, and the spirit has molded it and made it beautiful, in defiance of the cold merciless surgery that has been perpetrated upon it. She is my mother, and I love her.

And yes, now she is gone, and the journal entry made her presence jump out of the page and into my heart. I still miss her after all these years, and I am blessed to have her with me once again in memory. I took this picture of her when she came to visit me in Boulder.

:-)

How Organized Are You Poll

January 2010 (92 Votes)
How organized are YOU??

Extremely- 9 (9%)
Somewhat- 55 (59%)
Please Help!- 30 (32%)

Whew... I'm glad that only 9% of you are extremely organized. (Makes me feel better.) I only wish I could say that I'm one of those 9!!

Rolfing and me

Picture from The Rolf Studio

In my other blog I mentioned in passing that I had been Rolfed, and my brother Buz asked me in a comment if I gained any height. And Star had never heard of Rolfing Structural Integration, so here's a brief explanation and some links I found.

First of all, if you have ever received a professional massage (I get one every three weeks), you are familiar with the height and shape of the massage table: wide enough for one person to lay comfortably on it, and a little more than waist high, so the massage therapist can put strength behind her strokes, and it's easy for anybody to climb up on it. The Rolfing table is half as high and twice as wide, because the Rolfer gets on the table with you. And instead of being naked and covered with a sheet, you wear at least your underwear so that the Rolfer can work on you and see what to do. You get off the table often and walk around during the session. No oil is used.

The name comes from the woman who invented it, Ida Rolf. The main Rolf Institute is located in Boulder, and I looked through my old journals and found when I went through it. Usually a person pays at least $100 a session, and ten initial Rolfing sessions are usually performed.

Since I lived in Boulder, I was able to sign up as a model in 1984 and be used to train new Rolfers. All of the trainees are closely monitored by the expert Rolfers, so in effect you get to be Rolfed by a beginner but examined by lots of experts, and you pay much less. I paid (in 1984) $300 for ten sessions, and the schedule was twice a week instead of once a week. Usually at least a week needs to pass between sessions, but these people were being trained. Robin was my trainee. I found this entry in my journal, dated August 1, 1984:

The Rolfing is finished! I am really amazed at the difference in my body in the five weeks since Robin and I began the process of becoming Rolfer and Rolfee. See the next page [two pictures of me in my underwear which I am not going to show you!]: it's not as obvious in these two series that the length I have gained is mainly in my torso, but you can see it if you study the elbow placement and the smoother lines in the right-hand torso. My head is also back rather than forward as it was before. So I am pleased I am now 5'5" tall, which is taller than I've ever been. I feel much more integrated in my body now, and the Rolfing should continue to change my body for another seven months.

I also found some other earlier entries where I complained mightily about the pain. It does hurt, and the Rolfer uses her elbow, hard pressure, and her fingers to shape the fascia underneath the skin. I found a link to a woman's page who went through it to help her overcome past injuries. I gained almost two inches in height at the age of 43, and I kept it for several years.

As the years wear on, the effects of gravity begin to pull you back down. (I'm back to 5'3".) I went through two series of five to gain back the height, and a couple of sessions of three. Although it's been at least five years since I had any Rolfing at all, I learned so much about how to move around from my core. Sometimes on the street I'll see somebody and unconsciously think how much Rolfing could improve them. Almost every city has some Rolfers, if you decide to give it a try and spend a fair amount of money!
:-)

Hypochondria and me

I already covered my issues with OCD, so I thought I'd move on to something just as much fun: hypochondria (or hypochondriasis, as it's also called). This disorder is characterized like this (of course by Wikipedia):

Hypochondria is often characterized by fears that minor bodily symptoms may indicate a serious illness, constant self-examination and self-diagnosis, and a preoccupation with one's body. ... Some hypochondriacal individuals are completely avoidant of any reminder of illness, whereas others are frequent visitors of doctors’ offices. Other hypochondriacs will never speak about their terror, convinced that their fear of having a serious illness will not be taken seriously by those in whom they confide.

Although I don't have the above symptoms to a noticeable degree, I do detect any differences in my body from day to day, and sometimes I really worry about having a disease and that I should be doing something about it by going to the doctor. But the truth of it is this: none of us are going to survive forever, and something is going to get you eventually. So I have a real dilemma: am I being a hypochondriac by worrying about these things, or negligent?

Both of my parents died in their sixties, both from the same cause: heart disease, or what is also known as coronary artery disease. They didn't have statin drugs available to them, or I think they might have survived longer, but for sure they wouldn't be alive today because, well, they didn't pick their parents carefully. Another interesting quote from Wikipedia:

It is common for serious illnesses or deaths of family members or friends to trigger hypochondria in certain individuals. Similarly, when approaching the age of a parent's premature death from disease, many otherwise healthy, happy individuals fall prey to hypochondria. These individuals believe they are suffering from the same disease that caused their parent's death, sometimes causing panic attacks with corresponding symptoms.

My constant habit of exercise and taking statins do, I believe, cut the possibility of developing heart disease prematurely, but then I think: what do I want to keel over from? Uh-oh, my OCD is kicking in, I'd better stop now! But not before I share this perfect (for me) cartoon from the web:

I don't think I'm alone out there. What do YOU think?
:-)

Christmas Card Binder

This year after Christmas I decided to get all of our family Christmas cards/letters out of the file they were hiding in, and "scrap" them into a book that we can enjoy and add to year after year.

This first page I'd like to put some cute words of some sort, but still haven't found/thought of the perfect thing. Still looking for inspiration on this one... Ideas anyone??

Now keep in mind... I'm not an avid "Scrapper", so these pages are not "top-notch" by any means!...

I only send cards every other year, but as you can see I skipped a few in the beginning when I was having babies like crazy. :o)


I plan on adding more scrapped pages of Christmas pictures, but that will take some time!


I haven't decided yet, but I have saved a few of our friends' picture Christmas cards and may or may not add them to this book as well. Any opinions?

Deception Pass

Today, 17 Senior Trailblazers headed south of Bellingham to Skagit County's Deception Pass State Park. We had a 20% chance of rain, but instead of rain we had clouds, full overcast, all day long. This made for some dramatic pictures, though, as you will see here (click to enlarge). The entire hike ended up being a little more than 8 miles and, although we never got more than 700 feet above sea level, went UP and DOWN for a total elevation gain of 1,500 feet. No wonder I'm tired. The above picture shows Deception Pass Bridge  that joins Whidbey Island to Fidalgo Island. From a travel agency's website:

In the spring of 1792, Joseph Whidbey, master of the HMS Discovery and Captain Vancouver's chief navigator, sailed through the narrow passage that is now called Deception Pass and proved that it was not really a small bay as charted by the Spaniards (hence the name "Deception"), but a deep and turbulent channel that connects the Strait of Juan de Fuca with the Saratoga Passage.

While we were there today, it was smooth as glass, no turbulence at all. First, we headed up past Pass Lake, a fairly large freshwater lake, to an old abandoned orchard. Once we got there, we saw an old tree with a couple of makeshift swings in it. Mike was willing to swing on the tree so I could snap his picture. We all know Mike is still a kid at heart.

Next, we headed over to Lighthouse Point for lunch, it being near noon and all, which showed us some of the miles and miles of the State Park's shoreline. We walked along this lovely beach to reach the point on the other side of these trees.

Although there was no lighthouse at Lighthouse Point (only a small beacon), we found this beautiful spot for us to have a nice lunch. We looked out over Bowman Bay, watching seals (which I was unable to capture with my camera), birds, and humans in boats. The only annoyance of the entire day was the jet flights from the nearby naval base, which made me wish I had my earplugs!

After lunch, we headed back to the Bowman Bay parking lot and stashed our packs while we walked another mile or so to Rosario Point. By this time the clouds had begun to lift over the Olympic Mountains across the water, and I saw this low cloudbank light up, with the mountains behind, and I could not believe my luck. Hopefully you will see how gorgeous this shot is, if you enlarge it.

This area is now known as part of the Salish Sea, which I wrote about a while back here, if you're interested in a little more information about this area. (There are maps and information about why it's called that.) Tired and happy, we piled into our cars and headed home, and I walked in the door, kissed Smart Guy, and started this post. Now I can have that wine! Thanks for coming along with me to Deception Pass.

:-)

The I Ching

Well, now I've done it. I started re-reading my journals that I kept during the 1980s, and I have remembered something I never use any more, but for two decades I wouldn't make a move without consulting it: The I Ching, or Book of Changes, an ancient Chinese text used to guide the user to understand the present moment and give an idea of how to proceed correctly to the next moment in time. It has been used in one form or another for 5,000 years.

The way it works is that you have somehow to produce six lines, working from the bottom to the top to build a hexagram, which is made up of two trigrams, which are one of these eight here in this diagram.

As an unrepentant hippie, I learned to use this method of divination during those years, using sixteen stones to find my hexagram, and thereby tell me where I was at and where I was going. Seven stones were white, five were orange, three were grey, and one was a bloodstone. I would draw out six stones. If I drew a white or orange stone, it would mean it wouldn't change, but if I drew a grey or the bloodstone, it would change to its opposite, so you end up with two hexagrams, one for the present and one for the future, with moving lines.

Well, I've explained enough of how it works, I think, for my readers. What I wanted to tell you about is how much I followed this method of divination and that I believed in it implicitly. It is not an exaggeration to say I never made a move without consulting the I Ching for guidance. Once I got my hexagram, I needed to interpret it, and I used the Wilhelm/Baynes book to tell me what the ancient Chinese text meant. Usually it was pretty esoteric, but really you had good and bad things come from it, much like (I guess, knowing nothing about it) the Tarot deck.

The one thing I remember is how I needed to formulate my question and find a place of peace and quiet. The whole thing took hours, first to gain a contemplative mind, and then to "throw" the hexagrams, and finally to interpret them. In many ways I now realize that I needed to cultivate a prayerful attitude in order to approach the I Ching. Just for fun, I opened it to a page and took a picture of it, so you can see how esoteric the words of the book are (click to enlarge). That's my handwriting saying "The Ultimate Answer," whatever I meant by that.

Over the years I have lost the stones, but I still have my old book, which I have carried around with me, much used and with so many passages underlined and filled with old memories of hopes and dreams I don't remember any more. I doubt I will ever use it again, but I wouldn't even consider not having the I Ching in my house... just in case.
:-)

Inside {My} Organized Purse

This is my last organizing idea for the month. I know for me it has been really good. There has been some projects that have been well over due in getting done. I hope you have had a chance to get some things organized this month in your homes.


I love purses! They come in all sizes, shapes and colors. My other purse was looking a little ragged, a little too small and not very organized. I'm so excited to use my new handmade purse.
To keep my purse organized I've put little stuff in containers. I love containers. They help keep "things" so tidy.

Just a few of the containers. Beauty Bag, "Tools" container, ABC container(great idea to keep the kids entertained at anywhere you have extra time).


1-These are the not so pretty beginning. Remember to "sand it" so the fabric will adhere.


2-Cut a piece of fabric {I love how fabric lays better than paper and doesn't get bubbles}and put a coat of modge podge on container at adhere the fabric.


3-Cut the corners so they will lay flush and not bunched up.


4-After glue has dried, cut fabric excess off.


5-Modge podge the final coat to protect.
Purse "tute" follows:

I was inspired to make a purse like this but with "Heather" style. I just got a denim skirt from Goodwill(at 1/2 price= $1.00). I think they use denim pants but I think a skirt works so much better.


1-Using a simple Crayola marker(if you make a mistake this comes out really well with a wet wipe) draw the outline of a design with your stencil you would like to stitch. I used embroidery floss to do the stitching.


2-My stitching is complete!


3-Turn skirt inside out and measure the width (add 1 inch to the measurment). Pull sides a little to get correct measurment.


4-Measure the length. I started just under the "main seam". Remember to double this number because you will be folding it in half.


5-Cut a piece of your desired fabric. Fold is at bottom.


6-Stitch 1/2 inch seam on each end.


7-When done with the ends, fold right sides together and stitch down each side.


8-Turn the skirt inside out and stitch along the bottom edge {Make sure you have denim needle!}.


9-Go to side of skirt and pinch to make a triangle.


10-Sew like this...


11-This is the "pleat" edge effect.


12-The look from the bottom of the purse.


13-Stuff fabric pouch inside the skirt.


14-Starting at the button/zipper(front); start pinning the inside fabric to the skirt going around(if there is any excess just fold it over close to a side-TIP: its better to have excess than not enough)


15-Your ready to sew them together. I put it this way so I can get a straighter line guided by the exsistin stitching. Just remember to watch for your pins and pull them our before you get to them!


16-I unbuttoned it so I could finish the stitching off.


17-Cut a belt(also found at goodwill for only a 1.00) in 1/2 and place it where you want it along the front at the top edge.


18-Sew a square (stitch/backstitch/stitch each side of the square)


You are Done! Now you get to enjoy your beautiful purse!

New Hobby Lobby Store Open in My Town!!

I am SO excited to FINALLY have a HOBBY LOBBY in my town!!! Woot!! Our Hobby Lobby store, here in Meridian, ID (Eagle Rd/Ustick) opened yesterday! Watch out Craft Warehouse, Joann's and Michaels. This store tops them ALL!!! They have the best deals in my opinion and an amazing selection, as well as high quality merchandise for reasonable prices. Their "Grand Opening" is this Monday 2/1.

Creative Homemaker Polls

(Illustration taken from "Cookie Polls")

I LOVE polls! I love voting in them and peeking at the results. It's always interesting to where I stand amongst the majority.

I thought it would be fun to start recording/posting the final results of all the polls we do on our site!

Also, I think it would be so fun to hear some of your personal comments on some of the answers; especially when there is a box to check for "None of the above" (or something similar). Or maybe your answer is not an option on the poll, but you would love to share it anyway. (And we'd love to hear it!!!!)

And/or maybe YOU have a burning question you'd like to submit for us to post as a poll?

Please share! You can email us at TheCreativeHomemaker (at) gmail (dot) com, or you can leave a comment on this post or on the specific post for each different poll.

Laundry Room Poll

image taken from Alkemie

January 2010- (82 votes)
Your laundry room is:
It's own room- 16 (19%)
A walk-through to garage- 31 (37%)
Upstairs with bedrooms- 9 (10%)
None of the above- 26 (31%)

Those of you who voted "None of above", what kind of laundry room to do have?? Is it in the basement? Behind closet doors? (I should have put the basement option. Oh well.)

FHE/ Activity Binder System

FHE Binder [system part 1]


As a present, my friend {Jen} gave me a Family Home Evening binder labeled with monthly themes. Jan-Order & Goals, Feb-Love, Mar-Family Unity, Apri-Becoming More Spiritual, May-Self- Reliance, Jun-Membership in the Church, Jul-Patriotism & Pioneers, Aug-Following Christ, Sept-Purpose:Plan of Salvation, Oct-Obedience, Nov-Gratitude, Dec-Charity. Its a great idea to have a focus and to be able to direct your FHE lessons or scripture study on that theme. I love it and still cherish it!

This is a sample of the front page of each month.

I have divided the months up so I can put 3 months in each binder.


I decided to take it a little further each month and have sub-topics. Each Monday night we have a lesson to introduce the Gospel topic (under the monthly theme) for the week. Then we focus on that topic of the Gospel and explore activities to reinforce that topic[system part 2]. I just printed some blank calendars to write in the topics. I was able to go to one of my favorite sites and look thru the alphabet for some ideas. I did: Jan-Goal Setting/Priorities, Responsibilities, Work/House of Order, Word of Wisdom. Feb-Love/Kindness, Repentance, Forgiveness, Morality. Mar-Family Unity(Communicatin), Manners(ettiquette), Reverence,Missionary Work, CTR(honesty/accountability/emaple). Apr- Review of Conf., Resurrection/Second Coming, Prayer, Faith/Revelations. May- Talents/Gifts, "Mothers"(including Eve,Mary, etc), Being Prepared(temperal & spiritual), Testimony/Trials, Temple. Jun- Baptism(covenants), "Fathers"(Adam, Lehi,etc), Leadership/Callings, Patriotism. Jul- Agency, Diversity, Pioneers, Searching the Scriptures. Aug-Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy,Atonement, Sacrifice, Armor of God, 6 B's. Sept- Plan of Salvation, Creation, I am a child of God, Godhead/Holy Ghost. Oct-Listening & Folowwing Church leaders/Review of Conf., Budgeting, Commandments, Fasting/Fast Offering. Nov- Gratitude, Restoration of the Gospel, Music & Hymns, Pat. Blessings, Sacrament. Dec- Service, Stories of Jesus, Birth of Christ, Review of the Year.


I have put some sheet protectors labeled with week 1 ,2,3 & 4. The lessons for that topic go in the corresponding "week" sheet protector. They hold everything I need for that lesson {except for any part of the lesson that is too big to fit in the sheet protector.}

For me this system works and keeps me organized so we can faithfully hold Family Home Evenings. We recieve so many blessings for doing so!