untitled, self-discovery

have had a bit of a creative rebirth going on the last few days. fully embracing that, even if it's making me stay up very late into the wee hours tonight, as my brain spins and reconnects with i think ... my heart chakra through creative desire.

i am currently actively taking steps to::

eliminate debt by entering into a debt management program

finish a knitting project for a dear friend and have a goal of knitting all summer long, a rarity but the past year's been so transitional i never had a slow, long winter (never mind the crazy weather)

create a homemaking binder filled with recipes and inspiration for the kitchen

read more and be online less (again toying with the idea of leaving a certain social network behind .. )

start freelance writing online! this is exciting to me on three fronts: financial, professional, and, well ... i've just always been plum passionate about (and good at!) writing. it's about time to put this practical, enjoyable skill to good use. maybe i have my head in the clouds about it a bit, imagining myself paring down to four days of work outside the home instead of five (at least while i'm not teaching), being more independent in terms of dictating when and how i work, and supplementing what will eventually be a teacher's salary (please let me be hired by the end of april!). I've been doing a bit of research just to get started.

through all of this, i'm realizing that i need to stay grounded because if i get too fanciful and giddy, well ... it's a hard fall. i'm trying to take a few moments for myself each morning to get grounded and centered, usually this means just a cup of coffee on the porch in the sun but sometimes it's a long walk. you get the idea. sometimes it's late nights up with a second cup of peppermint tea (a la right now) visualizing how the morning will go (green smoothie, cup of coffee, spot of knitting, then getting down to more organizing business, kind of how this particular week of inspiration to "get things moving" has been shaping up!).

Have you heard of a Web site called Yogaglo? Streaming yoga classes from a real-time studio in California that you can take from home. $18/month, plus free lectures on meditation and such. As opposed to, oh ... $120 or so per month at a local studio. Now don't get me wrong, nothing beats the good energy of a good studio now and then ...

I have a yen to start listening to gardening and unschooling and simple living podcasts again. Preferably while knitting. I need headphones. Do they still make those? The ones that go OVER your ears? My fiance is very prone to normal bedtimes. I can join him some nights, but others, like this one ... marathon energy. Born night owl, that's me ;-) Definitely going to need a quiet room in our future spaces away from the sleeping room ....

finally, my ever-evolving journey with food. i've been at the extremes, they don't last long for me. suffice to say they've taught me that when i swing back a bit off the ends, I'm able to see more clearly and make more responsible, sane, healthy choices. less being more, animal products being re-introduced but less and i'm super picky about the word "pastured." had a salad with some wild-caught salmon on it today that was incredible, i had energy for hours. i'm still experimental, a bit unsure, a bit guilty (comes from the vegan days, oh do i struggle with that one), a bit happy to support people doing it "right"/right, super energetic and healthy and feeling like 95 percent of what's going in my body is supporting everything and is balanced and is not overly skewed and i feel like i sit on a throne of plant foods. i'm feeling so grateful for participating in Heather's whole foods workshop. so much learned when i thought i had nowhere else to grow.

amazed at my openness. happy for it. my fiance has the best words (and let me tell you, i'm a huge words of affirmation girl, they STICK): self-assured is sexy. looking deeply into the windows of my soul, uttering it with such genuine-ness and love it can't help but be utterly what it is. i AM sexy. why not be self-assured? look at all that goodness above. we all falter, we all compare, we all worry. but when we counter those things with balance and perspective, and take the time to appreciate and accept those we love as they do us, well then ... it's easier to accept the SELF, to celebrate the self doing all the things it must needs do, but to be gentle on the body which contains it. long days on a blanket in the park, stopping for that hot tea or coffee, taking that long walk. allowing things to accumulate, grow, settle, fade, as necessary. being an apothecary for the soul in any and all ways possible.

thanks for reading. you are the best.