Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Voting Day

 We already voted. Today feels a bit anti-climatic because of that. However, there are no results in so I think more than ever many of us are on edge about the results. Perhaps we have become such skeptics, due to unfolding events in this last year, about how everything is run. Especially for millennials, that people actually care about us and have our best interest in mind, when the things we see just don't add up. It feels like more and more that the grownups running this country have no freaking clue what they are doing and really more so if they do they are comfortable yet in their places where the rest of us see people hurting and all those Sunday school lessons, homilies and sermons sunk in and we want to help the suffering. 

We wonder how the generation before became complacent in its position with big houses separated from their neighbors just enough that they don't have to actually know them, and to be colorblind was the thing, but really we have seen that no one in this world is actually colorblind. So we are riding on that for this election to at the very least get some relief for the hurting populations in our Covid ridden, sadly racist societies. 

Ultimately, we know that one election isn't the end all be all, and that our actual actions mean something, but perhaps it raises our awareness that we can actually do something. That all of our protesting and learning and writing and praying and amplifying BIPOC voices to be heard actually did something. I hope at the end of the day if we get the narcissist out, that we don't just sit back but continue the work. Because there is a lot of work to be done. 

Even if we don't get that result, we need to do more work, it will just be harder to do it with the national guard on our backs and tear gassing in our neighborhoods. I think at one point I wanted out of this country because it made me so incredibly sad that so many people that I thought were Christ following people were actually swept up into this unrest is not okay and we are afraid and so police go take care of the scoundrels. But they are not scoundrels and there is no going back because ultimately it was us, white people, that did it to our Black neighbors, and we need to stop. We need to want the same things we want for our own selves and our own children. I am leaning into the my own trauma because I understand a bit how it is to calmly try to say that this isn't working, or this isn't kind, or you are hurting me and get no where. That after 20,000 times of saying those things in many different ways, sometimes you just have to do something to get attention, and even then you will be ignored because its outside the comfort zone of the other. Its so maddening, and to know that BIPOC and other disadvantaged groups get that from any angle at anytime, that's even harder. We need to step up with our privilege. We need to vote. So go and vote now! 

Friday, October 30, 2020

Car time

Sadly the pandemic still continues, and despite what some may here from higher political offices, its a thing and its a deadly thing or something that will cause complications later in life. Basically if you can avoid catching it, you should. With it being pandemic mode, my normal realm of writing has been eliminated. I used to go write in the mornings inside the coffee shop. We no longer have indoor coffee shops and honestly knowing what I know about air flow being a huge factor in getting Covid-19, I am trying stay outside as much as I can when it comes to eating outside my home. I keep saying that I am determined to be European in the sense that there is almost always outdoor dining and living in that continent. Knowing what I know just from normal viruses and the last 3 years of forest school, we are healthier if we stay outside more. The only tidbit that needs to be taken care of is proper clothing. And since we have been doing this for multiple years, I think we can do it, at least a bit more than we have already. 

But back to writing, where am I writing? Well from in my garage and the passenger seat of my one and only 16 year old van. Yesterday afternoon I worked out a plan with my therapist to figure out how I could actually get thoughts out of my head, I haven't been able to write and its been literally making me angry and I don't like angry me. I am sure she maybe thought I was slightly eccentric with needing all the things I need to get this writing thing going, but I need them. There is something about being in my home with awake children that doesn't allow writing to happen. I need space to distance myself from my responsibility there because I am there all the time. I love most of what I do, there are bad days with thrown dictionaries, but I enjoy teaching my children and being a grassroots recycling organizer and kind of running non-functioning pandemic forest school. 

I am here with my new to me giant pink headphones, I decided on giant ones because everything else is too easy to lose. I am that person that prefers to attach even her keys to her wallet so I won't lose those too. I just lose things, have I ever told you about losing my wedding and engagement ring set? No, well another time. And with Spotify playing the Rocket Summer, my happy band, and protein and bakery ( today that' a slice of Neutella bread) and tea, I am good to go.  It will not live up to Metropolitan Coffee bakery, but I can only do so much.  

So here I am back writing, and I would like to thank my therapist seeing my constant interruption even with a closed locked door and my anger and frustration for getting here. Well, I am sure there was grace in there too because God is working in everything, but nonetheless here we are. Enjoy.

Friday, August 28, 2020

Three Girl

My daughter paints in soap and lotion.

When she watches a movie, she's in constant motion

She can sing any tune

And always points out the moon.

She hates to get wet.

But give her a swing and she is set.

I wonder who she will grow to be

But right now she is only three.


Monday, July 13, 2020

Plastic Free Alternatives

I complied a list of things you can get without plastic involved. In our area of the country, we do not have glass recycling and plastic recycling is on its way out. We only have metal and paper recycling. Thus, I made a list of products and companies that offer alternatives, some are even tree free using bamboo. All packaging that the product comes in should be compostable, recyclable or reusable. Hope you find this helpful.

Plastic FREE PRODUCTS (zero waste, everything is compostable or recyclable)


Shampoo, conditioner and body wash 
Can return packaging for refills. 


Dishsoap, handsoap, multi purpose cleaner, bathroom cleaner, glass cleaner


Can just use own bottles and just start with refill packs


Cleancult- waxed milk jug containers

Kitchen Sponges
Silicon sponges like these -reusable, dishwasher friendly



Deodorant


Bandaids
Patch Bandages - Made from bamboo sold online or at target


Toothbrushes
If you don’t have teeth problems bamboo brushes are the way to go here. There are many companies that sell these, just do a search online


“Q-Tips” - Cotton Buds


Lip Balm
Many different companies selling lipbalm in compostable tubes, this is a small etsy seller doing it.


Toothpaste
No good alternatives for actual wanting to clean your mouth well.
Best alternative found is David’s Natural Toothpaste, supposedly in an all metal recyclable container, not sure who would recycle it though. https://packagefreeshop.com/products/toothpaste?variant=31942391660641&gclid=CjwKCAjwjLD4BRAiEiwAg5NBFv4pUGbkODzNy-KGG1Z_SycabqzVTtMbNgZgdV5n24TVzsPsSPguGBoC86MQAvD_BwE


Vitamins


Period care
Thinx underwear
Menstrual Cups
Reusable cloth pads and panty liners


Razors
Replacable blade razors (costly)


Baby Diapers: 
Alva Baby, Green Mountain Diapers
BumGenius, Fuzzi Buns, Charlie Banana 
(find through a buy nothing or local buy nothing group)


Loofah sponge


Laundry soap


Dropps


Sheets laundry club


Ziplock bags
Unzip
Various silicone washable bags can be found on Amazon or other smaller company sites


Plastic wrap
Bees wax wrap


Toilet paper 
Who gives a crap 
Grove co. 


Paper towels and tissues
Grove co.


Cupcake Liners:
Regular ones are compostable 
Silcone Ones are reusable


Companies that carry a lot of niche zero waste products


Package Free Shop


Well Earth Goods 

Wednesday, July 8, 2020

What is okay to share

There's an absolute sense of vulnerability in my life currently that feels like I'm unable to share publicly. Andwhat does that really mean to share publicly? Does one have to bare one's heart to the world to be loved?
In raw pain I'm glad that people can find comfort in sharing. I don't have that in my life. In the hard things I've gone through I've been shut down or gaslit away from being able to feel them freely. It's led me to set up strict boundaries that just are hard because the people around me will never really know our understand what it's like to walk in my shoes. But some do have some empathy and for that I'm grateful.
In knowing all of this, I'm trying to lean into my own discomfort for the marginalized people in our country, the immigrants, BIPOC, and all the people who have to live in fear to be themselves. Because the God l know is full of love, so full he sees us when no one else does. And he says in our mess that he still loves us. And goodness is our nation a mess currently. I've seen in my own life that sometimes you absolutely have to break to be healed, but it's uncomfortable to do so and we often to resist it. I think we need to break as a nation, currently many are trying to cover everything up, but it's not working. It's just beating one's head against the wall over and over.
So if statues have to come down and protests have to carried out to be heard then we need to hear. We need to listen to the broken, because we too are broken and it's in our brokenness that we can find common ground and learn to love.

And yes, our God is bigger than a statue any day. 

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Pandemic poem

We knew it wasn't sustainable.
This lifestyle and world we were living in.
It couldn't cycle through another,"but this is the way things have always been."
It had to break at some point.
But who would have thought this would be it.
A pandemic.
Yet it is it.
There are so many things that needed to break.
And there are so many people hurting.
But perhaps this is the world's chance at redemptive suffering.
If they will let it in.
It will be hard, to grow and learn.
It always is.
Tears will be shed.
Overwhelm will happen.
Through it, though, it can't be avoided.
And it's not all for naught.
We can still find joy among the sadness.
But it is still sad.
Sad that the good had to stop with the bad.
Finding little bits of joy will keep you going.
Knowing that you matter, that the cancer patient down the street matters.
The 85 year old neighbor matters, and the narcissist, he still matters, though perhaps should be not in the forefront.
This time in pandemic isn't a wash.
So how do we learn from the broken.
How do we grow in the darkness.
Step outside the fear perhaps?
Search for creativity.
Take a step back and soak it all in.
See the forest among the trees.
Go with kindness, even in the hard things.
We can learn while broken.
We can shine brightly again.
But perhaps we need to hope.
Hope in something greater than us.
That hope will get us through.
To the other side.
We will sing again.