Healthy?

Ever get fed up with hearing stuff?

Environmental and health stuff?

Do you just go along with it and think that what you hear is gold or do you dig to see the other side?

I sometimes just go along with what I hear as long as it sounds good. And then I watch shows on how things are made.Yah.

And then after subscribing to a certain health site and having correspondents with the author I started to wonder about a lot of things.

OK, I wondered before I 'talked' with him but it really sparred my research into scientific sites and gave me more of an urge to search out both sides of all the stories.

What is healthy, what is good for us?

Did you know that the health and 'green' movement is a huge cash cow? No. Really!

OK. We all do and want in on it, I know!

Oh, I do think that there are great things to be gleaned from both environmental and health discoveries to make our lives healthier but where do you draw the line?

I try (try but do not always succeed, we are renovating the cottage) to draw it when I see companies promote gadgets to protect you from your gadgets and extra cleaners to clean what you have already cleaned and stuff to replace old not 'green' stuff.

Hmmm, in that case wouldn't it make more sense to just keep the old and not create more waste by throwing it out and buying the new 'green' stuff? Wouldn't that be less wasteful?

What about the process that new stuff goes through to become that 'green' product? In a lot of cases it is just as harmful as the process the non 'green' product goes through. Like eco friendly cars for instants. Go read up on those funky batteries and see. Read the whole process it goes through from the mining to the plants, across the ocean on a freighter and back, and all the other steps in between. Mmm, hmm...

And recycled stuff. I am all about it but remember that the process from one old piece of junk to the next is not so green. Maybe better than throwing it in the trash but can it be upcycled or repurposed?

Some people are into not having microwaves, some computers, some don't live near power lines, some don't use cell phones, some don't eat meat, some don't use lawn mowers. Some people don't sleep near an alarm clock and move their beds to the middle of the room to get away from power outlets. Some don't listen to the radio or drive cars, some don't eat processed foods and some don't watch TV's all to avoid certain waves and emissions and frequencies and pollutants and I could go on and on. I am sure eventually I will hit at least one area that concerns us all.

I haven't got you yet, let's try again.

Do you not worry about the emissions from the paint on the walls?

The stains on your wood, the carpet, or the fabrics in your home? Your side walk?

What about your appliances and hair dryer or your detergent, light bulbs, vacuum?

Your keyless remote, ceiling fan or camera?

What kind of shopping bags do you use? Whatever they give you, the ones you bought that are reusable or do you sew up something from some old fabric kicking around the house?

Think about the process.

What about diapers or wipes or soaps?

(I am totally not pointing fingers here, really! I think I have all this stuff!)

Or hey, your counter top, is it concrete, what kind(?), tile, or a solid surface, is it a laminate? Then what are it's emissions or off gases, or if you have granite, the radon emissions must concern you. No? It is pretty though isn't it!

Or what about your food? Ooooo, this is a biggie!

Your water, what kind do you drink?

And your supplements, you must take something, or not, how we are created by God is good for you? Are you sure? No vitamins, nothing? Interesting.

How about vaccines, or medications?

Alcohol? Mmmm, I could go for a glass of wine right about now!

Do you recycle? Compost? Drink raw milk? Go for grass fed? Free range?

How about when you choose to read the paper online to save a tree but then you are exposing yourself to EMF waves (I think that is what they are called, correct me if I am wrong...I am just shooting into the dark here with whatever pops onto my head) by sitting in front of your computer. How the heck do you know what to do? Health versus environment, but yet it is somehow one, ack!!

See, we all have one area that would create some controversy with friends. Isn't this what makes us unique, beautiful? Our differences. What we choose to be our personal convictions, not God convictions in a spiritual way but the ones that we make because we think we are helping ourselves or our environment somehow.

And in one way or another handing over our hard earned cash to the government or a corporation or someone who is laughing all the way to some hot gorgeous destination while we freeze our butts off and down whatever it is that we ordered from them.

Oh, right, I almost forgot about the dirt under your house. It could contain an multitude of electromagnetic forces or radon or something, anything really.

Better get a tree house. Oh, but, but.......

I must stop!

Hello, where the heck do we stop? We do have to live. Life is just not as simple as it was a few thousand years ago. And we think that all this stuff is making life better, easier and less stressful.

Not convinced here.

Should we not just be thrifty and not waste so much and maybe shop local when possible and grow our own food when possible and not worry about so much?

Doesn't worry effect our health?

Maybe we could just be content.

Hmmm.....

I wish I could do this. I strive for contentment. I think I am there sometimes but then I love convenience and interesting things, no matter how they are made. When it comes to the environment there are things I would love to do but I also cannot afford the solar panels up front nor is it practical for me to strap my three children on a pedal bike in -30C to get around to lessen my impact.

So we all make concessions and do different things that work for us in our own books. But why? Who made us feel guilty about what we were doing? Media? Friends? A seminar or speech? God?

Funny isn't it what we choose to use our energies to focus on?

What is it that really matters?

What about relationships and spirituality and mental health?

Ah, balance, where is the balance?

Seriously though. This is the stuff that runs through my head at any given moment when I hear someone talk about what they are doing.

All the 'what abouts'.

Not that this is bad, no, some of it challenges me for sure, but this is how my brain spins and I am actually not keeping up to what I am thinking as I type.

So I just smile and nod. :-)

Yo!

Lest I forget....

...when actually I really can't.

Well unless it got broke, hmmm, is that even proper english, I don't think so, but anyway, if it got broke then I really wouldn't forget and would actually be really sad but that is beside the point.

When love comes in the mail in the form of a usable piece of art from the heart and hands of a sweet friend it makes my day, week, month .... whenever I have coffee in a good mood.

(On bad days I drink from dark brown or black mugs and on regular days I drink from blue sky mugs.)

This is my happy day mug.

Made by saj. Thank you my sweet friend!

Wouldn't it make you happy too?!

Going back

I don't even really know where to start. Almost another month has gone by since I was last on here. And I miss it. I miss getting my thoughts out regularly but I have had no choice but to hold back for a bit. I have been working on getting orders out that have been nagging at me since spring and am so looking forward to not painting anything but what comes out of my head randomly. Not that I don't enjoy being booked...solid for two years now but I need a break to just get refocused and explore some of the ideas I have been stock piling.

Ok, and then there was the biggie. My spiritual journey. Over the last month I have been dealing with massive amounts of convictions and soul searching. Digging onto the Bible and seeking to know God's heart. This is a journey that has been refreshing and also kinda like getting hit by a cement truck.

I just hadn't had a real desire to read the Bible and really study and meditate for 10 years. Oh I have read here and there and looked a few things up and followed along with studies once in a while and also just read out of guilt too. But something snapped a while ago that has created a hunger in me like never before. And the convictions, I won't even get into what they are. Just a few months ago I would have thought I was crazy but that was where I was then so I know that every one had different convictions at different times and that is just how it is.

I do suppose if you poked and prodded I would talk about it in an e-mail but I am still on this discovery process.

Anyway, between painting, reading and trying to get life into a sort of routine and balance I have not let myself indulge in this here blog. This is my treat time.

And so rather than fill your ear with a pile of my thoughts (which I really really want to do) I really need to get caught up in the photo department first. So here we are going back a month to Canadian thanksgiving and the following two weeks! The last few weeks are still on the camera, I know, nuts! I used to load them on here every night! The task is daunting!

I really should have dug out the tripod!

Tea time for little friends.

First time really trying to keep her colouring in the lines. She is really abstract in most of her art so this blew my socks off!

Awww, yes!

We headed back to Edmonton the week after thanksgiving for a memorial service and I got to catch up with some old friends. This one is a very, very old friend...from birth kind of old, not age, we soooo are not there yet...and one who is so much like me in thoughts and interests it freaks me out but also makes me love her more! Oh and she doodles these great little viking comics!

It was beautiful weather and the leaves had all fallen off the trees so.....it couldn't be resisted!

Dave and I.

And I got to sneak out again to visit another old friend. She does amazing graphic work and I have promised to indulge in some of her work someday....so if you live in her area you should check her out! Ahhh, how I miss our pretty coffee dates and 'gotta get out and pour out my guts and get a good vent out' coffees and well, there just isn't anything like surrounding yourself with great friends is there?!

Ready to hit the road.

Goodbye snuggles were absorbed.

Mmmmm......

And back on the road with a gazillion potty breaks.

A trip that used to take 7 1/2 hours now takes 10.

But even though the trips are longer and somewhat brutal they are worth it. Seeing family and friends is so good and getting the see the stars in a clear black sky on the side of the road in the middle of no where on the 187th pee stop....totally worth it in an Awesome way!

Just cause it's here

I realize it has been oh, ages since I last posted. Not that I haven't wanted too. I do!! I have a ton to get out and a ton of photos. Fall, winter then fall again, a trip, a reno and a few other things.

However time is not on my side and sleep is needed so it has been winning!

I was going to upload the pictures from the last three weeks off my camera and thought I would get a few on here before I did that.

So here are a few shots found in an archived post from weeks ago when it was still nice.

And I will save saying anything of any relevance for a later date. I am crunching this out in a squeak of a spare moment and need to get back to what I working on here!

I also have two monkeys climbing on me making this rather impossible and another little once gazing up at me with big eyes and a mouth full of fist!

Cheerio!

Getting on track and on a side note, it is SNOWING!

As you may have noticed I took a break.

After writing the last post I sat back and read what I wrote and realized that I needed to make some changes around home. That and sitting reading your emails and comments, I had a lot of thinking to do.

But anyway .... first and foremost I want to thank all of you who commented and wrote me in e-mails.

Thank you for your support and also for the few kicks in the butt that I needed.

I cried and laughed and felt many virtual hugs, and connections so thank you from the bottom of my heart. Sharing and hearing what you had to say did amazing things for me.

You touch my heart!

Having this blog work both directions is something I never could have imagined just a few years ago. Sometimes I think I am loosing it and then you guys all together make things somehow seem clearer. I love the perspectives and well, you are awesome!

I really, really want to e-mail you all back and write personal letter and share my heart but at the same time I am really focusing on my home. The whole home, including the people.

I still have yet to write my thank you cards for the gifts we received for Hudson. Someday.

However I want to tell you that I have embarked on a journey and am struggling to keep on track. Maybe after 28 days it will feel like a habit but I kind of doubt it.

So this last week and a bit has been a time that I have thought and read and prayed and played and cleaned and sorted and prayed some more and then realized that I needed to clean again.

I am still no good there!

Why does this come so hard to me?!

Dave packed all my canvases and paints away in the furnace room so I wouldn't be so tempted to walk over, plop on the floor and paint whenever I get an idea. I do feel rather itchy and a little nerve tweakish though, my body and brain ache for the smell of fresh canvas and stinky paints and my fingers twitch for a brush.

I know I am weird, this is just my thing, ok.

Now I am rewarding myself with time to paint when I am done what I need to do. The house will not be perfect but things that need to be done will be done.

So Dave and I have been talking and cleaning and trying to get some order around here. We have purged and hid boxes of kids stuff out of sight.

We are working towards our day to day life being simpler and less cluttered so our minds can be too.

I know some of you say I am too hard on myself and I know sometimes I am, you are right, but you know sometime we need to reevaluate and we need to refocus and sometimes we have our priorities out of line. We need to get hard on ourselves for changes to happen.

I am going to give up custom orders after the ones I have sitting here are done and maybe after Christmas pick up again.

I want to do some experimenting and exploring of my ideas. I want to sew. I need a little more freedom and a little less stress. I don't want the nagging pressure in the back of my head of jobs committed to and not completed. I love the work but need a break.

I want just to do what I want when I feel like it rather than it be a job.

So if you have an order in, don't worry, it is coming!

If you don't, well, please wait until after Christmas. Sorry, I need the next few months.

Sleep helps too.

Really, really helps.

Dave has also helped me see that I play around too much. Not just with the kids but I putz. I don't know how but I don't get stuff done and then Dave comes home and the dishes are piled high, the toys are everywhere and the laundry is stinking up the washer. What the heck did I do all day?!

I know I clothed the kids, brushed hair on a good day, read them books, made meals and changed a gazillion diapers, wiped a few bigger bums, went for a walk and broke up a fight over coloured plates, nursed and bathed and checked my e-mail. Maybe did a little text messaging but really didn't do much else.

Hmmmm, that actually sounds like a halfway busy day. Somehow in the thick of it the time just disappears and then Dave is home and rather than plunking on the floor to wrestle and giggle with the kids he has to do dishes so we can eat, do the laundry so we have clothes to wear and then next thing you know it is bedtime and there is no room on the floor to read books with the kids so he picks up stuff while the kids fall asleep on the couch waiting.

This blows!

(whew, that was also long winded)

If I can just somehow get a schedule nailed down I want to. I want our home to be halfway decent for Dave when he comes home. I want him to be able to relax and play with the kids every night. I want him to have down time!

We did well for a few days but then it came to a head again last night.

Today was better again. Maybe it helped that we spent half the day out with Mrs. Wilson and Kami and the other half in a Bible study class and shopping but we did make efforts here too.

I realize it is small changes that need to be implemented.

Structure is my weakness.

Just a little goes a long way. I am embracing this. Getting up at the same time. Doing the same routine as we get ready for the day.

Working towards daily flips of laundry and loads of dishes.

All meals at the table, well, ok, we will still have picnics around the house but we are going to aim for picnics at the table. Not sure how I will trick them into this one. But at least I will work on keeping the table clean so they can happen.

I am not giving up time with the kids. I do know how important this is but it cannot be all that I do all day long. They do play together and I can get off my duff and do stuff rather than sit there and watch them while I sit rummaging through the thoughts in my head.

I can very well do the rummaging while I do laundry.

Anyway, I am reading a few books, mainly my Bible every day and challenging my self to some personal changes.

I know we will be fine. We'd survive anyway but I really want balance and I am finally seeing the light and feeling within my grasp.

Now off for that much needed sleep so WE CAN DO THIS!!!

xoxo

Thanks again guys!