Response to All Songs Considered question, What is/was your family song?

When I was 7, after my dad left, the songs that define(d) that time for me and my mom were Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper and, later, This One Goes Out to the One I Love by REM.
Then, when my mom became serious with the man she eventually married, the songs were Handle with Care by The Traveling Wilburys and Graceland by Paul Simon (which my sister and I altered to reflect our moving with our Stepdad Holger, "We're goin to Deutschland, Deutschland, Stuttgart, Germany!")

Another response

This is about whether you are betraying the feminist movement by actively rejecting the title of feminist.
I think it's important also to really separate the title "feminist" from the belief set that men and women have equal value.
While I do get annoyed by Katy Perry style statements (saying she does not want to call herself a feminist) because it makes it easy for feminist haters to use that to prove something on their end, I also have to say it's also not totally cool to force people to use a title they're not comfortable with.

Take other titles as an example, such as "gay" or "boyfriend/girlfriend" - plenty of people are gay even if they don't want to use the title to describe themselves. And there's also toms of people who intentionally avoid using bf and gf.
Granted, one huge reason people don't wear a big "I'm gay!" sign is because of fear, just as is the case with making a relationship "official" with titles. And that's fine. But it also doesn't essentially change who/what they are.

The word feminist is very loaded. It carries weight, both good and bad. It should have negative connotations, but then again, it also shouldn't even have to be a word AT ALL. But it is and it's important.

The word (and the movement that is inherently associated with it) has been around the block a few times, getting stronger and trampled on along the way. All of this has meant we (very collectively speaking) have had to fine-tune it's meaning not only from the people who want to make it a bad word, but also because over time we realized that certain aspects of the word/movement weren't quite what we wanted after all.

So for a young woman today, the word almost presents more hazards than help. Not that it wasn't always that way, but it's just different now. Maybe.

If the point of feminism, ultimately, is for a female to define herself HOWEVER SHE WISHES, then that would also mean she doesn't have to use the word as a title, even if she does believe in the movement.

In response

To someone on FB asking how to know when to say Yes and when to say No:
The answer is always what feels genuine and true for you. It's not the No or Yes that's the point. The point is for you to learn the practice of knowing and being true to yourself. At first that requires somewhat arduous and very deliberate self inventory, and that takes time. So for a while always respond first with, "I need to think about it but I'll get back to you as soon as I can." (Or something along those lines)
Then consider the question at hand ("X") with the following questions: Do I feel inspired to do X? Do I realistically have time to do X? Am I realistically capable/have the skills to do X? Will it cause unnecessary stress to do X? Do I feel obligated? If so, is there a way to manage or adjust my time, the task or the other people involved in a way that will make this as positive as possible?
The trick is to discern between what is likely to cause only stress with little reward and an opportunity which may result in some stress but mostly of the life-expanding challenge kind.
I have fibromyalgia so for me nearly anything that's above and beyond my regular daily justgetthroughtheday stuff. That's why I had to learn this technique. Before, I would say No but to almost anything. Then I realized I was missing out on a lot of life. So then I started saying yes but I overdid it.
This personal questionnaire has really helped me have a better life. Last but not least - decide to be OK with saying No. It really is OKAY and your value as a person is actually increased by respecting your limits and happiness!
Hope that helps!

Voice to Text

Okay, so I haven't posted in forever or with any regularity for years now but I'm thinking maybe if I try this voice to text thing then maybe I will actually get some stuff out. One of the main reasons why I don't blog anymore is because I don't sit in front of a computer all day anymore. Well I kind of do, if you count my cell phone but its hard to type that much on it and so it doesn't really happen. I have lots of drafts of half started posts and that's about it. So you're probably going to see a lot of typos or maybe even sentences that don't make sense and I'm going to apologize in advance for that but I figure at least for me this is better than nothing.

I use to keep a diary almost everyday from when I was about I don't know maybe 10 years old until I was in my early 20's and it was around then that I started blogging and I blogged almost everyday sometimes multiple times a day and it's nice to know that I have that information to look back on for me it's kind of a selfish thing it's nice that I can go back and say oh I forgot about that you know and now there it is I don't have to forget it forever its some it's written down its been put on paper innocence. Um and it makes me really sad that since I stopped blogging regularly several years ago I don't have that I have kept a diary very very loosely and other than that that's it. That is unless you count Facebook as a sort of mini blog and I guess it is, I really s . . hould go through it and pull out the stuff that I really like and want to be able to hold on to . Especially things like places we've been the funny things colon is said oh this is going to be a problem it's going to want to write colon everytime I want to say my sons name! Oh well maybe whoever reads this with who I'm talking about and this is pretty much for me anyway I guess. So I guess to bring things up to date I am now 36 years old Colin um is four and a half and my husband is 33 and we have all been living in the same house in Decatur since 2006.

Just recently some of my old friend from Germany came to visit my friends Dorothy and her husband Peter and their daughters Mia and Ana They were here for two weeks we had a lot of fun doing sightseeing around atlanta as well as in New Orleans and we also went to the beach in Alabama on the Panhandle.

I don't really have a whole lot else other than that to say right now nothing pressing on my mind except that I'm really trying to get into a more creative space I guess this is it away kind of a free writing for me um I'm just I'm really trying to tap into that more regularly I don't want to wait until it comes around I want to find a way to kind of hold it gently so that I can access it more freely and without it may be all the anxiety that I sometimes come to experience with the pressure to somehow perform or do something extraordinary when I really just want to enjoy myself and I create so we'll see dot dot dot

Is it safe to say...

This post was hard to write and I'm unsure about posting it for fear I'll offend in some way. I guess we'll see.

I have been getting some serious procrastination done lately. It's intense. And scary.
It's not the usual kind where you do the laundry to avoid doing the dishes or whatever. This is the mental kind where you fill your immediate brain space to avoid thinking of something you don't want to think about.
In my case I've been playing solitaire to avoid having to consider the complex decision making process of whether or not to adopt. I'm surprised and dismayed even that I'm not as sure about it as I thought I was.

Actually, I am sure about the adoption part. I have wanted to adopt ever since I learned about the dancer, Josephine Baker, who adopted 12 children. I thought, "why make a baby when there are so many babies and kids out there already who need a loving family?". I was probably eight years old at the time and the notion became one of the few concrete dreams/ideals of my childhood I carried into adulthood.
The problem is the actual kid. The second kid. It's one thing to straggle along with one child who, being biological, kind of just "happened" and therefore forces a change. I mean, excepting the son's bouts with severe "threeyearolditis" (aka intensely expressed feelings over mindboggling minutiae), we've really just now gotten things kind of figured out. We all generally know our roles and daily rhythms. A baby, regardless of female of origin, does not fit into what we've pieced together. A baby means starting over almost from scratch, except this time we'll know it's coming.


But in the case of our adoption it's not just mildly insane to actively make the choice to do a lot of work (applications, background checks, home visits, etc) and spend a lot of money (at least $25-30K) to acquire someone else's helpless and crying baby who will, to an unknown degree yet without doubt, cause everything to turn upside-down via sleep deprivation, existing toddler regression and an overall cost and life complication increase.

Still, even with all that I know she's out there. I know our family is short by one. My husband says the same, and that's in spite of his even greater doubts/fears. So my choice is to lean into the feeling of promise I get that speaks of her impending arrival instead of cold, unyielding logic.  As Sister Louisa says, "F*#k fear."

My Hero

Videos - Music Videos, Live, Behind the Scenes | David Bowie

This is pretty cool. I haven't blogged regularly in so long, I didn't know it was possibly to post a video link in here like this. Whippersnappers.

Message received

As my last post shows, I had a rough day this week. It was one of those days I think we all have occasionally:  you  have a mini-meltdown, deeply doubting yourself and being pathetically pouty yet genuinely forlorn. For me, this always coincides with some painfully foggy mix of not knowing which direction I should take my life in, a longing for my younger days and that a different path had been chosen if only I'd known then... and all that jazz.

For those of the Christian faith (and I'm sure other faiths, though I don't know so I won't speak to that), this is the kind of time we'll cry out to God for comfort and discernment. Or at least that's what we're SAYING, but really the words are full of thinly veiled "why me?", "where were/are You?", "why did You put me here in this life and not in Christina Hendricks' life?" "ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING?" undertones.

From what I can tell, many (most?) Christians often feel rather far away from God, or that God is very far away from us (the difference comes down to who left whom). It feels very "so close yet so far away" to me, like God's on the phone chatting away about Snooki and I keep getting the "in a minute" finger in response to my (probably ridiculous and pathetically whiny) "prayers." Life sucks and then you die, I guess.

But then something will happen and I pick up on the detail just before it flashes past me: God calls ME.

The response I get from God is often completely out of context and not at the time I was petitioning for attention, so it can be hard to catch, especially with our over-full lives. I used to see and hear God freely, when I was unencumbered with duties and worries beyond cleaning up my toys and choking down four (four!) lima beans before I could have cake. I would see and hear God in a blade of grass, the taste of sweet clover,  and the deeply comforting rush of "flying" on the swingset when my awkwardness yet again deprived me of friends. 

I still hate lima beans (who likes pale green chalk-flavored beans anyway?) but my God-hearing and seeing ability has been sadly diminished by my ever-growing, never-ending list of duties and worries. Ah, adulthood. 

A few years ago I made the choice to tune back in to that old, fuzzy station; to leave space in my mind and heart so that, God willing, the message will come through. It's a choice I have to re-make frequently. 

Case in point: the day after I made that last post, which in retrospect smacks of an arm-flailing tantrum of sorts, I saw this in my facebook feed, posted by my cousin: 

Having a new baby has given me some incredible emotional highs these past 7 weeks, but also some serious lows which stem from the obvious - lack of sleep, juggling care between toddler and baby, no time to myself, no sense of a routine or order. It's easy to become negative and to get easily frustrated. Today the woman who has been my life coach off and on for many years reminded me of what happens when we enter a state of resistance with her awesome weekly blog. Thank you Kathy for helping me get back into observer mode: 

The Miracle Way: Resistance

The very first sentence on this blog post reads, "My model for both coaching and manifestation has three basic parts: choose, align, receive." [emphasis added]

I didn't even have to read the rest of her post - I got what I needed in that fleeting moment before I had to run out the door to pick up my son from school. There it was, an answer to my prayer. 

I have been struggling with a strange situation: I really want to adopt a baby but I am not moving very quickly to make that possible. I have not finished the preliminary paperwork since I received it almost two months ago. I am apparently procrastinating and I really don't know why. Is it possible that I don't really want another child? Am I letting fears like "will my fatigue and fibromyalgia make me a bad mom to two kids?" stop me from moving forward?

I really don't know the answers any more now than I did before reading the post. But thank God I caught the message: "Whose path will you choose, Kate? Yours or Mine? Are you making it possible to align yourself with Me, or are you letting life get in the way?"

Those questions are good and stimulating in a positive way, but it was the last word I heard the loudest, RECEIVE. 

I am quite sure you cannot simultaneously be in control mode and receive. You know, that whole Let Go and Let God thing. It's amazing how many times I need to be reminded of that, but I am grateful to find it is always still true. 

I'll sign off by sharing what I "heard" later that day as I continued to think about those words, choose, align and receive, was this, "Don't worry about whether or not God is listening, just make sure you are."

Goodnight