*8Things I’ve Learned in the Past Little Bit

1. You Can Cook It Fast.  I’ve always been a decent cook. Not  fancy, but good. Homeskillet style, I call it. Since moving to CPH I’ve had to learn to do it every night. Not just for special occasions or when I have time. Now I can cook from scratch, healthy, fast.  Plus, I make gluten free baked goods three times a week, including bread. (Yeah. I kinda rock.)

2. Nothing is Ever Wasted. I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life, switch fields, I fall in love frequently with new things, I start and stop projects. On bad days it looks like one big meandering mess. On good days I can see a pattern in the chaos. Being distracted by sparkly things has got me here. And here is good.

3. It’s okay to Nap. In the Winter it makes perfect evolutionary sense to go back to bed for an hour after you get the kids off to school. It’s called hibernation. All the beasts are doing it. Why not you?

4. Wake to the Light. Make your Bed. Usually Karen Maezen Miller makes me want to throw Zen books at her. She’s so nice, but my not-Zeny self likes to rebel against her calm. This article really worked for me tho. (Except the go to sleep with the sun part. In the North you’d go to bed at 3pm!)

5.  Human Contact is a Must. I work at home. I live abroad. If I don’t see a real, live human grown up (who is not family) at least once a weak I go bat-shit crazy. This is a lesson I have to re-learn on a regular basis.

6. People Over 40 Need Tune Ups. My reading glasses are not strong enough. My distance vision is getting iffy. There’s now a history of skin cancer in my family and I’ve never seen a dermatologist. (Says the girl who sunburned to blistered ever Summer of her life.) And don’t even get me started on what 7 years of chronic migraines has done to my endocrine system. When I get back into the land where they actually run tests and prescribe you things, I am SO getting a full-on tune up.

7. Embrace the Crazy. I’m never going to be even-keeled. I’m not a certified Freak, but I’d fly the flag. Yet in spite of this friends say “Rachelle is the solid at the center.” (Thanks, Josh.) Some of the best art in the world is made by the mad.  The key is to learn how to harness the crazy. I’m getting the hang of it. (I even wrote a tiny bit about it here.)

8. Your Kids Grow Up. A year ago my son-adopted-by affection was making me grind my teeth at night. My eldest by birth was on my nerves. And my little one was – okay well she was peachy. Now the manchild in college; the eldest daughter is a delight and a friend; and the little one – okay now she’s crying at the drop of a hat. My point is “This Too Shall Pass.” (Put it on a sticky note on your fridge. It helps the Merlot not disappear quite as fast.) 

What *8Lessons has life been dealing you these past few months?  Contribute to the Giant Pool of Wisdom by puting your *8Things in the list together. Grab a button and play along, or put your list in the comments below.  If you post on your list on your blog, please give us the permalink in the Mr. Linky below so we can come say hi! Thanks for being here.

I was away on Dia des los Muertos, but when we got back on the first the girls and I put up our annual altar. This year as we arranged our icons and sugar skulls I noted how this practice, once so unfamiliar, has become increasingly rich for us a family.

This year I turned a postcard of Vincent VanGogh  into another icon for our memorial. It made me wonder, who would you put in a shrine of *8 people who have influenced you? Here are my *8 Saints and Sinners. (God love ‘em!)

1. Vincent VanGogh - a soulmate who helps me journey through pain and creativity.
2. Rosa Parks – an icon made by my husband, who is always inspired by bravery for the sake of justice.
3. Simeon David Chapman – our first child who was stillborn. The girls love putting his tiny tin shrine up for All Souls.
4. Pauline Jarrett Mee - my Grandmother, making her second appearance this year at the shrine.
5. John Everett Mee – my Grandfather, who’s been on our shrine since just after Cate was born. The last thing he did was fly to Seattle to meet her. When he landed back in California, he went straight to the hospital and never returned. But he was determined to deliver Cate’s traditional pair of baby cowboy boots–black with silver sparkles. That was my Buddy.
6. St. Catherine of Sienna — my favorite historical saint and the woman Catie is named after.
7. Mama God – a tiny clay sculpture helps me remember (and regain) the Feminine Divine.
8. Jesus — I firmly believe that “Jesus got ‘jacked.” I miss the real guy, don’t you?

Who are your *8 Saints and Sinners? Tell us in the comments below, or better yet, grab a *8Things  button and play along. Don’t forget that we need the unique permalink in the list. Thanks for playing!

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Are your children fighting every request you make? Is nothing you say or do “right”? Are all of you grumbling under your breathe and making what my kids call “the huffy voice”?  That my friends, is Resistance.

Thankfully Nikki Di Virgilio of The Soul Reporter is here with a guest post for us today; and it’s full to the brim about the mysteries behind Resistance, and some tools to keep it from happening.

Kids and The Resistance Epidemic
by Nikki Di Virgilio

How many times have we told our kids to do something and they either refuse, or do so with a constant whiney tune, of I don’t want to and why do I have to.  The request can be something as simple and mediocre as wiping the table, and yet they put up a fight.  It’s frustrating, and causes tension between our kids and us.  Depending on the severity of the resistance in our household, this tension over time can create an isolating and perhaps even numbing relationship, which is damaging to both parent and child. 

Resistance is defined as: the act or power of resisting, opposing, or withstanding.  Unfortunately resistance is our first response to almost any that comes our way. This is often the same for our children.

The word “power” is in the very definition of resistance. Resistence itself  is a power struggle between parent and child. Once we enter this planet, we are instantly faced with the power struggle of balancing the demands upon our minds, bodies and souls. We have to breathe on our own.  We have to eat to live.  We have to sleep to function and be well.  These are required and necessary things.  But then we get older, and there are more requirements. And these requirements often do not align with the truth of who we are and what we seek.  School demands we pay attention, not chew gum, not wear our hair a certain way, be smart, be happy, learn, and agree with what is being taught. Then society demands we look and act in a certain way. As do our parents. 

Consciously or unconsciously our children are absorbing all of these little and big demands all the time. It is no surprise they are resisting!  We are energetic beings, here to unfold the purpose of our soul.  We are not machines, which comply with the buttons being pushed–although we can, and often do. However, most of us don’t want to, especially the young ones who are coming to our planet right now.  They are different, and leading us on a new course, which is more properly aligned with our soul.

 What lessons and tools can we use to help our children grow beyond Resistance? 

 Lesson #1 : Teach cooperation.  Cooperation means working or acting together for a common purpose and benefit. No matter the age of our children, they will respond positively with this larger idea of cooperation. They often like to help and be a part of something bigger. We just have to show how valuable it is, and determine the common purpose.  Read the rest of this entry »

The 19yo is talking about college. Of course, when I overheard him say, “I was reading this college catalog…” I stopped dead in my tracks. After several years of unschooling and some pretty serious slacker practice before that, I wasn’t even pretending that college was in his future—at least not right away. So this news that he’d already assessed and discarded one community college option and was considering another was a surprise to me.

As I listened from a vaguely discreet distance, there was a tone in his voice and a certain lean to his body that I recognized. This particular combo is what he uses when he’s trying to convince someone that he’s doing what they want him to do. But it’s a little tricky because it’s also the tone and posture he uses when he’s trying something on for size—sort of sussing out if he really believes what he’s saying, seeing if what he’s thinking of is really a good fit for him. I like it when he does this. I think it’s really wise. It makes me proud.

Later he and I were able to talk this college thing out a bit over breakfast. (These things always go better over a breakfast burrito.) It became clear that while he’s aware that most of the parental-types in his life would like to see him in college at some point, he wasn’t just blowing smoke at us when he mentioned the college catalogs. He really is interested in the possibility of taking some course — he’s just not sure how to do college his own unconventional way. He doesn’t want to get trapped on some horrid jump-through-the-hoops, school-debt, hamster wheel from hell. In short, he’s trying to figure out how to make college work for him, instead of the other way around.

See, I told you he was smart.

This got me to thinking about all the courses I slogged through and hated, and all the books I bought and never used. It was a lot of waste. So here, in retrospect are my Magpie Girl’s Tips for College Courses. Read the rest of this entry »

Mom and Cate on a happier day.

Cate just dumped the bowl of top ramen she was making for herself all over the kitchen. The hot water hurt, but didn’t seriously burn her hand. 

People, I am here to admit that I could barely manage to be nice to her. It’s hard to be nice when the kitchen is covered in ramen and the child who spilt it has NOT STOPPED COMPLAINING about what she could and couldn’t have for snack since she got home from school 45 minutes ago!!

Okay parenting friends, I need some help. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s back to school season with the last of the schools in the U.S. starting up after this Labor Day weekend comes to a close. Children are trying on outfits, putting their names on backpacks and picking out new lunchboxes. But beyond the ritual of buying schools supplies, what can you do to create a sacred space around going back to school?

Starting a new grade is a big rite of passage for children — one that more often than not goes by unnoticed. In the flutter, hurry and relief(!) of finally getting those kids back in school, busy parents don’t have a lot of time to mark the moment. So here are 3 easy ways to honor the back to school process.

1. Special Breakfast. For ma Read the rest of this entry »

Polyphonic Spree, Light and Day

I struggle to live in the moment. So often I am casting my gaze back in regret and longing, or throwing myself forward in to future worries. I know it’s healthiest for me to live mostly in the Now. But to the Now I feel foreign born, and like an adopted child returning to the place of her birth, I must work a little harder to feel at home on what is truly my native land.

I notice this most when Summer fades to Fall, and the days begin to shorten. I start missing the Light even before she is gone. Start longing for her while she is yet by my side. And in doing so I waste the last long rays of her presence.

This then is my attempt to stay with her, to stay present as long as she is still here.  To remain alert to her companionship. To “…follow the day and reach for the sun.”Later when she is gone, these images may hold her near to me a little longer yet, until she gently moves my hand from her hers, pats my shoulder, and tells me to lean into the next season until she returns.  

 How do you stay present to the edge of this season? What will you need to transition into the next?

Did you know you could fly?

Yes you, with the middle-aged greys springing out of your ponytail…

You with the quarter-life crisis and the world as your oyster…

You with Junior High staring at you from the business end of a double barrel…

You can soar, if only you will bend your knees and leap into the great unknown.

True, the next day, you may fly in a metal tube for 9hours with your broken ankle in temporary cast, and ice from the airplane galley packed around your leg. But you will know in your core  that for those clear sparkling moments you were Icarus triumphant. And, when you are old, you will remember those glorious seconds aloft with clarity; while the throb in your bones will be but a faint memory, calling to mind not a fall, but a flight.

“In life you will come to a great chasm. Jump.”  -J.Conrad

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Cate as her pirate alter-ego, One-Eyed Jan, ready to defend her booty.

What the adorable offspring said:

“Mommy, why don’t you do something with me? All you ever do in Denmark is chores and work on the computer. And now all you are doing on our vacation is the computer!”

What actually happened the preceeding three weeks, when I did plenty of chores, but DID NOT WORK AT ALL.:

- trips to the homemade ice cream place
- daily swims in the ocean
-not one, not two, but three birthday celebrations
-kayaking by moonlight to watch fireworks explode over the Puget Sound
-letting the children swim–fully clothed– at 10pm
-tie-dying 7 kidlet t-shirts
-massive pirate-hunt with real buried treasure
-Eatin’ Eyeball hunt with a toy surprise in the pack
-approximately one million breakfasts, second breakfasts, lunches, snacks, dinners, and desserts
-4,000 tolerant hours of Sponge Bob Square Pants, ICarly and SYTYCDance
-numerous convertible rides
-making dreamboard collages with the cousins
-kite flying….

There’s more, but I forget. Still, I felt totally guilty for several hours while I tip tapped typed away that day. Oh those blue eyes, they are deadly.

What kid tactic really gets your parenting guilt goat? Tell us (and how you combat it) in the comments below. “Ain’t nobody going anywhere but together!”

 For the first time ever, Eden has asked that I NOT post her annual birthday letter on my blog. So in lieu of all that mushy goodness…this is she, and she is lovely.