*I wrote this a while back. It has taken this long to edit and post. All accounts of the gardens and sheep are not current 🙂 Summer 2018- Adjusting to having a daughter has been surreal and overwhelming in every way possible. There is anxiety that at any second I could make a mistake that might result…
Author: elliwest2014
A Letter From Baby Jail
Dear mom, I hope this letter reaches you. My warden/guard/fellow prisoner will no doubt try to intercept this correspondence. (To date- she has postponed it’s creation by a week, using nothing more than dirty diapers and grunts of discontent.) She will stop at nothing to make sure that my access to the outside world is…
Well, That Stinks!
Three days ago, I decided I would get some writing done! I was going to pen (type) beautiful pros about motherhood, growth, life and other profound stuff. Things did not go as planned. I thought I could accomplish this feat because Ry is home and could therefore take care of the little snapping turtle, while…
May? What May?
I don’t know how it happened, but May is almost over. Shoot, it might BE over by the time I hit ‘publish’ (I have been working on this post for a couple days). Somewhere in-between midnight feedings and dirty diapers a whole month slipped through our fingers. Ry went back to work yesterday. I can’t…
All-You-Can-Take Mother’s Day Pain Buffet
Child birth is often touted as the most pain a person can experience and I can’t say that I disagree. I can say that it is a fortunate thing the body has no capacity to remember that pain. I remember it happened and that it was excruciating but I cannot call back the exact nature…
Spring Break, Homestead Edition
This week proved once again (and still) how awesome the boys are. I am officially 8 3/4 months pregnant and in this state it could be a real drain to have two rambunctious kids running round for ten days, but true to form the boys were more of a joy than ever. Sure, they are…
Spring is Upon Us!
I see the ground! Before I moved to New England, this would have seemed like a very odd statement indeed, but now it is an event to be celebrated. Most of the snow in the yard had gone liquid and returned to the land from whence it came. Daily activities around the homestead have also…
What Produce Section are They Shopping In?!
I am expecting my first biological child this spring. We had been trying for many years. Just when I had decided it was not in the cards and turned my attention to enjoying all the advantages that came with my step children getting older, we find ourselves on the verge of the decent back into dippers…
My Hands
Have never known a manicure or file. They are bitten rather than clipped. They have been painted less times than there are fingers to paint. In many places they are more scar than skin. The fingers on the right appear to have been badly broken long ago, though they never were. They often spend their…
The Era of Personal Responsibility
What would you do if you were is 1930’s Germany witnessing the rise of Hitler? Would you realize that something was very wrong with the trajectory of the leadership? What would you do about it? Before the current era in politics this was a purely hypothetical question that now seems to have become painfully relevant….
Work in Progress
Many of my paintings or attempts at art, never reach final draft status as the stacks of unfinished watercolors on my bookshelves can attest to. Awhile ago I painted The Eye of Horus on canvas with acrylics. It was a rough draft as so many paintings are. I put it on our mantle and it sat…
Just a Spoon Full of Honey
For my husband and me, a spoon full of honey does more than just help “the medicine go down” often the honey is the medicine. For colds and coughs we combine it with summer tinctures or it’s eaten with pineapple (Pineapples contain an enzyme called bromelain that has anti-inflammatory properties that help reduce the irritation at the…
Overkill USA
Here we are again… I think everyone has experienced one of those relationships, romantic or otherwise where the same issue comes up over and over again. The same conflict argued round and round with no resolution in sight. Each person believing wholeheartedly that their argument is so inherently virtuous that neither side is willing to give an inch. Even new valid points are seen in old…
Taking Time to See the Light
I have thought many times before that children are the ultimate measure of time. Their progress is one of the most palpable demonstrations of daily growth. Children change at a rate that is impossible to ignore, as long as you are paying attention. It is easy to habituate to change, to focus on all the…
♥ Read Mine ♥
*Almost four years ago…* Yesterday, the internet filled to capacity with pictures and stories both good and bad about Valentines Day. Most of my friends on FB posted pictures of the flowers or gifts that their sweeties had given them. AWWW (truly no sarcasm, I promise) and others posted vents about gifts that were not…
The Food Pyramid They Don’t Teach In School
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good (wo)men to do nothing.” -Edumnd Burke The current state of our immigration policy is something I have tried to publicly ignore but like my Planned Parenthood post I feel the discussion has reached critical mass and I can’t sit idle. The discourse seems to be…
Resist Tie Dye
A few weeks ago I was unmotivated to do anything but sit- rendering me voluntarily couch bound. My inability to completely veg-out resulted in my making a baby registry on the ipad. Among the items requested were plain cotton onesies, fabric dye and tuct tape. My sister bought me all three, proving that I might…
Seize the Day
Everyday I pass a place in the mountains where the water gathers and runs off when it is in liquid form. Most of the winter it is covered under snow but there are a few magical days when it is cold enough to freeze naked to the world.
Wisdom of the Melt
I take my cues from nature. I always have. As I get older I find there is no greater source of knowledge and perspective than natural systems and their inhabitants. I don’t include humans as inhabitants of these systems. I believe that we have lived in our own artificial creation for so long, we have lost…
Lessons From The Lupin Lady
My mom was a school teacher before my sister and I were born. When we were a little older she started a pre-school at our house called Kid’s Garden. (Sara got to attend the first year but I did not. I’m totally over it…obviously because I don’t even have to mention it anymore.) My early…
January Surf in Maine
This last round of storms was followed by strong wind resulting in some AMAZING drifts!
Frozen New Year
In 2017 I started more drafts of posts that have gone unpublished than ever before. There is so much I have felt I needed to say but I lack the time to get them to a place worth sharing. These scattered unfinished thoughts have been the benchmark of this past year for me. It is ironic…
It’s a… Middle Finger!?
My husband and the boys had me brainwashed into thinking it was going to be a boy. All the conversations we had about the new baby used the pronoun “he.” My husband kept insisting that he “only makes boys” (he was kidding, kind of) and with two boys in the family already the concept of another boy seemed…
Unexpected Fruit of Grief
Four years ago, we were preparing for my dad’s funeral by early morning light. I was back in my childhood home under the redwoods in my mom’s kitchen; writing a joint eulogy with my sister and pouring some good whiskey into a flask for the three of us. It was rough but we were determined…
A Little Big News
It might be a bit of a shock that over the last four years of this blog I have left out one of the major aspects of our life together. One of the main reasons behind leaving my job for a simpler life after my dad passed has gone wholly unmentioned. The time has come to…
