I don't define my spiritual path with a lot of labels.  I find most labels too restrictive and none fit overly well.  There is one term that I think fits pretty well though, and that's Nature Based or Earth Based.  That means a lot to me.  I not only want to learn a lot about nature, but I also want to learn how to live in harmony with nature.   Part of that means protecting nature and our natural resources.

Recently our budget has been extremely tight, so I'm trying to find ways to whittle away some of our expenses.  I've also been rethinking my approach to HOW I do a lot of things.  Let's be honest, we're a nation of consumers, and most of us don't want to have to make everything for ourselves.  Especially if there's a pretty cheep way to buy what we need and not have to put forth the extra effort.  I have been resisting making some things for myself for far too long, and I'm finding that I'm losing part of who I am along the way.  So this isn't just an effort to be more budget conscious or to be more eco-friendly.  It's also part of me reminding myself of the strong independent person that I know is still alive somewhere inside of me.

Some of the new things I am doing are, making my own cleaning products, making my own air fresheners or spritzers, and really working on my families health.  I've also done some research into natural building and earthen homes.  Because of our budget concerns, I'm being forced to take some things slowly.  Let's face it, even if I'm making things myself, I have to buy the parts (or ingredients) to make what ever it is I am doing at the time (at least for now).  I intend to eventually start growing a small garden, and if I can't get my soil whipped into shape where we live, I will find a way to cost effectively build a greenhouse and start growing some food that way.  I might have to do things slowly, but I'm NOT stopping just because of the inconvenience of having to watch our budget.  Besides, it's probably best to take things on a little at a time since I'm pregnant and I need to make sure I'm not OVER doing things.  I still have a 2 year old to keep up with after all, along with keeping our house under some sort of control.

As a long term goal, my husband and I want to make our family more financially independent while living far more harmoniously with nature than we can manage in our little subdivision.  We'll buy some property and build our home (hopefully using some of the natural building techniques I've been researching) and plant a garden that can supply most of our families needs.  This also means, I've got a LOT more learning to do.  It's sad to say, I grew up in a family of farmers, and I didn't learn ANYTHING about growing my own food.  Since the climate here in Southeastern Texas is very different from the climate of Southwestern Michigan anyway, I'd probably still have a lot to learn... I'm looking forward to the challenges though.

I'm just getting started on turing things around and it's pretty wonderful to me that my husband is so supportive of the things I'm wanting to do and the direction I want our family to move in.   I'm also going to be either starting a new blog all together to share my new adventure on, or I'll be revamping this one to incorporate my new interests and share what I've learned.  It's exciting to be making some progress.  I can't wait to see where it leads.

Lately I've been examining myself a bit more closely in relation to how I treat myself and how others perceive me.  I'm not saying I give a lot of credibility to what other's think of me, but I'm trying to compare how I see myself and how other's view me just to get an idea of whether I'm showing others my true self or if maybe I'm not seeing myself as accurately as I think I am.  In all truth, both sides of the equation are a bit skewed, but it's my view of myself that is the most in need of adjustment.

When things are going smoothly for myself and my family, it's easy to be open with people and be confident in myself.  Of course, when things go wrong, it's a different story.  I get stressed and although I put on a confident face for those around me, I don't often feel the confidence I'm showing.  I have a lot of self doubt, but looking back once a stressful situation is resolved, I find that I handle things a lot better than I give myself credit for.  The problem is that the next stressful situation I have to deal with, I'm right back where I was before, doubting myself and whether or not I'll be able to get through it.  It's difficult to admit, but NO ONE is more effective at undermining my confidence than I am. I've been through a lot in my life, and I've been able to pull through every situation that I've faced, stronger than when I started.  But, instead of patting myself on the back and being proud of myself for pulling through yet another tough situation, I spend a lot of time beating myself up for getting myself into that situation to begin with.

Many of the more recent situations that I've had to handle lately, aren't MY messes either.  But part of who I am is a caring person who wants to be helpful and reliable for the people I care about, and if that means lending a hand when I'm needed, I'll do it with my whole being.  Sometimes the people I'm helping, take advantage of that, and it hurts.  That's probably one of the things I beat myself up for the most, letting others take advantage of me.  Here's the rub, I WANT to be a person who helps others.  That's part of my nature.  I don't want to let the fact that those I help sometimes let me down, stop me from helping someone else in the future.

So what are the lessons here?  One is that I can't keep helping someone who repeatedly lets me down and refuses to accept the help they are asking for.  The biggest one though right now, is that I need to cut myself some slack.  It's time I acknowledge my own strength and believe in it, and instead of beating myself up when someone else lets me down, I need to recognize that the shortcoming isn't always mine.  While it's not worthwhile to continue to help someone who clearly doesn't have their own best interest at heart, and doesn't place any value on the time and energy I'm putting in to helping them, I need to remember that it's not a reflection on me as much as it is on the character of the other person.  I will continue to help those who need me, and when they're working with me for their own betterment, then we'll both come out the other side better for the experience.  But, when they're not going to accept the need for their own participation in the solution to their problems, then I have to give myself permission to walk away knowing that I did the best I could instead of beating myself up for trying.  I will not allow the people who let me down, to make me care less.  That's not who I am, and that's not who I want to be.  I will, however, learn to accept the shortcomings of other's as THEIR shortcomings and not mine.

My little family has been working on our health for the past several months, and although we've not put as much into it as I'd like, we've noticed some pretty awesome results.  I love the support I'm getting from my husband in this too.  He's a pretty special man.  We aren't trying to become vegan or do anything too drastic with the changes we're making.  Some weight loss would be great, but it's not the primary goal either really.  We're just trying to live a healthier life.  Our son deserves parents that can keep up with him.  I know I don't want to be something that holds him back in anything he might want to do (as long as he's not being self destructive).

We had been discussing our health issues for a little while with some close friends including how foggy our minds had become.  I think we all pretty much agreed that the biggest problem was the processed foods that seemed to be our go to foods.  I really had no clue how to balance a diet or prepare truly healthy meals.  My mother tried to prepare healthy things for us when I was young, but when I was a teen, I HATED being in the kitchen so not learning this stuff was as much my own fault as just societal norms in general.  I learned enough from what my mother had talked with me about, to know that getting back to a more natural diet was what we needed more than ever.

Our friends pointed me toward the video "Fat Sick and Nearly Dead" on Netflix, which I watched at least twice.  The message of that movie struck home!  One thing I'd known from some of the things I'd learned with my mom was that our bodies have an amazing capability to heal their selves given the proper building blocks.  Joe Cross (the subject of the documentary) reiterated that and in sharing his own story of transformation is living proof of what healthy food can truly do.  This documentary is one mans journey to fix his own health.  He chose to do begin by doing a 60 day juice fast.  Of course it's not something everyone should do, and he did it under a doctor's supervision.  In the end, he states that his message isn't about just juicing, it's about getting more raw fruits and vegetables into our diets and less processed foods.  This was the starting point I needed!

We started out replacing one meal a day with juice.  We kicked our pretty heavy soda habit in the first week with little side effects.  We try to get as much organic produce as possible, but this can be pretty expensive.  We've learned that there's a limit to how much produce our refrigerator can hold.  If we were to do a juice fast for any length of time, I'd be grocery shopping nearly every day.  So, we try to stick to one juice a day or sometimes we do smoothies.  We've also done pretty good at incorporating more veggies into our other meals.  I've found that my son LOVES eating fresh raw veggies (except carrots, which seem to be a little too crunchy for him still), his favorite is salad.  He even enjoys sipping on our juices when we have them.

We aren't always successful in maintaining these new habits, but it's not because we don't want to.  Usually it's a lack of funds that stands in our way.  The difference is extremely noticeable though.  When we don't have the money to buy our juice supplies, our digestion suffers, we get gassy, and feel really lethargic.  The less fresh food I consume, the worse I feel.  So we continue to do our best to keep the fresh foods in our diet.  I'm looking for more affordable ways to get organic produce.  I did find a local organic co-op that looks promising.  I'm also looking for more raw food recipes.  I'd like to get more variety into our diets and make more fun healthy foods.  It's fun watching my son dig in to the fresh fruits and veggies.  He actually eats those better than he does a lot of the more processed foods.

Over all, I'm really happy with the steps we've taken so far.  In time, we'll get better at preparing fresh wholesome foods for our family and eventually our finances will get less restrictive and we'll be able to afford more of the good stuff we want to eat.  It's been more than six months since we kicked our soda dependency and we've maintained that pretty well.  I'm finding indigestion a lot less of a problem than it was before we made our dietary changes.  I still get some mild heartburn, but I'm not dependent on medication to keep in under control anymore, and I don't have it at all if we can maintain our one juice a day pattern.

An interesting side effect of focusing on health... I'm pregnant again!  It was a pretty amazing Mothers Day gift to myself, finding out.  My hormones had been pretty out of whack since my son was born, and the stress of the past couple years hadn't helped at all.  It's an awesome thing though what our bodies can do when they are fed well.  We wanted to have another child, but we weren't counting on it since it had been so difficult getting pregnant the first time.  I've had more energy so far than I had when I was pregnant with my son.  Just sitting here writing this blog is proof of that.  I'm sure the improved nutrition has a lot to do with that also.

It'd be pretty easy to fall back into old patterns, but the motivation to maintain the changes we've made is pretty strong.  My husband and I agree, we just feel better over all since we've made these small changes, and we're not willing to give that up.  I for one don't want to go back to feeling like a zombie day in and day out.  I like having a clearer mind.  It's got me thinking about LOTS of things!

Since our son was born, we've had quite a bit on our plates, and the bulk of it had little to do with the new baby in the house.  We work pretty diligently at keeping drama out of our home, and when it worms it's way in, it's pretty difficult to deal with.  I don't deal well with stress (and that's an understatement, just ask my husband). Luckily, my husband takes pretty much anything in stride, so he's usually a great balance for me.  The last two years though, have kept me out of sorts quite a bit of the time.  Some probably find that surprising.  I usually put on a pretty calm face for the rest of the world, but inside, I've been more stressed than I could ever put words to.

When our son was born, we knew there would be quite a bit of family coming to visit to meet the baby, and we were prepared for that.  It was most helpful in the months after he was born really, especially since I had a c-section and wasn't allowed to cary anything that weighed more than my lil man, including him strapped into his lil carrier car seat.  So it was great having family here to help me get things done that I couldn't do, and help me get my son to and from his doctors appointments and such.  I am truly grateful for the help I got in those early months, it really made things much easier.

The problems really started a few months later... I'm not going to get into the details of what exactly happened because it's not my dirty laundry to air out.  Lets just say, we voluntarily agreed to help some family members out with some important situations that they could not deal with on their own.  We got involved because we were needed and there weren't any better options, and we love our family no matter what.  The thing is, things never work out the way they are planned, and we knew that going in. We are pretty flexible people so that wasn't initially a problem, but some of that flexibility came back to bite us in the fanny later on.  What we were terrible with, was setting boundaries when it comes to helping those we love.  It's something we're really still dealing with, and it will probably always be a struggle.

As often happens when drama is involved things pretty much snowballed on us, and we dealt the best way we knew how.  Now, we're dealing with cleaning up the mess we've made of our own lives in the process of helping others.  We opened up our home and our lives to those we love, and put too much of ourselves into it.  We gave and gave, physically, financially and emotionally, and in the end we are the ones paying the price.  Our finances are in shambles, our home is a disaster, and I for one am too emotionally spent to put any more emotion into anyone else's problems at all.  All I can manage for the time being is taking care of my immediate household needs.  My son is my focus throughout the day, and when my husband isn't working as much overtime as possible to make up for our financial difficulties, I spend as much time with him as I can.

I'm still working through learning the lessons in all this.  I know lesson number one is to remember to take care of myself and my family even when I'm trying to help someone else.  I can't put all of myself into someone else's problems, no matter how serious those problems are.  My husband and my son need me and the only way I can be there for them, is if I'm taking care of myself too.  I have to take care of all of myself though, my emotions, my spirituality, my whole being.  I talk a good game, people probably think I do pretty good remembering those things.  The truth is, I am just as bad as the next person at remembering that I'm an important person too, and I suffer for it sometimes.

Going forward, I'm taking things one day at a time.  Some days I have to force myself to get dressed and get things accomplished though.  I do know that  we'll get through these challenges, we seem to pull through pretty well given enough time.  I just hope that we learn the lessons well because I don't need any repeat performances.  Only time will tell.

As I said in my last post, I finally became a mother in August of 2011.  My husband and I had waited a long time for this and there was a lot of heart ache in the earlier years of our marriage.  You see, I've been pregnant before, although not for very long.

We suffered our first miscarriage the year before we got married.  We'd begun planning our wedding already at the time, and when we discovered I was pregnant, we put off the wedding because I didn't want to walk down the aisle 8 months pregnant.  When I miscarried, we decided that the later date was still best.  We had a lot of emotional damage to work through, and it wasn't an easy road.  We'd suspected there was a problem with the pregnancy pretty much from the beginning because I was spotting, but neither one of us would allow ourselves to believe that something so terrible would happen to us... I guess everyone feels that way at some point.  Our loss nearly drove us apart, we just didn't know how to talk to each other about what we were feeling.  It was a real test of the strength of our relationship.  We learned though, to lean on each other for comfort and support.  I think it was sheer determination that got us through and made our beautiful wedding happen the next year.

A year after we were married, we moved to Texas.  We lived in a pop-up camper for 8 months, and managed to save enough money in that short time to put a down payment on a house.  It seemed our lives were really coming together so we decided to "try again".  A friend I worked with had had similar difficulties with her fertility so we decided that we'd both schedule check-ups with an OBGYN as a first step on our TTC(trying to conceive) journey.  I think it was the only way either one of us were ever going to try to figure out if there was some reason we had miscarried in the past or why after a few years, we'd still not gotten pregnant again.  Not long after our check-ups, we both found out we were pregnant.  For me, it was the same as the first time... More spotting, more worrying, more blood tests (to watch my hormone levels) and within a couple of weeks, another devastating loss.  Thank goodness my friend didn't have to go through all of that again too.  She had a healthy baby boy and I couldn't have been happier for her.

I don't know which is worse after a miscarriage... All the checkups at the OB's office with a waiting room full of so many families joyfully expecting their little blessings... Or the stupid things people say, mostly because they don't know what to say.  For me though, the worst part was the stories on the news about people hurting or killing their kids.  I was angry for a while at the injustice of having lost my babies before even getting a chance to feel them move inside my belly, while the world was full of unwanted pregnancies and undeserving parents who would harm their own children.  After our second loss, it seemed as if every day there was another news story about a dead baby found tossed aside like so much trash.  It got pretty unbearable to watch the news, so I just stopped.  I'm glad I did stop watching the news though, because I think I'd have wallowed in my depression much longer and much deeper had I seen much more of that kind of news.

After our second loss, my husband and I decided not to wait to try again.  We tried charting my cycles, and keeping track of my basal body temperature for a couple years.  Month after month we went through the same heart breaking disappointment, and honestly our sex life became more of a obligation than anything we enjoyed.  We talked about fertility treatments, but decided against it because I knew there was too much risk of further loss, and I didn't think I could handle any more.

The next step we decided on was trying to adopt.  We did some research, and decided on going through the state's foster care program.  Private adoption was prohibitively expensive, and there are so many children in foster care that need a permanent home.  So, we signed up for their classes that are required to begin the process.  On our way, two rather large pickup trucks, nearly sideswiped us.  You'd think we would have taken that as a sign that this just wasn't meant to be, but we were determined.  The first half of the class seemed to be going really well, right up to just before the break, when they said "we don't place children in homes with certain breeds of dogs".  This was an instant red flag for us, because we had a young pit bull at home.  She was a gift from our realtor when we moved into our home.  We'd soothed our heartache a great deal with our pets, and they were (and still are) very precious to us.  After verifying with the CPS representatives that Pit Bulls were indeed one of those breeds that they won't place children with, we walked out of that class and never looked back.  My pit bull is the sweetest dog I've ever owned, and she is amazing with our little boy, so I don't regret that decision in the least.  At the time, however, it was incredibly disheartening.

Not knowing what else to do, we gave up on our quest for parent hood.  We put our relationship first, and really grew closer than we'd ever been.  I found faith again, in a new way, but one that felt more natural to me.  We found ourselves happy just as we were... Just the two of us.  I don't think either one of us ever stopped hoping we might have children one day, but we weren't making it a focus any more. Part of me had given up though, and I was OK with that.

So, when November 2010 came around, and I found myself feeling nauseated for several days with no apparent explanation, it was mostly on a whim that I decided to try a pregnancy test.  I didn't really believe it was possible.  I did the test while my husband was at work.  The results were pretty clear and immediate (+) couldn't miss that.  I cried for joy!  My husband got the news via a picture text, I couldn't wait to tell him.  He was speechless, according to his coworker, his face just went blank.  Of course there were those nagging fears mixed in with our joy, but this time was different.  I new it in the deepest part of my soul.  We waited until Christmas to tell our families though...

I'll never forget that day, nor the day my son was born.  I thank the gods every day for giving him to us.  We are truly blessed.

The past two plus years have been incredible and at times stressful.  I'll try to get to some of that in other posts though.  The biggest change in my life is that I'm a mother now.  We found out that we were expecting just a couple weeks after my last blog post, and oh the many ways my life has changed since.

My son will be two years old this summer, I can't believe how fast the time has flown by.  Having him, really makes me look at life differently, and has sparked some lifestyle changes in my husband and I.  We've begun to work on our dietary habits and the first step of that has been juicing fruits and vegetables at least once a day.  We're working toward adding much more fresh fruits and vegetables into our diet and getting rid of the overly processed foods, but right now it's gonna be one step at a time.  We can't afford to buy a bunch of fancy appliances to make this process easier, so we're doing what we can with what we have first.  My husband and I have both noticed a lot of improvement in our overall feeling of well being and our energy levels.  We've managed to kick the Soda Pop habit (which for me in particular was a small miracle) and haven't had really any cravings for it since.  Besides having our son, the other thing that really encouraged us to try juicing (and really just work towards healthier eating) was the video "Fat Sick and Nearly Dead" featuring Joe Cross in his own journey to recover his health.  We're not just trying to lose weight quickly, and this isn't really a "diet", it's a new way of living with our health in mind.  I'd recommend this video to anyone who's suffering chronic illness or just feels lethargic all the time.  More than my weight, my mental faculties have benefited from the changes we've made so far.  I can think MUCH more clearly since we've begun our journey towards health and I'm more myself than I've been in a very long time.

On the spiritual side... I never felt more connected to divinity and especially the aspect of the Mother Goddess than when I was pregnant.  I'll be delving into this more in a future post too, but lets just say I see a great deal more connections spiritually than I ever have and it's amazing.  I feel truly blessed to have my son, and know that he is a beautiful gift from the divine sent here to teach us and help us grow.  Also, I've recently found someone who is willing to mentor me in the path of Elemental Witchcraft, and I couldn't be more excited to begin this new journey.  I had been feeling pulled toward this path for some time and have read many of the books that I found on the subject, but it will be exhilarating to learn this path on a deeper level.  In some things, books just aren't enough, and for me, this is one of those things.

I'll end this update for now, but I'll be back soon.  I've got a lot on my mind, and Lord Thoth isn't going to let me rest until I get it written out.

Brightest of Blessings!

This year for Samhain, I felt a need to go to our local Renaissance Festival. We had already gone once this year, but I really felt I needed to go back... I have this beautiful picture of a falcon hanging in my living room that I had taken at the Ren. Fest. a few years back, and I thought it would be nice to give a copy of it to the Falconer who puts on the most wonderful Birds of Prey shows with birds that he rehabilitates. The shows are very informative, and I very much respect the work that he does. Had it not been for these shows, I would not have been able to take this wonderful picture, which I treasure.