Revolutionary Kind

Yes, I’m aware that I have totally neglected my poor blog since September.  The winter tends to have that effect on me.  Plus I turned 30, plus I found out I am pregnant again.   Those kinds of profound changes to your existence can cause one to get a little caught up in other wanderings.  So now that the signs are beginning to point toward spring, I can come back out of my winter cave, rub my eyes as if Its been months since Ive seen the light, and say “whoa! where have the last 6 months gone?”.   I found out last week that we are having another boy.  Three boys!  Although I’m feeling a bit outnumbered, I am also excited to remain queen of my tribe, and am thoroughly happy that my new little guy is growing well and is healthy.  Now just have to go through the fun but tedious process of finding the perfect name.  The boys have been trying to help, but I don’t know if Mickey and Clifford the big red dog are quite what I had in mind…

I feel like Ive had enough time to absorb the fact that I have left my 20’s.  I accept that I am in a new phase, a new decade, and although the transition wasn’t particularly painless, I am excited to see what my 30’s have to offer.  I always said I wanted to be done with having children by the time I was 30.  I barely made it, but our new guy will be born in late July, so I at least made it by the time my 30th year is through.  Works for me.

Other than that, I’m looking forward to the first flowers, and watching my spaces be transformed from dormant into new life.  I know the next few months are going to fly by, and suddenly I will have a new life to hold in my arms.  Amazing the way life works, and the cycles that move us.  Hopefully I wont wait as long this time to post again, judging by the amount I have already booked in my planner through the next few weeks, I will have plenty of excursions to chat about.  Until then, Welcome Spring, glad you could make it back again!!

That is what my youngest says every time there is a thunderstorm now.  If you’ve ever seen James and the Giant Peach, you know of the scary rhino that stampedes toward you from the stormy clouds.  I keep trying to tell him its just a thunderstorm, but it always comes back to the rhino.  It makes me laugh too because when I was young, I was informed that thunderstorms were actually just the Care Bears having a bowling party. Funny as it is, it sure did soothe any fear of those loud rumbles in the sky.  Today is a dark, thunder-stormy kind of day.  The type of day that begs for curling up on the couch with the kids and not doing a thing except drinking tea and watching movies.  Most of my garden is happy for the drink too, but my mildewing temperamental zucchini are probably going to be pissed and rebel.  Ive lost one plant already, but the others are hanging in there minus the lack of actually forming zucchinis.  Ive done some research on dealing with powdery mildew naturally, and found that a mixture of one part skim milk to 9 parts water is supposed to do the trick, used nightly to fight the mildew, then weekly to prevent its return, and this concoction is beginning to be implemented in larger natural farming operations all over the world.  Not sure exactly why it works, but so far it has kept my zucchini plant from dying and has stopped the spread of the  mildew to my acorn squash.  In other garden news, we had a late start, and so the plants are doing fine, but still haven’t gotten more than a few grape tomatoes and a few zucchinis before the mildew hit.  Herbs are doing great, just hoping we have a long enough season to see the rest of the veggies come to fruition.  Its always a challenge to start a new garden in a new place, you have to learn how the soil acts and what grows well and what doesn’t.  Still time to plant those fall veggies, trying to figure out where, but would love to plant spinach, beets and carrots.  Well, on this dreary day, I’m going to wander off and cuddle with the boys and prep for the short two-ish day visit from my father in law!

Ok, so yet again I have gotten behind, WAY behind when I think of how much my world has changed recently.  I’m almost too scatter-brained to know where to start.  I will give some of the following happenings their own special blog, as they deserve it even if tardy, but I will just catch up briefly on whats been going on.  My little guy tuned 2 in early May, we had a fun day of finger painting and eating too much yummy chocolate cake. He was spoiled and opened presents all day long.   I made wind chimes out of silverware, which turned out really fun I think, those were mothers day gifts for my mom and mother in law.  We found out with two weeks notice that Ben got a promotion to a much larger store, and that we were moving to Fort Wayne, Indiana.  After I lived in South Bend, Indiana for a year, I swore I would never live in Indiana again, yet the Midwest has this sort of pull over me like I’m attached to it by a giant sling, the farther i try to run, the faster it whips me back.  So I packed up the house as Ben worked 80 plus hours that last week, had lots of friends to help, and finally packed up and moved East with the Mountains in my rear-view mirror.  So here I am, in my new home in Fort Wayne, exhausted after the whirlwind drive complete with two flat tires, 3am landing times each night, cranky sick kids, sliding fish tanks, too much road food and crazy country bathroom hunts.  My saints of in-laws took the boys off our hands once we arrived in the Midwest, so we had a few days of kid free house hunting and unloading.  Its been one hell of a ride, Fort Wayne seems a lot nicer than South Bend, and it feels like a little mix of all our previous Midwest homes. Very family friendly and lots of community activities.  I miss the mountains and the wildlife, but I wont be far from the West for traveling and most likely moving out there again sometime.  For now, its just about settling into a new home, finding new schools and routines, and seeing what new adventures are hiding around the corners.  Stay tuned for pics of our last mountain drives before we left, our little mans birthday, and this time I will try to stay on top of things, we shall see how it goes and how fast I can get settled.

Well, at least a mom of a little boy who just started his first season playing soccer.  Not really sure what the prerequisites are for truly being a “soccer mom”.  I don’t have one of those fancy soccer ball sticker yet, if you were wondering.  I think that’s pretty high on the list for being part of that club.  Anyways, just wanted to share a few game pics from his first two games.  First game was freezing cold, second game was sunny and breezy and perfect.  We have a very passive team, I will be curious how they improve throughout the next month, maybe to even start kicking the ball toward the right goal each time?  That would be sweet.

all images copyright Revolutionary Kind

“Faith is a process of leaping into the abyss not on the basis of any certainty about ~where~ we shall land, but rather on the belief that we ~shall~ land.” – Carter Heyward

So, Ive been putting this post off long enough.  Time to just do it!  I have been going through a bit of a transformation recently, and haven’t really wanted to address to the world what has happened, but I feel up to it finally.  I had a miscarriage at 9 weeks pregnant.  This happened the end of January so you can see Ive needed some time.   I wasn’t even going to say anything, and because I mentioned that I was pregnant in my previous post, I had contemplated just casually erasing that part of my blog, moving on as if nothing had happened.  But I couldn’t because it DID happen, and that just didn’t feel honest to me.  So I have been going through the process of losing the potential of a child, and in the meantime have learned a lot about myself and my beliefs.   I felt in my core that something wasn’t right, even from the beginning, but sorta shrugged it off trying to remain positive.  I of course was devastated, but have also found comfort that my body is efficient in knowing when something isn’t right.  I also believe that everything happens for a reason, and perhaps it was just not time yet for another little soul to enter our existence.  And I am OK with that.  I still feel weird, especially since some of my friends became pregnant around the same time, and I watch their belly’s grow and mine remains the same.  I seem to be continually reminded of it, and it sort of haunts me whenever I see babies or other pregnant women.  I just have to remind myself that it is just part of the process, and when the time is right for us, it will happen again.  I felt really proud of myself, and for once very confident that what I believe in held true for me in such a sad time.  Trust your instincts and know that everything happens for a reason.  Does that mean I believe in fate, or some predetermined existence?  I don’t really know.  I do a bit I guess.  Not that everything is planned, but that there is some sort of order to the chaos in the world, and we have the power to push things in a certain direction with our energy and intentions.

Anyways.  Now that Ive talked about the process Ive been working through, time to start talking about more fun things, like our recent family  journey to Sunny Arizona!  So look forward to some pics!