big bad babuey birthday

one quick little note before i turn in for the night. today is babu's birthday. today is a very special day. a day where i personally celebrate how blessed i am to have babu & and the whole laursen gang to call family. babu you are an inspiration to me. your strength, your dedication, your hard work, your goofy side, your serious side, your interests, your love for the world, and your boundless love have all helped to shape who i am today. and now my kiddos get to reap the reward of having you as their grandfather. we are all very lucky. and we all love you very much.

from the bottom of my heart.
s.

reaffirmation

tonight i attended the PVPA meeting (that's the portland village parent association for those not in the know) and i must say with each step of this educational process i feel more and more as though we are making the right decision for pilar. choosing to be part of a brand new charter school is precarious and scary. i mean to put it bluntly we have NO IDEA where we are going to be next year and our school is at capacity with another 9 classes of 22 kids to add! shit! talk about unstable ground. but what i do know is the absolute dedication brought forward by this community is unfaltering. it is absolutely mind blowing. it is awe inspiring.

tonight we listened to the 5th grade teacher talk a bit more in depth about waldorf philosophy and i found myself nodding my head over and over again in affirmation. "we are teaching to the whole child- the physical body, the feeling body, the thinking body and the spirit body"-- i'm just figuring out what my feeling body and spirit body are! how encouraging to think we are raising a group of children to set forth in the world with these things already figured out. setting them forth in confidence in all of their "bodies". that would be remarkable, wouldn't it?

i have been hearing this quote, "rosa sat so that dr. king could stand, so that obama could run, so that our children can fly". this quote nearly brings tears to my eyes. what a time we are living in- i see this quote as a beautiful reflection of where we are headed- i hear it in these words, i hear it in the words of our school's 5th grade teacher, i hear it in the voices of those who surround me and it reaffirms me that there is absolute hope.

a new chapter?

i am really hesitant to write this for fear i my jinx things, but i am so beside myself that i must share.

it has been 2 full weeks since i have had a dip in my mood. (i know you must be thinking, 2 weeks?!?!?! that is nothing!) but my reality has been that i have not had more than a week of relief from the black dogs since this whole thing began in april.
i am not holding my breath that i am totally out of the woods but to be looking back over the calendar and to really notice that things are shifting is truly a godsend. for me and for my family.

i am not sure if it is the meds, the yoga, the journaling, the therapy, the super duper healthy diet, the PILE of vitamins i down everyday, the curves workouts, or the fact that we are coming up on a year milestone that is making the difference. most likely it is a all of these things working together but damn! this has been one scary ride and i am happy to be getting off of it! and i am ready for the next chapter of life to begin- what a remarkable chapter it is going to be- i can't wait!

another week gone by...

where do they go? i mean seriously... it astounds me how elusive time is. sometimes in the moment it seems as though time can not pass by quickly enough and then suddenly when you stop to look a whole week has vanished. amazing, truly.

anyway, our last week has been a good one consisting of; a delightful visit from babu. a lovely lantern walk. a soggy trek through the rain with the kids. an obama potluck celebration. a sweet visit from uncle michael. a tumbling birthday party. a play date with pasha. and yoga- lots of yoga.
and zap.
just like that.
it is gone.

there must be a "dicho" somewhere that says something along the lines of: may time pass swiftly thru the struggles and linger in the moments of sweetness. if you find it, let me know.

president barack obama

it is amazing. it is profound. it is overwhelmingly inspiring to know that SO many americans are so passionately ready for change.
here's to a new america. a new era. a beautiful future for our children.

on the eve of the election

i can feel the anxious buzz in the air. everyone in anticipation for what tomorrow holds. i feel strongly in my heart that our country is ready for this. that our world is ready for this. we are ready for change.
"president barack obama" rings loud and clear in my head.

halloween tidbits

this year for halloween pilar was a mouse (surprise, surprise) and mateo was a brown fruit bat. of course it was a mad dash the night before to finish the costumes- will we ever learn? as we moaned about how late it was getting on thursday night and how we really wanted to go to bed- we had the realization that there probably aren't too many years left before pilar tells us she wants to be a valley girl or gypsy or something else that doesn't require much more than a trip to the goodwill and a rummage thru the closet. so we savored the moment and happily finished our kids costumes- it is the curse of both of us coming from families who dare not buy halloween costumes. in the end they turned out to be simple and sweet.

we enjoyed the evening trick-or-treating a few of our neighbors and then headed off to a school friend's halloween party. the night ended with a visit from the switch witch! (if you haven't yet beckoned her to your house, i highly recommend it!)