Hmmm... finally being able to run around outside nekkid without freezin' your tushy off! Hahahaha not really, but oh man, if I had the nerve to do it... that would be it.
My favorite spring time activity is actually a trick question - where I'm at, spring = slush & floods from slush. We're spending a LOT of time trucking through slush/water and preparing for SUMMER. Really, spring for us is about ignoring the slush & all those middle-of-the-road-lakes amongst us and preparing for summer... which, for we Alaskans, starts the moment the slush gone. Waiting until June is for the birds! You'd miss 1/3 of the summer if you wait until Solstice. If you busy yourself & pretend hard enough, you hardly even notice that everything is yuck right now :)
Summer, however, is about running around (usually at least partially clothed) outside. I live in a place where the sun don't shine much most of the year, so when we get it in droves for the summer months, we spend most of our time outside doing EVERYTHING and getting sunshine EVERYWHERE it don't shine the rest of the year. Walking, fishing, camping, gardening, running, napping, sunbathing, blowing bubbles, rolling in the grass, grilling good eats... heck, I'll even be pulling my spinning wheel out to the lawn for some sunshiney spin time. We try to forget that TVs exist. We stop going to the supermarket so often - we spend time every day playing in the dirt, growing REALLY good eats! And, this summer, we'll also be continuing to clear land & begin building a home of our own.
Working in a beautiful building with loads of natural light makes it rather difficult to concentrate on those pesky work things this time of year.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Monday, April 8, 2013
Adina's Acres
We're offically open for business!
http://adinasacres.wordpress.com/
**another one that should have been posted in January.
http://adinasacres.wordpress.com/
**another one that should have been posted in January.
Bliss
Tonight was dancing to a mariachi record in the Moose's bedroom. The lights in her room are a strand of pink Christmas lights strung along her ceiling, attached to a white set in her closet. My dance partners tonight included: Yobo, the Moose, Minnie Mouse, and a plush baby giraffe rattle.
***I have been SO behind on things! This should've been posted in January.
***I have been SO behind on things! This should've been posted in January.
The Explanation
So my last post was pulled because... I got skeered. I submitted it to a place looking for writers, which is something I've wanted to do for a LONG time, and didn't get any response back. I thought maybe they were offended by what I wrote. I thought maybe someone I didn't know would read it, not understand, be offended, and have bad words to say. I thought maybe some I *did* know would read it, not understand, be offended, and have bad words to say. There was a lot of fear. Fear I am trying to learn to overcome! Well, maybe not "overcome," but embrace and run into, rather than away from. Otherwise, how will I ever know if there was anything, really, of which to be scared?
I am a runner. And not in the athletic sense, though I occasionally do that sometimes, too. I am a runner from emotion & responsibility. I am a runner from everything of which I am scared, which is kind of everything. I will stop running. Maybe I'll just walk slowly.
I am a runner. And not in the athletic sense, though I occasionally do that sometimes, too. I am a runner from emotion & responsibility. I am a runner from everything of which I am scared, which is kind of everything. I will stop running. Maybe I'll just walk slowly.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Moving on up...
This was originally posted on March 29. I took it down because I got skeered, but am now reposting unabashedly!
Well, making progress in my recently declared war on anxiety & lack of inner peace anyway. I tried some meditating and it worked. A lot. And now I don't like meditating - brought a virtual emotional tsunami to my brain. For a moment, I thought I might drown! It was brought up that maybe I should try GUIDED meditation as I apparently have no problem with "getting there", but more a problem of defining where "there" should be...
Next Monday, I will attempt my first guided meditation session and see how it fares. B has been going to this session for a while now & is quite pleased with it. From what I gather, there is someone leading the group & he gives you a (meditation) path to follow and walks you down it so, hopefully, I shouldn't get lost in the flood of abandoned childhood memories.
Also, at massage last night, my masseuse gifted me a set of meditation CDs - something called the Silva method. I'd never heard of it, but she assured me it was fantastic. When I got home, Yobo took a look, rolled his eyes, said something about Silva being a Jung-ian, then announced that he wouldn't poo-poo on this train and was shutting his mouth.
At school, I am working on an exercise to get to know me better. I was given a stack of cards with words printed on them & was instructed to not think about it, just tape each card under a column, headers being: Korean, Korean-American, and American. The exercise, I was assured, would help me evaluate my values and help me to understand from where my values stemmed. I went through about 20 cards, supposed to do some more tonight. In the little bit we've worked out so far, it appears that my image of Korean values may be slightly negative... which maybe I already knew & wanted to work on, which is probably why I agreed to this exercise to begin with.
Many of my "Korean experiences" left a bad taste in my mouth, but I was also fairly isolated in what Koreans I had access to - only the ones at mema's behest and most of them were at her church (which is also a major source of my discontent with organized religion). I never got a clear picture of what it meant to be Korean as a little person and have found over time that, yes, just like anything else, I need to open myself to knowledge beyond my experience. Mema's church taught me that Koreans are racist (I'm only half, which makes me not whole, which makes me not a real person), women are scary (especially to maturing girls), men are drunks (sometimes mean ones) beaten into submission (by their women), and I will never be good enough. For anything. And nothing means anything unless a Korean told you. And money trumps everything. Everything. Except maybe saving face. But really, everything, because enough money can buy your face a bit of saving. I wouldn't say I was ashamed to be Korean, but more that I wasn't exactly proud of it and felt no desire to explore it. And that is so sad and the first time I have ever actually written/typed that out.
But the birth of the Moose had me cracking open a door I'd locked a long time. While she's only a quarter Korean, it's important for her to know & understand her heritage. I had a very fragmented, misinterpreted interpretation of what it is to be Korean. She should know that there is much more to Korea that what her Nana can explain with any clarity. I cracked open the door almost 2 years ago, so hopefully things have aired out. It's pretty dusty in here, time to get to work!
Well, making progress in my recently declared war on anxiety & lack of inner peace anyway. I tried some meditating and it worked. A lot. And now I don't like meditating - brought a virtual emotional tsunami to my brain. For a moment, I thought I might drown! It was brought up that maybe I should try GUIDED meditation as I apparently have no problem with "getting there", but more a problem of defining where "there" should be...
Next Monday, I will attempt my first guided meditation session and see how it fares. B has been going to this session for a while now & is quite pleased with it. From what I gather, there is someone leading the group & he gives you a (meditation) path to follow and walks you down it so, hopefully, I shouldn't get lost in the flood of abandoned childhood memories.
Also, at massage last night, my masseuse gifted me a set of meditation CDs - something called the Silva method. I'd never heard of it, but she assured me it was fantastic. When I got home, Yobo took a look, rolled his eyes, said something about Silva being a Jung-ian, then announced that he wouldn't poo-poo on this train and was shutting his mouth.
At school, I am working on an exercise to get to know me better. I was given a stack of cards with words printed on them & was instructed to not think about it, just tape each card under a column, headers being: Korean, Korean-American, and American. The exercise, I was assured, would help me evaluate my values and help me to understand from where my values stemmed. I went through about 20 cards, supposed to do some more tonight. In the little bit we've worked out so far, it appears that my image of Korean values may be slightly negative... which maybe I already knew & wanted to work on, which is probably why I agreed to this exercise to begin with.
Many of my "Korean experiences" left a bad taste in my mouth, but I was also fairly isolated in what Koreans I had access to - only the ones at mema's behest and most of them were at her church (which is also a major source of my discontent with organized religion). I never got a clear picture of what it meant to be Korean as a little person and have found over time that, yes, just like anything else, I need to open myself to knowledge beyond my experience. Mema's church taught me that Koreans are racist (I'm only half, which makes me not whole, which makes me not a real person), women are scary (especially to maturing girls), men are drunks (sometimes mean ones) beaten into submission (by their women), and I will never be good enough. For anything. And nothing means anything unless a Korean told you. And money trumps everything. Everything. Except maybe saving face. But really, everything, because enough money can buy your face a bit of saving. I wouldn't say I was ashamed to be Korean, but more that I wasn't exactly proud of it and felt no desire to explore it. And that is so sad and the first time I have ever actually written/typed that out.
But the birth of the Moose had me cracking open a door I'd locked a long time. While she's only a quarter Korean, it's important for her to know & understand her heritage. I had a very fragmented, misinterpreted interpretation of what it is to be Korean. She should know that there is much more to Korea that what her Nana can explain with any clarity. I cracked open the door almost 2 years ago, so hopefully things have aired out. It's pretty dusty in here, time to get to work!
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
FALAFEL!!!!!!
Haven't posted in forever, but we're still around! I'm so excited - my work boss is going to pick up falafel sammies for lunch!!! Now I've got a major rumbly in my tumbly!
Also, just found out YESTERDAY that Easter not only sometimes happens in March, but it's on the Moose's birthday this year! We'll spend Saturday in Stills' Valley (with Yobo's family) and Sunday with mema & my sissies. Sunday we're celebrating the Moose's 2nd birthday, Easter, AND a bon voyage party for my sissy & nephew, who are heading to Latvia on the 1st.
My nephew is on out (locally) famous kid's hockey team (is that squirts?) was invited to an international hockey tournament. When I asked him if he read up on the local cuisine, he looked at me funny and said "no, why?" OMG. I hope he has a wonderful trip. The Big C (his mama), on the other hand, already has a tour planned with a local abandoned prison & is getting ready for Latvian yummies.
AND THE MOOSE WILL BE TWO YEARS OLD ON SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How the frak did that happen? Oh man. She told me yesterday that moose like to play in the snow (which she pronounces "noose") and that she wanted to go play in the noose like a moose :D
School pretty much sucks up all of my non-work / non-baby attending life, so that's really all that's been going. Oh! And Yobo milled his first ever logs the other weekend (we bought a chainsaw & a portable saw mill) - hello structural beams for our future home!
Also, just found out YESTERDAY that Easter not only sometimes happens in March, but it's on the Moose's birthday this year! We'll spend Saturday in Stills' Valley (with Yobo's family) and Sunday with mema & my sissies. Sunday we're celebrating the Moose's 2nd birthday, Easter, AND a bon voyage party for my sissy & nephew, who are heading to Latvia on the 1st.
My nephew is on out (locally) famous kid's hockey team (is that squirts?) was invited to an international hockey tournament. When I asked him if he read up on the local cuisine, he looked at me funny and said "no, why?" OMG. I hope he has a wonderful trip. The Big C (his mama), on the other hand, already has a tour planned with a local abandoned prison & is getting ready for Latvian yummies.
AND THE MOOSE WILL BE TWO YEARS OLD ON SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How the frak did that happen? Oh man. She told me yesterday that moose like to play in the snow (which she pronounces "noose") and that she wanted to go play in the noose like a moose :D
School pretty much sucks up all of my non-work / non-baby attending life, so that's really all that's been going. Oh! And Yobo milled his first ever logs the other weekend (we bought a chainsaw & a portable saw mill) - hello structural beams for our future home!
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
the (lack of) Technology
Dear Moose,
Do you remember this picture?
Well, it's from your first birthday - we were playing a game where we laid these objects out in front of you, you were to pick one, and it would give us a clue as to what your calling in life would be. You picked the computer mouse; we were all a little surprised, but that was what met your fancy. We started thinking of what kind of things you might be interested in; where would future technologies take you?
Your dad & I knew not too many months later that you truly did have a technology-based... thing. You tried, effortlessly, multiple times to wipe & reload my laptop; you attempted to take apart dad's laptop; later, after you were allowed to watch TV, you LOVED being allowed to turn the TV on. I got a Kindle for Christmas from Auntie Mimi & you promptly destroyed it exactly one month later... how, we still don't know, but whatever you did (or didn't do) worked (or didn't work) really well. Then yesterday happened.
Apparently you have been using the Wii & the Blu-ray player as piggy banks. We don't know for how long, but we first noticed strange things last week when the Blu-ray player began to randomly shut itself down (we didn't think much of this at the time). Then yesterday happened.
While I was at work, dad was playing on his computer in the office. He noticed you'd been a little too quiet, so he went to the living room to check on you... just in time to watch you flip the switch on the power strip that everything on the entertainment stand was plugged into; just in time to watch the arc that jumped out from said power strip, knocking you back onto the floor (don't worry, you were OK - shocked for sure, but physically OK). When he checked everything out, he found pennies everywhere - stuffed in the Blu-ray player & Wii mostly. And there were a LOT of pennies. Too many pennies for you to have stuffed them all in there in the short time you were alone in the living room. Too many pennies for either device to sustain. Too many pennies!
What APPEARS to have happened is that you had been stuffing every penny you came across into one device or another. Whatever was stuffed in there yesterday must have overloaded it with metals because once you flipped everything on... ZAP! We no longer have a TV or a Wii or Blu-ray disc player. Suffice to say, you are definitely interested in electronic technology. And, really, truly, to understand the way something works, you've got to understand how it DOESN'T work.
STAY AWAY FROM MY LAPTOP.
Love,
Mama
Do you remember this picture?
Well, it's from your first birthday - we were playing a game where we laid these objects out in front of you, you were to pick one, and it would give us a clue as to what your calling in life would be. You picked the computer mouse; we were all a little surprised, but that was what met your fancy. We started thinking of what kind of things you might be interested in; where would future technologies take you?
Your dad & I knew not too many months later that you truly did have a technology-based... thing. You tried, effortlessly, multiple times to wipe & reload my laptop; you attempted to take apart dad's laptop; later, after you were allowed to watch TV, you LOVED being allowed to turn the TV on. I got a Kindle for Christmas from Auntie Mimi & you promptly destroyed it exactly one month later... how, we still don't know, but whatever you did (or didn't do) worked (or didn't work) really well. Then yesterday happened.
Apparently you have been using the Wii & the Blu-ray player as piggy banks. We don't know for how long, but we first noticed strange things last week when the Blu-ray player began to randomly shut itself down (we didn't think much of this at the time). Then yesterday happened.
While I was at work, dad was playing on his computer in the office. He noticed you'd been a little too quiet, so he went to the living room to check on you... just in time to watch you flip the switch on the power strip that everything on the entertainment stand was plugged into; just in time to watch the arc that jumped out from said power strip, knocking you back onto the floor (don't worry, you were OK - shocked for sure, but physically OK). When he checked everything out, he found pennies everywhere - stuffed in the Blu-ray player & Wii mostly. And there were a LOT of pennies. Too many pennies for you to have stuffed them all in there in the short time you were alone in the living room. Too many pennies for either device to sustain. Too many pennies!
What APPEARS to have happened is that you had been stuffing every penny you came across into one device or another. Whatever was stuffed in there yesterday must have overloaded it with metals because once you flipped everything on... ZAP! We no longer have a TV or a Wii or Blu-ray disc player. Suffice to say, you are definitely interested in electronic technology. And, really, truly, to understand the way something works, you've got to understand how it DOESN'T work.
STAY AWAY FROM MY LAPTOP.
Love,
Mama
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