Tidbits of life

Just wanted to share a snapshot of life tonight... We came home from a visit to my grandmother's house at 12:30 am, to find that Flora, who's an old and now sick doggy (I haven't gone into that on this blog... I'm not sure why. In short, she has a brain tumor, and is on meds that are helping for the moment... That's been a big stress lately), had pooped and peed all over the floor. Not fun to clean up. Now, however, that the cleanup is done, I find myself rather amused by our late night activities... Inspired by Iron Chef, a show we stayed late at my grandma's house to finish watching, my sister, who is SO not a cook, is making a cheese sauce from scratch, with no exact recipe, just a bit of help from my mom! Emi even seasoned it with herbs from the garden. Actually, just a few minutes ago, I was interrupted in my writing of this post, and asked if I could go get her some more Rosemary and Thyme! So out I tromped into the wet grass, flip flops on my feet, my toes quickly freezing, not quite bright enough light attached to my head, to search through the plants in the garden to find the right types of herb... She's now cooking broccoli to dip in it. Also, since my father is out of town for a couple of days, the classic rock station is cranked up, despite the fact that it's 2:00 am! Ah, unschooling...

Oh, and this is my current Facebook status:

A moth just landed on my hand, poked at my skin with it's mouth, antennae twitching curiously, tilted it's head, seemed to clean it's leg, then fluttered off. All of this happened in about five seconds. A creature both utterly beautiful and utterly strange... And for a few seconds of my life, I was completely engrossed in it's delicate world.

Here's to the small moments in life, the interesting things that happen late at night, and finding happiness in even the rockiest parts of life.

Peace,
Idzie

100th post, pro-choice, and travel

First off, WOO HOO! This post marks my 100th post for this blog. It seems just yesterday that I reached the 50 post mark!

Secondly, I just read a blog post that states that today is Blog For Choice day. Now, I don't want to blog on the official topic (What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress?), but I figured I would blog about my opinions on the issue. I am pro-choice. Most definitely. If a woman is raped, or even if birth control fails, and she gets pregnant, she has every right to choose whether or not she actually has the baby. Not just for the mother's sake, but also for the baby. I don't think this world needs any more unwanted children. That said, I don't think abortion should be used as a method of birth control either. Birth control was invented for a reason, and should be used! Oh, and I also have a problem with the term "pro-life". I saw a video I really liked on pro-choice stuff, and I really like that he commented that to be truly "pro-life", you also need to be anti-war and vegetarian. I'd add to that, and say to be truly "pro life", you can't own a computer (who's manufacture causes women in Thailand to die of cancer), or use paper products (which kill forests and all those who dwell in them, including non-humans and indigenous peoples), or do any one of the nearly endless list of things we do in this culture that causes death. Say you're anti-abortion, but saying "pro-life" really doesn't work, in my opinion.

In other news, I looked up tons of stuff on travel today. I still have the tourist sites up for Ireland, Scotland, England, Italy, Greece, and France. I also ordered travel guides for British Columbia, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Yukon, and New Mexico. Now I have to wait excitedly until they arrive in the mail! :-D

I haven't really posted pictures on this blog in a while, although I have been updating my photo blog pretty regularly, so I'll post a few that I took today.

Our lovely old Flora, aka Foo Foo, aka Flora Bean

Beautiful Minni, aka Minnikins, aka Minni Minou

Sweet Henry, aka Hempers, aka Hempsicord, aka Henny

The wood stove, burning brightly

Lovable Winston, aka Boo Boo, aka Winduffy, aka Winduffers, aka Windy

Yes, I take too many pictures of my minnikins ♥, but I can't help myself!

And by the way, I'm keeping track (sort of) of the things I'm doing this week, so on Monday I should have a Week in the Life of an Unschooler post up!

Peace,
Idzie

All that glitters is glorious

Last night, and into the wee hours of the morning, we set up the Christmas tree and put lights on it, along with a few ornaments. We've been putting the rest of the ornaments on tonight, but for now I'll show you a ton of photo's, all taken last night, in the beauty of the glittering lights and Christmas music softly playing...

A holiday inspired bed, or so Flora thinks anyway...

Cranberry Chocolate bread from my all time favorite bakery, Premiere Moison

That tongue was just so cute!

Santa says "hi!"

Sleeping among the stockings...

TONS of tins of ornaments

Emi setting up the Christmas tree

The glitteries on my favorite pair of shoes

Those marvelous Mooka soaps I mentioned in a previous post

Emi attemting to fix a strand of lights

And finally, the lights are on

And we watched it's glow...

Winston slept

And the ornaments glittered...

Minni, as usual, thinks the tree is wonderful. And so do I.

It was a truly magical evening. Now, it's quite likely that this will be my last post before Christmas, so I want to wish everyone an extremely happy Christmas, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice (I know that just passed, but I'll wish a belated happy holidays for that anyway!), or whatever else you celebrate. And if you don't celebrate anything, or even if you do actually, I wish you tons of joy, now and into the new year!

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Peace, love, and happiness,
Idzie

Poetry

I love poetry. I have for a very long time. From the time I was little my mom would read to my sister and I. She'd read EVERYTHING! Fiction, poetry, the newspaper... So before I was even reading books more advanced then readers on my own, I was writing poetry. Soon, I was reading and memorizing poetry. When I was eight or nine I memorized all of The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes, and wowed all of the parents when I recited it at a homeschooling talent show. :-P Last night, my mom and I got talking, and I wondered if I could still recite The Highwayman. I got most of the way through before I stumbled, so pulled out one of my poetry books to see where I was going wrong. And once I had a poetry book in my hands, of course I couldn't read just one! I read all of The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, which in my opinion is a great read aloud poem with a really cool rhythm to it, and The Solitary Reaper by William Wordsworth. The verse:

"What'er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;
I listened, motionless and still;
And as I mounted up the the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more."

Is truly beautiful, as far as I'm concerned. I also discovered I still know Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost perfectly. "Whose woods these are I think I know, his house is in the village though"... By the time I got to bed, it was 3:00 am!

I also wrote a new poem last night, which can be found on my poetry blog as usual. When I read the masters, my poetry just looks so awful in comparison...

Oh, and yesterday my mom cleaned out a drawer, and of course my cat thought that the empty hole created by the lack of a drawer was the perfect place to hang out in. Minni is just so darned cute and lovable! :-)



Peace,
Idzie

Cuddly cats and problems with life goals...

As it gets steadily colder and more Winter like (well, not steadily, but generally colder), the cats start sleeping even more, and being adorably cuddly. Minni (orange-brown tabby) and Henry (black-tabby and white) truly are marvelous critters...

I've been spending a lot of time on the computer lately. Probably too much. But part of what I've been doing is researching... I want to know what I want to do! The thing that appeals to me most is an herbalist, or natural healer of some sort. I don't want to be a naturopath, because all that really is, is a doctor without prescription meds, and that's not what I want. I envision a much more earthy approach, if that makes sense. I want to apprentice, not go to university for four years. The thought of spending years in a classroom makes me shudder. I've also been looking into midwifery, but again, that needs four years of university. What ever happened to apprenticeships?!? I'm feeling slightly discouraged. I think I might know what I want to do with my life, or at least I know that I want to try and do certain things with my life, I just don't know how to go about doing them. ARRGH!

Peace (*takes deep breath*),
Idzie

Icy days...

I don't have the energy right now to write a proper post. The cold I had is completely gone (yay!) but I feel grey and gloomy today. However, a few days ago I took pictures of the snow and ice and dogs, and I wanted to post them here.

Icy trees as seen through the window

Fresh snow

Flora

Winston

I'll try and write a proper post later on, since there's been a million different ideas and thoughts flitting through my brain these last few days, and I really want to get some of them written down!

Peace,
Idzie

Slight changes...

Not much is going on really. I added links to my other blogs in the sidebar of this blog, and it took me far more effort than it should have. Being the silly that I am, I didn't realize I could add links by simply adding a 'Links List' gadget, so instead had Emy spend half an hour trying to figure out the XML using her limited knowledge of HTML that she hasn't used in years. I think she was ready to smack me when I discovered the links gadget. I also changed the template for my trash blog, to one I found on a blog template site recommended to me by Sheila , which is really cool. I'm also still really looking forward to using my new camera (see below post)!

Something I've been thinking a lot about lately is how people treat their pets, and how I specifically treat the animals I share my house with. And I'm not really happy with how I treat them. I'm trying to be more respectful, to keep my temper even when Winston (80 pound Airedale terrier) won't stop headbutting me in the back of the knees, or Flora (bouncy little Fox terrier) won't stop yapping. That's a hard thing to do. But I think I'm making headway! Winston especially is really stubborn, and when you yell at him, it doesn't always even work. It seems if I ask him nicely to do something, he actually does it a bit faster! And I've been trying to be more respectful with the cats too. Instead of randomly cuddling them without seeing if they want to be cuddled first, I've been sitting or lying next to them and just talking. If they want cuddles, they get up and move closer. I think we're both happier that way.

And now for a vegan update. I went vegan a couple of weeks ago, and at this point I'm finding it harder than expected. The big stuff isn't bad. It's not really hard to avoid straight milk, cheese, and eggs, but I never realized how many things have dairy or eggs in them!! Baked goods, candy, pasta sauces, other sauces, chips, crackers... And the list goes on! I ate a piece of toffee today that had butter in it, even though I knew it had butter in it, and now I'm feeling guilty that I'm not feeling guilty. Arrrg! I think that when this month is up, I'm going back to vegetarian. However, I am glad that I'm doing this. It's really made me think about what I eat in a new way, and I don't think I'm going to be consuming nearly as many animal products as I was. Milk on cereal is something I'm not doing anymore (hey, good soymilk tastes the same anyway), ice cream always makes me feel sick unless it's good stuff like Ben & Jerry's so I'm cutting that out (yes, even though it made me feel sick I'd still eat it sometimes), eggs dito, and olive oil tastes better than butter anyway. So all I'll really be going back to eating are all the things I'm currently avoiding that have just a tiny bit of dairy or eggs in them, or baked goods.

And now I'm off to make supper... I haven't really been cooking much, so I think I should tonight. I'm going to use the canned base of a roasted garlic and red pepper sauce, then add sauteed onions, black and green olives, and baked spinach and jalapeno tofu pieces. And I'll serve that over twirly pasta of some sort... I think I should find out if I'm cooking for just me or everyone now.

Peace
Idzie