Living Life, 2016 a Year in Review!!

Oh my. I can’t believe that it’s been a year and a half, about, since I’ve updated this blog. My gosh, life just keeps keepin’ on. Life continues to be amazing, beautiful, and always an adventure. Most recent updates on life:

• Cylus is now barreling towards his third birthday and he’s the most amazing little boy ever. I loved the baby he was, the toddler he is and can’t wait to see the boy he is becoming. 

• Cylus has a baby sister! Ms. Aurora is over a year old and has been a joy to her mama, granny and pretty much everyone she comes in to contact with. She’s a super sweet baby, slightly crazy, and her own little person 
  
• 2016 was an amazing year for me. Highlights include my daughter getting married (Feb 9th)
  
• San Francisco Green Tortoise Hostel during Dan VA specialist trip, 
• Traveled to Costa Rica for the second time (also Feb/Mar)
• Grand daughter Vera turned 1 (March)
• Steampunk Event at the Nugget
• Eldorado dancers at the Mo and meeting Brooke
• Going to my first Burning Man Global Leadership Conference (I had no idea)
• Went to Seattle for Comicon, to see Mike (hospital), and stay in Seattle Green Tortoise Hostel, went to history of Horror film exhibit at the Experience Jimi Hendrix museum in Seattle, Mariner’s game
• April saw the origin of Z Pack good times at the Mo, trip to the boat and playing hooky 
• Weird Earth Day at the Mo followed by even more weird rage quit
• Finding out about Aurora, 
• Jazz Festival 
• Hip hop show at the Mo! 
• McQueen fundraiser at the Mo
• Doors to Recovery and meeting Ariel
• Villains party
• Aces season tickets
• Attended my first multi-regional summit
• Nada Dada at the Mo
• Pan poetry for meeee
• Awesome Clint Jolly foody event at the Mo
• 4th of July on the boat
• Cylus’ first birthday and party
• Compression and nieces and their friends
• House sitting in Cold Springs for Chris
• Hanging with the Kiwi’s at the Mo, 
• The Full Monty
• Becoming a BM Regional Contact!
• Burning Man
• Giant Bug Zapper Burn on the playa, 
• Space Whale and octopus, 
• David talk at the Mo
• Food purge at the Mo post playa, 
• Yoga fest with Brandon and Heather
• Reconnecting with XS friends
• Celtic Celebration 
• 23 & me 
• Reno Bites, 
• The Wizbang thing 
• Zombie Crawl at the Mo
• DaVinci at the KC, 
• The birth of Aurora
• TLT tree from foraged materials
• Geek Con
• Kate Bush listening party at Tom’s, 
• DISC training and assessment
• Ally training 
• Kow Bus!
• Santa Crawl at the Mo. 
• Cody in a box
• Prime Rib Christmas
• Scary Santa with grands and finally....
• Picasso and wine, trees and 
• Parts per Million. 
• Whew!

December 12, 2016

 

On that day, I have an email string with the guy at the land place stating he would be sending out the contract for our land. We were actually doing it!!

There are so many reasons. They are more clear to me today and mean more today than they did when I first started discussing these things with my son….

In our massive consumerist society, when does one have “enough”? It seems we are constantly told to BUY MORE. MORE stuff, MORE house, BIGGER things. That’s crazy making. I don’t want, nor do I need more. What I have is ENOUGH and as resources improve, how about using any extra to, ya know, HELP PEOPLE. Or MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE?

I was an adult before I knew or understood where my food came from and I really think in just the the last 20 years or so have we started or realized we needed to question where our food comes from, how it’s made, and what’s in it. I am trying to learn, but some things are harder than others. I know if I had to kill my own meat, and I may get there, I will probably cry when the animal dies. My husband is a hunter, for which I am grateful. I can now grow vegetables and am proud I have taught my children this also and now they are teaching their children.

So, this has become the dream. The off-grid dream. Our largest consistent challenge remains water. It is literally what will give life to this place. We have some plans, we have a quote for $15k for a well that may or may not yield water, and we have a temporary solution by being able to get water from a neighboring homestead, but that’s shaky. We are close to a military installation, and mining activity is rampant out here, so there may be contamination. Right now, we don’t have funds for a well.

We are loads ahead, now, of where we were in 2016. The dream is still alive and I would say more so now than it ever has been, but I’ve sort of jumped all around here, when what I wanted to do is just begin the story and tic the why’s. I’ve done that, so let me end with a picture….

Peace

July, 2015....Expanding world...meeting Cylus.

And now is when my heart expanded so much, I thought it might burst! I've always had a special bond with my daughter, but being able to experience her giving birth, being there for her, and getting to know her tiny human has been one of the most amazing experiences I've had in my life....

This is its own post of awesome. Cylus Atom Starry entered this world July 3, 2015. Now, as we wait for him to be a year old, he's such a joy to get to know. What a guy! Baby spam, commencing!

Catching up....May June 2015

Then, near the end of May, I accompanied my daughter and her fiance' and their daughter for a photo shoot, documenting her pregnancy. Seems like a long time ago, can't believe it was just a year...

June say me striving for healthy habits and activities, and a trip to some amazing train tunnels that exist up near Donner Lake. It was a great hike with a lot of art painted in the tunnels, and even a nerd-citing with a Star Trek symbol at one one of the spots....

My nieces visited in June, also, and all of us stayed at the Morris. I think I expanded their horizons, they got to experience things they never had before, and I hope they learned and went away from Reno a tad more worldly =) They made art!

Saw the sunrise

Celebrated a dear friends birthday, Pirate style

And connected with beautiful humans....

Over a year....playing catch up...May 2015

It's been over a year since I updated. Wow. Time really does fly when you are having fun. My birthday was had, recently....almost to the end of my 40's, and blazing forward to see what happens next, being grateful for all I have. The last year has been pretty incredible. I have a bunch of travel stuff to catch up on. That's kind of a given. Heck, just this quarter has been amazing!

Last time I posted here was May 11, 2015....let's go over some highlights since then...

• In late May of last year, had a somewhat dream come true. I am a Black Rock Ranger. I also participate at the Morris Burner Hotel,and have created a Ranger-like group there called the Morris Guardians. We got to have a Ranger training at the Morris. It was worlds colliding in all the right ways.

•  Then, later that month, I got to have more Ranger goodness, by participating with a great group of people who train the Rangers. They had a retreat and I was invited and it was amazing and a great time with great people. There was camping and bacon and learnin' and a turkey who I both loved and felt guilt over every time I passed him, knowing he was bound for a Thanksgiving table...I thought he was very cute.
  
  
  
  
• Then through the amazing technology of modern 3-D ultrasound, I got to experience my future grandson
  
  
  
  
• And a birthday. There was a tap show at the Eldorado, similar to a "Stomp" type thing, and I wanted to go, with my girlfriends, for my birthday. It was very cool, and I felt very loved. Hooray for sisterhood! 
  
• Then, I got to take family and grand daughter to experience the joy of Sesame Street Live! as a patron and not the person in charge of ALL THE THINGS. This has been an on-going healing process in my quest to come to peace and reconcile the good and bad experienced while I was at Lawlor. Seeing the wonder if childhood in the eyes of a little is a truly amazing experience.
  

Everything transferred!

So, now, everything is transferred from my other domain. There's been a lot that I have not written about in about the last year. Adventures, transitions and grand baby's! Yes, in the time since I've updated, I have had the news that ALL my children are making me a gramma in the same year!

Here is a picture of Cash, with his mom, a pretty recent picture:

Cash was born on 11-5-14, he was over a month early. Here's a collage his mom made for his birth:

I haven't met Cash yet, but am very excited to. They have been in Germany for the last few years, but they are back in Washington state now, and it feels SO GOOD to be in the same time zone as my son again!

This, is Vera Lynn:

She was born on March 6th, and she is my other son, David's daughter! She lives with me, so I get to spoil this baby all the time. Here's the Easter Dress:

And here's one that was bought at the same time as the Easter Dress:

And finally, here's Brianna, my baby girl, who is due in July. This is her at 31 weeks:

There's something uniquely satisfying, entertaining, heart-warming, about seeing my children have children of their own. I am immensely relieved to no longer be in that place, but satisfied that I can be a help, but not carry the entire responsibility.

I am getting ALL THE BABIES!! It's crazy how many people are pregnant or having babies right now!

First update without the other blog....will update more. There are things like my recent trips, to Costa Rica and Madison, Wisconsin to post about, yay!

For now, 

~Peace

Times, they are a changing....

So, it's been forever since I posted here. For a few years, I had another blog, on my "own" domain, and I would update there once or twice a year, not often enough. Thing is, I've been paying for this service, and it's a cool service, but a long time ago, this service offered "lifetime web hosting". Now, I was skeptical, but truth be told, it was only $299 and I figured if we got five years out of it, we would have gotten more than our money's worth. It's been almost a decade and we are still there. When I made the arrangement, I told these folks that it was for a non-profit and said non-profit did not have a lot of money. They seemed eager to help. However, over the last year, it seems to me they've put this "free" or "lifetime" domain on the slowest, crappiest server there is. My paid for domain works great. You know that old saying about, "how you treat the person who can do nothing for you says a lot about your character"? That's kind of how I feel about this, and so I don't think I'm going to pay the domain registration this year. I am going to put my money elsewhere and not support a business that didn't do a great job of supporting me. Here's what I think of that:

Now, funny thing, this picture was actually taken to signify my reaction to drinking this "super greens" drink you see beside me. While I am sure it was super good for me, the taste was a little less than palatable. Ha. So, the point of all this is that I think I am going to migrate all the old posts over and put them here. This is free, it's still here, and not giving my money to someone who doesn't deserve it. That's it. Peace out!