Virtual Vermut

Hello Friday, hello vermut. Make mine a double. No, a triple. If we were meeting for vermut today I would tell you what a roller coaster ride this week has been. I would ask you if you know what hatred looks like because I stared it in the face this week. And while details have to remain a little bit sketchy for the moment, until it all gets sorted out, I would admit it involves a child and a pair of very sad adults. Unfortunately it is my child and a pair of adults in his life who wield a certain amount of power in his day-to-day life and it is going to bring change in a big way to our house and hopefully, in the long run, in a good way. I have shed many, many tears this week in anger and frustration and pain for my son experiencing his own pain and one of the things that I have come out on the other side of this with is that I am so grateful I am not capable of that kind of hatred. It has also shown me how much my village cares and that there really are kind strangers out there and I now have some of the resources available to make life better for him.

If we were meeting for vermut today I would say I kissed good-bye this face this morning

as Riley went off on a day of adventure on the train. As much as I have loved this time to myself to do some groundwork for the upcoming change and fiddle around in iMovie, I have missed him.

If we were meeting for vermut today we would, of course, talk about the weather because it has been so flippin' cold. Nose biting, eye liquid freezing, car battery seizing cold. I would tell you that since winter came so late this year, I had almost forgotten how much life gets interrupted during and after a blizzard. Of course the kids still go to school and the adults still go to work - what gets interrupted is everything else like meals and "me" time. And as a weekly check-in for how I am doing with my Year of Me, I would tell you that I am learning that saying "yes" to "me" often enough in the smaller things makes it easier having to say "no" to "me when the bigger things come along because there isn't such an accumulation in my body and mind of "no" to "me". And as a second observation I would say that I am learning I have to push "me" forward and yet remain available to be a cradle where I can land.

If we were meeting for vermut today I would show you this Hello Kitty balloon that blew its way into our backyard

and tell you we had great fun telling the dog to go and get the cat out there while we watched her race around the yard looking for her nemesis. And to try to forget about the cold we picked up pizza at our favourite place last night.

If we were meeting for vermut today I would show you a box of goodies that arrived from Anna from Blossom Blessings. The packaging was beautiful inside and out

that's a brown paper bag from Trader Joe's I discovered when I cut off the outer wrapping

but what was inside, nestled in flower petals was more beautiful. Anna makes magical products and here are a few I ordered from her new Etsy shop. The smudge spray

face elixir

and chakra oils

My chakras are about to get some work done on them in such a gentle but effective way.

If we were meeting for vermut today I would tell you to look outside at the night sky

because it is an amazing mix of greens and blues that you really only see when it's this kind of crazy cold out. Then I would suggest we head over to Kate's at The Catalan Way because it's much, much warmer where she lives and I believe she is expecting us.