3 River Goats

I love the idea of keeping a blog for each stage of life’s adventures, in practice, I always focus more on the adventures than writing them down. In retrospect though, the written ones get saved into perpetuity and are so much more memorable.

This time yesterday I did learn something new about communication styles. Serendipity led me to find Love and Respect seminars and I am slowly chewing through the article my mentor gave me this week after a pretty horrific Tuesday. I will just leave it here for later reading and comments.

Also, “reading” books with Headway made me cancel my kindle subscription for the first time in 15 years! I put “reading” because it is just the highlights but with so many books of interest and so little time, this seems to be the only way to read for pleasure these days. Plus I intend to reach the 1000 books before kindergarden goal even if we started a bit behind.

I logged in to see if the ole email address still works. After a whole day of not being able to use my phone (1 in 35 calls then 1 in 57) calls would go through. I even drove away and turned off wifi to be able to get signal anywhere. It was frankly worse reception than Ghana, Ethiopia during the Coup and Micronesia combined. In all those places my cell phone actually still worked even if slowly for communication. It was mind boggling to experience in US!

3 hours on hold with the carrier and have a possible workaround, but it is a definite challenge. A horrible feeling to not be able to make a safety phone call. The past few months have been full of those. But the adventures live on! It is important to finish a very important every once in while update on this blog. This time it was actually for Broadway. Several disconnected calls later, we made it and got the last tickets. Next to conquer the symphony….

It seems strange that Google has a limit for photos in one folder which we reached on 4/25/22 with 19,999 photos of Toten. How to make a new album as it’s an auto generated one.

I find great pleasure to periodically pull up photos of old adventures and reliving them. Looking at the photo activates the amygdala and sets the emotions as they were that day. One thing that is strange is to discover that while looking at the photos, that some of the faces in pictures appear different than I remember them. Its good to have a picture for comparison especially while learning the subtleties of facial findings in acupuncture. It’s fascinating that ancient Chinese did not treat diseases, but instead used facial diagnosis to arrive at the most troubling symptoms and then worked on that.

Toten, after spending a sizeable chunk of my 317 hours of training observing me place needles and learn how to prevent disease, tells me frequently: “I want to treat you, or I want to give you a massage”. It is amazing to watch her use her intuition to come up with very logical treatment points. Here are some examples of color therapy, toddler style!

the other photo is too big to upload, but also on yingtang with a green Lego block.

I think if it works out, tomorrow we will take the boat out again. Time to dust off the paddles and find freedom on the water! Oh how I missed the river adventures!

it doesn’t seem that long ago that the pandemic was raging, and the world seemed to be imploding….all possible normalcy ground to a halt. It was hard to see far enough ahead to make any plans. It f

elt I wouldn’t see peoples chins and noses and lips again. But then there was a sudden halt and a war broke out. It was like cov*d was cancelled by something much much worse. Senseless war in Europe. It has been 3 months. 3 months of silence.

then on the other side of the cov*dolypse, I found another obstacle. People stopped talking to one another. Initially about controversial topics or where opinions greatly differ, and later about even the simple, mundane things that make life go round.

how to find center again? I learned to not dwell on past or perseverate on the future and instead breathe in each breath with gratitude and exhale compassion. I may not know what is best in the long run, but try to follow what’s best right now. Spending time with a friend by the pool so she can temporarily rest from the constant worry for her family members, or learn how to be a stingray with Toten and brave ballet class.

I now know to push onward and find the path for our little family amidst this chaos is imperative and can be done by embracing every bit of the present moment.

the present moment included Tosha getting a letter in the mail from Regina in Poland and a Taco Party invitation from the neighbors. Finally, some hints that communication is being restored.

The adventures may have abruptly ended temporarily as we all went into quarantine, but 7 months later there are a lot of news to report.

dear covid diary– Somehow the month of May slid by in a way that is mysterious. We started by going to a testing appointment and ended with 2 teeth on Memorial day. One of my favorite parts of May (usually) is the family vacation every year. This year for Bryce’s family it happened virtually and for my family not at all.

It was fun that the two families could join in virtually with zoom yoga with Heather, even Tosha took part! On my end, I can’t remember the last time I did any type of yoga 🙁 at least I have attempted it to so the mindfulness practice, but the body practice? Nope, not happening.

That aside, today we had our first visitor EVER? not counting a contractor for a repair. We dutifully set out plates and teacups and realized that with masks, this social ritual is not super doable.

We all reminisced when we might get to some semblance of normalcy in the world, but no guesses came. If I follow advice of our pediatrician at her 9 mo visit today: peds is returning back to the office in July… maybe then?

One thing that has me feeling less glim is my friend from work called and told me the Covid hug she invented: turn around and bump butts must be on the high list of low risk contact!

Also, a resident posted a really valuable quote that I will share here:

“Life brings disruptions. The response is your choice. Be bitter or be better.”

Trying out new combinations while using up pantry ingredients = leads to interesting discoveries!

Instant Pot for 9 minutes high pressure

1 cup presoaked white beans

1 cup millet

1T olive oil

1 zest of lemon

1.5t Curry powder

4 cups vegetable stock

Cauliflower Greens (if available)

2t salt (to taste)

1Can Coconut creme (can use the liquid for a smoothie)

Mix all ingredients in the instant pot and go!

Delicious

I think the saying goes April Showers…. but thankfully we’ve had a few more sunny days since the beginning of April and the flowers are really coming out! When I talked to a high school friend recently, we decided to do a flower scavenger photohunt. Tosha helped out with this one!

On March 4th Anya and Tosha went to a trial Zumbini class. It was a little far away so they didn’t sign up for the series yet. Tosha really enjoyed singing and dancing, and using musical instruments with the three other students in the class!

We had hoped for a bit more of a Latin rhythm, but the Irish jig was fun too!

Totally forgot to take a picture in the class, though so here is a random one from the coffee shop we went to afterwards. If you like Ethiopian Coffee (who doesn’t?) You will like Kaffe Buna!

Tosha, Bryce and i had a great visit to Gamma in Independence Ohio this weekend. We drove up for the day. The day started with a breakfast and playing with my parents: she likes to sing, read books, and explore new textures: Clancy’s shaggy coat included. After that we loaded up the car and drove North. Around an hour later it was time to fuel up the car, but also Tosha so that she could take a power nap. After all, trips like this are quite exciting! She did an excellent job powernapping in the coccoon of the JJ Cole carseat cover. This thing is ingenius if you haven’t tried it! After that we arrived at Gamma’s assisted living home and met her in the small library. Tosha was sleeping at first, so we let her wake up slowly and take in her new surroundings! Imagine how different this place looks and feels than what you are used to?! After a quick nappie change, we geared up for a Mediterranean lunch and Tosha dug into celery (her first time having it!) And loved it!

Then we went to Gamma’s apartment and played tummy time on the floor while everyone else looked through old photos. Tosha liked looking at the black and white classics of her relatives 🙂

When it was time for Gamma to go to dinner, we packed up and hugged and kissed her and our aunty Wendy goodbye and set off for home (with a short detour to a Russian store to check out their kid book collection!).

While Bryce explored Russian bookshelves and storeshelves, mama and Tosha watched the sunset, snuggled with milk and dosed off to sleep in the coZy carseat. Tosha slept the whole way back home, and transferred out of the carseat to her crib and continued sleeping after a full day of adventures with Gamma.

It was a great way to spend a Leap Day!