November is beautiful

Really, it is. I know it always gets a bad reputation, but I have been really reveling in November this year- the subdued but still multi-hued palette, the melancholy, the way all the remaining flowers have given themselves over to fluffy white stuff. It's a very witchy time of year. I want to cast spells in the woods and make potions out of roots and such things.
Actually, I want to do anything other than what I need to be doing, it seems.
Procrastination, you are not my friend. And yet I can't seem to give you up. Like a bad relationship, I keep telling myself I will let you go, but while my words say no, my actions keep inviting you in.
Any bad habit or unexpelled vice feels all the more frightening to me now as we come nearer to beginning our journey towards parenthood. Trying to find a healthy balance between acceptance and complacency. It is part of my work right now to accept that we are where we are while simultaneously striving to grow and shed the old skin to make room for the new.

weather, pets, and clinicals

March has roared in. We're in the midst of an ice storm of sorts, not too bad but all the little trees are bent double and all the branches are curved and hanging low giving the land a surreal look. We're thinking of adopting another dog, or possibly another cat, or both. We went to our county's animal shelter today which was depressing, to say the least. No luck there, but the neighboring county's highly superior and much less sad SPCA had a promising dog. We're going to bring the current pup there to meet him, and if they get along we might go for it.

School is going well enough. After a perfect storm of seasonal depression, sleep deprivation, difficult clinicals, and a rejection from an internship I had really wanted the waters were choppy there for a few weeks, but I am feeling a lot better now. I really like doing clinicals, now that I have gotten the hang of it. I've been on a med-surg floor in a hospital plus another nursing home rotation. Only one week left of each of those and then I'll switch to pediatrics and OB. Yay!!

Last day of clinicals

Finished the last of my clinicals for this semester. We have been working in a nursing home here, one client for every two nursing students. It's gone... okay. I think it will be better next semester, when we each have our patients who we will be responsible for. Honestly, there really isn't enough to do with one person that two people should have to spend 3-4 hours doing it. Unless you want to really bug that person.

The nursing home itself was also just okay. It wasn't horrible or anything, but there was definitely a sadness to it. My client has only been there for a few weeks, and she just seemed so bored. I think people do what they can to take care of the residents' physical needs, and a bit with their psychosocial needs, but ultimately a lot of them spend a good portion of their days sitting and staring out of the window or watching TV.

But now the week is done. Except for everything this weekend, and my learning module for my online class, blah blah... Next week, only one class and then- Thanksgiving Break!!! Hooray! I need it. And once we get back, only two or three weeks and I will have completed my first 25% of nursing school. And I will rejoice and I will say it is good.

Tonight I will go home and have dinner with Mom and Clara. Then it's off to Syracuse for my doula training! Woo hoo!

Colombia delegation- August 2007

Last August I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in another delegation to our sister community in Colombia. It was such a good experience. Below are just a few of the pictures I took while I was there.









Rae and Colleen dancing.

Been a long time

Hmm, maybe I don't have time in my life for blogging... still, it's better than doing schoolwork! Ha ha.

Today actually felt like autumn, unlike the last week of 70s and 80s. This morning one of my classmates casually mentioned that she doesn't really believe in climate change. She says she listens to a radio station where the weather man is constantly talking about how its all bs. I wish she were right. I only wonder how fast things will change.

Still, the ignorance bothers me. Its this kind of attitude that allows people to just go on about their lives while things fall apart- as long as they can pretend that they are not affected by it. And I wondered, how can people not be aware of climate change, when it is being talked about all over the place- but you can select the media you are exposed to to back up just about any belief you want. Sigh...

I went to see Michael Parenti talk last week. He claims that the one thing we have going for us is that reality is radical. This is why "they" haven't won yet, despite all their money and power, etc. Because they have to maintain an insane delusion while we just have to try and expose the truth.

It's slippery stuff, this talk of "truth," and mainly good for making my head spin. Still, the idea intrigued me.


(The picture of of one of the horrible pine plantations in our sister community in Colombia. Sucking up all the water and taking over the land, the people there call the plantations green deserts. Just cause it's green, don't mean it's a forest.)

cold day today

still stung by winter's cold
i wander, doing things
that do not matter
feeding things
that aren't hungry
touching things
that i can't feel.

still stung
my frost tipped fingers
cold and gloveless
shrink from fumes
and steering wheels

still stung by winter's cold
tracing dreams of flowers
peddled hope in paper packets
i comply and buy
seeds
instead of firewood.

Goodbye to February

One month today! That's how long C and I have been living in our new house! It seems like forever since we left our old room at the EcoVillage, a cohousing community where we'd been renting a room for the last six months). All in all, I think we're off to a good start. And as dad put it, if we can get through February, we know we're going to do okay.

That's all for now. March, I'm happy to see ya!