Let’s address this right outta the gate, especially considering I’ve been pretty furiously unfollowing anyone who isn’t brave enough or inclined enough to be posting about ICE and Minneapolis on social media, so I better just start by mentioning it here. You know. For the duty and clarity of it all.
When we talk about extrajudicial killings, the rule of law being trampled, and a secret police force out to terrorize and cow an entire state full of not only my beloved family but also of my beloved fellow citizens, let me just say… I’m against it.
And it chafes just that much extra because we all motherfucking saw this coming and were called rabid and delusional for saying so before this. The Oracle of Delphi had a raw deal, back in the day, I tell you what.
Anyway.
The fury.
Some memes.
I’d say those nicely tie it in a bow as to where my head is at over the whole thing. I am very, very proud of Minnesota right now. And their bravery and patriotism exceeds the majority of Texas; as this state would have rolled over, licked boots, and said that meant they were being real Americans.
In other news, I am finishing up my next renovation project which has been planned since November, but took this long for the windows to get in. And when they did they were the wrong size… so that was fun.
I had some old and broken french doors that we never opened in the bedroom- both for “they broken” reasons and because we never trusted the lock and so had our dresser in front of them for security. I really wanted to have a window I could open and get a cross breeze in this room, and I wanted to feel safe in here if I ever got rid of this monstrously heavy dresser, so why not. Another project- you know, because my history with contractors has been so stellar!
They looked pretty enough I guess, in a basic bitch kinda way, but oh so impractical and also annoying to clean.
And look. An architectural marvel it is not- but it is the exact style of our other windows, so I’m happy about the uniformity. It also now frames the tree across the yard perfectly this way, whereas two windows as were originally planned would have had a seam right through the middle like the french doors had…so I’m actually happier with just the one window. I’m also happy to have gained some more wall space- the light switches were always weirdly cramped and I have more art I can hang now. It worked out, is what I’m saying.
It was still cold when the subs my contractor used came in to tape and float the drywall. And as it dried in the hours after they finished it didn’t cure correctly and bubbled like… champagne? Hot springs? I’ve never seen anything like it and the whole thing was blamed on the cold weather. So then they had to come back and fix it… which involved much sanding and scraping and dust and extending it all out much farther than I could have ever expected to fix it correctly.
Welcome to an Italian villa level of plaster on the wall, amiright? Asher can’t believe it either. (Also, I know it looks squatty, but we had to fit the window into the space the doors had been instead of cutting in and extending it up into a taller window- all due to the internal support structure of the wall. It looks better with the art and curtains all hung back up, never you worry.)
The trim boards are getting put on on Monday. And then after that it’ll get primed and painted. Again. Turns out I may not have ordered these projects correctly, I’m realizing. But oh well if the painting on that wall has to get done twice.
And fun fact- you can do whatever the hell you want in your own house! So I’m getting an extra deep sill installed so the cat can fit on it without having to buy one of those extender bed things to clip on. My contractor, bless him, didn’t bat an eye at this idea. It will get much use.
The weather has warmed up here now, so last night I slept with both the cat window (as I’m calling it) and my bedside window open and it was a glorious 64 degrees with a cool breeze in here when I woke up under my amazingly warm comforter.
I have a new resolve, in this world where I don’t know what the future holds for me. And it is exactly this concept:
Seems like a worthy venture. I will spend the rest of my life doing it and I’m not just talking about home renovation.
Speaking of the cold weather. Before the storm hit I cut anything usable out of the garden for myself, and then harvested a bunch of stuff for a friend of mine who makes her own tea and incense.
Look how beautiful it was! The freeze would have turned it all to mush, so I felt great being able to share the bounty and ensure it didn’t go to waste.
Isn’t that so pretty laid out like that? I grew that! And I’ll do it again too!
And I must share a project the girls and I have been doing recently- living room collage art nights!
I got a stack of 1960s National Geographic magazines off of Ebay for less than $20 (free delivery) and we’ve been having an absolute blast cutting out collages from them.
My younger two and I did the first night while watching a Simpson’s marathon. And then when my youngest was at a friend’s house my oldest came over and my older two and I did a collage night too. We watched Cactus Flower with Goldie Hawn and Ingrid Bergman and (I’m not making this up) Walter Matthau as the love interest. And shout out to that movie because we all loved it and the comedy and tone were stellar and held up perfectly. The girls couldn’t stop talking about it. Not often a comedy gets nominated for best picture, and while it didn’t win, Goldie Hawn did win for best supporting actress for that movie in 1970. 10 outta 10, I tell you.
We had so much fun we’ve all decided to start working on putting together our own collage tarot deck this winter, and then (should we in fact complete this group project) I’ll get them printed up for us- it’s been spectacularly fun and such a real joy. Great bonding time and creative time… good for the soul, is what I’m saying. And my goodness the girls are so much better at this than I am, but it doesn’t really matter. The point is not to be good. The point is to use ye old creative muscles and brain cells.
Very much like this.
I guess you can kinda tell I started 2026 off with a gung ho resolve to do more.
Ten mile hike on January 2nd, past life regression, dusting off the creativity, improvements to my space, being intentional with what I am making of this life… all of it. Perhaps its a hangover from all the emotion and different effort it took for getting through December (and the year and a damn half before that). But also… if this is life, then it is only going to be what I make of it. No one else is going to make my life for me anymore, mores the shame.
While I spent dollar after dollar on myself in 2024 and 2025 buying many, many things; you cannot fill that kind of hole in the chest with material “stuff”. It does not repair, this hole, from the outside in (I find after much trial and error) but from the inside out. And so that is what I have been working on lately.
Towards that goal I also added in a six month Stretching, Movement, and Rhythm Zoom class that meets every Tuesday and Thursday for an hour and a half. It’s pretty damn spectacular and a little woo woo, but not too woo woo, which is a balance I appreciate. We do stretching and breath work and discussions on yin and yang meridians through the body… many things. I’ve been very dedicated to it, this past month, and I always look forward to the classes.
It’s funny though, in the first session we were “breathing into, and sending our awareness” to various parts of the body and joints- and it’s so crazy to try to feel for your lungs or knees, and realize you just don’t really have awareness of any of it. The instructor checked in after the first five minutes of trying to do that and went around asking us what concept we all started with. Could you, right now, have a sense of your skeleton and muscles and organs before we really dig into the exercise? I told her my concept of it all is just solid and uniform- like if I was a potato or a turnip and you sliced into me- nothing but solid starch, all the way through. How odd to discover that was my concept of my physical self!
But very quickly I did learn to build that body awareness. And how I can so easily see that I was not fully engaging my feet, or that I wasn’t using my right inner thigh for damn near anything, or that my pelvis was really working like four different pieces, none moving in unison. Or that I hadn’t fully inflated my lungs since (educated guess here) May 19th of 2024 or so.
The immediacy of relief of various symptoms is also insane. My twinges of plantar fasciitis that had been coming back the past few years went away after the foot lesson, and have not come back. My neck hump is reduced and my neck pain is gone. I have been getting regular massages every other week for about a year (handy having a super talented friend as a massage therapist) and before I told her about the class she was exclaiming about how the muscle knots in my back and calves were drastically better all of a sudden- and that was just two weeks into the class.
I am not sure it is so much the improvement in flexibility I can attribute it to, though I am working on rebuilding that. Sad to have lost my former flexibility over the years, my nickname was actually Gumby in karate due to how flexible I was back then, but some of it is starting to come back. I think the majority of the benefits have been from engaging muscles and changing how I use my feet or legs… I don’t know. The body just feels like it’s starting to come back on line, is what the feeling is.
I can now do that “hands free stand-up from sitting on the floor” test that was going around social media recently, and I just… feel less old? Like I trust my body more than I had recently. My balance is better. Honestly I feel in my 30s again, physically, whereas I had started to feel much older than 46.
This Thursday the class was almost all floor work, so I had a “helper” even more than I usually do. I swear he knows he’s on camera because this little narcissist comes running to do the sessions with me, and always positions himself in view- but most of the time he’s just in the background. The pictures below give a brief snapshot of how the session went this week… until I had to kick him out when it all started to edge into claws and teeth territory. He got very excited, was all.
It was very cute and also a bit bitey. But honest to god I’d let that cat drive a car or shoot a gun if he wanted to, so I allow it.
One other interesting thing for me is that we really haven’t done much on the rhythm part of things yet, but we have done a little bit- and it turns out each and every time I try to dance I hold my breath. Well guess what you can’t do while holding your breath? Dance or find a rhythm. Huh!
The dances in class to date has been hip scarf using, quasi belly dancing type movements to try to get hips and pelvis engagement started. And while yes, that’s real fucking weird, it’s also interesting to find out that my left hip literally has no idea what it’s doing so the right hip was doing most of the work this whole time.
Interesting, right? It’s all just interesting and learning new things and I’m super here for it.
It also is never anything anyone works up a sweat for- the class is all about slow and gentle movement, and yet I have lost 10 more pounds this month. Sure, all the health stuff I started in the fall is still carrying on- I’m drinking less, eating protein yogurt most mornings for breakfast, cooking damn near all weekday dinners again, and taking my medications (not glp-1) and vitamins regularly again. But this is much faster than in the past. It’s like… hmm. Like its all unblocked and momentum is building, is the only way I can describe it. Perhaps its the stress level and inflammation going down? Perhaps it’s just bringing more muscles back online? Or perhaps it’s unrelated… who knows.
But I feel better in this carrying case I travel through the world in than I have in a long time. And that is the intention I came to the class with- not for societal expectations, or to try to lose weight to be more attractive, but with a desire to feel better at being me, right now, while my feet are still planted on the surface of the planet. So it’s nice.
Continue reading “Window to the Soul/ Backyard and Cat Hamlet”
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