Weaving Dreams

Oh, my goodness - weaving is sooooooooooo much fun! I'm enjoying myself immensely - even warping the loom is fun. I dream of colors and patterns and textures of yarn. The next two projects are planned and I bought a loom so that I have one at home and can weave any time I want to! I'll finish my first scarf tomorrow and I LOVE IT- it's so soft, so ribbon and suri alpaca. Next I'm doing a table runner and a fun blue scarf - and then.... This is so relaxing, I get to visit with other women while I weave, and I'm really getting in touch with my long-lost creativity - I feel like this is just what I need to do right now. Ah...

Creativity

I think I used to be much more creative than I am now. I long to get that part of me back. So tomorrow I'm checking into a weaving class and this weekend, I'm going to attempt to make coconut oil - these seem wildly divergent, but I love to do things with my hands and I love to cook. I live in a country where you can try new food on a daily basis, so it's been fun. Went to a couple of organic markets yesterday and to a cooking class that focuses on local foods - dinner for the fourth included a quinoa salad, mint tea made from leaves, and a taste test of various local sauces - not your usual 4th of July fare, but it was fun to share it with friends. I think I'm going to take a few classes in jewelry making, too - just for fun! I really am beginning to see that life could be different, more rich, more fun!

Independence

Happy 4th of July!!!  Living in another country on the 4th of July is kind of weird - no picnics, parties, fireworks (or no more than usual - South American countries use fireworks just for fun), no patriotic speeches or parades....  But it's still Independence Day and that was some triumph!  I read a blog today that called it "Rebellion Day" - and, of course, that's not technically true - the Declaration of Independence was meant to officially sever our connection with Britain and once that connection was severed, we couldn't "rebel" because there was no longer anyone in authority over us! 

It's a bit like going "No contact" with crazy family members - NC is a severing of  ties, a Declaration of Independence of sorts, a way to break the chains of bondage to a system that wasn't healthy for us. Paying some sort of emotional and psychological dues in order to be part of an unhealthy family system just isn't a good  way to live, so those connections have to be broken - for some of us, a complete break was necessary, just as it was for the 13 colonies.  And in the case of the 13 colonies it was, of course, followed by war, since Britain wasn't about to let the colonies go gladly - they were too important to Britain's economy  and pride of empire - sounds familiar, huh?  Britain even had mercenaries to do their dirty work - their own flying monkeys!!  But all that was to no avail - Britain lost.  Hurrah!!!  It's not right to own another country and to treat it like crap so that your economy is bolstered, just as it's immoral to use another person for whatever you can get from them while you treat them like crap. 

Happy Independence Day!!!!

That's Just the Way I Am!

Oh, my goodness - I was talking to LS1 about my last post and realized something SO important. When I homeschooled my kids, I was amazed that there were so many people who wanted to voice their opinion about our decision to do this - I never felt that everyone should homeschool, that if you didn't homeschool you were somehow a bad parent, but apparently this decision set off all kinds of defensive alarms for a lot of people, and I finally decided that I needed a one-liner to ward off unwanted "advice." My line was "Homeschooling really works for our family." This is difficult to argue with and the one-liner worked to put up a boundary. I really need a one-liner in my NFOO - and they've provided it - the line is "That's just the way I am! So when Winkie1 says that it's wrong for me to "isolate" the WWW and her flying monkeys, my response must be, "That's just the way I am!" I have no illusions that this will give me the pass that it gives WWW and her flying monkeys, but since this is used to justify all sorts of narcissistic nastiness, it seems the perfect one-liner! That's just the way I am!

Edmund Burke must have known my NFOO!

I have to read more Edmund Burke - he's the Irish political philosopher who said,  "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."  I know that he was speaking in political terms, but how this also applies to Nfamilies!  Every Nfamily probably has either one parent or siblings or both who are either too afraid of the narcissists or too invested in keeping the family myth going forward another generation that they will not see what is happening - or if they see, they will not stop it.  They allow the evil to continue as they do nothing.  How sad - and the myth of the "close" family goes on because there's no overt war - just lies, gossip, slander,and tiptoeing around narcissists in multiple generations.  Alas...

Burke also said, "There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue."  Again, know he was talking about a political situation, but how well it applies to me!!!  I took forbearance to a ridiculous level, of course, and put up with all sorts of nonsense from the WWW and her flying monkeys because I really thought I had to - and I did, as long as I wanted to be a part of that piece of the family - speaking out against the WWW and her minions was verboten - about all three weird sisters, another family member has said at one time or another, "That's just the way she is."  Really?!  How is it that some family members get a pass like that - not, "She has to change," or "She acts like such a bitch," or "I can't believe that anyone would act that way at her mother's deathbed," but "That's just the way she is."  Amazing - and it takes us back to the first quote from Burke...