The Kindred Spirit, Kaia, and the Good Life.

Lately, I find myself pondering about how much I love being where I'm at in life right now, especially being a mom. Kaia is just such a neat girl! I find myself peeking in at her as she's playing in her room, or stop to watch her entertain herself. She's definitely my daughter. Although she may look just like her daddy, she's definitely got a lot of my personality traits. My favorite thing to do during the day is eavesdrop on Kaia. She gives speeches. No joke. Today I found her standing on top of her little rocking chair lecturing in full voice her babble, while waving her arms out as if she was a professor teaching a very important class. It made me giggle--it reminded me of King Benjamin on the tower teaching his people.
Kaia is all sorts of whimsy. She has amazing stretches of playtime that last 5 to 6 hours (on very good days). She loves to read her books, play dress ups, call "Daddy!!!" at the top of her lungs, play with her toys, scoot chairs around, but she especially loves to go to my sewing room and play with her treasures there. Kaia has a basket full of fabric remnants, last month's subscription of a craft magazine, yarn, random pictures, a gift bag, her "pretties" (several pieces of chocolate brown tricot, which she swoops over her shoulders as if they were a luxurious fur wrap), an old tie, pieces of paper or cardboard, an empty tissue box, thank you cards, a wipes box, and a piece of something-knitted-but-never-finished. Her imagination amazes me already!
As she plays with each object, she talks and talks and laughs and shakes her head and talks. Occasionally, she'll lay down on her tummy while she's reading the magazine for the 1,000th time and wave her legs up and down.

I was just called as the beehive advisor for our ward, and then three days later, was selected up at school to be the Emotional Well being Coordinator for the Married Students Activities department. I am in charge of finding 3 facilitators to teach the workshops, and I also am in charge of developing the workshop material and find additional resources. I AM SO EXCITED! This is going to be a really neat experience after going through counseling! I have the opportunity to share the knowledge I have learned about the absolute importance of being well and whole internally--having abundant spirituality and self esteem. Way, way cool.

We are getting ready for the winter right now. We're weatherizing the house and getting firewood stocked for the winter. I love heating the house with the fire. I miss having the glow all day. It's a lot of work to get the house ready, but it'll be nice to have a non-drafty, cozy, warm home during the winter. I love helping Steven haul the wood and chop the wood and stack the wood. I am super bad at it. Steven can split most logs in one swoop---it takes me more like 6 or 7. He says I need to practice swinging the axe the way he taught me. But I leave the chopping to him and he leaves the stackin' to me. I love stacking wood! Is that silly or what? It's like Mother Nature tetris or something. I think that two of the most therapeutic activities are 1) hanging the laundry on the line on a crisp saturday morning and 2) stacking wood. I realize that having a dryer and an efficent furnace would save a lot of time, but it's more important to me to do the work. I love the way I feel after knitting a washcloth or preparing firewood or making laundry detergent or hanging laundry on the line. I really like the way I feel when I am resourcefully trying to be self reliant. I love more and more the new skills and tips I'm gathering. I'll be putting up some strawberry rhubarb freezer jam soon. It's the most incredible jam you'll ever taste. I learned how to make it this year at a relief society meeting. I've got tons and tons of sewing projects I need to get started on. Sometime by next year, I want to learn how to make soap and candles.

School starts next week. I'm taking three general ed classes, two nights a week with one being an online class. I love night classes. By Christmas next year, I'll have graduated with my associates degree. It's exciting and sad to think about. But I'll finally be an engaged, present, 100% full time mom and wife. It's so bittersweet, but I think that it will relieve a lot of stress for our little fam. And then once Steven finishes his schooling up, we'll be off on our first real adventure (or at least, hopefully, a fully funded one! It'll be nice to have steady income!).

Life is good. Life isn't any less busy or stressful, but it's good, and I'm very happily busy with important, meaningful things...although, it would be nice if I had more time to sew and craft and improve at knitting...