In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of ritual and self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
It doesn’t really seem possible that Friday could be here. And yet here we are.
Or so it seems.
Okay!
The hard stuff
Disoriented.
Loving this shorter week we had here in the States but it seriously threw me off in so many different ways.
And somehow I ended up with a million appointments today even though I hate Friday appointments, and apparently I overbooked and cross-booked and generally flubbed it all up.
Gah. I’m exhausted just thinking about the rest of today.
Scary times.
Doing things that scare me, and it’s so unbelievably hard right now.
Trust and faith.
Rinse. Repeat.
My life is way less fun when Svevo is not around.
My uncle Svevo was with us for four days (yay!) but then he had to go home (boo!).
And when he isn’t around, I forget to do things like nap, take long walks and delight in being alive.
I mean, I don’t forget. It just becomes less of a priority. Realizing that always depresses the hell out of me.
Keeping my mouth shut.
When I don’t feel like it.
But it wouldn’t be smart to say what I’m actually thinking in this particular situation so I’m not going to say it. Might have to go yell it into a forest though.
This thing I love to do is on the wrong side of town.
So half my day gets eaten up with getting there and back.
But I can’t stopped because I am crazy-addicted. Change, etc.
Seemingly unrequited crush!
Sadmouse.
Wednesday.
Oh, Wednesday. On Wednesday I fell apart so hard it was ridiculous.
Hug to Wednesday-me. She had a really rough time of things. I was worried about her.
The good stuff
Svevo was here! Svevo was here!
For four whole days.
We went for walks, over and over again. Once we visited the same flowers four times in one day.
We drank dew from rose petals. Did you know that the drops of water on a rose taste exactly the way the rose smells? Kind of sweet and wistful and crazy.
We met up with many friends (mostly by accident).
We cooked and ate and talked. There was napping and yoga and more walking. And every minute of it was wonderful.
Normally when I have guests I need to know exactly how long they’re staying (not that I can handle guests for more than two days anyway), but with Svevo I could totally have him stick around forever. It was so wonderful.
I am Tyler Durden.
On one of these walks we randomly stumbled upon an outdoor Shiva Nata class and saw Larisa, Rhiannon and Casey, among other shivanauts! These are all people who have rallied at Rally with me and who teach Shiva Nata.
I was exclaiming over that when Lisa Bee asked if if I feel like Tyler Durden.
That is exactly how I feel.
Shivanauts everywhere! This thing that I have been growing from nothing (way back when I started teaching I was the only person teaching this outside of Andrey).
I mean, some people were teaching but just as a warm-up for yoga, not as a thing by itself.
And now. Now I can just accidentally wander into a class.
It’s so insane and so great. I love it.
Salvaged Wednesday (not a band).
Even though Wednesday seemed like a total loss, around 4pm I got my second wind, thanks to some sweet and kind help from the First Mate.
And I got a ton of work done in about an hour. It was huge and important and it really saved the day, if not the week.
The Shiva Nata training page. I did it! Unexpectedly and joyfully.
Yes! I rewrote the Shiva Nata training page and now it is so much better.
You should read it. No, really. You should read it!
I had fun rewriting it, once I got over my giant stuck around it, and am so excited for September.
Note that early registration ends June 15 which is seriously soon. FYI.
Derby!
Roller derby all weekend long.
Come on, Shivanauts!
Inspired.
Big ideas, big shivanautical epiphanies, big decisions.
Stuff is changing and I am actually kind of happy about it.
And … playing live at the meme beach house it’s the Fake Band of the Week!
My brother and I have this thing where we come up with ridiculous band names and then say in this really pretentious, knowing tone, “Oh, well, you know, it’s just one guy.”
This week’s band, thanks to Dan Savage:
Its Tragic Aftermath
They’re smart, funny, and playing in town all week. Except that it’s really just one guy.
And some of what I’ve been reading/thinking about this week.
Good outpouring of anger from our Léan. Work, Parenthood and All That.
So, to summarise, if you do a job that allows breaks every day, weekends, sick pay, holiday pay – and, in fact, pay in the first place – you’re “working”. BUT if you perform exactly the same tasks, without any of the breaks or the pay and with a 24/7 on-call clause, you’re “not working”. Run that one by me again?
You should read this recipe for the literary reference. And for the beautiful description of peaches.
Heidi’s Presence potion is here. Hooray!
That’s it for me …
And of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments if you feel like it.
Yes? Anything hard and/or good happen in your week?
And, as always, have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come. Shabbat shalom.
p.s. It’s okay if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — you can join in whenever (or not) and it’s no big deal.
Follow
All in all a pretty good week,
it was just hard to hear
– That a friend’s mother is dying.
– That another friend is thoroughly unhappy in her marriage.
And the good:
– Husband back safe and sound from unsafe place.
– The discovery of Harumi Kurihara’s Japanese cookbooks.
– Finished tedious little extra job so I can now send the bill.
– 3 beautiful hours in the sun with lovely company outside the city yesterday afternoon.
– For the first time since I had a lumbago I have had a yoga practice that almost felt like before.
– 2 hours on Skype with a friend abroad, reconnecting immediately even though we hadn’t spoken with each other for over one year.
Have a beautiful and sunny weekend and happy chickening!
Shabbat shalom Havi!
The Chicken’s heart runneth over with amnesty for me…
Tyler/Havi, you are by far the most interesting single-serving friend I’ve ever met… see I have this thing: everything on a plane is single-serving…
The Hard:
This has been a bit of a disappointing week for me.
Not that it was particularly bad, just routine and mildly disappointing.
Kind of bored with this week, actually.
It seems dread lord Odin and the gods of Valhalla have decided to test me a bit this week
At the same time, my week was rather forgettable; it was pretty routine and I don’t think there was much worth remembering
I spent today doing yard work
The Good:
The Simpsons is on Hulu.com!
I had an ice cream sandwich.
I’m not a teenager.
Not certain how I ought to end, so I’ll let Tyler Durden have his Friday Chicken and describe how hard his week was (at least my week wasn’t that bad):
“We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off. “
Havi, what a weird-in-a-good-way situation to find yourself in the middle of someone else’s Shiva Nata.
This week’s hard:
– Allergies are kicking in.
– The midges emerged just in time to mess up my carefully laid plans for reading proofs outside late this week and into next week. Hard to read when millions of tiny bugs are flying in your face.
– Seeing ways that I can help a struggling client save money without sacrificing quality, but they’re so stuck in ancient ways of doing things that they’re not even open to hearing about options.
This week’s good:
– My anniversary is today, and I picked the best man to marry. It gets even better every day.
– Despite having a somewhat lazy workweek, I’m still ahead on two major projects.
– Learned that at least some of the necklaces I thought were lost to the shady consignment shop were among the goods seized by the attorney general and that I’ll be getting them back. I think I will need a ritual to release them from the bad aura of their temporary home, however.
Happy Friday, Chickeneers!
Ah, Salvaged Wednesday. It’s a good day to salvage.
The hard:
– Feeling rather unenthused about the day job.
– Having trouble being okay with feeling unenthused, which makes it harder.
– Good friends are having some relationship troubles, and my heart hurts for them.
But oh! The good! So much good!
– Came back from last weekend’s mini-vacation feeling like a new (and way more wonderful) me.
– A fun and wonderful project seems to have dropped into my lap.
– Having friends. It feels so good after so many years of feeling community-less.
– Plus my bestest friend visited from out of town on Wednesday.
– My new air conditioner, which is going to make me not want to die this summer. I want to write odes to it.
– Having lots of fun with photography and photo editing, of late.
Hope everybody has sunshine this weekend (if you’re into that sort of thing). Otherwise, wishing you raindrops.
Forgive me Selma, for I have sinned: it’s been like a year since my last chicken. But I’ve been really, really, really busy!
It finally happened: I finished a project, and it’s for sale! SQUEEEE!!!! I finished my ebook, Women Who Didn’t Shut Up and Sit Down (about the women in the Bible who weren’t good, little submissive wives) along with four podcasts, and now it’s all up for sale on the website! I have products! You can find it here: http://www.shawnaatteberry.com/store.
After the launch I took Wednesday off and celebrated. Warm weather has FINALLY come to Chicago. It was a beautiful sunny day in the mid 80s. I walked down to Lake Michigan read, journaled, laid on the beach, dozed on the beach. Came home, read, napped, went out to eat with The Hubby. Had chocolate and sangria. It was a good day.
Lots of hard through the process: will I ever finish? Lots of monsters. Being sick the whole month of March. Feeling like it was never going to be done. Will anybody buy this? (Thankfully the answer to that one is yes.) Lots and lots of angst. But I worked through it all, did a lot of breathing (and drinking) and got. it. done.
Now I’m moving back to the novel. I started this novel back in 2005, and I’m finishing the first draft by the end of this month. I finished one major writing project. I can finish another. And a couple of months ago the Fucking Brilliant Catherine Caine wrote a couple of blog posts that will help me move the novel along because Catherine is just Fucking Brilliant that way.
And there was a really, really good piece of good this morning: psssst: I saw a naked, wet, sexy man in my shower! Ssshh, don’t tell The Hubby I told you. But damn, I married a Sexy Man (particularly when he’s wet and naked).
I hope everyone has a great weekend!
Ode to Friday!
The Hard:
-So not into the work thing this week.
-Exhausted all week, even upon wakening.
-Lots of foot pain. Scared that upcoming non-invasive surgery won’t work.
-Excruciatingly hot, humid days this week drained me.
-Challenges w/making the right decision about something.
-Missing my people — where are they?
The Good:
+Well, it’s Friday.
+I came up with a new sweet little thing, and I’m feeling more energized as a result.
+Talked w/someone important about a Big Vulnerable Issue, and feel stronger and more sovereign as a result.
+5-minute emails! A friend who is uber busy sent me an unedited 5-minute email. So much heart in it. I sent her one back. Hopefully it will become a regular way to stay connected.
Salvaged Wednesday…they’ve got a good sound!
Also, seriously? Friday? I still have to do things I was putting off since *last* Friday… Hmmm.
The Hard:
– Way too much social interaction this week. If I didn’t get the weekend off we’d be headed for a breakdown. But I do get the weekend off, so it’s fine.
– Oh the sickness that kind of existed. I finally finally went to the Doctor (ugh) and now it’s gone. But I was pretty exhausted there for a while.
– Lots of drama. Which all seems to have resolved itself, gracias a dios. But seriously. There was lots.
– I don’t want to answer three of my e-mails. So I haven’t been. But it’s been a week, which means I really ought to start thinking about it.
The Good:
– Shiva Nata in the park! That was so crazy awesome. I knew I liked that park for a reason.
– All kinds of projects are piping up and letting me know they’re ready to move forward. Yay! They shall be done.
– Haven’t managed to drive this new gentleman in my life away yet. And he’s a natural at Boggle, so obviously I need him to stick around and play with me every. day.
– People keep offering me exactly what I need at way cheaper than I should have to pay. So while overall I’ve spent a lot more money than I was planning to, the rewards to my life are *huge*. And I’m still on budget.
Love the recipe and the allusion. (I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled!)
I’m looking forward to seeing your big ideas and decisions unfold over the coming months and years.
This week…I will not be sad to be moving on.
And shiva nata in the park sounds awesome.
The hard:
– the no-job reality hitting me
– general emotional turmoil
– complete exhaustion and its close cousin utter indecisiveness
– my doom!! monsters have been having a festival
– missing people
– hangover
– my ‘nice relaxing sunny’ walking along the beach turning into being freezing cold, getting rained on, umbrella breaking and having to share a shelter with a family with irritatingly noisy child
– spat on flickr
– possibly very depressing news about MA dissertation – might end up just having to review/rewrite stuff I’ve already writeen, which seems crazy
– worried about someone I care about having a really shitty time at work
The good:
– afternoon tea with friends
– people are very enthusiastic/supportive about new photo site (that doesn’t exist yet)
– started 365 project – done a whole week, love the photos I’ve taken and have had a huge upsurge in flickr
views
– got an incredibly good mark back for research portfolio
– have a job interview next week
– might have found a cheap, local furniture place
And pad thai and tempura tonight….
Hard stuff:
-Cranky mornings. Actually, it’s not so much that I’m cranky, but that everyone else is. Wait, that sounds highly suspicious.
-Money worries.
Good stuff:
+Started a new journal this week. It’s a pirate journal! Arr! The cover is terrific.
+Happy times at home with my family. Is it just my imagination, or are we all getting much better at handling stress and de-fusing moments of friction?
+Shiva Nata. Lately, I feel that even when I’m not working it, it’s working me. Very cool.
Wishing lovely weekends to everyone!
Hmmm…for some reason “Savaged Wednesday” sounds more accurate to me than “Salvaged Wednesday”. But hey, whatever works.
Hard:
– Lots of feelings of sad and loneliness and general crankiness.
– The above is leading to a complete lack of motivation to work. At. All.
– Lots of noise from my neighbors this week (construction on one side, kids playing in pool on the other, and lawn mower man in the back) is making me kind of sad that I moved my office upstairs away from the basement, as it seems a lot more distracting here. So I am now looking forward to rainy days, which are less noisy.
Good:
– My 103 year old grandpa seems to be getting a bit better and stronger.
– Decided to get a new phone as soon as I have time to purchase it. Yay! Decisions.
– Had lunch with a friend this week, which was fun and good for me. More of that will probably stave off the grumpiness.
Yay for the other shivanauts – i hope my town will be like that some day; and boo for Wednesday.
The hard stuff
-The end of my degree. what to do with my life.
-Exams. argh do i know this? do i need to?
-Got back from a calming class to just get angry. grr.
-Biting my tongue. A lot.
-Not biting my tongue when i should have. A lot.
-My other half wont be able to attend my graduation or my 21st birthday. sad panda.
-depression. i hate the term, i am denial; but yeah. no other word.
The good stuff
– finished my degreeeeeee; no more exams; juts summer of books and books and music and courses and books and money-earning-work and exercise and dance and shivanata <3
– my other half is coming over for the weekend <3
– im free to write and read and play.. to write my novel!! been missing my characters
– i got to spring clean; at 7pm on a friday in JUNE. yes. my room is now so so fresh and clean and yay. i love it.
– did i mention ive finished all that work; three years now sorted.. just have to wait til july to find out if i pass.
– i can read <3 all weekend if i want. no guilt! hazzuh!
Have a fabulous weekend and a glorrrrious week!
Happy Friday everyone!
The Good
– I ran a lot on Wednesday
– I ran yesterday morning this ironman training thing, i can do it man.
– travelling for work. it was different than being cooped up in the office and my wrists appreciated not being on the computer and i drew in the car yesterday.
– Figuring out my new bike a bit on Sunday.
The Hard
– not being home with my husband
– the rain screwing with my training. did someone forget to tell mother nature that it’s supposed to be summer? and here in CA that means hot and dry. not record lows and rain and husband snowed in to Tahoe for several hours.
– Exercise getting all rained out this weekend.
Hard:
-Feeling that between-Projects slowdown. Evenings where I think that I *could* go down to the basement studio, but I play games on the computer instead.
-Being a third (or 7th) wheel at work this week.
-Weather can’t decide between too hot and too cold.
Good:
-PRETTY thunderstorm a couple nights ago.
-Some really nifty ideas on putting worldbuilding and jewelry-making together. Things are coalescing into something neat, something that may be my next Project. Kinda scary but still really good.
Definitely a good, hard, short week; and ditto on the Wednesday woes.
The Hard:
The Monday holiday bill crazies that completely foul up the rest of the shortened week.
Not saying what I really think at lunch yesterday; it was a no-win situation and not speaking actually reduced the loss potential even if it didn’t shift it closer to a gain situation.
Ticks, nasty brown dog ticks. I do a lot of volunteer field work in nature conservation activities and dealing with ticks has been putting all of us on high alert this season.
That Wednesday stuff where the ex calls for some nebulous excuse but afterward I figure out that he can’t stand not to try to talk to me on our former anniversary even after 3 years. (This is about inappropriate manipulation not affection.)
A potential sale that evaporated, also on Wed; and more bad news about potential future income source either taking a long time to process and how little it might turn out to be.
Finances will likely get worse before they start getting any better.
The Good:
Not freezing at yoga this week; somebody listened and while it is not a balmy 75 degrees it is comfortable after making a warm-up routine switch in the beginning of class.
Biking nearly 25 miles on Monday; it was gorgeous, lots of birds and butterflies, off-road trails, and ice cream at the turnaround point.
A lot got done packing and sorting for the move coming up and there should only be the kitchen left for serious packing after which the furniture can be moved in a couple of hours. And all of this is interwoven with a mix of excitement and trepidation; but mostly excitement.
Got some rudimentary research done for next week’s discussion about a local history project being proposed. This could be a several year’s labor and not likely to pay anything but I still want to do this.
That’s it for this week. Bwawk!
My oh my, it has been ages since I’ve chickened.
(And boy do I wish I lived someplace I could wander into a Shiva Nata class. Actually, it’s hard to wander into *any* class here in Phoenix – it’s already too hot to do much of anything outside.)
The hard:
– Not sleeping. I have a pretty strong suspicion what the problem is, and I’ve done all I can to fix it. But it’s going to take time for the fix to take effect. Boo.
– Wearing the Crabby Pants of No Sleep. And the Anxiety Pants.
The good:
– Somehow, I still got *so much* work done even if I only slept a couple of hours the night before.
– Every time I thought I was about to run into a wall of stuck, the wall seemed to just melt away.
– Also, getting another opportunity to observe the way I work on a project. And what helps and what doesn’t. Awesome.
– I launched my Thing-Finding class! Wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull it off, but in the end I got the word out only one day late. Not bad for the lack of sleep.
Have a lovely weekend and upcoming week, everyone!
I have never done Shiva Nata, but your new page makes me really want to come to teacher training. So I think it works! =)
The Hard:
The way my stomach flops and my arms feel weak and my face falls. The way my mind says “you can’t do this, you’ll never make it, you are a loser, you are so screwed and people will find out and think you are a loser.” The way I feel ashamed and scared and unsure.
The Good:
When I remember Grace. When I sit up. When I lift my head. When I remember that the world is not served by my shame and defeat. When I remember that the world is served by my grace and dignity and my success. When I remember that I can handle anything because there is no alternative. When I remember that all of this is ripping down the building that I was trying to patch up for so long, ripping it down to the ground and then rebuilding it strong and sturdy. Yes, for a bit it looks destroyed, and then the ground is bare, but then the foundation is poured, the scaffolding erected, the pieces put up strong and true and plumb. This is the vision I must keep in my mind. Tacking on tar paper wasn’t working, it’s all got to come down.
Bring on the chicken, baby!
The Hard
-feelings of stress and hecticness at work. blech.
-overeating, knowing I was being mean to my body, doing it anyway, and then kinda hating on myself for it afterwards. Extra blech.
The Good
-Quiet time at the house with just me, the Wondercat, and a couple of Phyrne Fisher audiobooks – heaven!
-Permission to myself to not be accomplishy during that time
-epiphany that led to a new mini-practice of mindfully taking a breath, a sip of water, and saying to myself, “Me. Here.” between patrons at the reference desk. Helped so very much. It was weird to come off a day of work and not feel like I needed recovery time, but yay!
-another epiphany that hasn’t born fruit yet, but I have high hopes
-new house stuff got delivered – a hiccup with installing the new dishwasher, but it looks like that will be taken care of tomorrow morning, everything else going smoothly, and I lurve the new coffee table in the living room – it really kind of feels like a grown up’s house in here. In a comfy, homey way 🙂
-went dress shopping for upcoming trip to NYC, and found not one but several decent possibilities! Made the final decision a bit hard, but yay for enjoying clothes shopping again!
That’s it for me – have a lovely weekend, y’all!
I am so glad this week is over.
The hard:
– too much medical stuff going on around me. ER trips. Visits to the Clinic. Daily multiple phone calls to the Clinic. Visiting nurses. Wrong info about medication that may turn out dangerous.
– Like Victoria, I’m ” Wearing the Crabby Pants of No Sleep. And the Anxiety Pants.” And they’re dragging around my ankles.
– time I set aside for creative pursuits, house ordering, and even self care got eaten up with the medical pursuits.
– my arrangements for travel to Portland for Rally fell through. But I’m determined to get there.
The good:
+ supportive medical people who talk to me.
+ tried something new and though it was uncomfortable I think it will be helpful.
+ spent quality time with friends. Made a new connection as friends with some former students.
+ realized why some jokes I made to myself were depressing instead of amusing… probably obvious to everyone else but not to me.
Looking forward to a new (and better!) week. Have an awesome weekend, everyone.
Someone wrote “bwawk!” – I love it 🙂
The Hard:
– Not sleeping. Leading to crabby-ness and anxiety and low low energy. Ugh.
– I cancelled a Dr.’s appointment at the last minute because I couldn’t imagine getting out of bed + leaving the house + driving + interacting. Which made my monsters happy because they had something to talk about: “Hmmmm, looks like someone is sliding into depression again and is going to fuck everything up again and we told you so….”
– Being a sadface even at happy graduation time because I miss my Dad and I really really am sad that my son and my Dad didn’t have much time on this planet together. They would have been great buddies.
– Struggling to write.
– The Imposter Monsters had a busy week. First they went nuts when I said I wanted to go to the Shiva Nata teacher training, “You suck at Shiva Nata! Everyone else knows each other and you will feel weird and awkward! You already went to Rally!, you can’t spent more money on this silly stuff.” Then, about 30 minutes after I got excited about a new writing project they went fucking ballistic, “That is the worst idea EVER! Who are you to think you can write about *that*? Why would anyone listen to you, loserfish?”
– Lots of frustration/resentment towards Mom and then lots of guilt about feeling the frustration/resentment and then bitchy behavior that made no sense.
– I guess I went on strike this week re: cleaning the kitchen. Not sure why and that bothers me. Guilt and confusion.
The Good.
– Lovely graduation party on Monday. Son was sweet and happy and appreciative and proud of himself.
– Great visit with new gyno — she took the time to read my file, talk to me, explain shit, VERY REFRESHING. Even better, she thinks I may be able to avoid having a hysterectomy! She wants to try some other things first, Yay!
– Mom decided to go visit sister and family in Florida. Took her to the airport this morning. I will have the house to myself for an entire WEEK. Woo-hoo!!!
– Driving with the convertible top down in gorgeous Colorado sunshine!
– Did some writing – yay me!
– Found a sale on Kindle books! (It is likely that it was there all along and I just found it, but anyway…)
Have a great weekend everyone! Bwawk. Bwawk.
Yeah. 🙂
Hard:
Waiting.
Wondering.
Hoping.
Good:
DH had really good interview on Wednesday afternoon.
Surprise solo show at the local funky restaurant.
Finding out I definitely have more than enough work to fill the funky restaurant and the two other shows I am in this month.
Finding my art mojo after gathering all the work for the solo show. Why do I never remember this? I guess I should put it in the book of me 🙂
Hummus. Just saying it makes me happy. Like in Kripendorf’s Tribe, Hummummmus!
Hummummus Fellow Chickeneers!
Thank you. Much gratitude. Very nice of you. Happy I found Fluent Self, too.