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Posts Tagged "crucible"
I got really excited when I was doing some laundry and I saw a beach towel that isn’t too crazy that has about the right texture to use for yoga. I have a yoga towel! Woo hoo! I have packed a bag for yoga so I try showering after. I didn’t shower yesterday and I felt grimy and a little cold as I left. With all that sweat, showering seems like a more pleasant alternative. And I think I have time to shower and get home to do kid lunches and get them out the door. I can be home by 8am. I still feel a little shy as I go into Moksha. I have my new mat which I removed from the paper wrap in the car so I don’t look “new.” I have my beach towel and my water bottle and my bag. I take my wallet out of my purse and leave it locked in the car so I can take my purse in and keep my Prius smart key there. I’ll have to figure this out. There are no lockers inside, so I need a system for my stuff that doesn’t feel awkward. I get into the studio and lay my mat down. I had a hard time hearing yesterday so I try to get a spot closer to the middle. It is warm but I am looking forward to my time on my mat. I am looking forward to the time lying quietly on my back. I want the quiet and I want to see if my body relaxes again. I lie down and as before, I notice my lower back being a bit uncomfortable as I lie down. I am conscious of the gap between my lower back and the floor. Five minutes later, the feeling is gone. I feel supported completely by the floor. I feel solid, held and relaxed on my mat. I am able to do a few more poses this time and I remember...
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We had an opportunity to add a stop in Iceland on our way to Paris. Travel tip: If you book on Iceland Air, you can make a stop in Iceland at no additional charge. Iceland can be both wildly expensive or strangely inexpensive depending on how you travel. Almost all of the amazing geological sites are free. Because the country is an island, most of the consumer goods are imports, so if you stay away from shopping you can avoid high costs. Renting a car was interesting given that much of the country is impassable in a passenger car. We kept worrying that we were going to drive into a forbidden area but it never happened. We did see some giant SUVs that take people into the interior of the island. Next time, I want to go in there! We found an amazing Bed and Breakfast called Minna-Mosfell. They are near the Golden Circle and about 45 minutes from Kevflavik airport. The hosts Gudrun and Valur are warm and inviting. Their reviews on Trip Advisor are the best I have ever seen. They have a place with 3 rooms with a shared bath. Their set up is a lovely shared space with a sitting area and a table as well as a small self-catering kitchen. They have fresh home-made bread each morning as well as homegrown eggs, cheese, and tasty treats. We were able to make some sandwiches to take out on our day-trips which made our visit in Iceland so amazingly kid friendly. They provided a picnic backpack and a thermos for each room. This allowed for considerable savings and we ended up eating out for one simple meal each day. Their hospitality was unbelievable. The landscape in Iceland is fantastic. It looks like a moonscape when you fly into to town with all the lava. There are very few trees and when we were there in the summer, it was green everywhere with purple Lupines blooming all over the place. Driving around Iceland...
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To my husband, You are the love of my life. You make my life richer, fuller, more interesting and so full of love. When we decided to join our lives together I had dreams of flowers and romance and making each other happy. And there have been days like that. But the reality of our marriage has been so much more complex. We challenge each other and take on big challenges and lifetime commitments together. We make life changing decisions together. Marriage involves an intimacy that takes my breath away when I allow myself to think about it. You have seen me at my worst and you love me anyway. You have been so incredibly mad at me and still you love me so much. The intimacy of that love year after year is astounding. At every juncture there is a choice to keep committing to our love or to get annoyed, give up and stop. Every time, you choose love. I know you love me because of how you care for our lives. The evidence of the love you have for our family is all around us. It is clear in the way you care for our children and make time for them. It is in the grass you cut, in the swimming pool you maintain, it is in the white picket fence that lines our 2-acre property that you repair and replace pickets for each year. A couple of years ago someone recommended we replace that fence with something that would require less maintenance. I couldn’t imagine trading it in–it is a symbol for me of the love in our lives. Your love shows when you give me the car with the gas tank full and make sure the oil gets changed. We haven’t chosen an easy life, but one full of love and care. You show me that love every day. When we got married, I thought marriage was about love and kisses but what I know now is that being...
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After deciding to try being in a relationship with Mel, I had to try to figure out how I wanted to “be” in the relationship. I know the rules are different for us, but I didn’t know how I wanted to “be” with those rules. Also, we were in a new relationship and I wasn’t ready to tell everyone I knew about us because I wanted to keep him to myself. After we had been together about a week, we went to an event I have come to recall as my “One Day in the Closet”. This was an event put on by our church and ironically, it was an informational event for congregants about the church becoming a “welcoming congregation”. Being a “welcoming congregation” is a Unitarian Universalist designation meaning the church is GLBT Friendly. The church has a series of information sessions and then votes to become “a welcoming congregation”. Mel and I go to this and pretend for the whole day that we aren’t together, that we aren’t a couple. We know most of the people there and we try to “act normally.” It is agony. I want to hold his hand, I want to sit next to him. I feel physically sick from the deception. The event goes from 9am-3pm and when the end finally comes, I realize that if I am going to be in a relationship with Mel, then I am not going to hide. I am going to have to be brave enough to come out of the closet and tell everyone I know that we are together. Even though I am sure I don’t want to be closeted, I am also sure that I want to be safe. I become acutely aware of the special attention we get if we hold hands in public. I learn to ask myself whether it is safe before I grab Mel’s hand. I look around–usually for conservative looking rednecks–before offering a kiss. I am a rebel, so I like the...
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I was hanging out with a crazy Brit named George when I first had the idea of the bookii. I had been working on writing a book and was finding it incredibly 2 dimensional. I wanted multiple topics and more visual than I could accomplish in print. I wanted my reader to be able to explore my book rather than reading it one page after the other. In a conversation with George we were talking about an online technology called Prezi that allows you to explore deeper and is a more flexible presentation platform than Power Point. Somehow talking about that helped me start to visualize a dynamic memoir that had pictures and color and video and wasn’t bound by the boundaries of a printed book. Prezi didn’t end up being the medium, but the concept stuck with me. What makes it a bookii? Well, it is a book that you read electronically It is written by one author and instead of purchasing a book, you purchase an annual subscription to a bookii. My bookii is creative non-fiction–a lifestyle, but I hope there will be lots of bookiis that are both fiction and non-fiction combined. I imagine being able to read my favorite authors and about their characters while simultaneously being able to look up what they were thinking about when they were writing about it or what their inspirations were by exploring their bookii. The Crucible Bookii is my bookii. It is the world’s very first bookii. It is rich with interesting articles about the stories that make up my life. I hope you will become a member and share this journey with me as I create this interactive real-time memoir. Melanie shares how the bookii idea...
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