Sweet little Lenny BoyDid you know jonesing is in the dictionary? It's basically a fixation or compulsive desire for something. Well, I've been jonesing to be on my blog. I don't know why I'm having so much trouble coming here and posting stuff. It's not like it has to be all deep and full of anything. I guess part of the problem is that I'm pretty busy with a lot of stuff and haven't been managing my time very well. I've learned not only am I a master procrastinator (like right now I'm procrastinating working out but hey I've only been up for 30 minutes!) but I'm also a pro at wasting time. If I would stop wasting time, I would have more time. But often, I find myself overwhelmed with the task(s) at hand and become paralyzed with not knowing where to start or what to do next. So, I waste time instead with my procrastination techniques, i.e. the internet! Anyway, that's where I am right now, in this moment. Present with my procrastination. And at least acknowledging that is worth something, right?
Saturday when I got home, I found a bouquet of fresh flowers. Shawn had a visitor that afternoon and that person had brought some flowers. Rather than put them all together in one big vase, I separated the flowers out and put them into various cool bottles. And the lilies from the arrangement got to come to work with me.
This is it for the sunflowers. I promise. And it's not that they are all that spectacular. They don't even really look like sunflowers. But it was my first attempt at them. And I noticed this morning that I have a patch of them. On our deck. In a pot. That's probably why they're pretty small.
But they're still cool. And that there's a bunch of them in bloom at once and I haven't killed them, well, that makes them even cooler.
Still not sure what this will be. I'm thinking squash. Although by now there should be some sort of veggie growing. Even if there is nothing to harvest from this, the flowers have been beautiful. This looks like a yellow moonflower.
O...M...G...!! I got a little blog award! I'm so excited! It's the little things:)
I'm not quite sure where the Cherry On Top Award originated. It was passed onto me from Leslie in Adams Morgan. And it was passed on to Leslie from Evil Pixie who I had actually started checking out because I saw some comments from her on Leslie's blog.
What's interesting is a few weeks ago as I was logging into my blog I noticed that there was thing "Blogs of Note." I checked out some of them and was like, I wanna be a blog of note. Then a few days later, The Capricious Yogi received a blog award. I was like, I want a blog award. And then I noticed Evil Pixie, etc... And really, I don't care if I get any awards, it would just be, well A Cherry On Top, right? So then what happens, Leslie passed this on to me and I LOVE IT!
So anyway, thank you to Leslie who tagged me on my very first blog award. Here are the rules: talk about three things I love about myself, and then pass the award on to bloggers I love.
1. I love that I am 46 years old and have not once considered getting any kind of plastic surgery, botox, lifts, tucks or anything else that would make me look like the Joker from batman, that I'm constantly startled or that would make me anything else than who and what I am. I love who I am and every wrinkle and sag makes me who I am. Not that I don't workout or want to stay in shape or use moisturizer but I just won't buy into society trying to force me to be anyone else. One of my tricks for having this attitude is to not look too close in the mirror:) I mean really, nobody is going to be looking at me 2 inches from my face.
2. I love that I don't sweat the small stuff. Seriously, I just can't. There's way too many big things that are more sweat worthy than a sink full of dishes, laundry not being done, etc... A sweat worthy thing is a paralyzed husband! And I think I'm pretty good at maintaining that attitude.
3. I love that I can't help but find the positive in almost every situation. Even the worst. Sometimes I even ask myself, how did I find anything positive in that? For example, recently I had to take Old Girl to the vet. It's always a debacle and it's pretty much guaranteed there will be an accident of ultimate grossness in the carrier. This time was no different. So there I am, after she had a bad accident, in the parking lot of strip mall, wishing I had a hazmat suit, gloves and gas mask, holding Old Girl with one hand and wiping nasty poo out of the carrier with the other. Where's the positive in that you ask? The fact that she wasn't covered in poo. Cuz that's happened and that's even worse.
Shawn has even asked me as I rattle off all the positive things in a situation, if he can just complain or do I always have to find the good in something. I'll admit there are days where I just want to say, damnit, I just want to complain and whine and not find the positive in a situation but that doesn't last long because that's just a waste of time and precious energy.
4. Like Leslie, I got on a roll here. I LOVE my name. Mina Jane Habibi. Mina and Habibi are Persian. Mina, per my mom, translates as Little Yellow Flower and per my Aunt, is the word for the flower Aster. Habibi translates at sweetheart or my darling. Jane was my mother, grandmother and I believe my great-grandmother's middle name, so there's a bit of history there. And I like how it balances out the exotic with the simple. A long, long time ago in another life I was married to someone else and I changed my last name to his. Ugh. It never went and I feel like it affected who I was. As soon as we were divorced I changed it back and will never change it again.
There you go:) I'm passing this onto The Capricious Yogi, who nearly every time she writes something I'm like I was just thinking that!
I'm clearly not as comfortable in front of the camera as I am behind it. Yep, this is me:) One way I kind of convinced my friend to pose for me was that I told her that we could take some pics of me too. So here I am.
Almost caught up too! But really, will I ever be "caught up"? It seems that more and more things are happening and I don't want to miss out on any of it. How do I find a good balance?
So just a few more days to catch up:) I have some great photos from the weekend. I just have to figure some things out. Like how to open them! I tried something new, shooting RAW. And I need some sort of plug-in update or a converter so I can open the photos. And of course, I'm strapped for time already anyway. Hopefully tomorrow. I'm anxious to see the photos!!
I saw this post over at Indy Girl and thought it would be fun to do. I came across her blog not too long ago when I was logging into mine and hers was listed as a blog of note. Anyway, here's what's in my bag. And on top of that, here's some insight to who I am. 
The bag is a Sak bag which I love and I won it! I like the style of it. Since I have to carry a purse because the crap you are about to see needs some mode of transportation, I prefer to go with simple more messenger style bags. This one isn't quite like that but close enough. I don't care for a ton of pockets and straps and stuff. Note kitty who had to be up in my business while I was trying to do this. At one point he was rolling around in the middle of everything. And his moniker is ... Leonard T. Kat. 
Next is all the crap puked out of the bag. Every now and then, well, more often than not, when I'm trying to find something that I know is in there, I will dump the entire contents out so I can find whatever I'm looking for. This is what that looks like. My left brain is screaming for some sort of order to this but I can't seem to figure anything out. Or actually my right brain is just like, relax, it's all good and out of chaos comes, well something.
Here's the insight ... I'm an artist with a strong left brain. Typically artists are very right brained people random, intuitive, fluid. Which I can be. But the left side of my brain wants the order and structure. The bag and it's contents are a small look at what the rest of me is like. My desk, my house, etc... I crave order and structure but somehow can't seem to find it 100%. I try to be organized but chaos ultimately rules. However, I'm very logical and analytical at the same time. My archives of files are very structured. The way I name files. Things like that. But I'm a Gemini, the Twins, two total opposites in one. That's me!
But back to the bag. So we've got a wallet, a checkbook (which usually isn't in the bag) and a change purse. The change purse is in there because change would just fall out of the wallet and make an even bigger mess in the bottom of the bag.
Then there's some jewelry. Worn to work but had to be taken off after work. I usually put jewelry in the zippered pouch so it gets some protection. And of course, kitty up in my business. 
Here is the crystal that I've carried with me for quite some time. I can't even remember how long. Possibly as long as 10 years. Maybe longer. It's there for energy, intuition and wisdom. 
Then we have lip balm, Burts Bees, which is awesome. I've never been a chapstick person. Didn't care for the waxiness and texture but this is way better than chapstick. It was purchased to take the place of the vaseline style lip stuff that's been empty since February. Why is it still in the bag? I have no idea, but it's not anymore.
There's a lipstick and a sparkly lip tint. Hand sanitizer, ibuprofen, vitamins and the solid colognes. Those are the bomb. Pacifica Thai Lemongrass and Egyptian Bergamot Rose. Mmmm ... I love these.
And finally, random receipts, which for some reason cats love to play with. I think it's the crunchy paper noise they make. And my work badge (note the dork look:) and a flash drive. There you have it. On any given day there might be more crap crammed in there. Sunglasses, ipod, ipod cord, etc... But that's what was in it today.
So, what's in your bag?
Happy Independence Day! I wasn't thinking the other day when I made a post about fireworks. Duh ... 4th of July is in a few days and that's the perfect photo for the post I'm doing. Oh, well, here's another. Next time I'm definitely using a tripod.
So on 4th of July we celebrate the independence of America. We party and shoot off fireworks. It's tradition. It's for our nation's freedom. And there are a lot of nations out there without the same freedoms as ours. Where you can't gather to protest. Where you can't say what's on your mind. Where you're not safe. Where your life is at the mercy of a lunatic. Because of where you live. I think we all know this.
But there's also our personal independence that we should celebrate and be grateful for. Do we ever really think about that? What it would be like to be dependent? From a few months after we are born, we begin asserting our independence. Then by the time we are mobile, we're ready to go. Be free of the binds that tie us down, playpens, cribs, etc... As we get older we want to go off by ourselves, ride our bikes across town, go out with our friends alone, make our own decisions.
After spending your childhood gaining your independence and then reveling in it as an adult, what would happen if suddenly you lost it? What would you do if one day you were dependent on someone for everything? What would you do if you couldn't do what you want when you want? Like, go upstairs and get yourself a beer. Or, worse than that, get up and go to the bathroom. As much as we don't want this, I think we all know that this may happen when we are old. Like 90 old. And some of us spend our youth trying to make sure this won't happen.
But what if it happens to you when you're 43? When you're in the prime of your life? Shawn and I can speak to this from experience. On January 23 he became 100% dependent on me or at least someone for everything. E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G.
It's only in looking back that I can realize how bad it was. At the time I was just going and doing and functioning without thinking. Thinking might have brought me down. I can't imagine what was going through Shawn's mind. He couldn't move. He was paralyzed. His first step of independence came when he was able to feed himself with the help of some tools to go on his utensils. That was within a week.
By the time he came home in March he still was VERY dependent on me. While he could get himself sitting in bed, he needed my help to be propped up. He needed my help to get in and out of the wheelchair. He needed my help to get dressed. He needed my help to go to the bathroom and take a shower. And so much of what I did or wanted to do was dependent on him. What time I could go to bed was a big one.
But as time has passed Shawn in regaining his strength also regained his mobility and thus his independence. Funny how our mobility and our independence are so intimately tied together.
Nearly 6 months later the only thing Shawn is dependent on me is bringing him stuff. We call it the "List of Demands." Soon he will be able to make it upstairs easily and get himself a snack or beer. Soon he will be walking again. Soon he will be driving again. Soon he will be lugging again.
So this Independence Day, take a moment and honor your personal freedoms, like being able to go to the bathroom by yourself. I know I am.
Seems I'm just a little obsessed with taking photos of the lovely flowers in the cool bottles with buddha. It's always so zen that I just can't help myself.
Yesterday was my birthday. 46! Damn. I'm one of those people that loves my birthday and celebrating it. It's my special day so why the hell not. I don't work on my birthday. I think the last time I did was 2001. As long as I can remember I have tried to take off several days surrounding my birthday or perhaps an entire week. This year, since my birthday was on a Sunday, I figured a 3 day weekend would be sufficient. Anyway, this weekend marked two years since Lucy Poo joined our family. And while I don't have a photo tribute to her, I do have this http://www.youtube.com/user/pyle2atearthlink#p/u/6/ZeZZClsY6W8. This was one of my birthday presents from Shawn. I could watch this all day. My silly kitties. And we don't actually have 4 kitties now, 2 of them have passed away. We are actually thinking about getting a new kitty to join our family.
And one of my other presents from Shawn was a big, standing hug. We've certainly shared some hugs since he's been home from the hospital, but it's hard to get good hug while he's sitting in the wheelchair. So yesterday, we helped him to stand up with no walker or bars or anything. Then while I helped to support him just a little we got to share our first, standing hug in over 5 months. This was one of the best birthday presents ever. Just behind him being here this year to celebrate with me, because he might not have been. Shawn also isn't able to make it out of the house alone yet, so he had some challenges to surprise me for my birthday but there's obviously no challenge too great for him. While I ran out to the store he set all of this up:
Balloons, cool glass bottles, a new yoga mat and some kick ass wrist bands. Thanks to ebay and his mom, he pulled all of this off. And he set this up by himself. AND ... he made me a card with an awesome little poem. It was truly one of the best birthdays ever. And no birthday would be complete without cupcakes!
Jasmine blossoms at the feet of Kuan Yin. The blossoms drop from the jasmine towards the middle of the day, so there were a these beautiful little flowers laying on the deck. Their scent and beauty warranted something more than a trash can. And Kuan Yin is the Buddhist Bodhisattva of Compassion. Or at least that's one description. I think she also might be a Chinese goddess. Either way it just seems so appropriate to lay these as an offering to her.
One man's weed is another man's wonder.
Coming soon ... me. Soon, I will be back here. Shawn will be discharged from the hospital on Tuesday, March 9. Aside from the joy of him being home, there will also be more time. More time for everything. Because those 2 to 4 hours I've been spending at the hospital everyday, will open up. Yes, it's going to be overwhelming with him being home at first. But, we have already overcome some pretty extreme overwhelm. We'll get ourselves into a routine and find our new "normal."
His homecoming will also coincide very closely to the first day of Spring. Rebirth. For him, me and us. I can't wait to have him home. I can't wait to eat dinner with him in our sanctuary. I can't wait to pick up my camera. I can't wait to just sit and be. Just a few more days.
Everything in life is so fragile. Tonight I watched a neighbor's townhouse burn. In a matter of minutes, it went from me hearing a fire engine to looking out the window and seeing smoke coming out of townhouse up the street to that smoke getting thicker and blacker to flames in the front to flames engulfing the entire front and back of the house. The fire department was there and they put it out within another few minutes, the entire event, that I witnessed, probably happening over the course of 12 to 15 minutes. Those 15 minutes have changed the people who lived there, intensely and immediately. Their lives are now in a state of devastation and chaos. Their home, that protects them from the elements, provides them safe harbor and if they're anything like me is their oasis, gone in an instant. Fragile.
Fragile is defined as easily broken or damaged or delicate and vulnerable. Everything about us, our bodies, our homes, our lives are so fragile. My incredibly strong husband who could lift and move anything ... fragile. In an instant an infection got into his body and changed our lives forever. It didn't matter how strong he was because ultimately he was and we all are so vulnerable.
Luckily the people in the townhouse got out unharmed. The fire was caused by their dryer. Luckily for us, Shawn is alive, surviving the crisis that is our health care system (another post on that coming soon) and regaining physical strength. I'm shaken to the core after witnessing the fire tonight. It's just one more thing that reminds me of just how fragile we are.
If we think about this too much, we might never leave our homes. Somewhere along the line we have to have faith that things will be ok in spite of how vulnerable we are. Or that if things aren't ok we will find the strength to overcome it. I have found an insurmountable amount of strength throughout this ordeal. How is it that we can be so fragile yet so filled with strength at the same time?
Saturday evening, while I was snowed in, I decided I needed to do something to restore myself. Restore all the energy that's been flowing, actually rushing forth, to deal with everything that has been going on. In fact, Saturday ended up being an entire day of restoration. Sleeping in, working on photos, playing with kitties and making some paper hearts.
I got the idea from the Dancing Mermaid. And the thing about the paper hearts was that it was easy. All I had to do was get out some paper and scissors and go to town. There wasn't any big ordeal of prep, set up, clean up. And in that ease I found some peace. For the 30 minutes I was cutting out hearts and stringing them together, there was total silence. No questions, no jumping ahead, no going back. I was just right there.
The other part of her assignment was to give away the string of hearts. I'm sure it's fairly obvious who will be getting my string of hearts ... the same person that has my heart.
So this experience with Shawn's illness, surgery and now rehab is, of course, providing many, many lessons. I'm going to share those lessons from the last 3 weeks and will continue to share them as new ones pop up. Because I know more are coming.
Here we go:
Lesson #1: Dudes, please start taking your health seriously. Pay attention to your body. Tap into your intuition when it comes to your body. If your wife or girlfriend thinks you need to go to the doctor, please listen to her. She knows. Don't negotiate just go. Pain is the body's way of letting you know something is wrong.
Lesson #2: Ladies, don't let your dude negotiate his health care with you. Nag him to death if you have to because if you don't chances are he will let things slide until it's potentially too late. Pay attention for him even though you're telling yourself he's a big boy. I felt like Shawn was handling his crisis in spite of what my intuition was telling me. I thought about taking him to the ER that first weekend, when his only symptom was severe neck pain. I sure do wish I had. Maybe things would have been different, maybe not. But at least I would have done something.
Lesson #3: If you're in a relationship, write down all of your accounts, passwords, logins, etc ... You never know when one or the other of you is going to have to access all that. And get power of attorney now. That way if you want to know something medically you won't get the old HPPA bullshit. Especially if your s.o. can't speak/sign for themselves. Shawn and I have separate bank accounts and we split the household bills. I have my system and he has his. Know each other's systems because you really don't want to waste precious brain power on figuring it out. Know where each other keeps bills, records, etc... Understand what the other person is doing and how they contribute before something happens.
Lesson #4: Know where your s.o. keeps pants, socks, shirts, etc... Shawn does his laundry and I do mine. When I needed to find shorts, pj's, etc... to take to him, I had trouble doing that. Can you believe it? Now I have laundry of his that needs to be put away and I'm not sure where it needs to go. Once again, if I knew this, I wouldn't have to waste precious brain energy. As silly as it sounds, right now I'm wishing I knew this.
Ok, those are all the lessons I have for now. More to come. Hopefully something more profound.
And hopefully, I will be able to get some photos in soon. I'm ready to do some restorative things for myself, like picking up my camera.
Dear Universe,
You recently threw me a curve ball. But I'm not angry about it. I've accepted it for what it is. Obviously you have a Divine plan for me and my husband and I realize that. In fact, I can find gratitude in that curve ball that you've thrown. I'm grateful my husband is alive because what he had could have killed him. I'm grateful for every little bit of progress that he makes every single day. I'm grateful for all our friends and family and coworkers and complete strangers that have prayed for him and sent him healing energy and continue to do so. I'm grateful for my friends that have brought me food and helped me clean my house and clean our fish tanks and take me to the hospital in a snow storm. I'm grateful that I've been able to focus and get the household finances and logistics under control. I'm grateful that Shawn has disability insurance. I'm grateful that our health insurance is covering all of this so far. I'm grateful that my company is compassionate and flexible and understanding. I'm grateful that I get to come home to my kitties every night. I'm grateful for Shawn's amazingly positive attitude and determination. Clearly, I'm grateful for a lot. Because I know that the key to abundance is gratitude.
And this Divine plan of yours, well, I think it might bring more about than even you realize. First, it has made me love my husband even more than I thought possible. And I loved that man with all my might already. Second, Shawn's life is completely altered in an amazing way. He is going to come away from this a new man, as he said tonight, reborn, Shahin Sharifi, The Sequel. I can't even wait to see where this journey takes him and us but just based on his attitude it's going to be great places. And third, the pure inspiration that is coming out of this. Everyone is inspired by my amazing husband. I'm inspired by him in ways I never thought possible. Honestly, if your Divine plan was for Shawn to somehow change this world, well, your gonna get it.
But dear Universe, just like I have to take the good with the bad, well, so do you. And here is my gripe to you. More snow? Are you kidding me? And I'm not being funny here. Did I really need the extreme anxiety of driving home in snow last night, on dark roads, barely able to see, fearful that would skid off the road into a ditch at 9pm at night? Was that in the Divine plan? I don't think I needed that and I really don't see how it taught me anything. And Universe, you know how I'm all about life's adversities being our teachers. And I did write on the gratitude board that I was thankful I made it home safely.
And then this morning, I was actually going to do something restorative for myself and pick up my camera and take a picture of your little snow from last night, because it was pretty. Until, I opened the door and realized, oh yeah, I have to clean off my steps and car and dig out of that stupid snow before I could go to work. So, no, I didn't take any photos of that stupid ass fucking snow. Oh, and was it really, really necessary for that stupid ass fucking snow to keep falling off the trees in clumps onto my head? I mean right now, little tiny things, like having a decent hair day can be pretty huge for me, but no, large clumps of snow had to keep falling on my head, EVERYWHERE I went.
And now there's another FOOT TO TWO FEET coming our way???? What the fuck? Universe, surely you realize that it's so, so important to me to be able to see my husband in the hospital. Why are you making it more difficult for me to do so? And surely you know how much I've had to take on and get done but now I'm going to have to shovel out the car and steps and sidewalk AGAIN???? I sure could use that time for other things.
So dear Universe, I am begging for this snow to not come, if at all possible. Maybe I've got some anger that I'm wrongly taking out on the snow and if that's the case I promise to deal with that. Maybe you're sending it to force me to stay home and if that's the case I promise to back off some and reassess how my time is being spent and spend some more time at home. That's just really hard right now, as you should well know, I mean it is your Divine plan after all.
Ok, that's it. Thank you for listening. I guess I just needed to vent.
Sincerely,
Mina
