What once was

I deleted about 30 contacts from my contact list in my phone. Yes. 30. I'm a hanger onner. No matter the story, I hang on to what once was. It is as if all of my memories will also be deleted if I let go. I'm afraid of letting go. I'm afraid of wounding you or letting you down if I let go of what once was. But today as I scrolled through my contacts and clicked delete I processed each one.

Two things have brought this freedom phase and processing on. This internal nesting if you will.

One is that a few dear friends are giving us a Blessing Way for this new baby about to arrive and have asked for an invite list. And the two being Lakoda's co-op homeschool has offered to be 100% safe for Nyah to go to their mamas day out program. Not just the mamas day out program but the entire school will be fairy safe. From almost strangers we receive this gift of normalcy for Nyah. So I process and I weep. I anguish over what once was and it my friend, has kept my flight low to the ground for 2 years. Wet feathers are awfully heavy.

Before I begin. This is a clearing and preparing of my own heart. If it pains you to read it and see the truth of our season I humbly say I'm sorry if it hurts. I have come to my blog numerous times wanting to air my laundry to set myself free and had yet to find the words or the soft heart to do so.
But today something happened. I am no longer ashamed of us. Of our dark season. Of my weakness and humanity. I am no longer ashamed to stand firm on my boundary line and level my capacity. Today I free myself and am holding my feathers out to dry. I am no longer ashamed of Nyah's allergies that have been too big of a burden for so many to carry.

So as I thoughtfully deleted contacts today and yesterday I forgave each person for whatever that story is. This process has been so huge that I even deleted the phone number of my dearest friend who killed himself over 10 years ago. That one stung alot but what in the hell is the point in having a number of a friend who will never call? What is the point of holding a heart bond with a friend whom you haven't spoken to in over a year? So, I choose to let go. To set you and me free today. I no longer hold on to hope of rekindling what once was.

Forgiveness today begins with myself. Yep. Lots of it. Are you ready for this?

I wish we had a firm name for our son because I could honestly say this has been in honor of him as I've been preparing my heart for his arrival.

So on to the forgiving part. Forgiving myself for the feeling of failure as a parent of a child with a disability. Yes I've felt it and been made to feel it by others. Like we or I did something wrong while pregnant or nursing to cause her deadly peanut allergy or the dairy allergy that plagued us for almost 2 full years. Rejoicing that we have moved past that dairy one. Whewhoooo.

I forgive myself for taking your comments and suggestions to much to heart, like "God doesn't allow these types of things to happen to those that He loves" and believing that as truth in the dark. Really! I fully forgive you for saying that and I forgive myself for allowing that one sentence to sink its claws deep 2 years ago and letting it riddle my heart with doubt. I forgive myself for believing my whole life that God was a puppet master that controls everything and I forgive you for making me feel that we were being punished by Him with our magnitude of loss, crazy and dark season. I forgive you for telling me that Josh and I must have really pissed God off or that we've got some major issues to resolve with God because that's why all of this happened anywho, you know. I wonder if we know the same God?
That alone is a whole other blog entry just waiting to happen.

Even in forgiveness I found moments of profound anger in my heart for all the wounds given to us even if people did it unknowingly.
Anger for being left out and uninvited. I forgive you. For being rejected and not known. For your not being around to see through the dark with us or for you not lighting a match to help reveal a path. I totally forgive you.
For the church that seemingly turned its back on us when the word spoken a million times over is community. I forgive you. You really are beautiful and I had set an unrealistic expectation on community that you could not sustain. Please forgive me for holding this standard of you and thinking you could walk out community differently than you did.
For the hush hush in my families voice when we've found out we've not been invited to family functions. For working too hard at having a family event safe for Nyah. For making the sting of having a child with a disability even louder when family has at times chosen platters of cheese over a kiss and a hug from a radiant little life giver.
I forgive you.

I'm no longer pining for you to accept, love and value us and hoping to rekindle what has been lost in translation. Please forgive me for taking so long to fully forgive you and set you free.

Hell yes. Today I take flight from this pattern in my life.

There was incredibly beautiful day in August after I miscarried. I dug through the trash to retrieve our baby who was an inch and a half long. I found her and heard a name for her and I took her tiny little body into our home and wept as I looked over her perfected form already begun. All of this time I felt like we were being punished and in one moment as I held her, I was free. Free of your lies and free of my own. Free to see a face of Jesus that I really could only see after the darkness fell. The true image of Jesus is not found through the words of men. Fact. It was since that day that I have processed and overcome our darkness and had to let go of what once was. So today my wet feathers are drying and I can see them full of glitter like they once were. As we came into the light after such darkness I realized that I could have survived it no other way.

Early on in our season Josh felt strongly that God was trusting us with this hard season. Not as a punishment but as a gift. Like he knew we could handle it.
That was a hard word to swallow but I will say this, it was absolute truth.

I am so very grateful to have walked the road from beginning to end with a small handful of people and to have met new people in the middle. People who not only allowed us to be raw with them but they allowed us to be needed. This is HUGE! When you're alone and its dark sometimes the best antidote is to be needed. To have the opportunity to have your eyes off of yourself and by pouring over other people it is then that we have the chance to see the beauty of where we are. We often placed ourselves into position to be needed and it was lovely. When this handful of people would come over or call in need and needed us to speak truth and love over them and encourage them even out of our dark place it brought out immense joy. "To love and be loved is perhaps the greatest desires of the soul. " ~some author from somewhere
To those who allowed us, Thank you for needing us when we felt so unlovely and unwanted.

Two years ago I had a way different vision of the way I would have liked things to go for us. I would have loved have stayed in our cozy church filled with good people and to have stayed integrally involved with my friends but God so had other plans. I needed to be fully present and fairly alone to work my way through the dark and I think I did it quicker this way. My heart is grateful that so much was stripped from me because Lord knows I never would have let go. I can now look back on our season and feel wildly blessed with it all.

As I have processed and done my internal nesting today I am filled with crazy joy and delight. The birth of our son is the new chapter promised and as we smell his downy head may we be reminded of all of the loss and joys of the season that has finally come to an end. And by coming to an end, let me clarify. Nothing has changed with our circumstances really but its the eyes of my heart that have changed. I am fully aware of the beauty of the cup given to us.

duplexin

Yesterday I read this on a friends facebook pg and it soothed my mind as it took the thoughts out of my head and into words that I could finally understand! Ann is an amazing creative real woman who I admire and to be honest I stopped reading her blog posts in my "hard" because I couldn't quite go there. So when I read the following words I wept like a baby, as if someone had thrown the door to my heart wide open and gale force winds came rushing in! 


“There’s only one address anyone lives at and it’s always a duplex: Joy and pain always co-habit every season of life.  Accept them both and keep company with the joy while the pain does it’s necessary renovations.” ~Ann Voskamp


I want to be intentional and real! I have even considered starting a blog, just for me, a place where there is no judgement of my ideals, struggles or passions. No one will be there to critique my misspellings in life! 
But as you would expect from me, I am here with everything on my sleeve, as Josh encouraged me to!
I called this blog Quilted Feathers, a patchwork of days, for a reason and it's here that I hope you settle up with a tissue or a cup of hawt cawfee and enjoy the sights and sounds of my everyday, Again! 
So here it is, jan 3rd and I am sort of , kind of beginning to see a glimpse of glittery hope. This hope was lost in the shuffle for quite some time. Almost 2 yrs of a very dry hard season left me speechless with only an utterance of choking on my tears. I found out fairly quickly that your body can only endure so much and then it collapses! Uh, I mean, really collapses! As in out right, Zero tolerance or grace or cognitive reasoning not to mention not a whole lot of joy.
I won't go into the hardship of my season because I want to spare you the horror of the "hard!" Instead I want to offer you a glimpse of my learning and growth, the burnt yellow turning newly green, beauty from ashes. I am in no means in the clear, out of the woods, sitting beside streams of life at the moment but I feel that freedom is close. My head is beginning to see things the way I am designed to not the way I have learned to! Interesting, eh? 


Let's get back to the phrase that inspired me to come back into my blog in the first place. “There’s only one address anyone lives at and it’s always a duplex: Joy and pain always co-habit every season of life.  Accept them both and keep company with the joy while the pain does it’s necessary renovations.” 
The strongest words in the whole thing was the little bit  about "Accept them both and keep company with joy while pain does its necessary renovations!" Believe it or not, as much as I sing out loud about not fighting the current in life and learning to swim in the wild surf, I had thrown out all of my own ideas on the "hard". I forgot how to dance and leap and swim in the tides with the undercurrent grabbing at my toes! I was, still am, much like Job, who could encourage the broken but had a hard time on his own knees!  I suppose I had a moment of clarity as I read this piece. Clarity that indeed pain herself can make renovations, making something new, turning junk into art, an old house into a masterpiece! Instead of seeing a renovation, a grace going on, I saw my "pain" breaking me into a bazillion pieces and shaking my core and watching her deconstruct me totally! She in fact has been doing renovations, how insanely beautiful!


This is the first step into writing again, bare with me as I spout off, add my 2 cents and come back again when time allows. My children decided that instead of 2 hr naps today they will call 45minutes good. For this I choose JOY! 

On conversations with my 3 yr old son

on being grateful: 

Me: Hey Koda, we need to be so grateful for all the things that we have! There are a lot of kids, mama's and daddies who don't have apples, or food or a toothbrush, toys and Koda some kids don't even have a house. So we always need to be grateful for the thigns that we do have.

Koda: Sorry for being not patient for my apple, I am grateful for it now. But why don't they have toys or food?

Me: It's kind of hard to explain but sometimes daddies and mama's loose jobs or are just having a hard time, so they go without a lot of things when they don't have money. Does that make sense? 

Koda: yea, makes sense, but why don't they have toys? Can we buy them dinosaurs from the thrift store for Christmas and can I give them my towel and bed and toys? I don't need any of those things that I have. 

Me: would you like to buy toys and a few other things for some kids who don't have many things coming for Christmas ?

Koda: Oh yea let's do it! But instead of buying dinosaurs, let's buy them a house! That way they don't have to live under the bridge and their daddies dont' have to ask for money on the corner! 

GO BIG OR GO HOME! 

On killing animals: 

koda: who was that you were talking to? 

Me: Uncle Jeff, he killed a big big mule deer in Montana that weighed more than he does!

Koda: WHAT? uncle jeff can't kill animals! God made animals to walk, and stomp and play and growl, NOT KILL! 

Me: Oh Man, Koda, well, Uncle Jeff and pawpaw went hunting for food. Uncle jeff killed that deer so he will have meat in his freezer like we do. 

Koda: WHAT are you talking about, mama? 

Me: well, see, you know when we eat red meat, that's the cow that the farmer raised for us, you know, the guy who delivers our meat to the parking lot?

Koda: oh yea yea......... 

Koda: So beef.... is cow and so..... Chicken is real CHICKENS? 

We may be rasiing a vegetarian! 

On black smoke: 

Koda: Oh mama, make that truck pull over so I can tell him that that black smoke from his pipe is bad for the earth and he needs to fix it!

On the city tagging trees in our river bed:

Koda: Hi Mr, Um, you can't put ribbons on our trees out here! My daddy says if you tag them then you will probably cut them down! And if you cut them down, it will make our yard fall into the river and the air will be nasty because trees clean our air, so you can take those ribbons off!

TREE HUGGER for a thousand alex! 

On fear and fretting ramble

Last night I cried in our bed as I nursed Nyah who woke with a 101.9 temp at 10pm. I realized as she woke and I walked to her room with my double inner ear infection that I am tired!

It's been an incredibly long year of one huge hard thing after another. From my deep darkness after Nyah was born into 113 days of nail biting with Lakoda having Whooping cough and not knowing if he would take another breath. Some times I wondered if He would turn pink again after he would turn dark purple and cough up huge amounts of frothy whooping cough phlem! just horrid! We've had ups and downs of sickness and Josh's serious hours and demands at work that has made us aware of the value of family and almost coming to the point of desiring half the pay check to have less stress! I had my 6wks of broken foot which allowed me the joy of knowing just what I was made of as I cooked dinner on crutches and nursed a fairy all at the same time! More struggles with depression set back in soon after the Whooping cough was over and crisis mode was over and then in March.....we felt the magnitude of finding out we were expecting again only to, a few days later lose twins who were already about 10wks!

And now the biggest and what feels like the hardest thing in our lives so far begins on is this. We have been going through batteries of tests and talking with specialist about what may be going on with Lakoda's belly. Back mid Dec he started complaining of stomach pains at random times and those stomach pains over the wks and months have grown more severe. We've done everything from holistic healing to prescribed meds and so far nothing has helped and there is no answer yet. A few wks back the stomach pain got so bad that Lakoda grew really withdrawn, his eyes were sunken and he just looked totally miserable. He also had an episode at the grocery store, acting like something was exploding inside, that landed us in the ER. The following days he got poked and prodded by Dr's that gave us heavy hearts for out boy.

Fast forward a few wks and a lot tears, we enter the big week. On Thursday Lakoda will go into the hospital for exploratory stuff to get the answers and a better view, I mean, better view through a colonoscopy and a similar test done through the mouth. Lakoda will come our of recovery with a tube in his nose, taped to his cheek, up over his ear and taped down his back attached to a monitor. The coolest part is that he has to wear this monitor for 48hrs, if it survives in its proper place for this period of time, we get to yank the tube out at the end of that time frame, throw it in the trash and return the monitor to the hospital for reading! Nice eh? Have you ever hung out with a 3 yr old bright eyed boy? This is probably the most horrifying part of the whole ordeal, oh yeah, and not to mention the totally clear liquid diet for 24+ hrs prior to surgery! Clear liquids like juice, jello, homemade juice ice pops! He'll so adore this diet because he rarely gets sugars!
While on topic, did you know that 4 tsps of sugar lowers your immune system for 10hrs?
And this my friend is not the kind of information that I adore to know, because of all places to go after a sugar high and a weak immune system, a hospital! Perhaps my worst nightmare after an all sugar diet! Bahahah, guess its just one more way to TRUST and REST!

The Dr's are looking at Celiacs, early onset of Crohns Disease and a host of other things that may be causing this constant pain. One of the tests showed a, what they are calling a "mass" in his colon! We will soon find out what the suffering is caused by.
So yea, I am just good old fashioned tired. Tired of the constant need for strength, need for help, need for grace, need for patience, need for prayer and support. I am the helper, healer, the one who craves to bless, cover and take meals to everyone else BUT I hate being the one in need! My parents have been so amazing and supportive and pawpaw has come over , oh my gosh, probably once a week since March to care for us in one way or another! He said it's all for the Glory and loves being used and able to bless us but all I can feel is, he has already raised me once now he cares for me again! Just makes me sad. I want him to just come play with us, for us to get to know each other better as we grow older, instead he is here while I am in the throws of one thing or another.

Fearful yes but in the same breath I feel hopeful! Fearing the worst case scenario, what if it's cancer, is there anything worse than that? Well, then maybe it could be that, since cancer is the darkest image and cause that I can conjure up! Oh and the images in my mind of how simple and easy or how crazy huge the outcome of these tests could be! Like if it were cancer what our holistic approach would be over modern medicine recommendations OH and the the trouble that could cause!
The hope part feels a little small at times! Small as in hoping it's an easy fix, God is in control and we will just have to take a lot of things out of his organic diet! I really wish that I had these things reversed. That the hope was this huge beautiful chat and that the fear was simply "I am fearful!"
I am so aware that it takes way more energy staying positive and trusting and that going down the "what if" road!We have no other choice but to ride this wave, in no way can we get off right now as much as I so want to! 
I processed a lot of this with Josh last night, Oh yea I cried and felt like smashing something. I felt so angry... like grit my teeth angry which is so not in my make up nor character!
I was angry about Nyah being sick again, about me having inner ear infections, Meniere's Disease, Josh's demands at work and now the icing on this cake is Lakoda's stuff! I've been angry with how this is not what I imagined for our little life and family. I've been angry about how I feel like we deserve a break, to come up out of the ocean swell, just for a minute to breathe! I WANT TO CATCH MY BREATH and I'm tired of being caught in the the undertoe or rip tide!

I'm a feeler, a healer, a dreamer.

I grew up hearing that there is a cause to everything and things don't just happen.
When I was really impressionable my youth pastor at our church would share the "scare you to Heaven" stories and how if caught in a hard season then the first thing to check is my heart, my sin! Like somehow Jesus Himself would inflict pain and misery at the drop of a hat if I remotely got out of line. This doctrine has jacked me and is one of the many things I have to unlearn as a wife and mama! This has given me yrs of fighting God when "it hit the fan" because it gave me no room nor freedom to just rest when walking a hard season out as life sometimes just offers.


A few sweet elders at our church came over on Sun night at our request for prayer, healing and covering. My pastor and a few sweet sisters were all sitting in front of Josh and I on the floor when my pastor looked me square in the eye and told me this 'Jen, just like we are grieving with you in this, Jesus is weeping with you right now too!"
What? Wait, hold the phone! Jesus is weeping and in this right now?! How bizarre that I have never ever seen Him in this light! I have never considered that my situation grieves Him too.Yes, I know He sits with me as I wonder and He walks the halls at night as we sleep! He is our Keeper, the One who calls the stars out into the sky each night and calls them all by name! How cool eh? But I mean, I am just a girl, to consider that this huge all knowing Maker cares and cries with me, is the same One who orchestrates the seasons, the rising of the sun and moon and delivers all things into their purpose!

I feel that in a hard season we have two options, we can either embrace the hardness, unknown, fear and anger and learn to be at rest in it and get to see a different side of Yahweh or we can run into our minds and wrestle and spiral out of control into the funk!
My old Jamaican friend always said "a patient mohn ride donkey!" I never have like jack asses all that much but ride them well now.

I want to rest and have peace again! I mean real true live PEACE! I have not had crazy still peace in years and it makes me so sad! Today I am choosing the path of stillness as I can not in any way control the outcome of the wave. I can only ride it and control my reaction to it!

me and weight

look at that skinny booty! 

Update, Jan 2012. I've been at this weight loss deal for over 10 months and am down a wild and crazy 64lbs and think I'm done! And I am thinking I will return to being a vegetarian! The wee red dress that was kind of a little goal of mine is now too loose to wear! Hahahaha, maybe I'll have to gain a few lbs to have it fit like it did on our wedding day!

Ok, let's get it out in the open, like boxers and clean diapers on the line for all my neighbors to see!
I am 6' 1" with,what Josh callsfierce curves or as some just call it thick! I have been told pretty much my whole life "oh you must have been great in sports or MAN I bet you smoked the volleyball net!" thank you for thinking so but NO! That was not me!
I was the girl into rock climbing, writing letters to friends, learning about holistic health, hiking mtns in NY, road trips and such, NOT into sports one bit unless is was watching hockey on the tube.
So, let's start with it! We do organic, grass fed blah blah blah as much as possible so one might expect me to be thin. Hmmm, I currently am under the impression that my weight has not as much to do with what I am eating but more about how much I am eating.
OK, OK, for any of you hiefers reading this right now saying "so awesome, Jen just gave me the rights of passage to eat an my ice cream cake" stop reading and find another blog!
I have gone through seasons of wicked intense activity which burns alot of junk, I once was a runner of 3 miles a day and felt like a goddess even if at a higher weight! In this picture I was a size 10 and still 40lbs over the suggested medical weight for my height!

But I have also found seasons, like right after my back injury at the youth shelter in 05. I was laid up for 6months, not active and had gotten into bad patterns of not eating much food which in turns slows the metabolism. Stress hormones latch onto food and will not allow it to burn as it should as it does in a healthy burning frame of reference! The metabolism gets all sluggish creating a whole new hawt mess because then when I did decide to eat, no matter how fabulous and healthy my choice, without a fired metabolism things gets stored wrong! My fat turns to just that, PHAT. Even if I used organic grapeseed and used very little, without a burning metab. my veggies nutrients get routed elsewhere, fat is fat and gross is begets gross! And when I don't feed my metabolism my body has no interest in food and has no real hunger!






My old daily pattern of food:
7:45am: breakfast, hot coffee that actually gets enjoyed cold, around 11am.
11:30am: lunch, make lunch for kiddos and grab a handful of almonds for me.
3pm: snack, sliced apples, almond butter and chunks of cheese for the kids.
5:45 dinner: quinoa, smoked chicken, grilled brussel sprouts.

My new pattern: oh the meat!
7:45am: breakfast, 6 oz of milk, one scrambled egg with green peppers diced super tiny, cooked in a half tbl organic coconut oil and a slice of toast
already feeling ravenous
9am: snack: a whole organic apple
11:45: lunch, 6oz grilled chicken breast, 2cups raw organic broccoli or other veg or one cup cooked veg.
1:30pm: another snack, an organic orange
5:45: dinner, 6oz grass fed and finished smoked beef, 1 cup cooked cabbage, one apple
I work over 3 Nalgenes a day which equals my 10 , 8oz glasses of water!

And that is that! As you can see the only form of diary in my ways for now is milk with breakfast! I'm not doing any cheese, so very sad, salad dressing, no salt on every single bite, no butta, no beer, NO SUGA either, which i miss that and salt desperately and still feel the call of that wild!

As the 3wks have passed I have grown to enjoy my routine and have been feeling way way better about life. Not just because I am turning my leaf and thinning my junk out I'm not struggling with depression anymore and have a radiating energy. All from feeding my metabolism the way it was designed to work, from being hydrated and looking at food differently. Yes, it does feel a little boring at times but adore.
I made a smoked chicken salad tonight that I could sell!

6 smoked chicken breasts tossed into the food processor, 3 Tbl olive oil mayo, 2 cloves garlic, 1 Tbl mustard, 1 tsp smoked chipotle powder and a lite dash of salt! It was killer!

Josh and I always have these talks about the recipes I come up with in my head and how much one would pay for such goodness. If I ever owned a restaurant as he wants me too or a little granola bistro this would be on the menu.
Another quick easy remix for dinner for everyone else was
Make quinoa as instructed on pkg. let it do it's thang on the stove then toss in chunks of smoked chicken breast, a lg handful of organic raisins, handful of fresh pineapple chunks, 3 cloves of garlic diced sm, dash of cumin and smoked chipotle powder, curry powder, black pepper and a dash of lite salt!

can you dig it?

A Breech in the System

The trailer for this documentary is crazy amazing! A Breech In The System follows one Auzzi mama's dream to deliver naturally and without a C-section. This captures a bit of her journey. If you're sensitive to birthing images, I would suggest you not watch. However, it's an incredible story and I'm looking forward to watching the whole thing! If you've watched the Business of Being Born then this is must see! WOW huh?

LEMON & ZUCCHINI cookies

I figured with summer approaching that I'd share one of my favorite summa time cookie recipes.Ok OK, it's almost summer here anyways. Some of you yutes in the N. East prob just cussed at my post. Once it hits the 80's in March and my dog begins to blow her winter coat I know what is on the swaying horizon.
Feel free to make changes based on your flour or sugar pref.

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• a pinch'ish of salt
• 3/4 cups unsalted butter, room temp
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 Egg
• 2 Tbl. fresh lemon zest
• 1 cup shredded zucchini

How to: 
oven to 350.  In a big bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt then build a well for my other wet ingred's. In a smaller bowl combine butter, egg and sugar w/ a mixer, beat until it fluffs, pour into well and mix and only beat til the flour is combined add lemon zest and zucchini.
Then drop by rounded teaspoon onto a cookie sheet and bake for 14 to15 minutes, or until edges of cookie are golden.