Uncle Fred's Visit and Meditations on Family

This here post is inspired by a visit from my big brother. He came to Ohio for a short summer visit last week – all the way from Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was GREAT to see him though it was a shorty-short visit. I got a little bit down after the family gathering on Saturday. This happens to me after every family gathering or visit comes to an end. It’s like I get this vague sense of loss and sorrow, almost like grief and I know it’s irrational but it takes a day or two to shed those feelings.

Don’t get me wrong, I think I’m pretty lucky in the sense that family gatherings and visits are not strained or forced and we all enjoy each other’s company and the comfortable camaraderie of long-standing family ties. BUT, there is no doubt that the airtight bonds that once existed between us are much more loosely structured now. We can go for LONG stretches without a call or any communication beyond sharing photos, videos and random blurbs on Facebook or via e-mail and we rarely seem to really TALK with each other about what’s going on in our lives. We all live and lead very separate lives and we all get VERY busy and caught up in them – which, I think, is pretty common. But who would’ve thought when we were all kids that we would wind up so separated from each other – it would’ve been unthinkable to us. Just as my own kids

This last visit from Fred was a really sweet visit and it was so, so, so good to reconnect with Fred. I think we each spent some good time with him (i.e. he had time alone with Cyndi’s family, Mom and my family). And, we all got to hang out with him and each other on Saturday – minus Cyndi’s’ husband and mine, who both had to work. It was nice being all together except for the large gap caused by the absence of my sister Dee and her family. They live in Atlanta, GA and could not make the trip so it wasn’t a complete reunion of Mom and us kids.  

Anyway – I love my mom, my brother and both my sisters very, very much and I’m confident in their love for me. But when any of us finally get together and spend some “face-time” with each other – I wind up feeling the loss of those early bonds very much. It also calls to mind how fleeting the essential nature of the relationship my kids have with each other and with me and Clark is – this time is precious. All too soon they will evolve and change into independent, intelligent young adults with lives of their own. I WANT that for them. It’s what I work for, what all parents work for when they love their children. That being said, I’m sure a large dose of nostalgia will develop alongside the independence we seek to foster in our children. Looooooong sigh.

So, enough on my yen for the past and the repetition of this natural cycle in my own family, I finally put down in writing the feelings I have about the shifting nature of key family relationships. We did, indeed, enjoy our time with Fred. The kids adore him and so do I. I hope he knows how much he means to me. I hope my mom and my sisters know how much they mean to me. I can recall my feelings and memories of each of them through my childhood eyes. I can clearly recapture the sharp, overwhelming love I felt for Mom and the matter-of-fact acknowledgement of love between all of us kids so that, even in the midst of rage or exasperation with one another, it was simply understood that we loved one another. All is well peeps and I acknowledge my blessings.

I also culled some footage together from Fred’s visit and the Saturday “cookout” to create a video record of this visit – I’m quite pleased with how it turned out too! You can view it on my ColorMeKooky YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie9Wrs8D2rc&feature=plcp

Cherish your family peeps – with all your might ;-)

WHY the Drastic Change In the Family Diet???

In October 2011, just after his 5th birthday, my son Jack was diagnosed with Vitiligo - an autoimmune disease where the body's immune system starts attacking itself. Sounds pretty scary but, in this case, thank God, it attacks the pigment of the skin. So it can be unsightly, but it's not harmful to the physical health of it's victims.

BUT - it can be VERY harmful to the emotional well-being of it's victims so it's infuriating to hear the pat line about it not being a health risk and discovering that treatments are very rarely covered by insurance because it's "cosmetic". This condition is not very well known until you mention "it's the skin condition Michael Jackson had" and then you get the spark of recognition from folks. We are actually very lucky - Jack has a very small amount of de-pigmented skin on his back - only one spot is large enough to be noticeable and the few others are so small that only a mother (namely me) could spot them. He's also very fair skinned (except in the summer when he turns nut-brown and that damn spot really sticks out. In darker skinned people it can be so much more apparent and it often occurs in highly visible areas on the face, hands, neck...the areas that are highly visible to one and all.

In our case, Jack had a noticeable patch of really, REALLY white skin on his back that I first noticed when he was 2 1/2 to 3 years old, I assumed it was a birthmark and didn't worry about it. Over the course of that year I noticed that it seemed to get larger, I just figured it was stretching with his skin as he grew. My mom (whose even more of a worrier than me) was pretty concerned about though and that got me worrying as well so I made up my mind to mention it to my pediatrician at his 5-year check up. Long story short - we found out that it was Vitiligo. I actually figured it out through tons of research before-hand, thank goodness because the dermatologist/specialist we saw was NOT forthcoming at all. I honestly don't think he was going to tell us what it was at all but I kept throwing out information and questions based on my own research and he didn't seem very happy about it but couldn't deny any of it and reluctantly admitted that it was Vitiligo. I could write a whole post about that visit to the dermatologist and his utter lack of concern. And, the stupid/dangerous treatment he prescribed - thank God I researched that too before administering it on my son. Anyway, I digress...
I couldn't STAND the thought of my beautiful boy being disfigured and struggling with self-esteem and the awful treatment other kids (and even adults) so often dish out. I still can't. But I do know that Jack is in God's hands and no matter what may ever happen with this condition, he IS beautiful and will ALWAYS BE beautiful. I gave it to God and, while I do give him a thorough once-over on a frequent basis, I've not been horribly focused on it - not at all.

There is NO CURE and there is no way of knowing if it will ever "take off" and spread rapidly, spread slowly, go away, or just stay as it is. He could go years with nothing and then suddenly have a rapid growth. Just no way of knowing. It took me weeks to process this and, in the beginning, I haunted several "vitiligo community" sites and informative sites and tortured myself with the possibilities. What I discovered is that there are a lot of "cures" and "treatments" out there that are usually pretty expensive - and pretty useless. I'm not going to subject my boy to that.

I've been doing a LOT of research lately though that shows taking a NUTRITIONAL approach and drastically changing our crappy eating habits can have quite an impact. Been changing our habits over the last several weeks and TOTALLY shocked and pleased to see that the main spot on his back is filling in with freckles! Coincidence? Don't care - all the research supports a nutritional change to plant-based, whole, non-processed foods being of HUGE benefit. I'm going to start taking pictures each week to track any progress, did the first one last night so you can see where we are:

My first find on the impact NUTRITION can play was from Vitiligo research - GREAT information: http://vitiligo.50webs.com/#introduction

Followed by documentaries and follow up research online from "Forks Over Knives," "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead," "Food Inc." one on the Gerson cure and many more.
SOOOOOOOOOO, all the above is basically to provide an introduction to the fact that I've finally launched on a mission to put us on a highly plant-based diet with minimal amounts of free range/naturally raised meat, go Gluten-Free as much as possible and cut way down on dairy. Allowing for "bad" food that's been a staple for us several times a week to help ease us into it because I'm definitely paying the price for being so lackadaisical about nutrition all their lives. UGH.

I'll be posting about my progress and uploading videos about it on YouTube so - this is just to give you the background.

First video about this effort is up on YouTube on my ColorMeKooky channel here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xlDTdHzcIc

Wish me luck!

My DIY Haircut - WOW!

So I have long hair (it's been long, longish, medium length at various stages for years). I usually get a bug up m'butt to treat myself to a hip, gorgeous new "DO" @ once a YEAR. And then I just never go back until the next urge strikes. I'm busy. I just do NOT see that I will ever, ever, ever follow through with a meticulous (or even loosely structured) schedule of hair maintenance with regular trips to "my" hairdresser at "my" salon.
Too lazy.
Cheap too, I guess.
I do this with clothes as well - I will go for looooooong stretches of buying nothing at all for myself - and then, out of the blue - I'll go hog-wild and get a lot of stuff at once. Same with the hair - when that overpowering urge to "change it up" with a new haircut strikes, I don't go to some cheap place to get a cut. No, no, no. I make an appointment at a nicer salon that's got a higher-end rep where I live and spend a FORTUNE on the cut and, often, ridiculously priced product and/or gadgets as well. It adds up.

So it's always been OK with me to wait for ages between these splurges. But this last stretch has been a bit extreme. It's been @ TWO YEARS since I last got any sort of cut or trim. My hair done got LOOOOONG. Even my husband has mentioned that I should get a cut or trim several times in the last several months and I always INTEND to do it and then forget all about it.

Yesterday, I thought to myself, "Self, you can find out how to do anything on the Internet and I just bet you can find out how to cut your hair too."

I already had an idea of what I wanted. KEEP a longer haircut but trim and then LAYER it and, drum-roll, cut some BANGS. The bangs idea started about a year ago when my little, precious lamb, my own Lulu became obsessed with (and even ENVIOUS of) the network of lines ingrained in my forehead. Her fascination was sweet and funny but I started thinking that it might be time for some bangs way back then.

Long story short --- I spent a few hours researching and found some info that seemed practical and doable and then selected my methods of choice and then DID it.

I did buy myself some haircutting scissors from Walgreen's for $19.99 but I already saved money (like $20-$25) from what a salon cut would have cost me - not to mention the savings if I continue to do it myself. AND, I can learn to cut the kids and Clark's hair too right???? The mind reels.

So anyway - I did my first kinda/sorta "how to" or "review" type video after it was done and I posted it to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFPMcLLW6do&feature=plcp

The scissors are "LTD Tweezerman"
I used the "Whole Head Method" for the trim/layers from this page: http://www.wikihow.com/Layer-Cut-Your-Own-Hair
I used several videos found on YouTube for input on the above but this method seemed to be the most straightforward, simple way to go.
I viewed a lot of different YouTube Videos with tutorials on cutting your own bangs as well and then just kinda did it on my own.

I think it turned out pretty great - even better than I had hoped it could really. Here's the video again.

Yay me!!! ;-)

A-Motivational Work Day...

Do you ever yearn so much for freedom that you can just TASTE it? I do. Pretty much on a daily basis. I try to remember just how lucky I am because even though I am in a corporate role (marketing services for a software company), I get to work remotely from home. That's a helluva lot more freedom that most in the corporate rat-race get.

But even without being trapped in a sea of putty-colored cubicles and sterile office-spaces, the daily grind, the red tape, the outrageous lack of communication and silos of teams working in different directions on the SAME things blah, blah, blah - well - it gets to you. At least it gets to me. I mean, what does my job do that really matters in any way? Really peeps, I'm interested. What does the corporation I work for do that has any meaningful impact on the world? My goodness, I sound like a hippie.

Just hate that putting in long hours and doing a ton of work AND the fact that it sucks up so much TIME.

I would rather be "working" on:

• Cleaning and organizing my house - getting on a sensible rotation of tasks that keep everything clean and running smoothly (currently it's neither clean nor organized and there is NO system a'tall)
• Painting the fence and all the trim on the house
• Creating my art (acrylic/canvas mostly and I haven't done one in about a YEAR - no time)
• Improving the front landscaping and maintaining it
• Learning about and BUILDING a functional raised garden to grow our own produce
• Becoming really skilled in nutrition and feeding my family tasty (keyword) plant-based meals and snacks
• Spending time daily with my kids for fun, crafts and education on a good set schedule
• Building a family website, creating shutterfly photo albums, creating and posting videos and maintaining this here blog - which I ENJOY and I feel will be so very valuable to our family if I can just do it...

The list goes on and on - these are all really important things to me - but they all take a lot of time so I do a little bit of some and only plan on the rest for now. Because doing all of the above would be a full-time job.

OK - so now I'm done venting and I gotta get back to work - I'll just keep tackling what I can and dreaming of a better way.... AND, remembering that I'm truly blessed to HAVE a job and the comforts that go with that stupid paycheck. God has me right where I'm supposed to be for now and I am OK with it.

Now I feel better - happy thoughts peeps!

God Ate His Beens

This video of LuluBELLa was taken in June at El Vaquero (awesome Americanized Mexican food for consumption, I must say). Jack has been pretty inquisitive about God and heaven lately so we had been having a lot of discussion about where (exactly) heaven IS and where is God, why can't we SEE Him and how can he be inside and all around and in heaven all at the same time. While we were eating and I was recording some other cute antics, Lulu suddenly came out with her insightsa God and you'll never guess how he got so strong. Hope you enjoy!

The video did NOT want to upload in any sort of timely fashion on this blog so here's the link to the video on YouTube - it really is funny so if you agree, please "like" it on YouTube and leave a comment!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWWX_ttjMiI&feature=plcp

Back for More

I bet my two (count them) viewers thus farly thought I was about to repeat the great blog-fail of 2009 because I opened this here blog up with a flurry of activity (1 post and a page with all the 2009-fail posts listed) and then went silent fer a bit. It's been 8 days and I had 4th birthday party to organize and throw for Lulu with the usual work crap thrown in the mix. I been busy peeps. BUSY.
In my original post I mentioned the YouTube videos I've just started posting and stated that I would add the links here so - that's what I'm doing if I can figure out how to do it. Maybe it would be easier to just upload the videos from scratch to this blog? We'll see.
You can see all my YouTube Shenanigans on my YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ColorMeKooky

I'll go ahead and post the latest and greatest in an additional post - YAY!

Color Me Kooky Peeps - Fer Serious

OK - so I have a passionate desire to capture my present before it just slips away. I used to keep a journal WAY, WAY back in the dark ages when I was a kid and into my early 20s. That wonderful habit of writing down my experiences and thoughts, my dreams and tragedies, got dropped the minute my life picked up speed. The thing is, when I read through those old journals now, it's like reacquainting myself with a person I've long since lost touch with. I get to see myself and vividly recall things that I would never remember without those rambling entries from a previous life.

Ever since I got married and had my two gorgeous and amazing teeny-weeny's, I've had the most wonderful intentions of savouring every moment and capturing them. I even started a blog in late 2009 when Jack was 3 and Lulu was just 15 months old---AND I did three, count them, THREE whole posts. Ugh. Too busy with work, marriage, younguns and my knack for procrastination. Now my son is about to turn 6 and my baby girl just turned 4 yesterday.

What I "swore" to myself would never happen - is happening. I have no photo albums done (shameful confession for a MOM, I know) and so many really cute phases and quirks are just over and gone.
So, in a nutshell, that's why I'm starting fresh - NOW - to capture my family life, my thoughts and opinions and the love I have for my husband and kids along with the adorable junk they do so that it's out there for me (and more importantly, for them) down the road.

This new attempt stems from a recent encounter with Shutterfly. I basically stumbled onto the Shutterfly site, realized the possibilities and created my wedding album. It turned out so good and I'm so happy to finally have it (7 years of marriage and I just did the album peeps). I'm now working on a "first year" album for Jack and want to do one for Lulu too. That lead me to YouTube as well and that got me back to thinking about this whole idea and that failed blog attempt. So here I am. I got me TONS of pics, TONS of video, a YouTube account and some determination.

This site, the YouTube site, the photo albums - all of it is for me, of course, but its for my husband and my kiddies too. All three of them are stinkers and I love them very much. I'll be uploading links to videos shortly and I've posted the infamous 2009 Blog FAIL entries on a separate "2009 Blog Fail" page (link should be on right-hand nav). How's THAT for dedication?

So here's my family as they are now - Jack is turning 6 in August, Lucy just turned 4, Clark and I are just OLD and Corbin, our cool canine baby, is three.

Above and Below: Both kids are addicted to their goggles though Jack also likes the full-on snorkel gear - it's all about "equipment" doncha know ;-)

Below: First date in a LONG while, June 28, 2012 while visiting his folks in Tennessee (guess who's watching the babies - MOOWA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAAA)

Below: Corbin - got him from the pound on March 24 of this year and we ADORE this dog - truly, we got a kick-ass mutt. He's a "Bagle" which is a Beagle/Basset Hound mix and we think there's a tech-o-Corgi in there  too).