Bliss Beyond Naptime

Insta Poet. And You Know It.

I used to worry I was controlling
I used to believe life was busy

I used to wish I was kinder
patient
focused.

Then one day
I looked out my window
and saw a tree

a frozen
perfect
perfect tree.

I nearly choked
on the epiphany

we arrive inside
an envelope
of bones

there is nothing to be done
about this

so fill it with strength
let it brim
with courage.

Not bad, hey? You too can be a poet laureate. I found this instapoem generator through a Danielle Laporte email this morning. Great way to start the day in a DIY kind of way. See? I can't stop! PS that tree is our old man. He resides in the cedar forest above our house. Quietly keeping watch.

Welcome to day three of our magical blog tour toot tooting the bliss horn of my new ebook, The Bliss Filled Mama. Head on over to today's stops, Joy of Mommying and Studio Mothers, and leave them a comment to enter the realm of possibility of winning a copy of the ebook and its accompanying audio recording. Thank you so much Ruth and Miranda for hosting today!

 

Knit Your Own Barney Cat

We got Barney as a Winter Solstice surprise for Edie when she was just wee. Look at how cute and little he used to be! I feel kind of bad I was slow to bond with him I think due to my heartbreak of losing my soul cat a few years prior (Miss Kitty! at almost 19) but he squeezed his super poofy self into my heart over the years. He really is the coolest cat around.

Sigh. Look how cute and little he use to be! Now look at him...

HONK! He's the epitomy of the gentle giant though ~ a sweet big boy. He's one of those dog/cats. He let's the kids awkwardly lug him from their bed to his special pink chair, follows us around wherever we go outside, asks to be let out to go pee (no litter box - yay!) and knows that I'm the alpha alpha around these parts (just takes a raise of my right eyebrow (I call it my "Rock" look) and he jumps off the couch. Pronto. Good boy.).

So when Sally Feller approached me about taking part in her Knit Your Own Cat book blog tour the first thought that entered my head was whoa, Barney would take up a lot of skeins. Lucky for me, Sally gifted me a copy of her book that helps fund the Barney yarn and was also kind enough to include a copy of the book to give to one of my readers. That could be you! Just leave a comment below saying what critter you wish you could knit up if you could. For example, I wish I could knit a Dexter cow due to my love for all things Miss Daisy. See? Easy! By the way, Sally also wrote a book called Knit Your Own Dog that may be of some of fun to those of you who wish you could knit up your pooch and/or are obssessed with weiner dogs like me.

Leave a comment and I'll draw a name on Sunday. Good luck!

I drew a random number from Random Number Generator and the winner is number 6 - Lisa! I'll email you pronto to get you your mailing address. Have fun with this! :)

I Regretsy To Inform You

A nice perk about living in a strawbale house? The deep window sills that can hold piles of current reads. With knitting projects I'm pretty much a one project at a time kind of girl but with books I always have a teetering stack waiting for me to topple. Because my reading wishlist surpasses my alloted reading time allowance I asked Craig to pick out an ipod for me the last time he was in the big city so I can make a dent into my reading wish list whilst I sew, cook, vaccum, and  milk the cow (I have come to accept that Daisy's not super keen on me singing French Canadian folk songs as was advised by a friend).

So now my ears are hooked up with a nano pod and a membership to Audible , where for a nominal fee you receive a credit to one book a month.  I was loving the spiritual reads (listens?) lately for some much needed grounding but Free Range Kids has been making me laugh out loud every five minutes. It's awesome because the kids think I'm chuckling at how cute their play is and staying all in the present moment. Sorry, Eckhart! Still think you're the cutest thing ever though!

And this book. Hoo, boy. This one was a bit of an impulse buy. Have you ever checked out the regretsy website? It's probably every seller's worst nightmare to be featured on this blog which features the best of the worst that is offered for sale on Etsy. It's kind of mean but it's also kind of funny. I know, not very Christian, or Buddhist, of me. Plus, the photos in here are totally not appropriate for children's eyes. So that's why I need to get it out of the house! I'm done reading it so I thought it would be fun to make a game/giveaway out of it. Leave a comment on which of the following selection is not an Etsy listing featured in the book. I'll draw on Friday and announce the winner here. The first correct answer will get the book mailed out to them:

a) Birch Bark Purse

b) Old Lady Vagina Panties

c) Corn Poo Soap

d) Cat Fur Ball Pendant

I'll draw on Friday and announce the winner here. I feel so adolescent just typing this stuff out, please forgive me. I'll be back to my regular, totally mature, poised self next post. Until then, who wants to pull my finger?

The correct answer is (d). I made that up - thank goodness! There were two correct answers so I went to a virtual coin flipping site (is that uber lazy of me or what?) and Melanie, you came up as tails! I have your address already so I'll just ahead and mail it out to you. Thanks for playing!

Kathy's Book Club

I did it! Thank you so much, Colleen for the link to Blog to Print and the reminder I've been wanting to publish my blog for so long. I'm so, so very happy with the end result. All together, with shipping, it came to a hundred bucks but I was able to use a 15% coupon. Even without the coupon I think it was worth every penny. I was up pretty late last night reading as many entries as I could. I published all of 2006, the year I started blogging and It's thick!

 

Even Edie couldn't keep her little paws off it. She wanted to read it over quiet time yesterday. Quiet time is after lunch. We had spaghetti after lunch yesterday and she had spaghetti fingers and face so I was all "WASH YOUR HANDS BEFORE YOU TOUCH MAMA'S SPECIAL BOOK!"  all Mommy Dearest-like. I explained to her like she was a five year old that this is something if she ever had kids she could show them how crazy Grandma was back in the day.

 

If you have a blog I highly recommend this and if you don't have a blog you should start one because this is hands down the funnest thing that I ever received in the mail. So handy to have all these entries on hand to flip through. I couldn't even remember if all of these things happened for certain the state of my nursing brains these days. 

I chose the option to have comments displayed in the book. I like it though made me nostalgic for the day I used to get such things (Not fishing for comments. There just must be way more blogs out there now. Yeah, that's it.). What's really cool is that I have kids born at the same time of year (so now if you don't have a blog, start one and if you don't have two kids with very close birthdays try to do that. Make it a fun once a year date night with an agenda. We chose Valentines Day.) So Craig and I last night were looking at the date Edie grew hair (same as Kale) took her first step (April 17) and compared it with Kale's (his first birthday, November 20). Edie, bald late walker. Kale, bald late talker. But we're not one to label the kids. Ugh, The Non-Stop Pointer is up from his nap. So do it! Get one! And if you don't have a blog I'll hook you up with "While Tangerine Dreams 2006" for a hundred smackers.

Glutton for Publish-ment

A few years ago, my almost freakishly talented fiber guru wrote a series a books and I was honoured that she invited me to contribute to her felting one. This was pretty way back so it was pretty fun to see it displayed in our tiny though amazing little book store here in our village.

You see, this is how rumors get started in small towns. I quickly had to crack the book open to refresh my memory on what exactly I wrote and if things got any more double-entendred as to get me totally labeled as town crazy kinky lady. They did. But luckily it was pretty clean. It's soap balls and a soap box after all. This, of course, was during my Hempress of Clean reign.

On that note (the publishing one - not the kink), I just got notified I'm going to have a pattern in another craft book due out next year! I'm pretty stoked. This time it's a sewing book that is the follow up to One Yard Wonder - a kabillion things to do with only one yard of fabric. There was a call out for submissions and my pattern got accepted. Not sure if I'm allowed to tell you what exactly. I'll have to call my agent and then my publicist and then I'll get my assistant to get back to you on that.

Next Big Tape Thang

This is what I scored from Knitmum through swaparama at Knitty coffeeshop - for soap of course. I remember looking at the Tape Thing book a long time ago and thinking "ooo, must get this for some summer knits" and now that I have it, everything I'm interested in is of the crochet family. Must learn to crochet! The Next Big Thing was a bonus thrown in exchange for a couple of Potty Mouth lipbalms. Thanks Knitmum!

So, like I said, we're probably moving here sooner than later and me and Craig had a family meeting about destashing our book collection. We're both book whores but I have to say we've both been pretty good lately but I'm totally going to get busted here seeing as I think he reads my blog. BUT! I came across these puppies on the kitchen table this morning as I was setting up my laptop and coffee:

It's kind of funny the contrast of the two sets of books, no? The Buddha book he got with Edie in mind. She's such a little bookworm. I took her in for a reading with an excellent Tarot reader in town and was told she was to grow up to be one of those sexy librarian types (tight buns, glasses. Look out when she peels them off). Totally happening already - except the sexy part. And the book to the right is one of the many yoga books he's been collecting (and reading) lately. My baby's so on the yogic path - truly inspiring. Especially in the morning when I sneak into the living room to grab the laptop and there he is looking so blissfully fierce in Warrior I, breathing his rejuvenating victorious breath, his body mildewy with pranic energy. Mmmmm. Yeah. My coffee tastes good.