Rest in Peace sweet doggie Maple

Our family dog passed away yesterday. She is the first dog I ever had. I had no idea how much work it would be to raise a puppy and I had no idea I would be so sad when she left us. She started trembling and shaking the Friday before Christmas, She started shaking the Friday before Christmas. Of course no vet clinics were open, so we decided to wait and she how she was doing, she seemed to be getting better on Monday and she was still eating and drinking so I really thought she just must have the flu or something, plus we were down to one car and Christmas was on Wed. with parties and get togethers in between. I just hoped she would get better. She didn't want any of her presents on .christmas, but I think I was just in denial, thinking she wasn't getting worse. By Friday afternoon, she had really slowed down, was still trembling and had really slowed down on the eating and drinking. We took her to our vet neighbor Saturday morning and he gave us pain medicine and said that Maple had hurt her neck which is common for middle age dogs and that we needed to baby her a bit and keep her confined, but that she would heal in a couple weeks. I was so relieved. She took her medicine that Saturday and really seemed to be feeling better. But she wouldn't take it on Sunday, and then she stopped eating and drinking on Monday. I think I was still in denial plus I have no experience with dogs, and the van was in the shop all day Tuesday plus we have been trying to move, packing and cleaning, and we thought it was just because of her neck and she just needed to rest a lot. But yesterday, my husband looked at her and told me she wasn't responding and that it looked to him like she was dying. My daughter, the one who has pretty much taken the most care of Maple, and I ran her back over to the neighbor's because of course it was New Year's Day. It turned out she was dangerously dehydrated by that point. We tried to get her to the Animal Urgent care, but she died in my daughter's arms on the way. I was never a dog person, but I liked the idea of having a dog from all the dog and animal stories I read to my kids. My daughter always wanted a dog and we finally caved when #5 was a baby. She was kind of like our 6th child. We got her in a time of happiness and contentment. She was a lot more work than I anticipated, it took about 6 months to fully house train her. But she was super cute and we all loved her and had some really fun times playing with her. She was never able to learn more tricks than sit and stay, and she hardly ever came when we called. She also loved to chase cars and it is a miracle she didn't get hit those first couple years. We always gentle with the kids. She only nipped if they were really bugging her. She was always in the middle of everything. If there was something interesting going on, she was there. She loved to chase the chickens and really seemed to have found her calling of getting the chickens out of the neighbor's yard. She never tried to bite the chickens or hurt them, just chase them. She never went far from us, she never ran away and she loved to go for walks. She would often find her leash and bring it to someone to take her for a walk. She was just always there and she was our true friend even when we were short with her or she would pee or poo in the house, she loved us. We just got used to having her around and her boundless energy. When I had the twins, I had to teach her to stay out of my room so I could nurse them and just have some quiet time. She learned and she really bonded with #1. #1 really needed her when her best friend moved and then as I began to realize the sorry things happening in our ward. Maple never complained about anything. Over the year we were in transition of moving here, we had to leave her in her kennel for hours while we drive down here for activities and church. She learned to just go there whenever we left and she was of course super happy to see us whenever we came back. Once we finally moved, she really started to hang out with me a lot more especially in the kitchen with the baby dropping food all the time. She would follow me wherever I went and she was never far away. I only didn't allow her in my room. She would usually go find a kid or wait by my door. She would come running whenever her name was called. I didn't realize how much she meant to me and to the kids until we had to decide whether or not to take her on our big move. When it came down to it, we had to take her. I was really looking forward to having her on our trip and to have her in our new home where we will essentially know no one. She loved us, we loved her, and she was my friend. If anyone can teach unconditional love, it is a dog. They are not perfect, they cause chaos and havoc in our lives, but they love us unconditionally and they never judge, even when I was short with Maple or punished her for pooing in the house, she loved me. I wish we could have saved her, we think there must have been more going on than just her neck, she probably ate too many raisins and maybe found some chocolate or licorice or both somewhere. She had started to develop a taste for human food and definitely preferred it over her dog food. I wish she hadn't gotten sick or that we had been able to help her recover. We did the best we knew and the best we could under the circumstances, but that doesn't seem to ease the pain much. I'm glad we got to have her. She was only about 6 yrs. old. She had finally started to slow down a bit and I was looking forward to having a calmer dog for 5 or 6 more years to come. She was gentle and tough. She never complained through her whole sickness, she was just glad to be with us. I will always love her. She was my first dog. And I will miss her terribly for a long time I think. Thank you Maple, my friend, rest in peace, rest in peace.

Love Heals

I have recently started a lecture series from the Teaching Company called The Science of Natural Healing. I really like it so far, it is taught by a cardiologist at the Scripp's Center for Cardiology. She has so year talked about what integrative and holistic medicine mean, that it is not alternative, not using any western medicine, but instead it is more of a bridge integrating Ayrvedic and Chinese medicines as well as herbalogy and homeopathy and other healing models. She has said a ton of really good things I don't have time to recap here, but in explaining her change from being a regular doctor, making a diagnosis and prescribing a drug to treat the symptom, she now sees herself more as a healer who wants to take a look at the whole person. She sakes questions and learns not only about their physical state but also their emotional, mental and spiritual states. She said that when she approaches her patients with love and acceptance instead of from a place of judgment, true healing can happen. She takes the people from wherever they are and goes from there. The person's sense of community is also very important to overall health and peace of mind. I am really enjoying this course so far, I've only gotten through 4 lectures. It feels so good to do this sort of thing again! I just listen while I pack, it's working out pretty well. I love learning! Here's the link: (blogger is acting up like crazy on my ipad, no paragraphs, won't let me put the cursor where I want, I like blogging from my ipad cause it's easy, I may be moving to Wordpress soon, sorry about the link, it is from the the teaching company. Wwwe.teach12.com

You are nothing without Love

I think writing things out is highly therapeutic for me, there has been so much stuff though that I have needed to flesh out privately and haven't because this and Facebook became my outlets. I just found a journal app that will be so much better than sharing my thoughts and impressions with the world. I am a pretty open book, and I think it worked against me on Some Facebook groups I was a part of, but I also learned a lot about myself and about people through the experience. The problem with Facebook is that there's no body language. In person you can tell when something is uncomfortable for the other person and you can tell when a change of subject is in order. With Facebook! you can lay out your heart and not realize that you have threatened someone with your thoughts or with your experience. The human experience is so varied and unique, that what may seem like common knowledge to me may be completely foreign and bizarre to someone else. And with FB, it's really hard to gauge when you are coming to that line. So probably not too unsurprisingly I threatened a lot of people on a fairly conservative LDS moms group I was a part of with my "radical" ideas. This has been awhile, so I joined a different more "radical" group, but I really liked it because the people there were fairly tolerant. It was refreshing and I wasn't radical at all there. So it has been an interesting exercise to observe the people's comments in these groups. I'm pretty tired of them both now and I have worked through a lot of things. Also, I haven't gone to my ward since testimony meeting because we've had family in town or gone to a different ward or had a sick kid, plus we're moving so I have not heard about any of the ward activities or goings on. It has helped my mental and emotional state so much, that I don't feel like I have to go vent some where. Those people can make me so angry so fast because of their ignorance and stupidity and my inability and powerlessness to change it, it is ridiculous. I have found time to play the piano, read and watch lectures again. I feel like I am coming back to myself. I started this blog as a place to review books I've read and to share ideas I liked, but once I got pregnant with the twins, all I was able to do was survive and protect my kids and try to figure out how to navigate the idiocy that seemed to surround me. It is really really relieving to have this period come to a close. Someday, I may write a book about these 4 years. They were great in terms of the kids growing and learning, and they were awful in terms of being rejected by our faith community. It wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't pretended to be our friends. You don't have to like me, you don't have to be my friend, so don't pretend to be my friend and then stab me in the back, talk bad about me when I'm not there, marginalized me and push me away. That's not nice, and it really does hurt. When someone says or does something mean and back handed to another person, it hurts even if the person doing the harm believes they are a good person. Probably the most important thing I have learned through all of this is the reality of 1 Corinthians 13 that you are nothing without charity or love, it doesn't matter what else you do, how much money you donate charity, that you can prophesy, that you are respected in your community, that you are prospering in the land, etc, etc, if you don't sincerely and truly love people, be encouraging of them, don't be jealous, let them be themselves, don't shame them or guilt them, but just love them and accept them, then you really are nothing and nothing else you do matters one iota. And conversely, if you are the scum of the earth with no skills and no talents and nothing to share, but you truly have charity and love and compassion, it doesn't matter because you have what counts. And you know what else? God loves us all the same, he doesn't love the pious church goer anymore than he loves the sinner. He doesn't love the fabulous singer any more than he loves the ugly or disabled person anywhere. He doesn't turn anyone away ever. He loves us all. May we all have that love, then the world would be a much better and happier place.

My Health update

About a month ago I finally started feeling more normal and less tired. My skin started looking a lot better and my hair even seems thicker. My belly has gone down a lot too. I attribute that mostly to making sure I got my rest, enough sleep and taking time to lie down during the day when I just felt tired. I let go of the guilt of thinking of all the things I needed to do and I would just go lie down for as long as I needed. It took about a month of that, and I no longer need to lie down during the day. I make sure I go to bed by 11 pm and I'm up at 7 am. Sleep makes such a difference. I just have felt better. We are also going to be moving the end of this month, hopefully-- it will be nice to get it all set up, so I decided to go ahead and do a final cleanse with Vicki before we go, I'm on my 2nd day of just juices today and I am still feeling pretty good. I've gotten some more weird stuff out, how much is there? I am hoping that my body will finally be able to release some of the extra pounds I've been carrying, but it just may take a while longer. I plan to continue eating mostly salads, I'm finding new favorite ways of eating them and I am also finding more ways to include a wider variety of cooked veggies into my and my family's meals. It feels good!

New Events Website -- happen.io

So this post is just to let you know that there is a great brand new website out there where you can post your own events to the public or make them private, you can even make your own group for whoever you want to join, it's easy to communicate through the comments and it's easy to use and search. It is brand new, been out about a week, so most of the public events so far are in Utah, so definitely if you are in Utah, go check it out! Http://happen.io

Anxiety and Adrenal glands

I really wasn't feeling well last month. I had a couple migraine auras, I would feel slightly dizzy and have a weird feeling behind my eyes. I realized that I needed to make getting enough sleep a top priority. I bought warm sleepers for the twins and the baby, made sure the one who always wets his pants has a diaper, made sure all the animals were taken care of and made sure I went to bed as early as possible. Also when I feel like I need a break, I take it and lie down. It took about a month of this, letting some things go and such that I started feeling better. But I still wasn't sure exactly what was going on with me, I eat about as healthy as anyone could possibly eat, I was starting to worry a bit, brain tumor, hypoglycemia? Finally I realized that I have pretty much all the symptoms of anxiety plus it runs in my family. I was relieved to have a reason that I could learn to deal with and conquer and then I had to figure out what was causing it. First of all, being the mother of 8 needy children including twins and a baby is not a calm serene type of life. I love it, I am a pretty patient person, but it does wear on me. It also makes it extremely difficult to keep the house clean which when it gets super out of control instead of just regular out of control, I get overwhelmed and apparently anxious. Slowing down and taking care of myself was exactly what I needed to do. The other thing that is not a happy stress that was causing me anxiety is my stupid ward. Once I realized that trying to deal with them all the time was affecting me physically, I decided that I just won't deal with them right now until I am more stable. I need a break from their stupidness. So we are only attending sacrament meeting each week and taking a break from the auxiliaries. I feel so at peace with this decision right now. It is so much better to just decide beforehand how much involvement everyone will have until either we feel more accepted and more trusting of the people who are in charge of the activities and meetings for our children. My daughter told me how she misses going to all of church, and I do to. Hopefully we will have that good feeling at church again. For now I feel like the right thing to do is to follow our conscience or the Spirit and not go. If we didn't have kids then I would go to the whole thing and try to help people and give comments and such, but as it is, they have completely marginalized me and it is just not worth losing my health over it. On a good note, my husband finished his awesome website. It is not growing very much yet, so he will try to get a job and wait for it to grow. We got to switch roles today. I did some cold calling-- not effective-- and he helped the kids with their schoolwork and washed some dishes. I missed my kids even as overwhelming and hard as it can be sometimes, I like my job home with them way better. I will miss these days. It was fun to have a change of pace for a day and it helped me get my mind on something positive to work towards rather than thinking about defending myself and kids from our ward. I think that's really what I need, is to focus on some positive things. It's hard to do when you don't get out much because you homeschool 8 kids of a wide span of ages. It was fun. The other thing I learned researching about anxiety is that I'm pretty sure my adrenals are shot from all the fight or flight hormones that have been running constantly since the twins were born and we've had to constantly be on guard at church except for the blessed year of recovery til our ward split. But I'm grateful to have a name and some understanding of what has been going on with me. Things can only get better! Speaking of which, I'd better go to bed!

Video on being taught well by parents

This is so worth watching http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=isLtc5lFgf8&feature=player_embedded&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DisLtc5lFgf8%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded