The wind is blowing. I can hear it as it whistles past the building I sit in and I watch the tips of the pines outside bending and swaying. It is also raining, a chill patter fueling the steady dripping of the roof that adds a rhythmic counterpoint to the winds howls. Two days ago it was snowing. And not just a little, but two and half feet that buried the horses, the fences, and many people's cars. Before that we had a day that was sunny and almost fifty. A day that made spring sing in people's hearts and the river's ice break apart and flow in one of nature's great spectacles.

I never meant to stay here. I moved to the Adirondacks for love or so I told myself. Following a boyfriend to the wilderness for no other reason than I was bored with what life was offering me at the moment. Tired of the sometimes glitzy, but mostly gritty backside of the racehorse industry and the emptiness of Florida nightlife, and impatient with cooling my heels in Western Massachusetts with my family, I was looking for a different path. A year was what I gave myself. I would try the mountains and the relationship for a year.

Life sometimes fools us and the boyfriend became a husband and the year turned into three than five and finally eight. My daughter was born not in the comfortable and familiar surroundings of Western Massachusetts in a perfectly planned homebirth, but in a small hospital in the middle of nowhere as I watched ice fisherman patiently watching their holes. That winter with a newborn was no longer than any other Adirondack winter, although maybe it felt it. Both Eowyn and I longed for the sun by the time it was done.

And now we have decided to stay here. We will make our home in this land that is so unpredictable, with sun then snow then rain. The growing season 40 minutes off of the mountain where we live is 100 days. As I look to planning my garden and starting my seeds I wonder what the actual growing season is here, at this elevation. 90 days? 80 days? In my experience so far, not long enough to turn my green tomatoes red. I admit to longing for Massachusetts where it feels like you just drop a seed in the soil and reap the bountiful harvest. I know it is not this simple, but sustaining a garden here sometimes feels like a climb up Everest itself. But I am committed. Both to making a good, sustainable life for my family here in the mountaintops, and also to figuring out how to ripen my tomatoes.

Sometimes the wind blows us far from where we thought we would be. Sometimes it blows us where we have the most to learn. I will slowly learn the walk to the beat of the different seasons here. My garden will flourish as I slowly learn when to start things and when to plant and what grows best in such inhospitable conditions. And I assure you I will have red tomatoes, maybe not this year or maybe not in three years, but definately by eight.

How to get Through a Night of Teething

Teething may be one of the more difficult crossroads I have hit as a parent. There is nothing comfortable about razor sharp chompers poking through the gums for the first time. It is probably good that as adults we have no memories of this time. However, I can imagine that it hurts. I can imagine it is annoying. I can imagine that it is frustrating. Because teething actually is all of these things for me as well. Eowyn is going through this and that means I am too. I am frustrated. I am annoyed with all the inconsolable crying and it does hurt. It hurts my ears and my heart to be unable to comfort my child better. What mother wants to walk back and forth across the floor in the middle of the night with her child sobbing in her arms? The desperation and self recriminations that can come from this are deep.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that I have it easy. Eowyn has never been a fussy baby. She always reaches and finds a smile for me at the right time. Even as she acquires teeth she really does try to be of good cheer. But some nights she just loses it. The pain becomes too much for even her naturally happy disposition. On nights like these I admit to wondering why I decided to have a child. I find myself losing patience and just wanting her to be quiet, to go to sleep, to do what I want her to do, which is stop all the noise and throwing her little body around like some sort of fish out of water. How many times does she crack my nose or chin as her head goes flying in all directions? Too many. I find myself wondering why she is being so unreasonable. And that my friends is a trap that I have to pull myself out of, because she is not being unreasonable. She is being a little person with a problem and limited ways to communicate her discomfort. She can't exactly sit up and say, " Mummy, my top gum hurts and I would really appreciate something to chew on of medium hardness, slightly chilled. Thanks.". All she can do is cry and hope that I happen upon something to make her feel better.

And that is where compassion becomes an important tool. Dictionary.com defines compassion as, "a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.".

I have to remember this even at two in the morning. Even when I am tired and at the end of my rope, I have to have sympathy for what she is going through. I have to try and understand it from her perspective. She is not trying to be a difficult child. She wants it to stop even more than I do. And I have to try to alleviate that suffering however I can. That is what mothers do. That is what good people do.

But compassion has another role in teething and child rearing that I believe is too often forgotten. Be compassionate with yourself. Sometimes a mother cannot figure out a way to make it better. That does not mean I, or anyone else, is a bad parent. Sometimes a mother has to step out of the room for a moment or hand the screaming child to her father and that is fine. Mothers need to have more compassion for themselves. When a child is teething, the mother is as "stricken with misfortune" as the child. Have sympathy for yourself. Sometimes I beat myself up about not being good enough, for losing that patience once in awhile. But it is good to remember that I am only human and deserve some of the compassion that I try to give to everyone else. I am a wonderful mother going through a typically tough time with my daughter. Sometimes I have to step away. Sometimes I cannot fix the problem. Sometimes all I can do is be there. And that is ok.

At nine months old, Eowyn will be teething for a long time. But we are getting through it. I am using compassion to find those reserves of love in the middle of the night that cause me to think that I am the luckiest mother alive...instead of feeling like the worst mother who should never have had this screaming thing. Compassion has opened up my reserves of patience and love, because they all go hand in hand. Maybe we should all be so compassionate with everyone around us and the world would be a better place. But for now I will be glad that my compassion has given me a way to understand my daughter and myself, and I will try and carry that lesson in to all aspects of my life.

Welcome to my World

Life is a wonderful, yet fragile thing. The balance needed to have a fulfilled and happy one is often hard to accomplish. In modern society there are multiple slippery slopes that can slide us in to depression or envy or many other negative emotions. We, as a society, spend a lot of time comparing ourselves to impossible examples that we see in the media. We also spend a good amount of our time doing things that do not mean anything meaningful to us. This blog is my attempt to fight that tendency in myself and maybe help others on the way. This is my lifestyle blog, if I can be said to have a lifestyle in the way the word is used these days. It is also the melding together of a few blogs that I have started and then dropped because I couldn't juggle writing more than one! So here is a quick introduction to what this is about....

Everything.

Life.

How to find a balance in a sometimes chaotic existence.

Love.

Passion.

Most of all this is about thinking outside of the box to find better way to live as a mother, as a wife, as a human being on this planet.

It will have Eowyn in it and my animals, it will have ups and downs, and it will have minimalism and simplification of a life that is anything but simple. It will explore things that I have no idea it was going to explore.

It will look at my journey, which I think is the same journey everyone is on in this world. The one where we try to be decent and good and loved.

So whether you are looking for Eowyn updates, funny animal antics, or a look in to a different way of doing things than you are now come visit and stay awhile. I assure you with a 9 month old daughter, three dogs, four horses, a ferret, a goofy husband, and the Adirondack weather my life is never boring!