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By doriluthy, July 26, 2007 4:26 pm

You should all be happy to know that Dustin and I have undergone thorough FBI criminal record checks, and they have both come back with clear: “no police record”. For both of us! For real!

I mean, I wasn’t REALLY worried, but there is always that nagging thought in the back of your head- Like, Like, oh my god, what about… what about that time in 7th grade I was pissed off at the science teacher so I drew a picture of him humping a goat and stupid Jennifer J. decided it would be funny to pass it around and then OF COURSE I got sent to the principals office, my parents were phoned, and I had detention for a week to think about what I did wrong. Dude, I really thought that might show up on a history check. And how would I possibly explain that to Dustin- like the reason we get denied for permenant residency is because of that “Most embarrassing moment in my life” incident in the 7th grade? And how did I know what a goat penis looked like? How could I explain that?!

Yeah, so thank goodness my FBI file is clear! There should be a big loud party in our near future, cause this was the last step, baby!!! We’ll hopefully know in the next 3-4 weeks if Canada is willing to take two wide-eyed AmeriCANski’s into its fuzzy, apologetic, double-double, socially-insured masses.

Cross your fingers and dot your I’s. We’re almost in.

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By doriluthy, July 23, 2007 2:47 pm

Okay, apparently I’m behind the times.

So for my regular readers out there, I went ahead and stuck this thing called RSS over on my side bar so you can do your syndicate thingy with my blog if you want. I don’t know if I fully understand it (thanks Liss for explaining), it’s one of those things that I can sort of internalize in my brain, but wouldn’t be able to necessarily explain back to someone else. Yeah, I’ve got lots of those kinds of things sitting in my brain.

Now do you think that is a confidence issue? Or an actual understandability issue? I’ve been wondering about this lately. Because there are MANY people who speak confidently about sh-t they don’t know fully about, but can really sound expert on a subject, and vise versa, people who are well informed in a subject but speak with no confidence and so come across as insecure and uniformed. Not such equal playing grounds, I say.

Here’s a little thing I’ve been practicing for those of you yearning for more confidence- now this is a little meditation kind of thing, so get comfortable and remove distractions as much as possible. Okay, sit quietly and say the word “confidence” to yourself several times, feeling what that word evokes. Now imagine yourself SPEAKING confidently- what would that look like to you? what would that feel like to you? Roll that around in your head for a while. Hold those images. Now imagine yourself BEHAVING confidently- what would that look like to you? what would that feel like to you? See yourself in situations where you are speaking and acting confidently. Really get into the details of that and hold it. Write it down if that helps. If you can imagine yourself being confident, then you know you have the capacity for doing it. This is the creative power of the mind.

Since being elected to President of the Culture Crawl Board, (a position I had no idea I was capable of performing), I have been doing this exercise and I make a point to do it just before the board meetings. And you know what? People are coming up to me after the meetings to tell me what a great job I’m doing, and how I’m really growing into the position well. No more quiet apologetic statements from me. I surprise myself with my great posture and clear confident voice (my picture of confidence has good posture in it! ha!). Compassion and grace are other virtues that find their way into my confident vision. What I find in these kinds of meditations is that one virtue never stands by itself, but that one virtue actually represents many. Confidence ~ strength ~ compassion ~ self-respect ~ purposefulness… Basically the meditation can be used to strengthen any of your virtues in your web of character. Here’s a great place to think about what virtues you might want to become better friends with: The Virtues Project. I find it’s a bit of a softer approach than the old cardinal version- it’s way more encouraging to think of the virtues as buddies you want to hang out with all the time, instead of obligations you have to visit once a month .
So… RSS anyone?

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By doriluthy, July 23, 2007 12:09 am

Young mum vs. career mum vs. stay at home mum vs. not a mum vs. single mum vs. middle age mum vs. should be a mum vs. …
Did you ever hear men having so many titles addressing the potential of their loins? yeah- not so much…

Why are we such a public interest, women and the choices for their bodies?

I am still so confused by this. Exact conversation with a female security officer in the airport- I am stopped at the x-ray and she asks to search through my bag. I am carrying my birth-control pills in my bag. She shows concern. She says, you are married? You don’t look so young any more. You should stop taking these, before it’s too late. You should have babies. She lets me go without any hassle (!?), but says once more, stop taking these and just have a baby.

Does that strike anyone else as weird? Does it serve to note that she was East Indian? Possibly cultural, but no. My experiences have been growing. And just to clear up all outstanding questions around this: My body. My life. My choice.

I wonder if that security guard ever stopped a man who was carrying condoms? Hmmm…

Any comments?

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By doriluthy, July 11, 2007 3:41 pm

Hello dedicated readers!

Dustin and I returned from South Dakota a couple weeks ago. While there I discovered there are a few of you who are reading my blog, unbeknown to me! It’s fun to know I have a slightly larger (like 3 more!) readership than I originally thought! That makes it like 5 or 6 people who read my blog! Thank you fans!

I had my 29th birthday this past Saturday. It was definitely one of the best birthdays I’ve had in my adult life, and made possible by the loving involvement of my 2 dear friends Erin and Horace. I laughed and laughed all night long, right until the last moment when Horace dropped me off at 7:30 the next morning- after we had partied all night at the Railway, after we drove to the ocean to sit and laugh and throw mysterious beach objects at each other, oh and after watching the sun rise over the city as the morning came- cloudy and pink. Then I went home to sleep now that I am 29.

Oh, wait, 29? Didn’t I pledge something last year on my birthday blog? Oh yeah, I had written with such conviction I would be going off birth control on my 29th birthday, that 29 was long enough to wait! I want KIDS! This has been a very challenging year, 28, and I want to just talk frankly my current feeling around motherhood. Perhaps this will surprise many of you, but I honestly don’t know if I want it or not. My mood towards procreation has changed so drastically from one year ago. That was me then, and whoooooooop, this is me now.

I recall at the company Christmas party just 7 months ago, lamenting to whoever would listen how much I desired to have a baby… And then shortly after that I started to ask myself- Why? REALLY WHY? For years I have felt so much pressure from MANY people to “just get on with it”, “you’re not getting any younger”, as though it is not a choice, but a requirement of womanhood. Married womanhood, especially. And I’ve really begun, for the first time in my life, to question this as a choice. My body, my life, my relationship with my husband… I know that the moment a child comes it is a line drawn in the sand. EVERYTHING changes from that moment on.

The really sad and ironic part about discussing this right now is that the biggest contender for my loins to reproduce has recently passed away. Dustin’s dear grammie Rosie died while we were visiting in South Dakota. It was sad, sudden, and now changes everything in the family. And for me?? Who is going to be calling me every 3-4 weeks to ask if i’m pregnant yet and try to convince me that I should go off birthcontrol? Who will call me to tell me there is a prize if I get pregnant and birth the first great-grandchild? (As of 8+ weeks ago, I lost to Leah! Congrats!! Too bad we’ll never know what the prize was!)

All of this effort came from a woman who valued her family, her husband, children and grandchildren, more than anything else on this planet (except perhaps her Herberger card). To her, family was the reason for living, the joy of everything. And I had been embraced in her arms as part of that family, and she could only dream of me expanding that embrace to children that Dustin and I would someday have. A part of me is so sad that she will never be around to experience what next generations may happen- Leah’s little one growing inside of her. But it doesn’t necessarily make me feel any more inclined to go out and get pregnant… Is there something wrong with me?

I don’t think so. I am feeling these days like there is something really right with me. I am healing, growing, asking, learning. I am demanding, questioning, and resisting. (poor Dustin!)
My mantra is “Confidence. What does it look like, feel like, sound like, act like? Now do that. I am confidence.” I watched the sun rise on my year of 29, and I can already predict that this will be the year of Dori.

Abundance, Grace and Health for 29.