New directions, but not yet.

I've been bad at this updating thing. But I recently decided that I want to start writing more. Like really writing. So much so that I might abandon this blog in favor of a different one. But anyway, back to the update.

I have a head cold. Jared is teaching a Kombucha class and Lev is watching a cartoon. The cartoon watching happens in moments of weakness, which tend to come more and more these days. We are busy, but then not so busy. The winter is the slow season for the kombucha world, but then there will be freak moments of busyness. We're sold all over the place now, have expanded our brewery twice and have just been taken on by a second distributor. It feels like success, but we're still majorly broke, so it doesn't have that cha-ching feel that I've been waiting for. But that comes later, down the road, once you stop re-investing in the company over and over.

My placenta world is feeling good. My doula world could use some work. I've had a hard time getting my name out as a postpartum doula, but as a placenta lady I've been doing pretty well. I had a tremendous fall of placentas and one postpartum doula client. It gave me a vision of what it was to be busy with mama work--it was great. It was also tiring and I had moments of really wondering what the heck I was doing. But I remember the great feeling of finishing an evening at a mama's house, walking back to my car and feeling like I had just done something awesome.

Hip Mama land has been intense. I'm the full editor now, the last issue was totally all me. And I'm about to start working on the next one...which feels daunting and exciting. We've lost two of our hip mama members, and what is left is a 2.5 mama team, which...isn't a whole lot of mama team. I am lucky in that there have been many offers to help, but I have trouble even beginning to know how to incorporate people's assistance. So much of this zine making happens in wild moments, stolen while I'm waiting for something to finish on the stove, or when Lev is occupied for a ten minute stretch or when I can get Jared to take it all on so I can finish formatting just one last thing. How do I get help at the drop of the hat? "Quick, come over, the coast is clear for like 7 minutes!" I'll figure it out eventually, and in the mean time, I won't.

I took an amazing astrology and writing class recently, which has opened up some wonderful doors to the way I think about myself, my personality and behavior. I'm learning more about myself every day, which is sort of the name of the game for me right now. I'm doing work on recognizing my shadow self, on following my heart for every moment, for every choice, even the most mundane. It feels like progress and like I'm getting better at accepting my true self and showing it to the world in a more authentic way.

Other thoughts have been...the future! What is this bright future we're all building? I explained my ideas of the future, with my career mostly in mind, to Jared like this. I'm not building the foundation towards my future, I'm still in the "picking out which plot of land" I want to build my life on. There are a few archetypes I'm considering: the healer, the artist, the traveling journalist, the academic fancy pants, and the businesswoman. I feel like my current work falls under the category of healer and businesswoman. I'm wanting more artist and traveling journalist. And actually, I think journalist isn't the right word. I think it might be writer.

I'm just opening myself to the possibilities that could await me in this life. I want to feel inspired and creatively active in whatever pursuit I follow...but I'm really feeling that the time will come when I will be ready to make the change, the proverbial "about face", that takes me from mama work and sends me towards a life path/career of my choosing--something I'll strive to, instead of fall into.