HJ Waxing Moon

Mr. Moon is the first to admit that he's scatterbrained and unfocused. And he'll be the first to tell you that if he doesn't have a list, it doesn't get done. However, making lists isn't exactly his strong suit. Thankfully, he married a woman who lives by her love of lists & structure. The hard part is struggling with falling into stuffy old gender roles. Ultimately though, we have to do what's best for each of us and our partnership, utilizing our strengths and working around our weaknesses, even if they're the ones we learned through a society that taught them to us based on our perceived genders. Recognizing where they came from doesn't negate their existence and the reality is that I'm both a lot more organized than him, and have a lot more time to BE organized. With the wedding out of the way and staring down the moving target of daily parenthood, we had a long discussion about priorities and what we want the rest of our lives to look like...

I'm proud to announce the birth of my nibling ! Of course for his personal privacy we will not be posting his name, but in honor of his chubby cheeks, let's call him... Gus Gus.  This is my bio-brother's first kid, but the bestie I adopted as a sister about 18 years ago has three already so I'm old hat at the Aunt thing: Arrive at nap time with noisy toys, chat with Mom until the screaming hurts my ears, run away and let the parents pick up the pieces. That's about it, right? I'm unsurprised at how homesick this has made me. One of my biggest fears with moving far away from my hometown has been proven to be valid. It took me so long to do so because I knew it would mean missing major milestones in my families' lives, and every time it's happened so far has felt like a kick in the stomach for me. On the up side, technology has been progressing such that I now have multiple ways of video chatting with my family members back home. I've Skyped...

The last few months have been one of life's most ambivalent times. You know the ones, where good things are happening and you think you should be feeling guilty being happy when others or even ourselves are hurting over the pain and loss that life brings us. Navigating grief while planning a wedding has been on our minds a lot. We know that Mr. Moon's father's absence in our wedding celebrations will be notable, and trying to find ways to grieve and honor him in such a joyous occasion hasn't been easy. It's not even a situation to which we've found a solution that feel right, yet. But this entire endeavor I think has been good for me. Despite my lack of mental health care at the moment (which is a long story and a rant for another day), I've found myself navigating a lot of intense emotions and stressful situations with more grace and self-love than I really expected to experience. Mr. Moon and I have our spats for sure, but those even haven't been as ...

As I started this blog originally when moving down to live with and care for Mr. Moon's parents, even though I've avoided detailing his struggle with cancer it seems only right that I should post the sad news we received yesterday. Mr. Moon's father has passed on. It certainly wasn't sudden, but there were sudden drastic declines in health along the way, almost like a flight of stairs. His children, wife, friends and family had lots of time with him before the final days were clearly upon us, and then those closest to him were given the chance to stop in and say their goodbyes. For Mr. Moon and I, our friends have been fantastically supportive, and for that we will always be grateful. It is a comfort to know that he was not in much pain until the very end, and that modern medical care was able to ease that pain for the most part so he never suffered. Not all terminally ill patients are afforded such an easy transition, and everyone who loved him is not taking that fac...

I was diagnosed with chronic illness at age 17, after 2 solid years of suffering and plenty more before of pain and misery. I don't remember more than 3 days of my life when I wasn't in pain. I spent a lot of time internalizing my fear of making goals and having dreams, because when you can't plan a week ahead, how do you know what next year will bring? How do you plan for decades when you could be crippled with pain an hour from now? Having dreamed so big and fallen so far, I have learned many things. The first and foremost of which is that my home is a sanctuary, even moreso than for the average person. I need a safe, clean, comfortable home to return to at the end of the day, sometimes even the middle of the day. These days, sitting at home usually IS my day. Finding my place in keeping my home, playing the dutiful housewife who can't do much physically, has been hard. It's been allegorical to finding my place in the world at large, as I sit here wondering what...

Mr. Moon and I had a fabulous time on vacation! We got to see four beautiful souls get married, reacquainted with some old friends, met some new ones, exhausted ourselves, ate too much junk food, and all-in-all had a marvelous time. Before moving down here, we spent two months driving back and forth, 3 hours at a trip, multiple times a week. It was a wonderful time to reconnect, discuss our goals and dreams and giggles and hopes and sorrows and concerns about anything that came to mind. It was helpful, because it gave us both time to process and strategize. Even the next two months we had plenty of time in the car together, with his job a half-hour or more commute each way. Lately our car trips have become shorter as have our tempers. Our time with just the two of us for company and no chores to be doing has become less frequent, and less time on each trip. I noticed it slipping away and thought it was a blessing, more time to Be Productive. But productivity is not the end-all, be-...

This is my first year celebrating Chalica. I'd heard about it in 2008 in its second year, and been "meaning to" "get around to" celebrating since. When I first heard of it, I was so excited that my faith now has a holiday we can call our own! I know a lot of my lackluster commitment has been related to this crisis of faith through which I've been suffering for years. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to include anything about my faith here in this blog, because I don't want to push anyone away. I decided that I'd rather dip into this a little bit occasionally than try to ignore it altogether. My faith is so much a part of why I started down the path of urban homesteading that it feels wrong not to honor that place in the process. But that's a topic for another day. Today I want to celebrate, in all its imperfection, my first year celebrating Chalica.  I'd intended to ease myself into it. I put on some Celtic music, because it's...

I made it 14 days which is admittedly the longest I've ever made on these kinds of challenges. I'd love to say there were lame excuses like the ones Nony blogged about all month for why I fell off the face of the planet and didn't post my menu plan or any of my dinners for two to three weeks. Really I was struggling with a major bout of depression, the weather changes plays havoc on my joints, and I had doctor's appointments two to three times a week for the whole month. Whew! For once I'm not beating myself up about having made a goal and failing at it. There were days I COULD have taken a picture of my dinner and posted it, but I decided that I needed to be gentle on myself, give myself some time and space to just be in the moment, to accept the situation. It was oddly clarifying. Mr. Moon and I took a trip to Seattle for Halloween to see some friends. We'd been squirreling away our date-night money for a few months in anticipation of this trip, and we mana...

Five things we accomplished in September that are really kind of big: We got on a schedule of chores, and even managed to stick to it in this very busy week.  We had fun on some cheap dates, and got to spend more time with friends than we have any other time since we moved down here. We pinpointed some trouble areas with the housekeeping and started making strides to combat them in a manageable way.  We dove down the rabbit hole with gusto, starting on such projects are sourdough pancakes, waffles, yogurt, mozzarella, and possibly soon into sourdough bread. We managed to keep the sideboard in the dining room CLEAN and clear of clutter for the better part of a month, and still going!  It wasn't entirely intentional, but we spent the month working on building good housekeeping habits. If October has a theme project, I think it needs to be the garage. We got behind on cleaning that out and missed both of our self-imposed deadlines, or we will because the second o...

As I mentioned before , Mr. Moon and I try to do a weekly date night. We're pretty lax about what Date Night entails, sometimes it's bowling with friends, sometimes it's a movie out, and sometimes (especially when the money is tight) it's a movie in with a "fancified" dinner. As long as it's intentional, mindful, and spending time together. This week, we managed to make a really nice spread with all things we had in the house (except I ended up having to buy a loaf of french bread). We turned the couch so it faced the TV, threw in a Blockbuster by mail DVD, and had a spread of finger foods. So much easier to eat when sitting at a coffee table! Plus I'd been wanting to do an appetizer dinner at some point. Counter-Clockwise from Left (for reasons which will become clear): Grass-fed, all-natural Painted Hills sirloin steak, cooked in olive & truffle oils with garlic, basil, oregano, and crimini salt.  Bruschetta: french bread, toasted with o...

When I was a kid, laundry day was whenever someone ran out of underwear, or the laundry pile in the hallway got so bad that it was difficult getting to the bathroom. Whichever came first. So suffice it to say that while DOING the laundry was something I learned young, keeping up on the laundry wasn't a skill I was taught. As a result, I've struggled most of my adult life with this task. I have tried the "load a day" thing. Only really possible when you have laundry on-site. Mostly I found that doing so I tend to forget I've put something in the washer and it gets nasty before I get back to it. I've tried the "laundry day" thing, where one day a week I devote to laundry--mostly this has been more successful, especially when I could go to the laundry mat and do any number of loads at once: no matter how many loads I had, it took 3 hours. This was certainly successful, but I hated having to carve out 3 hours as a block in my week. And also, laundry ...

Morning and I, we are not friends. We tolerate each other well enough, as long as we don't spend too much time together, but the earliest I'm willing to wake up without complaint seems to be about 9am. This pretty much means that the earliest I'm willing to make appointments or plans is noon, and that's kind of pushing it. I'd prefer to be waking up then. That being said, for some reason when it comes to things like Celtic festivals and the like, waking up at 6am and out the door by 7am is a challenge but not a hardship. I usually pay for it, and two days in a row is nearly impossible, but it's worth it to walk through the dewy grass with a cup of coffee and the sound of bagpipes on the wind.  Lately I've been having a terrific bout of insomnia that even melatonin can't touch. Especially when I try to go to bed at midnight because I have to drive Mr. Moon to work for 9am. Neither one of us wants to be up this early, and both of us had trouble falling...

The common wisdom of the Internet and magazines is that long-term relationships, especially live-in ones, are hard. It's easy to take each other for granted, get into a rut, forget to express your love for each other in ways that are continually special and unique. This move was never expected to be easy. Both couples are losing a great deal of independence, and that's a hard pill to swallow. Couple that with a very busy schedule, and it seems easy to get into a routine of just doing housework until we drop. Mr. Moon and I had a big, long discussion about that before we moved. We talked about priorities, and how we need to make our relationship a very high priority. Regular dates, getting out of the house when we can, and affirming our commitment to each other. Of course, in practice it's not so easy. And doing so frugally has been a chore. I think the hardest thing for people to learn is that anything that is routine makes it inherently less "special" in yo...

Happy Mother's Day!  Somehow I learned that to love people you feed them (in my family?? NEVER!), and my standards means I usually cook. I once created a new tradition for Christmas day in my family by being SUPER!Broke and giving the gift of Quiche for brunch. Since then, as I'm not a fan of Quiche, we have a tradition of me cooking the main dish for Christmas morning (usually french toast casserole AKA a less-sweet bread pudding). Everybody looks forward to it, and the gift giving becomes a lot easier. Along a similar vein, Mr. Moon and I decided that rather than a drab card or just a phone call, we would like to do something special for Mum. My family usually takes one grandma and my mom out to brunch, but we decided we'd rather cook ours. What was on our menu? Waffles (we have three waffle makers, it seemed like a good idea to USE them); quiche "of some kind"; biscuits & sausage gravy; ham; fruit salad (no whipped cream dressing--I'd never h...

Living in a house with four people is difficult enough when everyone cooks for themselves. Mr. Moon likes to HELP with the cooking, but prefers to be given direction and instructions rather than be given the title of an end-product and let loose. Mum is learning new things to cook all the time and is limited in her mobility. When we all originally discussed Mr. Moon and I moving here, I agreed to take responsibility for most of the cooking and meal planning and grocery shopping. Pops has no desire to participate in any of it, really, though we can send him grocery shopping and only expect a 10% variance from the list. But beyond the physical and emotional is the medical. Cancer diet for hormone-related cancers recommends a low-hormone diet. This means that Pops needs to be cutting out, in order of importance: Red meat; fowl; dairy; fish; all animal products altogether (honey is OK). Best advice is to go vegan, but he's a cheese addict and has no desire to limit his enjoyment or u...

I spent the first 18-and-a-half years of my life in one home. Then the week I graduated high school, my parents bought a house and we moved (a whole .7 miles, the trauma!). After that, it seemed I was constantly in a state of flux. I was back and forth around town between the dorms or various apartments and back to my parents' house a few times until I was 23, when I moved in with my Grandma after a bad break-up and urgent move. The plan was that I would be back out on my own pretty quickly, but who can give up living in a house where you have your own sitting room in the basement and cheap rent? Especially when it comes with peace of mind for the family that Gran was getting checked in on regularly. Well, when you feel the call of the Unknown, you go. And that's how I found myself deciding a couple days before Christmas one year that I was moving to Seattle. In three weeks. I had all the "right reasons" in the world. The Michigan economy was still tanking with no e...