Happy Leap Day!

Just wanted to give a shout out to say Happy Leap Day! Caught these two little fellas trying to escape my window ledge last summer, out in the yard. One even packed his suitcase (I caught a glimpse of a few ladybugs and some red sand I'd brought back from Sedona, Arizona in there!)
I asked them nicely to come back in and keep watch over the house and when we were sleeping, they would be free to do whatever they choose. Right now they are guarding the agates my friend Sea Otter sent me from Oregon ... and my brother, Dana's, small bits of ashes in the special silver trinket box. That reminds me of my favorite "elephant joke". Do you remember those? OK, I am not ashamed to tell it here and now, so here goes:
"How do you catch an elephant?"
"First you dig a big hole and fill it full of ashes ... then you line the outside of the hole with peas. You wait in the nearby bushes and when an elephant comes to take a pea, you kick him in the ash hole." Oh, hee hee hee!!! I'm sorry, those gnomes are tricky little dudes and they just loved that joke and made me write it here, in honor of Leap Day! An extra day to live and breathe and sing and dance and make merry (and tell jokes)! So go on, do those things!!!!
Love,
SisSTAR Kyle
& the Gnomes
(named Dinka and Winky--nicknames I used for my
brother Dana and cousin Walter who are somewhere
in the hereafter, and I know they're laughing at me!)

Sittin' Sippin' on a Sunny Saturday...

Just got brave and sent my blog to the Haswells in my address book. Here's a frond of Bleeding Hearts to welcome any of you who are kind enough to read me.

Had some red bush tea with "Your intuition is your best friend" on the string. It soothed my hoarse throat from coughing and eased my respiratory system from a night of being "Asthmaralda". Sometimes Tuffy sits outside my closed bedroom door and thinks he's hearing cats meowing in my room from me wheezing. He scratches on the door and meows. I wheeze back and only on the weekends do I let him in ... so he can terrorize my room, scratch the wicker bookcase, jump up the wall trying to get at the dreamcatcher with the feathers. He seems to pick right when I'm in the deepest of dreamland and therefore grouchy to wake up. I let him out into the tundra of snow and he hides under the neighbors' big pine trees for awhile. He reminds me of a Lynx!

Well, it's 1 pm and Jeff's out for a walk. Guess it's time to get dressed ;o) I'm so glad it's Saturday and the sun is shining brightly.

KLH ("Keep Laughin', Honey!") xoxoxo

Good Morning, Glories!!! Finally downloaded some photos from 2007 and this is one at the Elberta lookout last May. Me, Jeff and Dana, my nephew, had taken a trip up north to my cousin, Gary's, burial service. He had died Jan 30th but it's awful cold that time of year up there. Since my nephew had never been where his ancestry had mostly lived, I gave him and Jeff a quick tour of some of my favorite sites, and since his dad had died in a car crash Aug 2006 up there, we went to the accident site, and the last several places he had been. My brother and I were both born in Frankfort, where the pier in the photo is, and I'm sure you could throw a rock up the bluff and hit the hospital on the roof, if you were a good thrower. So I love this place. So often, no matter where I was in the county, I'd try to hightail it over to this very spot to watch the sun go down. It is a real popular place as there's often photographers with their tripods set up to get awesome pictures. I think I'll go back and post the one I took of Jeff and Dana, unbeknownst to them, as they were watching the sun go down. Since I haven't heard anything from my nephew since last May, I post this here to let go of the sadness over that, and to send it out into the ethers in hopes that wherever he is and however he is, life is being good to him. I love and miss you, Dana--Dana, my brother, Dana, my nephew. Well, even Dana, my father, come to think of it! He's the first one who took me to this place and lived back in the woods on Haswell Road--I got to stop there and see the old homestead which my cousin has so kindly worked hard to preserve. Bless you!

I'm off soon to the office ... got lots of checks to deposit!!! My favorite part of the job, thinking that, hey! some of this is going to be shared with me!!! ;o)

T.G.I.F......and y'all have a nice weekend, Okie Doakie?

Brown Day ... Peachy Night

Today was a "brown" day ... brown shoes, socks, uns, pants, shirt, shawl/cape ... earthy brown. I am pretty earthy, Earthy Kitt! ;o)

It helps me to feel grounded when I'd rather be floating around in my own little world. Gotta stay grounded when there's lots to be done in the realm of helping others ... hoping I am. This is a little piece of my north wall of the living room. The round mirror was here before I was born, it's like a porthole. I like mirrors, crystals, reflectory/refactory stuff. I like sitting at my bizarro "art table" I use for a kitchen table for breakfast and watch the rainbows all streaming across the walls, ceiling, frig, my husband's beard. I love telling him, "You've got rainbows on your face." It's just a good way to start the day.

Last night we were able to see nearly the entire Lunar Eclipse ... the Moon in Virgo. Saturn and Regulus were bread to its sandwich. It was dark peachy when totally eclipsed. I freakin' felt eclipsed all day, like a peachy haze is covering me and "me" isn't looking out my eyeballs, someone else posing as me is. Me is flying half mast ... depleted and needed. Damn! if I don't love to rhyme. How's this: CREATIVITY IS THE SPARK TO IGNITE! GREAT DISPLAYS OF DIVINE INSIGHT!! yeah, I liked it. When you're as verbose as me, you tend to have trouble with one liners. Did you ever hear the statement, "Trust me," and know damned well that is the LAST person you'd better trust! I like saying: "Save yourself!" to all those who are so hell bent on saving everyone else, erstwhile ignoring their own salvaging of their psyches. Save yourselves, Peeps!!! (then tell me how ya did it!)

I have a book sitting here: Guide for the Advanced Soul created by Susan Hayward. I'm going to flip open to one page and type that here for all (2-3) of you to ponder. It's just for yous guys! OK, here it goes: "Ideas by themselves cannot produce change of being; your effort must go in the right direction, and one must correspond to the other." P.D. Ouspensky. Wowie! I hear ya, P.D.!!

And we are all on this ship of fools together, Mateys!!!

Love and highest & best wishes, SisSTAR Kylita xo

He ain't heavy...he's my brother

I've been up since 5 a.m., couldn't go back to sleep thinking about some of the problems of people I come in contact with on my jobs working for 2 psychiatrists ... some that I "think" I can help to solve then realize, hey! I'm only me. I can empathize but not always solve another's problems. So with one particular problem swirling around in my mind, I decided to just get up and find a diversion. At 5 a.m. the nearly Full Moon was peeking in my corner kitchen window. It was so quiet and peaceful and the light was bright but with a nice glowing haze surrounding it. In the shadows I saw two bunnies eating down by the feeder, one of them jumping up like a crazy thing then shooting off to the east. One stayed there for over an hour longer munching on something. Less predators then, I suppose. Yesterday a huge hawk was sitting in about the same spot. They all gotta eat, but ...
Seeking more diversion, Tuffy Boy came prrllltt!'ing to me wanting a treat. He got 3 Pounce goodies then started gagging. I know he's winding up for a whopping furball upchuck soon so I was trying to comfort him. He's in here now meowing softly, wanting more loving from his Mama. He will try and talk me into letting him outside, but it's about 5 degrees so he'll have to wait. But I wish the darkness wasn't over with yet because, gosh, I'm still so sleepy. I don't have to be to work until I choose today since the doc is not in. I want to curl up in a ball under my flannel sheets and quilt and soft velour-ish blankie and get a few more peaceful slumbers in.
You may wonder how this all relates to the photo of my brother, Dana, I've posted here. Well, I can say that there isn't one day that's gone by that I haven't thought of him, esp when it's early in the morning, or late at night, or midday, hard to say when the thoughts and memories crop up. I can say that the 1-1/2 yr mark passed by this month without me thinking about it, a good 8 days went by before I put that "anniv" in my thoughts. That was the 1st month since Aug 2006 that I didn't go, "well, my brother's been dead for *** months now" so it was a landmark moment, I guess, that it slipped by me. I guess that's as it should be. To keep letting go and letting go. I've read and strongly believe that "energy cannot die, it just changes form" and when I think of Dana or see photos or look around this childhood home I still live in and imagine him here or there, I catch a glimpse of the little silver trinket box sitting on the window sill, next to the little garden gnome with a suitcase in his hand, representing my brother to me (since he loved those gnomes) and the small amount of his ashes in the silver box. A friend from across the country sent me some awesome agates and fossils from the coastline of Oregon and I put them all on that same window ledge to let the sunshine activate their energies. It is because of my brother and her brother that we became acquainted, both having died a short time ago (regardless of what others might deem "a short time"). I could get all convoluted here, since I don't seem to be spitting out what I'm trying to get at here very well, but for now I will just say: He ain't heavy, he's my brother ... and I bear whatever load I've taken on for myself, the weight of grief that never quite goes away, the burden of regret, the motherlode of memories, some harsh, but so many more than I ever realized good and loving and positive. And when I'm able, I help to share the weight of others' grief so as to help dissipate it into the ethers ... give it a resting place of its own, a well deserved resting place. And with that thought, I am going back to bed. My dream catcher with the tiny hematite animal fetishes, quartz crystal and curly striped feathers await me...ready to catch something that might be just too heavy for me to bear. Or perhaps giggle at a truly frothy fun dream that lightens my load. Heavy sigh................ xoxo

My own personal McIntosh Giving Tree...

Happy Valentine's Day ... sending heartfelt wishes to those I love (you know who you are, don't you?) This is one of my favorites places to be, esp in the springtime when the blossoms are blooming in the orchard and it smells so heavenly, and the birds are new in their migration, eating the blossoms and singing lilting melodies. I wish you all favorite places to sit and contemplate whatever it is that gives you love and peace........^;^ prrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

A Choice....

"Some people look at the muddy bottom of the swamp. Others contemplate the lotus blossom on the watery surface. It is a choice." --The Dalai Lama

Whoops! p.s....

P.S. to post below:

Peace and love to my in-laws! What I forgot to say (since it was something like 3 a.m.) is that you are ALL the best thing that's happened for my life, also. I wish I had a picture I could post of everyone of you, I hold you in my heart. You'll never know how much you've meant to me. Bless you!

Peace out! from SisSTAR Kylita xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Honoring Selma and Clyde

I wanted to honor the life and memory of my mother- and father-in-law, Selma Elizabeth and Walter Clyde Sloan, who died 10 and 9 yrs ago Feb 8th and 9th respectively. I am glad I had some good chances to know you and love you both ... that I continue to be part of your family ... that I am married to a most wonderful, kind, respectful and loving man, your son, Jeffrey. I feel fortunate that I have grown to love my sisters-in-law and their children, all those beautiful people I insist that I am their aunt ;o) ... the out-laws, I call us, those of us who are married to your children. I was told by Mom Sloan that, "Kyle, you're the best thing that ever happened to this family," and, of course, I repeat that on a regular basis to my husband. I don't want him to forget it. I remember the annual visits to Virginia on top of the "hill" which, to me, was a mountain for sure. Jeff and I would go on our late night walks to look at the stars (and some of you know what we were really up to, but stargazing WAS one of them!) and I even taught them something: there were glow worms out there, glowing for no one, because no one stayed up late enough to see them. One night we talked Mom and Dad into staying up past dark and showed them a glow worm. The next day Mom was on the "hot-line" telling all her friends in the neighborhood, and I'm not sure if anyone knew they had glow worms amidst them. Glad to be of service! I was there when Dad went to a restaurant, pretty much for the first time, right inside! He'd been so petrified to do so, anxiety, claustrophobic or fear of crowds, ?? but I talked him into it and, after that, he and Mom went out to eat so much they were like connoiseurs of the neighboring towns' vittles. It was peaceful there to me, except early in the morning when the damned banty roosters would start in. Dad got up around 4 a.m. and started watching TV, too. He was stoned deaf and blasted that baby loud. Around 7 a.m. Mom would get up and start that long process of preparing a breakfast where not one square inch of kitchen table space was left uncovered. Rattling the pots and pans and yelling at Dad, since he could never hear her and probably kept his hearing aids turned off, we'd be trying to squeeze out a tiny bit more sleep time, but the curtains on the room were sheer and white ... and the sun was beaming in ... and the banty roosters sounded like "real" roosters with croup. Then it was, "bam bam bam!" Jeff, come on and get up, breakfast is ready! And we probably had, oh, maybe 5-6 fitful hrs of sleep, but we'd get up to this breakfast fit for royalty, and they didn't even kill me when sometimes I'd say, "Do you have any cereal?" But seriously, Mom and Dad Sloan, I honor you and hold your love and memories of us laughing and crying and sitting on the front porch and riding around those God-awful roads shopping and going to flea mkts ... sitting on the tree swing ... watching the bluebirds and hummingbirds, the absolutely most gorgeous flowers I ever saw in my life, and the moon and stars in such deep darkness that it took my breath away. I wish all your children could see you in the same light that I do ... there aren't any shadows there for me, so I am truly the lucky one. God bless your Souls. We visited your 15' tall burial mausoleums last October in the Chapel of Love at Castlewood in Virginia, first time in 9 yrs. It was a beautiful autumn day with panoramic views of rich fall colors everywhere. Rest easy ... I'll see you in my dreams.

This photo is only a small part of your family, Jeff's birthday party one year, but it's the only one I have on my computer right now. There's also a few friends in the background and I'm taking the picture. See how everyone smiles at me? The best thing that ever happened to your family!

Yes, it's Tuffy Boy again. I just can't help myself. He is such an Angel who came into our lives just when we needed someone to love us and be loved back. My aunt, cousin, only brother and last member of my family but myself, AND our beloved dog Mandy Girl had all died between May and Aug 2006. He showed up on Mandy's grave. I've said it all before. I am just grateful to the Powers that Be that sent this awesome furball to us. He's wild and free and he loves being part of our family. He has the eyes of an eagle or owl...yellow! and he is always looking at things we don't see. He's my familiar, my Spirit Feline. Thank you, Tuff Tuff, Baby xoxoxoxo

Love, Mama xoxo

Leave Hoggy Alone!!! Hibernate, Hoggy!!

Tuffy Boy is catnapping again, he's never afraid of his shadow, in fact he goes after himself many times. He also will go after a groundhog and has! So, let's let Hoggy sleep, undisturbed from his hibernation, let there be more winter, as there surely will, and be damned yanking the pure Whistle Pig from its hidey-hole. No need for me worrying about my "son" Tuff Tuff to be out there hunting it down. I love him, anyway, but I also love the other critters out there. And a good, deep winter snow is great if it can deter Tuff from being the Serial Killer that he may very well be.

He looks pretty rumpled in this photo, holding his teddy bear, because we'd just mauled/petted him. And he'd been into the catnip. Wish I had some catnip! Heavy sigh.......there was such a hyped up weather report the other night that schools and businesses closed ahead of time before any hint of it happening; appts cancelled left and right, and we even heard a weatherman say this: "There's snow falling from a cloud up there, it just isn't hitting the ground!" Oooohhhh! Now that was really scary! It never happened, folks! Maybe somewhere it happened, but not here. I think people want a Snow Day so bad that they're hanging by a cat's whisker and a wing and a prayer! And this is Michigan!!! and it's Winter! It's gonna do what it's gonna do!

Have an extraordinary Saturday....Super Bowl Eve (boo hiss boo)...I need to go purchase food to make my husband some awesome nachos tomorrow like I promised. Happy Ground Hog's Day (to the ground hogs!) Peace out, SisSTARs!!!