Irons in the fire...
Apr. 29th, 2010 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamagotchaI've been putting out feelers, trying to find community here in Chicago, as well as my place for service and work, and activities for the boys.
• I've contacted a local homebirth midwife to see if she could use a doula or assistant. I'm meeting with her for lunch a week from Tuesday. (I also tried to join a local free doula program for low-income families, but they require certification and I'm kind of a rebel doula... and I don't have that kind of cash lying around, anyway.)
• There's no perinatal hospice here like in KC, but a support program for families facing terminal pediatric conditions just responded to my query from a few months back. I'll talk with them on Friday.
• A local Middle Eastern dance studio (warning: icky web graphics) needs office help, and is willing to exchange classes for it. I can't give them tons of hours, but one night a week might be possible... I'll try out the tribal dance class (taught by a member of this troupe) on Sunday and see if it's a good fit.
• I've gotten a couple of nibbles for braids. I need to step it up for the wedding season! Also... I know other braiders have done well with braiding for ice skating events. Maybe I should look into this.
• I've got a few essays and stories in the works. The intersections of death, pregnancy and parenting keep pushing forward... not sure where this is going, but I'm definitely getting pulled in a specific direction.
• I'm almost to the point of diving into some boxes of beads downstairs and seeing what happens. I made a lot of headway clearing my studio space, but have kind of hit a wall... need to get back to that.
• I've signed up to be interviewed for a position as a volunteer escort for a local Planned Parenthood clinic.
• Clay, Linc and I went to the Full Moon Jam, a drum circle and firedancing event on the lakefront. Clay and I juggled and drummed our hands off, and Linc charmed a hoop dancer into sharing her glow hoop with him (when he wasn't swinging poi). It was entirely awesome, and we'll be there as many times as we can through November.
• I'm thinking of heading over to a public Beltane ritual on Saturday night; it seems like a good place to connect with the pagan community here. It's the same time as Journey to the End of Night, which I suspect Clay would love, so we'll have to plan out our transportation. I'd love to connect with some other earthy, pagany, hippie-dippy mamas and maybe launch another circle.
• I'm working on developing a message board for unschooling families here in the Chicago area. I'm learning a lot about how those things work! It should launch sometime in mid-May (someone else controls the software, and I need to wait for them to finish the upgrades... no point in launching and then going offline for a couple of days to upgrade).
• There's a homeschooling game club (like the YuGiOh group that was our portal for so many wonderful friendships in KC) and the weekly homeschooling beach gathering... unfortunately, they're on the same day, Friday, so we're lobbying the game person to consider shifting to another weekday.
• We also headed to a homeschool ice skating thing yesterday, and Linc did astonishingly well, so I think we'll be heading back to that regularly (it's $15 bucks a week, though, which is a biggish new ding in our budget... I could cut it back by getting used skates, though. Anyone happen to have any Mens 13 or Child 1 ice skates in their closet they'd like to unload?).
• Linc is doing a tumbling class once a week that he's loving. (I missed, by 24 hours, the signup for the summer session though... argh!) Fortunately, right as that ends, the summer unschooler Monday park days start up, so we'll still have a way for him to get some yayas out.
• We're trying out a local Roots & Shoots group for Linc (it's kind of a nature scout thing, founded by Jane Goodall). We'll see how it goes...
• Clay's heading into his lifeguard training class (two weeks long, starts on Monday). Then, fingers crossed, he'll get a job at the local pool!
• I joined a local mothering collective and took Linc to one of their gatherings... he was one of the oldest kids there, though... it's very much baby-oriented, so I'm not sure how much more we'll do with this group. Still, we had a nice time and I'm not ruling it out. A local homeschooling mom owns the Curio Cafe, and I was thinking about hosting a gathering there. Gotta go visit it first, and see if they're up for such an event.
• We got to see the Flying Karamazov Brothers last weekend (after I dragged everyone up to Elgin 24 hours early because of my failing grey matter, d'oh!), and it was terrific. I just found out that Alexei (a.k.a. Mark Ettinger) went in for spinal surgery a few days after I saw him... yowch! If you want to support his recovery (as well as sticking some wonderful music in your ears), consider purchasing a copy of In This World, a new cd of his original music.
In addition to all that, May will be my Month of Travel this year. I'm heading out to California on Thursday, May 6 (yow... that's only a week away!) for four days in California (Whole Earth Festival braiding, and a quick zip to Petaluma to see my dad). Then, for my birthday, my sister is flying me back east to attend Julia's graduation, from May 21 to the 24. Home for a nap and laundry, then the next day I drive up to Minneapolis for beading and bonding with the fabulous Elise Matthesen, then back down to Madison for WisCon over the Memorial Day weekend (talk about a creative jumpstart! June is gonna be massively productive, I predict).
There's also a chance of a Kansas City road trip in mid-June, if things play out right... more on that as it gets closer.
My sister gave me a gift certificate to Thousand Waves spa... I went there for the first time last Sunday, and it was entirely delightful. I'm so glad I have a way to indulge, guilt-free... Thank you so much, Amanda!
I'm hoping we'll connect with other family-oriented jugglers in the Chicago area, but haven't put much effort into it yet. Other things in the back of my brainpan: a Fall Equinox Party, hosting the unschoolers' Mothers' Tea, a knitting playgroup (probably when the weather starts getting cooler again), a regular games night (maybe with themed potlucks? I loved that Iron Chef potluck we went to in Davis!), braiding lessons, a writers' support group.
If you slogged through all that, I feel you should get a special award or something. How about a peek at a cute little student film from the Vancouver Film School that I don't think has hit viral status (yet)?
Wow. I guess I AM kind of doing a lot of things. I was feeling a little scattered, and wanted to get it all down in one place, so I decided to write an LJ post to help myself get organized. I've been feeling lonely and adrift, which is totally normal since we just moved here... but seeing all this is making me feel like I really AM making an effort to get myself out there, connect with people, make friends, get us out of the house.
• I've contacted a local homebirth midwife to see if she could use a doula or assistant. I'm meeting with her for lunch a week from Tuesday. (I also tried to join a local free doula program for low-income families, but they require certification and I'm kind of a rebel doula... and I don't have that kind of cash lying around, anyway.)
• There's no perinatal hospice here like in KC, but a support program for families facing terminal pediatric conditions just responded to my query from a few months back. I'll talk with them on Friday.
• A local Middle Eastern dance studio (warning: icky web graphics) needs office help, and is willing to exchange classes for it. I can't give them tons of hours, but one night a week might be possible... I'll try out the tribal dance class (taught by a member of this troupe) on Sunday and see if it's a good fit.
• I've gotten a couple of nibbles for braids. I need to step it up for the wedding season! Also... I know other braiders have done well with braiding for ice skating events. Maybe I should look into this.
• I've got a few essays and stories in the works. The intersections of death, pregnancy and parenting keep pushing forward... not sure where this is going, but I'm definitely getting pulled in a specific direction.
• I'm almost to the point of diving into some boxes of beads downstairs and seeing what happens. I made a lot of headway clearing my studio space, but have kind of hit a wall... need to get back to that.
• I've signed up to be interviewed for a position as a volunteer escort for a local Planned Parenthood clinic.
• Clay, Linc and I went to the Full Moon Jam, a drum circle and firedancing event on the lakefront. Clay and I juggled and drummed our hands off, and Linc charmed a hoop dancer into sharing her glow hoop with him (when he wasn't swinging poi). It was entirely awesome, and we'll be there as many times as we can through November.
• I'm thinking of heading over to a public Beltane ritual on Saturday night; it seems like a good place to connect with the pagan community here. It's the same time as Journey to the End of Night, which I suspect Clay would love, so we'll have to plan out our transportation. I'd love to connect with some other earthy, pagany, hippie-dippy mamas and maybe launch another circle.
• I'm working on developing a message board for unschooling families here in the Chicago area. I'm learning a lot about how those things work! It should launch sometime in mid-May (someone else controls the software, and I need to wait for them to finish the upgrades... no point in launching and then going offline for a couple of days to upgrade).
• There's a homeschooling game club (like the YuGiOh group that was our portal for so many wonderful friendships in KC) and the weekly homeschooling beach gathering... unfortunately, they're on the same day, Friday, so we're lobbying the game person to consider shifting to another weekday.
• We also headed to a homeschool ice skating thing yesterday, and Linc did astonishingly well, so I think we'll be heading back to that regularly (it's $15 bucks a week, though, which is a biggish new ding in our budget... I could cut it back by getting used skates, though. Anyone happen to have any Mens 13 or Child 1 ice skates in their closet they'd like to unload?).
• Linc is doing a tumbling class once a week that he's loving. (I missed, by 24 hours, the signup for the summer session though... argh!) Fortunately, right as that ends, the summer unschooler Monday park days start up, so we'll still have a way for him to get some yayas out.
• We're trying out a local Roots & Shoots group for Linc (it's kind of a nature scout thing, founded by Jane Goodall). We'll see how it goes...
• Clay's heading into his lifeguard training class (two weeks long, starts on Monday). Then, fingers crossed, he'll get a job at the local pool!
• I joined a local mothering collective and took Linc to one of their gatherings... he was one of the oldest kids there, though... it's very much baby-oriented, so I'm not sure how much more we'll do with this group. Still, we had a nice time and I'm not ruling it out. A local homeschooling mom owns the Curio Cafe, and I was thinking about hosting a gathering there. Gotta go visit it first, and see if they're up for such an event.
• We got to see the Flying Karamazov Brothers last weekend (after I dragged everyone up to Elgin 24 hours early because of my failing grey matter, d'oh!), and it was terrific. I just found out that Alexei (a.k.a. Mark Ettinger) went in for spinal surgery a few days after I saw him... yowch! If you want to support his recovery (as well as sticking some wonderful music in your ears), consider purchasing a copy of In This World, a new cd of his original music.
In addition to all that, May will be my Month of Travel this year. I'm heading out to California on Thursday, May 6 (yow... that's only a week away!) for four days in California (Whole Earth Festival braiding, and a quick zip to Petaluma to see my dad). Then, for my birthday, my sister is flying me back east to attend Julia's graduation, from May 21 to the 24. Home for a nap and laundry, then the next day I drive up to Minneapolis for beading and bonding with the fabulous Elise Matthesen, then back down to Madison for WisCon over the Memorial Day weekend (talk about a creative jumpstart! June is gonna be massively productive, I predict).
There's also a chance of a Kansas City road trip in mid-June, if things play out right... more on that as it gets closer.
My sister gave me a gift certificate to Thousand Waves spa... I went there for the first time last Sunday, and it was entirely delightful. I'm so glad I have a way to indulge, guilt-free... Thank you so much, Amanda!
I'm hoping we'll connect with other family-oriented jugglers in the Chicago area, but haven't put much effort into it yet. Other things in the back of my brainpan: a Fall Equinox Party, hosting the unschoolers' Mothers' Tea, a knitting playgroup (probably when the weather starts getting cooler again), a regular games night (maybe with themed potlucks? I loved that Iron Chef potluck we went to in Davis!), braiding lessons, a writers' support group.
If you slogged through all that, I feel you should get a special award or something. How about a peek at a cute little student film from the Vancouver Film School that I don't think has hit viral status (yet)?
Wow. I guess I AM kind of doing a lot of things. I was feeling a little scattered, and wanted to get it all down in one place, so I decided to write an LJ post to help myself get organized. I've been feeling lonely and adrift, which is totally normal since we just moved here... but seeing all this is making me feel like I really AM making an effort to get myself out there, connect with people, make friends, get us out of the house.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-29 04:48 pm (UTC)Uh, yeah. :) I'm exhausted just reading about it! I hope some of these groups work out well for you and your guys to continue with regularly.
Play It Again Sports is good for used skates. There's a location in Chicago, don't know if it's at all convenient to you: http://playitagainsportswrigleyville.com/
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-29 05:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-30 05:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-29 06:10 pm (UTC)It is good to hear about all of the things you are up to! It really sounds like you are diving into the community headfirst and I think that is awesome. I hope all of the various things pan out.
Miss you! I'm sorry I haven't gotten there to visit, this spring proved busier than expected between births and an early baseball season for A. I think we are going to have weekends free again in July or August. Argh. But L wants to visit a friend who is north of St. Louis so maybe we could venture on to Chicago after that... I'll try to be in touch!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-29 09:17 pm (UTC)