Archive of unpublished blogs: Holiday Party 2018

Friday evening Guy and I hosted a Holiday Party in our home. It was the first holiday party we have hosted since moving to our house almost 6 years ago. We haven’t done much entertaining in our home, mainly because of having three kids and busy schedules. However this year I decided it was time to revisit a side of our lives, entertaining.

I created the Facebook event on a whim while 2 glasses in on my favorite white wine.

“You’re invited to our holiday party.
There will be wine, food, and Bob Dylan Christmas carols.

Kid friendly. We’ll order pizza and they can play games, and watch movies.

It’s gonna be fun.
Maybe, Guy will whittle you a wooden spoon by the fire pit in the back yard. (Bring your whittling knife, we will supply the wood.)

Oh and there will be whisky. Good whisky.

Optional: Bring an item to share and/or your favorite libation and Wear your best ugly holiday sweater.”

Guy read the invite.

“Fire pit? We don’t have a fire pit.”
“Well then we better get one…”
“Whittling by the fire pit? What?”
“Haha yeah I was a little unsober when I drafted this invite.”
“I’ll get some wood for the party.”
“That’s what she said.”

The party ended up being a blast. SO many kids. I would say at we had about 60-75 people including children cross our threshold during the party. I greatly underestimated the amount of food, as most people brought wine. (I’m not complaining.)

When the first group of guests went home, we busted out our guitars and started jamming. The fire was going and shenanigans entailed there as well.

Zoey was handing out pop cans like contraband… haha (we have to keep an eye on this one in the future.) Amelia was playing twister with her friends, and Max had “Nailed it” on TV and kids were doing water painting?

This is what the holidays are about for me, not the gifts and consumerism, but the connection and camaraderie.

Getting Scrappy

I’m a scrappy person, and probably loyal to a fault, but that isn’t the kind of scrappy I’m referring to here.

Scrappy food.

Did you know that 40% of the food grown in the US is wasted! It’s an insane amount! And households are largest contributors to this waste.

I have decided to revamp the recipe portion of my blog to focus on ways to eat it up, use it up, put it up, and decrease house hold food waste. I’ll be sharing my creative, easy, versatile recipes to help you not only save food, but save money as well.

Stay tuned!

Cheers,

Kristina

 

What’s New

Hi everyone, I haven’t posted in a while. Why? Well for starters I have been BUSY, and secondly, WordPress changed it’s editor and I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to try and figure out how to “post” a blog. Or at least a blog of the same caliber of my previous endeavors.

Back when I would post here regularly, I was very detailed with my posts and images. I proof-read, and took a lot of time curating the subjects I posted about.

I miss keeping this blog up as to showcases a side of me I don’t often get to dig into, my more formal writing side.

So I mentioned I was busy. SO what is keeping me so busy. Life right? Three kids, keeping up the house, marriage, community volunteering and advocacy.

While my children were little I was active in Early Childhood Family Education, and I sat on their Parent Advisory Committee for 6 or 7 years I believe. (I honestly lost track.)

While being on the Homecroft ECFE PAC and as their rep to the Saint Paul ECFE “All-City” PAC, I learned a TON. I learned about writing agendas, Robert’s Rules, stacking, consensus voting, collaborative timelines, delegation, etc…

It was fun to apply my skills as a RN to this different framework and learn the “culture” of grassroots “non-profit” committee work. I have some formal hospital committee experience, but is was formatted much differently, much more hierarchical top down. I was my unit rep (where I just needed to provide a nurse report from our unit)  and a member of an evidence based practice policy committee where we were collating evidence regarding aroma therapy for our integrative care to write hospital policy to guide nurses in safe usage of E.O.s at bedside. I also did nurse clinical research, where I did chart audits for certain variables regarding PICCs and “locking” practices, to see if saline could maintain line patency vs heparin. To decrease the amount of Heparin our patients were receiving and also looking at incidence of HIT syndrome.  (This was about 11 years ago before I had Amelia and around the time our hospital decided to lay off our clinical nurse specialist so thus my research ended.)

Once Zoey aged out, and I was staying home,  I started to focus my committee work elsewhere. Last year I joined the Highland District Council’s Transportation committee, because I was getting fed up with almost getting hit crossing the street to use the bus. This year I ran and was elected to the Highland District Council and currently sit on their engagement committee, and am going to be a member of their Equity Taskforce.  In  addition my friend Erin and I started a waste-reduction advocacy group called, “Zero Waste Saint Paul.” I also started the Expo Green Team at my kids’ elementary school, to help provide a sustainability focus to the school and help the edible garden. After winter break the Green Team will be starting a milk carton recycling pilot during their Breakfast to-go.
(Breath)
This spring I also became a Master Recycler Composter through Dakota County, a program we hope to bring to Saint Paul.

Testified at a senate committee hearing at the state level regarding sustainable to go packaging and public health.

AND I am a coordinating committee member for the Saint Paul Green Party. (Which is not really much of a time commitment at this point as the party is restructuring.)

I don’t know where this all is going to lead me, but I am remaining open to opportunities as they present themselves, and trying to be as prepared for those opportunities as they arise.

I have been networking very heavily, and working to make professional connections everywhere I go. As I know it isn’t as much about what you know, but who you know.

As this year is rounding it’s corner I am looking forward to planning ahead and being more focused. Zoey is now in pre-K 5 days a week, and Preschool 2 days a week. I want to be really efficient and more effective in 2019.

Work smarter not harder.

I am also working on things being good enough and not needing to be perfect. So I am not going to proof-read this post prior to posting.

I hope you all are having a amazing holiday season with your friends and family.

Talk to you later Kristina

PS. this blog is going to be taking a little bit of a different turn. Stay tuned.

Acknowledgment vs. Recognition

Getting acknowledgement for a task or accomplishment feels good and we all need it from time to time. Recognition is similar but is based more extrinsically. I have grappled with this recently quite a bit. My motivation to do something stems from a place of recognition and this isn’t healthy. We all from time to time will invite people over to light a fire under our asses to clean. But when it is the only reason you care is rooted in what someone ELSE might think … It feels heavy. I have always been a high achieving people pleaser. Often seeking the acknowledgement for a job well done but the motivator was initially intrinsic not based on an extrinsic need for recognition. The ability to share every aspect a day on social media, seeking recognitoon can be an addictive drug. With drawing from recognition is similar to withdrawing from an addictive substance (without the physiolocal symptoms of the flu or a cold like with opioids or tremors or DTs like with    ETOH) however  the crankiness, the labole mood, and feeling of being unrooted, and breaking those micro habits associated with the drug of choice are real. I broke up with Facebook. I have done it before. It’s an on again off again kind of relationship… (I had one of those in my 20’s… )  it’s not sustainable. It’s not balanced. It’s awesome and horrible at the same time. And at some point you realize… This just can’t keep going on. I need to just quit this bull shit. So I did. I deactivated (it’s not like I threw away everything from that relationship in 20’s either. I still got a box of pictures stashed somewhere. ) So I am not about to delete Facebook, I got a decade of pics on there! It’s been a week so far. I am definitely going through withdrawals. But I rebounded with twitter!!!! It’s better, streamlined… Only 140 characters… Yeah  like an alcoholic who gave up booze for cigarettes. Fuck. Well… Now I am weaning off “the tweeter.”  I am not quitting IG. It’s like my coffee. You’ll pry coffee from my dead fingers … Though I might go on a caffeine detox from time to time… I will NEVER entirely quit all Social media… No matter how many studies say it scientifically proven to contribute  to depression, obesity, and sitting with an open jar of peanut butter at 1 am..  Ok maybe not the last one. It’s not scientifically proven…

So here I am looking at my female personality archetype (thanks to Dana James) and had this aha moment. Working on being more aware of my achieving and nurturing facets to my core. Being aware is the first step.

Acknowledgement vs recognition any thoughts about this? Share in the comments below. Thanks for reading.

a step in the direction of courage

My partner in activism, Amelia.

Live video outside of Kare11 studios to protest.

Amelia and I at the Green Party Booth at the Minnesota State Fair

For the last 8 years my mind’s focus was completely on my children and rarely about myself. It’s ok. It’s not a problem, it is just what often happens during the beginnings of motherhood. Now that my last nursling is weaned and unlatched in many ways. I have felt myself unlatch and open. I feel opened, centered, and ready. The time of rest and centering on my children provided me with a perspective I am utilizing in my next steps. I feel like motherhood has provided me with a deeper empathy for our world and environment. Through childbirth and mothering I found my strength, and voice. And now, rounding the corner into my 40’s my voice strong, loud, and focused. But mostly, my fear is gone. I am not afraid to stand and speak and push back. I am not as easily convinced and am digging deeper for the answers I am seeking. Itching to go back to school, but not entirely sure what to pursue. My career as a RN (in a conventional sense) is likely over and I am ready to take on the next challenge of my life. I don’t want to do the same thing until I retire but build upon my knowledge, grow, and expand. I often thought of myself as one of those people who “don’t do things like change my career.” But I am coming to realize a life of fear and anxiety of change is not a life I want to lead. So here I am with my daughter speaking up. While the protest didn’t occur outside of Kare 11 because we were the only people to show up. I look back on that night and wish we could have just gotten out of the car and stood (even if alone) to make a statement. Not worried so much about the change is affect but just the principle of standing up and speaking. Each day is a step toward bravery. It wasn’t a failure but a step in the direction of courage. I hope I am teaching Amelia about courage, integrity, and conviction, while being open minded to change mid-stream if needed.

A follow up to my last post.

Considering the path forward.

Over the last six months my world has contracted and expanded in ways I never imagined; externally, and more importantly internally. Imbalanced, because I feel the energy is shifting in tectonic proportions around the world, as if we are on the verge of a huge eruption. Gusting energy in exhausting proportions in search of the Truth. As I strive to find my foothold to ground and rebalance, it’s hard not to look around at those who are walking through the augmented reality. Its hard not to scream, explaining the system in which they live is all a myth.

 

 

Spring a time for renewal

While I have been bouncing back and forth between wanting to be around people and wanting to just give a big middle finger to the world. I have decided to just scale back my investment into my community and invest more into myself and my family. Which is where community and peace start right?

So in this the first day of Spring, I am taking advantage of the bounty of vegetables available and am going to invest in becoming a more healthy person. My eating habits went into the toilet big time this Winter. I have gained about 25lbs. I know I look heavier and that is ok, but what isn’t ok is how my body feels with this weight. I feel old. I feel tired. So if shedding the weight will help, and I can get back into my old jeans that is just gravy. If I don’t lose any weight but I feel better I am completely ok with that too. But I honestly think for my body the two go hand in hand. I have set a goal for this weight loss I am not going to publicly share because studies show once you share your goal you are less likely to achieve it. (Counter intuitive I know.)

So that is that for now. I am still knitting, every day and love it. I am going to add some exercise and use knitting as a reward. 🙂 We all have what motivates us.

Winter Song

I love Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson, so to put them in a song together is just magic to me. As is the adorable video. I love details of the knits and glasses. I kinda want to see a short film about these characters, so much back story to be told here. Enjoy. This song is like a warm drink and a cozy soft sweater on a long December night.

Winter Song – Sara Bareilles

This is my winter song to you.
The storm is coming soon,
it rolls in from the sea

My voice; a beacon in the night.
My words will be your light,
to carry you to me.

Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love

They say that things just cannot grow
beneath the winter snow,
or so I have been told.

They say were buried far,
just like a distant star
I simply cannot hold.

Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love alive?

This is my winter song.
December never felt so wrong,
cause you’re not where you belong;
inside my arms.

I still believe in summer days.
The seasons always change
and life will find a way.

Ill be your harvester of light
and send it out tonight
so we can start again.

Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love alive?

This is my winter song.
December never felt so wrong,
cause you’re not where you belong;
inside my arms.

This is my winter song to you.
The storm is coming soon
it rolls in from the sea.

My love a beacon in the night.
My words will be your light
to carry you to me.

Is love alive?

Sick ZoZo

My little zozo bumped her head on tuesday afternoon, hard enough it warranted a trip to the ER for a check. Then early Wednesday evening she spiked a high fever (It was 4 am and she was comfortable so I didn’t check it.) I let it ride because the body makes fevers for a reason. (To kill the bad guys.)  But the next morning she had spiked to 103 so she got some advil which brought it down. She was a bit of a fussy pants all day.