When I was talking with perspectivism on the phone the other day, he brought up a good question. Why do I care so much about getting a job/coaching business? I don't really need the money. Patri would like for me to contribute more, but he's not pressuring me.

So why is it so important to me, and to Patri for that matter, that I contribute? That I don't just live off him and the system?

Its deeply important to me.

I fleshed it out a little more on the phone with Susan. On some level I feel a deep need to justify my existence. I can come at it from a sense of obligation or a sense of contribution. I want to come at it from the sense of contribution, because I don't believe in moral obligation.

I feel most alive when I feel connected. With accomplishment, connecting with others, making people happy, gratification, feeling wise and sharing that wisdom.

I feel that connection sometimes, but I want more of it. I want to be working on it, and to also be patient and let things come as they may. I'm feeling at a stopping point with coaching. I'm running out of ideas to try that I think are likely to be fruitful for getting clients. So I'll keep trying, and see if I can find something that works, and, I need to be okay with it if this is all there is. I like what I'm doing. And I'm working on a path that can lead to something else with the grief work volunteering. Its just slow going, and I can't speed it up. I need to wait for the training time. And then I need to wait to get experience.

I sure hope something big and cool comes along. I'm aiming toward a coaching business or a job. What I really want is a flourishing business or super cool job or opportunity.

So I'll work incrementally, slowly, and work on building a foundation slowly, while being open to and keeping an eye out for the fantastical.

Next time I have a big chunk of time, I'm going to go downtown and offer free mini-coaching sessions in person. I've tried fliers before, but I think the experiential stuff has a lot higher probability of working.

I'm feeling jazzed from improv, and I have a lot more experience with coaching now, so that's seeming doable :)

Anyone have suggestions? I have the time, it really seems like there should be some sort of marketing I could do so that I could once again be short on time with a busy schedule of clients.

I've been favoring strategies of text advertisement, but that's a money strategy, whereas time is what I'm more rich in right now. There's got to be some sort of useful leg work I could do... any ideas?

I didn't sleep much and I have energy. Three scenarios:

1. Its a placebo effect: I just got the machine and am excited about it and wishful thinking about how awesome it is.

2. Machine is awesome. I didn't sleep much, but the sleep I did was much deeper sleep than I normally get, so I feel as rested on 6hrs sleep as I usually do on 10.

3. I'm having a bipolar episode. Not sleeping is both a cause and effect of hypomania. I haven't gotten much sleep for several nights in a row at this point, that could have triggered an episode.

My guess is that its mostly placebo effect with at least a little bit of actual effect. I'm still on a relatively high dose of Risperdal, so this doesn't seem like enough trigger to send me over the edge in the bipolar domain.

[edit]

I take it back, I'm tired ;)

It was much better with the chin strap. Although not so great when I tried to adjust the chin strap in the middle of the night, its a shame I didn't mark my original settings from when I went to get fitted :/

I still woke up a ton during the night, but I think I might have slept more soundly when I did sleep. The nasal pillow mask has been great. Much better than the mask they put on me at the sleep clinic, and no breaking out. I am sore from it though this morning where it was pushing at my nose, hopefully the soreness will get better as I get used to the mask.

Those of you all on cpap machines, do you wash your mask and tubing every night? The mask specialist told me to do so. It seems a little excessive to me to wash a piece of medical equipment every night, but then again, as she pointed out, you are breathing through it all night. What do you think?

I had my first night at home with a cpap machine last night. I don't know how long I kept it on, but eventually I ended up ripping the thing off, and then I put it back on some time during the morning.

I have a nose mask, and I kept breathing through my mouth and waking myself up. Its supposed to take a couple of weeks to get adjusted, so I'm trying not to jump the gun about thinking that its not going to work unless I get a full mouth and nose mask.

I'm tired. ;)

It turns out that the spring grief counselor training for Kara is geared toward youth as opposed to working with adults like I'd anticipated. This is going to be a stretch, I'm much more comfortable with adults, but its a stretch I'm willing to make, and I think it'll be good for me to connect with young people so that I can better connect with my little ones.

I imagine there will be a lot of overlap working with people young and old about grief, except that with kids you've got strong developmental factors impacting them, such as children blaming themselves for everything, more so than adults do. I figure that with the elderly, who I initially figured I'd have a lot of interaction with, the issues probably include more in the realm of being closer to death ones self. I don't have any particular expectations about those in the middle of their lives.

So it'll be interesting. I did fine as a piano teacher and connected well with my students, so I figure this will probably come naturally as well once I get into the swing of it.

I say probably in the title, because they're pretty hardcore about training for these non-profits. If you miss even one day of the training, you are typically disqualified and have to wait 6-12 months until the next training rolls around. It depends on which day you miss though: if its one that's being taught by the agency staff they'll usually let you make it up, although it might take a month or two.

[rough draft for a coaching blog post]

Its been a year or more since my husband Patri and I have had a capital T Talk. In our prior six years of marriage, we had them fairly frequently.

What changed? A lot has changed. We've both done a ton of personal growth work.

One thing I do that's very different now than before, is that I glare at Patri often. The way I figure it, is that this glare has taken the place of words. Instead of trying to figure out what is going on between us that has me irritated, I just express the irritation. The moment happens, and then we move on with our lives. This, as opposed to before, when I would use words to convey when I was displeased, and Patri would end up arguing with those words, causing a cascade of misery.

I've read plenty of fiction books talking about a mother's glare. Perhaps this is me coming into my own now that I'm a mother. In any event, glares are much better than Talks for my marriage. When I glare, Patri usually gets the notion of what I don't like, and that's plenty of communication. When we had Talks, I'd end up in tears and Patri would stonewall and have elevated pulse for quite awhile before he regained balance.

An article that says that when marital status of parents is considered, race does not make a difference in crime. via radiantsun

Its nice to hear stats like that, because I've heard so much about race being the culprit. I imagine its much more than nice to hear stats like that if you're from a race that gets scapegoated.

Its like innocent until proven guilty. People of color, at least from many things I've heard, are considered guilty of being lesser than until proven innocent. I've heard the marriage stats blamed on race, as opposed to welfare. Again, we don't know, and the not knowing, by default, is blaming. We're making up explanations because people are different and its easy to categorize and dismiss people or worse.

There's a black girl in my Improv class who has made a point of referring to herself as black at least two, maybe three times, during the two classes I've attended. I'm curious as to the way she holds herself around color, which is clearly near the top of her mind. I'm not going to ask her, because it would probably irritate her as well as being highly inappropriate. Its an improv class after all. I imagine she has a lot to say though, being so strongly and publicly self-identified with her skin color. In one amusing interaction, the teacher was trying to remember our names, and noted that several people were wearing black hoodies, which made it difficult for him to associate us by appearance. When it was her turn, she suggested being identified as black, as opposed to wearing black.

Which reminds me of another thing I've been thinking about. In our culture there is such a strong association that is not overtly race related with white being good and black being bad. The white wizard and the dark wizard, etc.

That has got to get to you when the label used for you is used to represent bad. Especially for kids who are less sophisticated about knowing the difference between labels meaning different things. Not to say we should be PC or anything like that, but it is nice when a hero is dressed in black and riding a black horse.

7 little embryos implanted, and only 1 little one implanting. I'm so happy that the pregnancy is continuing to proceed as hoped!

And wow. What odds. I'm really glad we went with India and not Panama, since Panama only lets you implant 3 at a time, and then your odds of implantation go down after the eggs are frozen.

So relieved. According to what I've read, now that we've got the heartbeat established, the pregnancy has a 70 to 90% success rate.

I made it for almost a year of alternate day calorie restriction before I got off of it due to high Risperdal dosage.

I'm not sure if I'm going to get back on it or not. My new years resolution is to work out 5 days/week, but it would be a huge pain in the ass to balance calorie restriction with exercise, so I think I need to pick one or the other.

It occurred to me in the shower tonight that I could do an alternate year diet. I made it for almost a year of calorie restriction, but it was getting kind of old by the end of the year. So I could make this year a year of working out a lot, and then when it starts getting old at the end of the year, I can switch back to only 2-3 days/week of exercise and doing calorie restriction.

I guess we'll see how I'm doing on the frequent exercise program after two or three months and go from there.

It would be nice to have a light at the end of the tunnel when I'm getting sick of a diet routine.

via rhiannonstone

We have not had a big fight or a capital T Talk in quite awhile. We used to have Talks often, and fights more often than we'd like. We still discuss issues, but unlike in the past, I don't hold onto and make a big deal out of things that are bugging me much anymore. I think I also trust Patri a lot more than I used to. We've been through so much together that I know he's solid, and I know he's got a great heart and that he's in no way out to get me.

Things changed for the better during our anniversary getaway back in June. I'd been unsettled with our relationship and working on it a lot prior to that, and Patri complained about how its a drain on him to be putting in so much work, and how he doesn't want our relationship to be work. I then recalled the Gottman 7 to 1 ratio of recommended positive interactions to more difficult ones, and realized that what our relationship needed most was just to enjoy each other and not to spend so much time being a perfectionist about having an ideal relationship.

That was right when we started seeing an NVC relationship counselor/therapist (who is *awesome* if anyone local wants her info). She's very chill, and Patri actually liked working with her and didn't seem to see it as much of a drain. We worked through some of the more difficult issues we had going on, most of which had to do with how I was responding to my bipolar ups and downs. I think I finally feel solid enough with our relationship that I'm not going to try to run even when the mood swings get nasty. We stopped seeing Roxy recently because we generally only have problems when I'm having bipolar episodes, and the problems are more related to my moods than actual problems in our marriage.

Roxy thinks we're doing well and doesn't see a problem with us taking a break from marital therapy, although she thinks we do have a couple of systemic issues which while not marriage threatening, would be nice if we ironed out. She recommends that we pick up again with therapy for a little while once the new baby gets here, since the issues are going to be more "alive" when we're under more stress.

The main issue she commented on us still having is something to do with us compromising, when it would be better for us to be doing something else. I'm not really clear on what she thinks we should be doing instead, so I've asked her to explain, and we're going to have a short phone call about it sometime over the next week. I think it has something to do with getting more in touch with our NVC feelings and needs before moving to decision making. Given that our awesome therapist thinks we have a systemic issue around this, I definitely want to follow up, although it seems like our marriage is pretty damn healthy if our big issue is that we compromise more than we should.

I finally put together a newsletter list. I'm going to be doing a monthly newsletter, which will consist of my wordpress blog posts and maybe a quote or link or two. If you want in, sign up at http://groups.google.com/group/starry-night-coaching :)

hey guys,
we repeated the beta hcg today and the levels were more than 1500 m.i.u

concurrently we did a scan for the surogate and we could see a very tiny gestational sac measuring 5 mm
the pregnancy is now 5 weeks.

we shall do a scan again next week and check for other developments.

I did okay with the cpap machine during the night, but in the morning I had a mark on my forhead and brusing around my nose where the mask had been. The mark on my nose stayed all day long, and then this morning its still there, and it broke out into a bunch of little zits :P

I'll see what they have for options of different masks, but I'm not optimistic. If I'm bruised and seriously broken out after only one night I can't use this thing long term, for one thing, vanity aside, it would hurt to put a mask over bruising and acne! Oh well, we'll see what the tech says when I look into masks.

I'm sooo relieved after getting that last email about hormone levels of the surrogate. They said two days, and they took three, and its still really early, so I was starting to sweat it that the pregnancy had miscarried and they were just procrastinating giving me bad news.

So things are looking good.

shannon and patri,
you guys will be happy to know that the beta hcg levels have risen to 184.14 m.i.u.
today being the 15th day followig embryo transfer.this is a very decent reading.
we shall do a scan after 10 days to dectect for a gestational sac.