The greatest love of all

Before I gave birth every one told me that your labor never goes as expected.  I doubted my own instinct a lot when I was pregnant. For this very reason on of my greatest lessons I've learned (now that Easton is almost four weeks old) is that sometimes things can go the way you want them to. Sometimes the dreams you've been having come to fruition and all that you knew in your heart to be true is.

For this there is only gratitude, so immense, so powerful and so great it us unlike any I have felt before.  So I say, as always, thank you. Thank you for my body - for how it serves me, for how it serves the little one that came from it. Thank you for this new love in my life, for every challenge, for every lesson learned, for every moment I get to know my baby boy better and understand his needs, how to soothe him and care for him. Thank you for moments to myself! Thank you for the support of many so that my darling boy and I can thrive. Thank you for the man that has been loving and caring for me for 13 years and who now cares for US on a whole other level. To have him in our lives, we are blessed beyond our fondest dreams!  

I have never been more in awe of myself, realized the confidence I have and what I am capable of. I have never been more in love with life and it's process and it's magic. Sure, I'm having a great moment right now.  I don't feel like crying and have gotten (some) sleep - which is not always nor will very often be the case.  So I am taking this moment to say thank you, to every thing and every one that is out there. My family of three is connected to you in pure love.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for the birth of my healthy baby and the love that is growing, growing, growing. This is the year, the greatest year on record...so far!

Off to a Great Start!

Well, it's finally happened.  I've crossed over to the other side....

This is Tom and I with Victoria, our new car.  We got it so I'd have my own car to drive around L.A, now that walking 3.5 miles/day at least is starting to tire me out too much in this pregnant body.  I will still walk!  Oh yes!  I refuse to surrender to the LA culture of driving ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE when there's nothing but sunshine can clear skies.  But on the flip-side, it's bloody hard to get anywhere in LA without a car.  I've managed to do pretty well for my first two years here, when most Angelinos look at me sideways when I tell them I don't have my own car.  But the thought of being a tad bit isolated with a newborn and the difficulty of getting to doctor appointments or Mommy and Baby meetings etc. helped Tom and I decide it was time.  And for one woman who has always disliked driving, I have to say I LOVE THIS CAR!  It doesn't mean I'm totally comfortable navigating the highways of LA.  It's nuts here people!  But oh, dear Toronto friends, if you could see how far I've come! I'm so, so grateful that Tom and I can afford our beautiful Victoria and that I really do love driving this sweet, smooth girl.  She's helping me get over much of my driver's anxiety and that is a blessing!  Big Gratitude!

In the meantime, while I haven't been driving, doing my other freelance work, or teaching yoga, — and I've been doing a lot more of that lately which is awesome and helping to pay for the aforementioned vehicle — I've been working on this:

I've been slashing, and making notes and looking for places to cut, because this draft is a tad on the long side.  But I'm making huge progress!  Thanks in part to the help of my author aunt.  And in a few months this bad boy will be out of my hands and sent out...Before baby comes I'll be at the next stage with this manuscript - the submission stage!  Oh my goodness, I don't want to think about how many years it's taken me to get here, but the time is nigh, my friends.  Oh yes, it is coming very soon. I feel grateful that I've stuck through it.  Just to get to this stage after being a young early twenty-something girl and dreaming of getting here, I have!  And it's because of the support from my family and my love, it's because of my own perseverance. Even if nothing more comes from this I have to give myself credit for getting this far.  There's a lot of people that don't. 

And while I'm not editing away...Tom and I are working on this:

It's our official "Before Baby Peters" list.  That's right!  We have a list — with only 12 weeks or so to go until baby arrives.  Bah!  I know our lives will be changed forever pretty soon and I've never been more excited, more grateful for a life change (though trust me already-parents, I'm not expecting this to be easy in any way, shape or form).

At 30 weeks I have to say I'm really starting to feel the spirit of this baby inside me.  Not in gender terms but in a whole other way — just a presence that I feel wrapped up in, in awe of and so utterly grateful for.  Every time the baby moves in my belly I'm filled with great laughter. I can't thank God, the Universe, Spirit, enough!

And on a side note...it's my Mom's birthday today.  Happy Birthday Mom!  You all know how important she is to me.  And if you don't, read this. 

  

This was 2013!

Our second year in LA has been a BIG one.  I wrote a new novel from start to finish, then polished off another one. I became a certified RYT 200-hour yoga teacher, assisted a second round of teacher training and completed an 85-hour specialty certification in prenatal yoga.  And I also started teaching yoga!  Me!  The girl who cried in 2012 when she had to teach a sun salutation to a group of teacher trainees because she was terrified of speaking in public — and now I have two classes a week of my very own!  I never expected I would get to this point teaching yoga and how much I would love teaching.  I never thought I could write a novel in three months either, but I did that this year too!

Tom and I also had six sets of visitors in 2013.  I went back to Toronto twice, went to Hawaii with my little sis, made a trip to NYC with my Mom and my aunt, Tom and I visited our little niece and family in Vancouver and then we partied in Calgary for his best friend's wedding. We also took multiple trips to Palm Springs — with my aunt and her family and with friends — and then we had a little getaway of our own in San Clemente.  This was also the year Toomas 4Everest Peters launched his digital record label, Such Music — and the label had a stellar first year!  Then the weekend after he launched the label he broke his neck on an ocean wave in Malibu.  While he was healing I broke my toe.  We spent 12 weeks together in our apartment while he healed, learning to be humble and above all reach for a whole new level of gratitude.  Every day we are grateful that he made a full recovery (along with my little toe).   But you know, there's a lot a young married couple can get up to when they're stuck in their apartment together, even with broken bones...

It turns out 2013 was also the year we embarked on a journey, of receiving one of life's greatest gifts!! 

And so these were the events of 2013, but in truth, this was the year...

...we saw for ourselves how quickly life sprouts up and on and how joy spreads with it

This was the year of knowing you will always find your way back to the people you love

...and that together you can visit the places of your dreams.

 This was the year of discovering that you can set goals and you can surpass them

and that life will always find a way to help you express what's in your heart.

This was the year my eyes opened wider to the evolution of spirit within each of us, the beauty that resides within us all. 

I realized like never before that we are here to go for it.  We are here to express. We are here to share what we love and always, always, always, create from the truest parts of ourselves.

We are here to remember the cliche that life's greatest loves can be born out of life's greatest heartaches (or something like that ;)

especially if you're able to laugh your way through.

 Because the truth is this won't be the last time you'll need to reach for a higher place.  The truth is that the thing you never thought you'd get through is over now, or it's on its way to being over, because it all ends sometime.  It all changes.  So if it's at all possible, keep in mind and take heart that there are joyous occasions around the corner.  There is love like you have never known.

This was a year of love, this was a year of greatness, this year and all...

Life surging on and overflowing

Thank you for the crispy bits of roasted potatoes.  Thank you for information falling into my lap just when I need it and better yet before I realized I did.  Thank you for time — to connect, to relax, to breathe and move and to discover.  Thank you for the moments I remember to recognize my freedom. Because I know that freedom is like life, ever changing, and it might not always exist in the same way, so thank you for how it exists in my life right now. And thank you for boot weather.  Thank you for live music and community and teachers who hold the space.  Thank you for my person, the support he slips under my soles so I can feel myself growing.  Because I know I'm growing, it's just that sometimes it feels more like sinking and so I'm grateful for him because he reminds me that backwards steps can be forward steps.  Thank you for all the pieces of the universe that we don't understand.  Thank you for surprises.  Thank you for open hearts and surrendered spirits. Thank you for life surging on and overflowing.  Thank you for this moment, right now, right here.       

Something out of nothing

I finally got around to watching this TED Talk by Amy Tan about where creativity lies.  She makes some great points about the serendipitous nature of creativity that really resonated with me so I thought I would share.  If you have 20 minutes and are so inclined:

Life is good right now.  In fact, life is great.  I feel awesome, am back in a schedule doing so many things I love: writing lots, teaching yoga, practicing yoga, hanging out with friends and my best friend and life-mate, good old Mr. Peters.  I'm just really grateful to be right here.

I'm feeling really good about the revisions I'm going through in this next draft of my book and confident that I'll be done with this draft very soon.  Then...(duh, duh, duh) it will truly be time to send it out!  It's taken me a LONG TIME to get even close to this stage (much longer than most writers I think, from what I read in the blogosphere), but I haven't given up!  It's been a good 10 years since I committed to the idea of writing stuff for people to read and I'm really thrilled I've kept at it.

Yesterday I was in a bathroom and I cam across this:

Thoreau's quote made me smile because, after all this time, I can't believe that's still the direction I'm going in. I've had a lot of help and a lot of love from people to keep me on track, but reading this I'm reminded that patience really pays off.  I haven't realized a lot of my dreams yet, but because I'm going in their direction I feel like I'm living them.  And when I'm out of my head and in my body, when I'm breathing in the present moment, I realize that if you're living any stage of your dream, in some facet you're already there.

So, my dear ones, GO CONFIDENTLY! You may just end up realizing the life you've imagined for yourself is happening right now.

Mom and some Torah wisdom

I am officially on staff teaching prenatal yoga at Yoga Noho!  I teach Mondays and Saturdays at 10 a.m! The Monday class I am currently subbing for a friend on mat leave but the Saturday class I'm taking over and am so excited about this!  It's my first official class! Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude!

For the last 10 days my mom and aunt Lisa were here visiting in LA.  They just left on Saturday.  We had an awesome time but saying goodbye is always hard. I'm going back to Toronto for the holidays though so I'm comforted in knowing it won't be too long until I see them again.

One thing I've learned is that not every daughter has a great relationship with their mother.  I have to say I always have.  Even when I was a teenager and my mom was chasing me down the street in her housecoat in the middle of the night when I tried to sneak out.  Or anytime we've had yelling matches (my mother likes to use her voice) I've always still loved her so fiercely and been aware of that.  After my husband, she is the first person I speak to when I have a problem.  She is the first person I want to call when I have joyous news to share.  And most of the time I just need to connect with her — through Facetime, in person, on the phone — just because.  I know in my heart that our spirits are connected, that we've been loving each other for way longer than just this life.  And I am so, so grateful.  I am thankful for what she's taught me.  I am thankful for how she's always encouraged me not to give up on my dreams, even if they haven't been making me any money, even if the realization of my dreams is a long shot.  All I wish for her is health and happiness and a long life.  Selfishly, I want to share as much of mine as possible with her, loving her, expressing my gratitude for her and just being together.  Love you Mom!  The picture below is us before we sat as audience members of The Talk TV show.  We had a blast.

Now I thought I would leave you with just a nugget of wisdom from my Jewish roots.  I came across this carved box in a gift shop in Burbank when my Mom was visiting and the words just hit home.  For those of you who have been reading my blog, even though my posting has been so sporadic for the latter half of this year, this one's for you.  And for the rest of you, it's also yours for the taking.

In which it would appear that I've given up

It's quite the contrary actually.  True, I haven't really been blogging about my writing pursuits, or blogging at all, but it doesn't mean I haven't still been working towards my goals.

Okay so when I started this blog almost two years ago (yikes!), I said I'd finish all three books of my trilogy in one year.  So I'm a little behind, but not much.  I've finished two out of three books and have a pretty good outline of the third.  That's not bad, right?

What have I been doing (writing wise) in the meantime?  I've been polishing off Book One and getting ready to send the sucker out!  I have a timeline for this that I'm sticking to, because really, at this point, I feel I have no other choice.

The good news? I can feel with all my revisions, and with the help of my very talented author aunt Carolyn Abraham, that Book One is getting better with each day.  I'm getting excited thinking about the prospect of other people reading this and getting their feedback.

The bad news?  Well, there isn't any really.  I'm just trucking away, and in the meantime, I've been doing LOADS of other things this summer.

After Tom's broken neck incident, and my broken toe incident, we took some time to heal.  Then we had visitors!  Tom's parents just left after a great visit. We also had a beautiful beach weekend with them in San Clemente.  This was our beach.

 Now I've got just a few weeks of quiet until my mom and aunt come to visit for 10 days, which I can't wait for!  I love LA, but I miss home, especially during fall.  Autumn is my favorite season and in LA we only get a slight Autumn.  There's nothing like that brisk fresh air and the falling leaves that makes you excited for change...even when it is the coming winter.

I've been teaching a bit of prenatal yoga as well lately after just finishing my prenatal teacher training at Silver Lake Yoga, which was so awesome.  I met such a great group of girls and learned so much.  There's more of a demand for prenatal yoga because it's specialized so getting a sub job here and there has been easier.  Plus I love pregnant mamas.  Who better to connect with and teach than fabulous women, growing fabulous humans inside them?

You know I can't believe this has been my life in LA for almost two years...writing, yoga, Tom and a little bit of freelance work on the side.  I'm not going to lie and tell you that I'm not feeling an itch for the next stage though.

By next stage I mean, a new phase of my life where I can bring in a little bit more money, hopefully from writing, or with doing something I love.  I'm not the kind of girl to put all my eggs in one basket and I know life has a very special way of working itself out, that I may not understand as its doing the working.  So I have faith.  I put my trust in the process.  And in the meantime I work from my heart.

When it becomes clear to me that I need to take action in one way or another, I will.  Until that time, I'm on the path.  And I'm staying open.