Hopes and Dreams

Hola!

I'll fill out my profile shortly, but I thought I'd introduce myself. I started belly dancing in 1993 and practicing yoga shortly after. I got my Masters in Occupational Therapy and my specialty was in pediatrics, though I've also worked in Rehab and in Nursing homes. I quit my full time OT job when symptoms from Hashimoto's disease rendered me poorly functional. I went professional as a belly dancer since it gave me energy rather than draining it. My husband I were married in 2000. We were lucky enough to get two lab-shepard-husky-rotti mix pups about 4 1/2 years ago when my sister's dog had puppies (that's Dana in the picture.) The showed us how to love unconditionally and prepped us for the biggest job we'd ever know: parenting! We were blessed with a beautiful boy, Angelo (also in the picture), in 2007. When one of our dogs, Tara, was killed when a mountain lion came up on our porch, we were devastated, completely traumatized. We experienced our greatest joy and our deepest pain all within 9 months! I got my Reiki II attunement shortly after she died. It was absolutely necessary for healing not only myself, but the whole family. I got my Reiki I for the dogs and baby in the first place. I'll never stop missing her, but we have "settled" into a new normal. I teach a couple bellydance classes a week and perform. I'll be going to at least one workshop a month until June and then am sponsoring one myself!! (will post more on that later...)

I'd been thinking for some time that I should start a blog for several reasons: I wanted to share certain experiences that might help other people (especially pregnancy, vegetarianism, belly dance, natural parenting, yoga, Reiki) to share my development in the mixed media/collage/shrine arts (because all humans are artists and should be encouraged to be artistic), keep people posted on my belly dance happenings and my thoughts on belly dance topics, to share my efforts to live green and inspire others to be environmentally friendly... I'm sure I will have more things to discuss here, but that's a start.  I have to say that there was "universal intervention" in getting me to finally get this started. I'd thought about it for a while and was also meant to search the web for Moms who did arts/crafts so I could get ideas for how they fit all that in. Then I got my most recent issue of Mothering magazine featuring 5 crafty Moms who have multiple kids, cook from scratch, sew for the home and family, craft, and blog all about it. some even home school their kids and managed to write books!  That was the inspiration I needed! So here we are!

some links to check out:

My websites: www.TribalBellyDance.net and www.EarthMovement.org

Mothering Magazine: www.mothering.com

Yoga Journal: www.yogajournal.com

more later...