2013 in progress

Long time, no see. It may be time to face facts... Hi, my name is Kendralu, and I am a terrible blogger. But... I'm back again, with notions of actually keeping up with this blog. I know what you're thinking. "I'll believe it when I see it." Honestly, I'm right there with you. We shall see.

But for tonight, a couple of highlights from the beginning of 2013?

Business in the front

Party in the back!

Cutie!

I spent a good 20 minutes to half an hour with Cadence strapped into her high chair, grandma distracting her, so that I could pull this off. Doing a two year old's hair is hard work.

Look at this tall girl! This was taken at her second birthday party, in February!

The Night Before, rainbow cake in progress...

Birthday display plus a giant cake with a surprise inside!

Surprise!

Yum!

Sugar rush!

Auntie 'Raina MADE this fabulous sweater for Miss Cady! Isn't it lovely!?

Art For Christmas

I am officially going to start selling my artwork. As of now. I figure Christmastime is as good a time as any!

SO! Here are some samples of what I can do for you!

I can do Custom Colored Silhouette Collages of a treasured photograph!  We can decide together which of your pictures will make wonderful Collages!

$40.00 for an 8x10

I can also do Traditional Black Silhouettes of your loved ones

$10.00

I can also do lovely, detailed Black and White Portraits of you or a loved one! $25.00 base price for an 8x10 b&w plus $10/hour (click the picture to enlarge it!)

Or, you can have a beautiful Color portrait of yourself, or a loved one! $45.00 base price for an 8x10 plus $10.00/hour

Other things I can custom make for you include Hand-drawn Paper Dolls to look like your child, (on magnetic paper, thick cardstock, or book board) and Lovely building blocks for your toddler, personalized with a theme you choose!

If you're interested you can contact me at kendraluogzewalla@gmail.com

Backward, Glass Looking The Through (teaser)

Holding tight to her teapot, The White Queen looked around. The looking glass, that fickle contraption, was nowhere to be seen. Where was she? What was this mysterious place on the other side of the mirror?

dearest blog followers, i have abandoned you again, and i am sorry. life is life and things continue to be complicated and busy and satisfying. i have made a big decision. i am not going back to school this fall because i want more time with the kids. i don't know if i even mentioned my plans to go back to school, but i had them. i was going to study social work, and become a play therapist (one of a few options i've been considering). i've thought about it, and prayed about it, and i've decided that even though they're not my kids, they need me in their lives right now. and even if they didn't, i need them. so school will have to wait. i may have to find another way of supporting myself and my foster babies when my five years are up, but i will do it, because i KNOW that they need me. i also know that being in my nieces and nephew's lives now is more important than any psychology class that i could take.

so. maybe when i have my foster babies, i could run a daycare. then i could stay home with them. or maybe my business (when i get it up and running) will be enough to take care of us. i realize that i have a lot of options, even though sometimes it doesn't feel like it. right? plenty of people with just a bachelor's degree (which is what i could have in five years, if i go back to school next year instead of this) support and raise children. right? and plenty of people support and raise children WHILE going to school. it can be done. it won't be easy, but i am motivated. my future children need me.

i have plans.

I'm not sure what this blog post will say, but I did promise (myself and you) that I would write more regularly, so here I am.
This week has been insane. An exceedingly intense metaphorical rollercoaster. Some really wonderful moments have happened this week, also a major devastating one that made just about everything else feel inconsequential. The majority of it I can't blog about, but sufficed to say, things is crazy up in here y'all.
What do you do when the worst thing you can possibly imagine, happens? Not to you, but to someone you love more than anything in the world. How do you deal with the emotions that come with that? How do you react?
I tell you what we do.
We stand up, and we fight.
We say no.
I can tell you what people have done for me. They have stood next to me on the battlements and cried the war-cry right alongside me, even when I have insisted that this is not their fight. They have lain in the mud with me when I've been beaten, and bloodied, promising me that if I want to get up again, they will help lift me. And they have lifted me to my feet each and every time I've fallen.
Now it's my turn. I've been beaten down, I've been lifted, and I've been carried to this place so that I can be. Here. Now.
You're not alone in this. Not for a moment.

It has been a very, very long time since I have been posting regularly on my blog. I am sorry to all of you lovely people that ever bothered to read it. I have a desire to start writing again, but most of what I could write about seems either, inconsequential, or a smidge too private to share with the world-at-large. However, I am going to put aside my insecurities and start anew. It is, after all, that time of year.

So, Today.

My life consists almost entirely of taking care of my brother's kids. That, and therapy. Almost everything else that I once cared about seems to have fallen along the wayside. Art, writing, friends, church. However, my schedule may be about to open up, at least for the duration of the summer. I am looking for ways to make my life fuller, my interactions more meaningful, my time spent with the children more memorable.

I am making art again, and encouraging others to do so, including the kids. I am spending my spare time working on "assignments" from my therapist, which I adore (most of the time). Maybe I will start posting some pictures of my therapy art journal on here. I am taking more pictures of the kids, especially cadence, as she seems to have grown an inch every time i see her!

Here are some of the recent favorites, to keep you going until (hopefully) tomorrow.

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The Loves of My Life

Dear Future Husband

Something that you should probably know about me is that I need medicine to make me into a real person. Mood stabilizers, and anti-depressants, and stimulants, among others. If you like me well enough to want to marry me, then you know this already. Something that may not have occurred to you, (it didn't occur to me until quite recently) is that in order to have biological children, I'll have to go off of these medications for a significant chunk of time before I can safely get pregnant. Not to mention the nine-ish months of pregnancy, and however long it takes to breastfeed. (I know a woman that had seven children so close together that she was breast-feeding at least one child for almost eleven years straight.) I've always wanted to be that wife for you, future husband. The one who is barefoot and pregnant. My question is this: what if you marry the woman you think I am, and then we want to have a baby, and so I go off of my meds, and you meet this other woman, the one who is sad, and emotional, and angry and mean, and you don't love her the way you love the medicated me? And what if you want to have seven children, and I have to breastfeed for eleven years and you forget why you ever loved me in the first place?

Future husband, will you still love me if we have to adopt our seven children, and they don't look like you?

10 Things I Wish I Could Tell 10 People: Redacted

1. They may have pretty faces, but you are beautiful. The more I know you, the more beautiful you are to me.

2. I know you try your best, but that isn't good enough anymore. Can't you just try a little harder?

3. She's a dog, she doesn't speak English! And not only is she a dog, she is a good dog, and she is my dog. (If you had someone you loved as much as I love her, I would at least pretend to like them.)

4. Why don't you talk to her? Stupid boy.

5. I'm afraid you'll give up on me, just like everyone else who has tried. Please don't?

6. Why not this? Why not something good?

7. Call your mother, she worries.

8. The most painful thing I will ever have to experience, I have already experienced, and you are behind me now.

9. I can't afford this.

10. Suck it up. You're capable of this.

I am her person.

Today I made the mistake of opening an article from the Charlottesville, VA SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: the local pound) entitled "The Twelve Saves of Christmas." I naively thought this would be an article about twelve animals that had been adopted. The first animal that I read a little story about was Blue, a charming pitbull pup that needs a home. What?! NEEDS a home?? Crap. What have I done?! While I have a little rant stored up about how SPCA videos are cruelty to humans, I was completely sucked in.

Almost three years ago now, I adopted a pitbull from the closest no-kill SPCA. Her name is Lovely and she is my baby, my best friend. I cannot even begin to tell you what a difference she has made for me. I saved her life, and she saved mine.

When I started looking for a dog in January-ish of 2009, I had no idea why I was doing it. I'm not really a dog person. I never have been. I kept thinking to myself "Kendra, why are you doing this? You don't even LIKE dogs," but I kept looking. I met many very very sweet dogs, dogs who don't shed a lot, dogs who don't jump on you, dog's that don't yip, completely lovable dogs, but I wasn't impressed. At least I had the good sense to know that I couldn't bring home a dog that I wasn't completely over the moon in love with, so I kept looking even though I was meeting SO many good dogs. I knew they deserved someone who would love them more than I could. I began to wonder if I was wasting my time on this search, but something told me to keep at it. I came home from the Nelson County SPCA one day and started looking up the animals that were available for adoption on the internet. My head told me this was the stupidest attempt so far. "Kendra, you cannot choose a dog based on a picture on the internet," I told myself. And then i saw Lovely's little doggy profile. This was her picture.

Right?! When I saw it, I was smitten. "Kendra!" I told myself, "you cannot choose a dog based on a picture on the internet!" So I went to meet her in person. I got to the SPCA, and I looked for her, but she wasn't in her kennel. I was so nervous that someone had already adopted her, or that she was sick or something awful, so with shaking hands, I offered the picture I had printed from Lovely's profile to an employee, and said "I was hoping to see this dog." The girl got a HUGE smile on her face and exclaimed "Lovely!" It turned out, Lovely was so scared of people that they kept her in the manager's office when groups of people were visiting. (like the group of schoolchildren that were, at that moment, tromping around the grounds)

The employee warned me that she wouldn't be very social with me, but I didn't care, i just wanted to meet her. When she came out to meet me, she was terrified. She wouldn't look me in the eyes, she wouldn't let me touch her, in fact, she was choking herself with her collar pulling on the leash trying to get away from me. But from the moment I laid eyes on her, I knew she was the reason I had been looking for a dog. This dog needed me. And I didn't know it at the time, but I needed her. We desperately needed each other.

I couldn't take her home that very day, and for the few (utterly miserable) days that followed, I wasn't sure if I could take her home at all. There were issues with the insurance and owning a pitbull, (which I had been completely unaware of, as naive as I am.) I also needed to have a vet ready, which I didn't. And the icing on the cake, I didn't have the money to pay for the adoption fees and for the essentials needed when bringing home a new dog. I thought my heart would break.

Then the miracles started. Our insurance agent was retiring in a few days, and my mom went to ask him what kind of restrictions were placed on owning a "dominant breed" of dog. His answer: just don't tell the new agent. If she bites someone, the insurance will pay the claim, and then drop us, but as long as that doesn't happen, it really doesn't matter. He wasn't going to tell anyone. My friend Heather recommended a vet, so I was good there, and then, like manna from heaven Heather said the words, "If you're SURE that this is your dog, then I'll help you get her. I'll pay the fee."

Lovely was mine. I was Lovely's. She is my dog, and I am her person. I belong to her. It took me two years to pay Heather back for the money she spent helping me bring Lovely home, but I know that I can never truly repay her for what she did for us, for me and Lovely. My life took a sharp turn that day. I became responsible for another living being, and it changed the way I live my life. I am a better person because of this dog, and she is a well-loved, affection-craving, almost-social animal now, almost 3 years later. My heart, and my home are full.

I cannot adopt this dog, Blue. Not today, and not any time soon. I wish I could save them all, one at a time, but I can't. He is a living, breathing, loving creature of God, and maybe you, or someone you know can make a home for him. This tiny little blog with a hundred and nine readers is my only voice, and I needed to speak about this. This dog deserves a story like Lovely's. Will you help me spread the word? Post it on your facebook pages, your twitter, your blogs. Tell your friends, show them Blue's story! I know that they are out there, and maybe together, we can find the person that is meant to belong to Blue.

http://caspca.blogspot.com/2011/12/twelve-saves-of-christmas-first.html

cleaning the church building

My very favorite part of volunteering for this service is washing down the big glass doors. Why? Because you can see the handprints and the noseprints of the little toddlers who aren't strong enough to open the doors yet, trying to escape. I love it.

In other news, 11ish pictures of the number 11, taken last night (11/11/11) on my phone! Sorry for the picture quality!

Dear Future Foster Children,

I will take you trick or treating.

love, Miss Kendra

Oh My Goodness!

I have just discovered that I have 100 followers! I remember vividly when I only had 3. Thank you all so much, I love you!

I feel like posting a little bit of my art.

A Bento Box

So after working on this gift for over a year, I finally managed to accomplish my goal and finish my first quilt ever! It ended up being quite a bit larger than I intended, and I think I ripped out a thousand stitches before I got it right, but this may still be the most satisfying thing I've ever done!

Things I Learned
1. How to use a seam ripper
2. That it is difficult to make a quilt look random when it isn't
3. It is very hard to make a quilting machine make a circle
4. How to make a mitered corner
5. Measure three times, cut once
6. It is only almost impossible for me to keep a secret
7. Sticking yourself with a pin hurts
8. It's worth it

The Plan:
The execution:

The Result:

don't worry

I have an amazing blog post coming! I can't reveal too much, but it will be the unveiling of a labor of love. Miss Erin, I know your birthday was months ago now, but you will understand when you unwrap your gift.

part three

16. my ambition to become a mother
17. my ability to be honest with myself
18. my appreciation for the human being
19. my cheery demeanor
20. my love language
21. the ability i have to heal others through touch
22. my hug

(part two)

this is a very difficult task, i don't know if i can do it.

12. the history of my hair
13. my sci fi tendencies
14. my love for saige, charlie and cadence
(edit)
15. my persistence (knowing something is difficult but not giving up :-p )

A Healing Exercize

101 Things That I Would Not Change About Myself (part one)

1. the color of my eyes
2. how intensely I love people (even when it sucks)
3. the compassion that I feel
4. the number of people tucked inside my suitcase heart
5. my handwriting
6. my singing voice. i would not change it for better or worse.
7. my determination to improve
8. the ability I have to empathize with others
9. the courage I have to wake up every day and get out of bed
10. the freckles on my shoulders
11. the way autumn smells to me

mrrrrooowwwlll