Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Planning for the future

I've been hinting on Facebook on what I have been up to lately. I figured it was time for a blog post to let everyone know what I have been planning.

I have been talking to the wonderful ladies at the Bloomington Area Birth Services group about ways to get involved. I signed up as a volunteer, and I also talked to them about things I could teach there. I'm in the process of creating a Reiki class for pregnancy and birth as well as Reiki training for health care providers.

Another program I'm working on is relaxation for childbirth. Teaching women techniques to help them get out of their mind, and into their birthing bodies so they can have more comfortable, relaxed birth experiences.

On top of that, I have decided to further my education and to get a Diploma of childbirth education with Childbirth International, and also to do their Breastfeeding Counselor training. While I have the time this year, I decided it was good to expand my knowledge and skills and to aquire some education that will allow me to work here in Indiana (since I'm unable to do hypnosis related work). I started the programs today and am very happy with it so far. My goal is to be finished in 6 months or less so that I can start teaching childbirth classes again and to help women with breastfeeding.

Taking care of Grandma's things

It's hard to believe that Grandma's house is now sold and that all of her things have been taken care of. It was a difficult process, but we all worked together to make it through.

We had a garage sale on Friday. Chris & I had been going down to Salem to help Mom organize and price things for the sale. We decided to go down the Wed before to get tables from a church and to help set up. I was quite surprised that we had people show up Thurs night while setting up! We sold quite a lot before the sale even began on Friday. Mom had also sold a lot of furniture the weekend before to the neighbor across the street.

Friday was a VERY cold day for a garage sale. The sale was to begin at 9am, so we got to Grandma's house at 8:45am to get ready to open. When we pulled into the driveway, the place was empty. Mom thought that maybe the weather would keep people from coming. However, before we could all get out of the car and close the doors, a flood of people showed up in front of, and behind, Grandma's. We had people lined up at the doors!

The first 1/2 hour of the yard sale flew by! It was really amazing how much we sold in such a short amount of time. When we looked at our watches to see the time, we really had expected it to be closer to noon. We were shocked that it was only 9:30am and we still had the whole day ahead of us.

People came in waves all day long. We huddled around a small ceramic heater to keep warm.

We pretty much sold out by 4pm. We had a few items left to take to Goodwill and the local shelter, and the people buying the house bought the rest of the furniture from us.

It was a very successful day. We were very happy to not have to do a 2nd day of it!

Mom handed over the keys to the new owners on Sunday. They are so happy with the house. I really think they will take good care of it.

I'm still going through Grandma's pictures and scanning them. If you haven't seen the links on Facebook yet, send me an email and I'll send you the links. There are a lot of goodies in there!

It's still so weird thinking that I will not be going to Grandma's house again. To see it empty was very strange, considering she has lived there my whole life.