Farewell to Blogger.

It's been less than two weeks since I had major surgery (which you can read more about in my latest post). I'm healing more easily than I could have ever dreamed. I know that so many of you were rallying behind me and the enormous amouts of love, the bucket loads of well wishes, have really helped to lift me up and make this a very positive experience. Thank you for that. Thank you for being so lovely and so careing and so free with your warmth. 

As most of you know, I've been writing on Kunst der Kuh for nearly 5 years! You have been with me through some enormous changes;  a life abroad, pregnancy after infertility, an unexpected birth experience, many, many trips across the world, including this latest one back to our home in the United States, and now a life-changing surgery. Not to mention page after page after page of art, history, food, friends, fun, and love.

Ever since being back, I have not been able to quite fit the blog into our new life here. Something feels amiss, as if maybe that chapter needs to close in order to allow for a new one to begin. I am so ready to begin. I feel cleaned out and re-energized. I know that the future holds promise for me, and I want to seize that and move forward. 

I do still want to blog, I need to blog. So I am closing the door on the old blog and renewing the spirit here. Don't worry! All the old posts will stay! 

Thank you, to each and every one of you, for the support you have lent me over the past few years. This is has, so far, been one of the most amazing experiences of my life... I look forward to many more years to come!

Xoxo,

Kari.

In which my Lady Bits leave the building.

Next Wednesday I am checking into the surgery ward down the street and Thursday I will be wheeled out with a few less organs. I have been trying to think of a way to 'announce' that, I guess the blog is the best place really. I've talked a lot about endometriosis here, and that's what this boils down to. 

The pain began 12 years ago during my first and only semester of college, in a split second that lands me in the hospital in fear of an unknown miscarriage; a scary moment for the *very* young couple Chris and I are at the time. It's not a baby, thanks to the actual cause of pain. 

Four years and many missed days of work, bottles of pain killers, and long, sad nights later, I sit in my doctor's office facing my first surgery to diagnose what he thinks it may be. I awake from anesthesia to sad news, things I didn't even know could happen. A clubbed tube. Attached ovaries. Scar tissue spider-webbing throughout my abdomen. Bleeding cells wreaking havoc having gone unchecked for years. News that I better try to get pregnant now, within six months, before I lose my chances forever. 

Save my uterus. That's all I ask of the doctor. He does. I don't get pregnant. And I don't. And I don't. And I don't. The pain comes and goes, but never as severe. Diet can do wonders for how endo makes you feel. On a feeding regimen of bread, soda, and coffee, hell on Earth can be felt. Take those away for only one month and life can feel normal again. Mostly. 

It still grows. It still spreads. 

Another four years. Another surgery. Clear the tubes. Cut the scar tissue once more. And then...

Pregnancy. 

Surprised by this organ that I've hated for years, that I've coddled and despised and treated with the utmost respect and disdain simultaneously... this little pocket of tissue fulfills my deepest desires in an instant. Now I love it.  I celebrate it! It makes me woman! It makes me mother! It creates the most incredible being I've ever seen, ever imagined. 

As I watch him grow, the damn bloody cells grow too. Unseen, another four years. I always imagined the first pains that night in the hospital to  have felt as if laboring a child would feel. Now I know. They do. One long tearful night later and I am lost. I can't keep doing this. Love and hate. Pain and pleasure. I've held on to my uterus long enough. 

I need to let it go. It needs to let me go. 

Fear grips me.... but the pain no longer will. 

~~~~~~

I found this a little bit ago and it kind of makes me feel better: 

"What I realized though is that your uterus may be leaving – but your You-terus is fully intact.

• Your You-terus is the most fertile part of you – the part that is always pregnant with ideas.
• Your You-terus provides a structural, moral integrity to the systems that surround it – your ideas, wishes, hopes and dreams – they are irrevocably connected.
• Your You-terus provides a warm, safe, nurturing environment for your creativity.
• Your You-terus will always be able to contract, expand, and give birth — as you are an unstoppable creator.
• And Your You-terus, which learned a lot from your uterus by the way, can never, ever, be removed." (from My Uterus, My Choice)

A place for art!

I want to finally show off our home art studio! 

I somehow don't have a before photo, but imagine a (brown) carpeted den with a random assortment of seating, desks, shelves, toys, and electronics. 

We tore up the carpet, painted the concrete, bought enough furniture to outfit a small classroom, added some more permanent shelving, and hung the rest of our art collection. This is the result: 

A few things have been added, because it is now also my sewing room/classroom, but I managed to keep that to a minimum. And of course, these photos where from when it was brand-spnking-new-sparling-clean... it's a bit more lived in now. ;)

And this is our first kids' art morning! They are going to be a bi-weekly event, and I'm super excited to keep them going! I'm so thankful for the group I've met here that is just as enthusiastic about them. (hearts!!)

I have *many* hopes and dreams for this room!