He's Both of That

On the way home from my older sister house this evening, I was really appreciating the music from Xavier Rudd.  Low tech digeridoo music first got my attention when I was big time into the band Gaelic Storm.  I had a little crush on the guy who played it, too.  Somewhere there's of picture of him posing for the camera while offering a kiss on my cheek.  Later I heard he had quit the band.  I think he was really missing his family life back home.  But I digress.  I also have the cutest picture of the lead singer and I.  He's got such puppy dog eyes. (double digress?  let's triple it...) It's funny to think of people touring like that, becoming a surrogate family.  I bet that could be really difficult to get used to, to constantly wander even when you eventually feel like putting down roots.  Roots can be so good.  They can also suck ass like my [family member] does right now.  (No, not my brother.)  But that may be a blog for another day.

This digeridoo music, you have to hear it...  Seriously, give it a minute or two, put headphones on if you can.  Go for it. I'll wait:




Like it?  I have many such non-lyrical songs I used to buy in my CD-buying years.  I still use CDs in my 2001 car, but those I burn myself.  It used to be every few months I go through the top 200 songs of the day and create a CD to listen to during my long drives to and from work each workday.   Music is one of my great joys, just to listen and let the music play me.  Low tech, kind of techno, add some spiritual elements and lyrics... I love that.
And so it was, I was enjoying my tunes and yet thinking back across my day, a stressful day... one I will remember for the rest of my life... but also one in which spaceman was there to hear me fumble while dealing with a super strong physical-emotional gut-instinct kind of 180-degree decison-rendering day.  Yeah, I didn't really know how else to write that sentence and still get close to describing how I felt.  You have to say it with stress and with a cadence.  
Do you ever get an instinctual feeling that overtakes you physically?  I've had plenty of instinctual feelings that have affected me to varying degrees emotionally (empathetic), but it's been rare when I have been over-taken in a physical response that elicits the emotion like an electromagnetical current seeking it's matching end... pulling from the inside out.  Those happen out of sheer force of emotion.  And today, for the first time, I woke up like that... and even though I had been fighting the flu the day before, I instantly knew this did not stem from any flu.  
I was not happy with my decision on how to handle a certain family situation.  I felt like I had made the wrong decision, but the other stance was also not a viable option and I just couldn't remain as status quo.  I could not find the wise answer; the wisdom in me kept finding giant gaping worries in my decisions.  And since I had woken up early after having slept so much the day before, I decided to do a tarot reading on it before work... the second one before work this week, on the same subject.  It's been a looong week, trying to figure this one out.  And today my gut told me I had better rethink it, only I couldn't figure out the message that was being conveyed to me.  As an empath, the messages come in the form of feelings.  Normally, they are more assurances than a blazing fire alarm.  Today was a 5-alarm fire.
The reading didn't tell me enough, not enough to know what my gut was trying to tell me.  Some clues, yes, but other cards just were far more positive than I could relate with...  so either I misinterpreted something vital in the reading, or there is some direct good that is going to come out of this.  I'm having a hard time believing the intended good will grow like a seed into a tree.  My decision was one of lifetime-long significance, no matter the outcome.  I was declaring my side, forced into making a decision by my own conscience.  And because my conscience was so severely bothering me, I did eventually understand the content of my emotion.  It had chimed up once before earlier in the week... in fact, that was why I was contemplating this all week.  But I had to make sure I wasn't being coerced, from any direction.  I needed to look within for my own answers.  
Tarot reading tossed aside, I made it off to work, in a gloomy mood.  About an hour after I arrived, spaceman chimed through messenger.  He is also an empath, and knowing he feels in a similiar kind of way at times, well... we have always told each other our feelings, always.  So, I let loose, trying to explain my morning.  We had talked about it at least once earlier in the week, I'm sure.  Only now I was in serious distress.  He listens to everything I say and digests it as food.  He tells me how much it means to him that I share with him so intimately.  It's the kind of connection he's craved.  And I have craved it, too.  I'm just being myself, and him his-self, and together we support one another, as we have each dreamed of having in a relationship.
He did not tell me what to do.  That would have been easy, I'm sure.  No.  He wants to support me in whatever I decide.  But boy did he listen!  Sometimes I worry if I should feel bad for him, dealing with me. lol  It was one such thought that came to me as I was driving home in the car tonight, mingling emotional rides on Xavier Rudd music with thoughts of today's craziness.
Do you really like listening to my crazy day or are you just being supportive?  You do both actually... you do both. So sweet <3
He was there for me...  again.   I love this man; I truly do.  

A Big Decision Looming

Well I was going to write about my crappy week with my crappy dental experience (shit happens, I love my dentist).  But it seems there is something bigger to ponder, family drama that has gone on too long and too painfully.  I have remained neutral throughout this situation, hoping that in due time it will work itself out.  But after so many attempts by one party to try to repair the break, the other party is stubbornly refusing to budge even after receiving the efforts that have been requested.  I get that there were issues on both sides of the fence. I get that it's complicated.  But there comes a point when one party's suffering is so great that I feel compelled to step in.  I have long since been both parties confidant in these matters, so I have the benefit of both sides of the story.  Both know I have both sides.  And yes, it is tough to be in the middle like that, but truly, this is not a pain for me.  

There have been times in my life when I have remained silent until a breaking point comes... and I never know when that point will hit... but sometimes those points occur.  When the situation tilts grossly unfairly, I sense this convalescing of moments that invoke me to take a stand.  It happened once with my older sister's marriage (sleezy (ex)husband).  It happened once with a neighbor and friend's so called friend, whom I had to report to the police for child abuse and sexual abuse suspicions.  And it seems to be happening again... both parties I'm related to, both parties I love with my whole being.  But sometimes gross disparities occur, of which someone is not remotely attempting to correct.  Sometimes it is necessary to intervene, because not doing so is severely compounding the pain of the injured party.  Sometimes people get so distraught, they ask for and need intervention.  I have purposefully not taken sides for well over a year.  I don't want to see either party hurting, but I cannot sit back and let the actions of the one destroy the other, either.  Not when so many efforts have been made to rectify it, all outright rejected no matter how much they said they wanted or needed those efforts.  

I have a great deal of thinking to do before Saturday.  

*Gawd I miss protected posting in xanga, because then I would spell out the whole situation and get your informed advice. *sigh*

And in case you're wondering, this has nothing to do with my brother.  Although as a side note, I did leave him a note on his bed this morning, asking him to come up with a date he feels he can be out by.  I ask nicely the first time.  With no action on that front, I will set the date myself.  But... we'll see.

Spacman Visit (photo blog)

I've had to turn off the cellular device and get the kids settled for the evening, which entailed skipping the gym (again) to work late and go to the grocery with my 16 year old daughter... a Leo whose demands grow in intensity when stressed.  She's a good kid, don't get me wrong.  I'm just tired and frazzled, myself.  That's why I did what needed done tonight, cut what could be cut, and am doing what *I* need for myself right now... writing.

Last night had that goal, too.  And although I did write, it was not finished in that I have photos to add to it.  Those were on my cell phone, and transferring them to the PC and finishing off that blog was going to take more attention and energy than I had left for it.  But tonight, I have the time, if not the privacy ...as my daughter trudges through my bedroom to the back way of the house for the umpteenth time.  Writing is difficult when there isn't enough focus allowed to dig deep and listen to what wants to bubble up to the surface.  There's a story my daughter has just finished telling me, about her boyfriend's mother starting chemo today.  It kinda helps keep things in proper perspective, doesn't it? Anything could happen at any moment.  What you next hear may change your life forever.  It's that kind of thing that her boyfriend's mother is living right now.  Of course, I want to hear how she's doing, what's going on with her treatment, how she's faring, how her kids (she's a single mom) are faring.  So many aspects to being mother, a single mother.  You're everything to them, and therefore you have less to give to yourself.  I'm feeling that burn a lot lately.  But... that's mostly because I am also feeling the urge to build into the next phase of my life... a life where I choose for me.  One of those choices... is spaceman.  And that brings me to his visit this weekend... a much cheerier subject, I promise. :)

I bring you... *drum roll*
last night's Spaceman Visit blog!!! :P

I have been awaiting my chance to do so... but also giving it time to percolate a bit, to come into a post-merridian-and-spaceman-weekend perspective.  It's gelled enough to finally write.

But where to start???

Spending time with spaceman this weekend was like flowering trees having sensed spring and begun to bud.  A fuller picture of a man's life and personality (at least as equally nervous as your own soul) is standing before you, looking in  your eyes, noticing everything.... as I return the same gaze.  

This trip was "the next step" for us.  And please don't ask us yet what the next, next-step is... we are still feeling our way around to that... while comfortable with not knowing, and watching for synchronicities.  So, his visiting me was our most recent next step.  And what a freaking awesome weekend, too!

The "shed garden".  It was fallow and full of dead plants. But now it's full of seeds.

Did you feel the weather this past weekend???  We were BAREFOOT in my backyard, for a couple hours. We cleared out a fallow garden and planted the first seeds of the spring pre-season (planted cold-hardy varieties).  This guy gardens like a pro and, like me, enjoys it.  

I had on a tank top and shorts at other times while standing out on the back deck.  I wore my flip flops out gallivanting around the area for the day.  It was beautiful weather.  And to think, a month out the forecast already predicted to be warm, but super rainy.  But somehow by the actual weekend, it turned out to be the most decidedly mid-spring feeling day, incredible.

And no clouds, no clouds for two days... and when I remembered that I'd put on my "Things to Do with Bob" list: Look at stars with telescope...  well, I snagged it from the garage and pulled spaceman out back... O.M.G. 

spaceman sighting up.. was it the gas giant or Orion's belt?  No. Sirius.  We also looked at the Seven Sisters, with the Pleiades.  Oh! and Jupiter and it's moons! I'm sure I'm forgetting more.

 Immediately he went into "work the telescope" mode, all the while telling me stories of what's where in the sky and tying planets and stars to alien races... he became this little kid in a grown man's body, totally comfortable and enthralled.  Spaceman really is spaceman, still.  I fell in love with him back then and I am in love with him now.  So, so many years between... never lost, just percolating.  

Headed home again, westward

    I took him around town, way around, hours at a time... pulling over, taking pictures, showing him many of the places I have been out taking photos for months and months now. 

"The Dam Parking Lot" ~Taylorsville Dam

Thinking we missed the grand sunset at the dam, stopping by anyway, getting lost in discussion, and then finding rays striving to shine at the last possible stretch in the dregs of the sunset.  

Along the Great Miami River in Downtown Dayton

One rendezvous took us through a few historical home sections of the greater city, parts I had never seen (and didn't get any pictures of).  The next day we found ourselves in a nearly celebratory town with street musicians and impromptu drummers... every store bustling.  He bought me the deepest blue lapis lazuli to add to my larger stone collection.  (I want a large stone for each chakra.) 

Clifton Mill

Impromptu ideas found us near river rapids beneath a large historical mill house... a covered bridge over a bike path... tiny mailboxes all in a row... the sun streaking across the the grass in giant ever-widening stripes.  

a fence at Clifton Mill

We watched the latest episode of Cosmic Disclosure together, a show we both follow closely.  On our long escapades around town, I sang (Nahko of course).  I sang because I wanted him to remember me like this when he goes back home.... because it's me, and because of all the times I had imagined doing just that, wishing he was there with me in all those leading-up moments.  

He brought along his fishing lures in their see-through tacklebox, each hand-tied, tiny rows of various colored, progressively larger flies.  He ties them himself and knows exactly when it's best to use each one.  One day, he's going to teach me to fly fish in the streams of Virginia.

A little park near Clifton

He met my kids.
They got along.

Very cool.

And... spaceman and I understand and know much more about each other than we ever have before.  We are watching how our growing relationship affects one another's growth-seeking-being, and are in awe of it.

It's good.  It's not perfect, nothing ever is.  Accepting someone thoroughly means you will find bits of one another that trigger.  But allowing the other to be as they are... and working through the ones that trigger... that is real caring.  It's a real relationship built on respect and that sweet summer-feeling love.

at Clifton Mill

And yowzers, boy did I ever prepare for this visit!  And then... I got sick 2 days before he was due to arrive.  But I did all the things I know can kick a cold's butt to the curb, and did.  It was mostly gone by the time he got here and finished healing up after the next day.  

My cold, the weather, it all just cleared up in time, like the universe was conspiring just for us.

Almost Time!

It’s almost time.  In four days’ time, spaceman will be knocking on my front door.  We have been conversing over the phone quite a bit lately.  Every time we talk I’m initially nervous, but it just takes off.  Last night we spoke for 3 hours.  That’s how it is with us.  We talk and talk and talk, and, well you know… we talk a LOT. 

It’s got to be incredibly sappy for me to say this, but I love this man with all my heart and soul.  He’s incredibly dreamy to me, and I cannot wait to have him on my doorstep Friday. 

A friend tagged me on an article on Facebook, and I just have to share here, because sharing on FB… well, people don’t care to hear how incredibly in love you are.  Why are people uncomfortable with declarations of affection???  (a topic for a different day)

The Goddess Spoke of Love
by Ara

“My daughter, love someone that longs to be open with you to you in all the ways you deserve to be opened wide, not just purely physically.” The Goddess said. “Someone who opens your mind, body, soul and heart right into the depths of your being and opens theirs to flow right back with yours.

http://thegoddesscircle.net/the-goddess-spoke-of-love/

That’s exactly what we have and so much more.  The words that flow out of his mouth and into my ears delight me.  How can this be, this man who reflects so much of me?  How did we get so lucky to have met and met again?  Just look at all the potential we had in the beginning, which was somehow untimely and yet, looking back, planted the most wonderful seed in both our lives. 

Growing up, my parents had a tulip tree in our back yard.  It was just another tree, one that leaned dangerously in towards the house.  When I looked at it, I wondered when a storm might blow it down and crash through the roof.  But it never did.  Year after year that tree just existed there in its everyday lush green show.  Years went by and my siblings and I grew older.  Then one spring, tulip flowers began to appear in the canopy, just a few the first year, then ever more each season.  When they first came, my mom was elated!  She pointed them out and told us how long she had been waiting for those flowers.  It turns out it takes 10 years for a tulip tree to bloom, 10 whole years from seed to maturity.  That’s how spaceman and I have been. 

In December of 2004, we met on an online dating site.  Like it is now, it was in the beginning… we could not get enough of one another.  We connected on so many levels and both slipped into that precious state we call love.  It was long distance then, as it is now.  Our first visit in person was just incredible, a melding I cannot describe with words.  The whole weekend was like that.  And home again he went, back to Virginia to his Appalachian home.  And although the next visit we had with one another saw our demise as a couple, it was never due to lack of love, never.  I still have the charcoal drawing he made me that day, such love in that parting gift, such tenderness, acceptance and vision.  We parted then, but we never lost touch.  In many ways, we continued cherishing one another through the years, through emails filled with the most loving of friendships. We held each other in the highest esteem, allowing whoever and whatever came into and out of each of our lives to be without need to shape it.  Neither one of us had any idea that there was yet a future for us in exactly the way we had once dreamed.  We thought that particular ship had sailed.  Our love caramelized into the sweetest of friendships, held dear year after year, and that was enough.

And yet here we are again!  In four days he will be on my doorstep for the second time, and I cannot wait to feel his embrace.  I cannot wait to look him in the eyes and tell him all over again, I love you, I love you, I love you. 

I joked with him once, I said, “I don’t know how we are ever going to pick an anniversary date.  We’ve never had any particular day that was ‘the’ day ‘we’ started.”  But if I had to pick one, this go-round, I would say Halloween.  Halloween weekend was when things turned definitively into a chosen choice, for the both of us, each our own way.  So, if I use that date, we are 3 ½ months into the mush, the gush, the love goo.  Which means… we are still in the “honeymoon period”… good timing, very good timing. :D  Friday is only 4 days away!

Journaling for Self-Improvement

Journaling is the method in which I study my life, looking for areas that need attention while working to both enjoy life and be a better influence.

I sat down to write a letter to spaceman (I'd rip the page out if I sent it) and thumbed through looking for the next empty page.  

I paused briefly on my Living-room-cleaning "To Do List".  I should read back over it to see if I did everything on the list... just for kicks, because I didn't even remember to use the list.  Just having written it in such detail, I recall it better.  I may not convey enough detail, but the awareness, if I'm passionate about it, is deeper than many can imagine.  There's quiz results! haha  I cannot believe that... oh, yeah... that was the "are you a starseed" quiz.  (It says I made the cut.)  If I were... my specialty would be connecting with people to be a better influence for them.  I have also met some souls who have made a better influence on me.  Like is the case with myself, I'm sure... most people who influence me do it on a more singlular aspect of their personality.  Meaning, we are better at being good influences in some areas of life and not so much other areas.  The more areas you are emanating well-being from, the more sage-like you become over lifetime after lifetime.  There have been some amazingly powerful influences in my life.  Some of these hit energetically, most were realized intellectually and applied.  But those energetic waves... those provide the most proof of the nature of existence.  It's amazing the universe(s) we are a part of... it's just a word "universe"... but what does it really mean?  It's the all, the everything in physical (and non-physical) existence, right?  What if it's endless?  What if there is always something inside of something, universes inside universes?  That's exactly how nature is... there are galaxies inside a universe, solar systems inside galaxies, planetary systems (planet plus moons) inside solar systems, ecosystems inside planetary systems, life form systems inside ecosystems, organs or structure systems inside life forms, cells inside organs/structure systems, what's next proton, neutron, electrons... neutrinos, quarks?  but at some point it changes states from matter into energy - a wave.  It's possibility as a wave.  As matter it is manifest.  There is, at least, a transition point... quite like visible light when it reaches the invisible spectrum on either side.  The basic smallest building blocks of life and existence morphs out of phase at that point.  At least, that's how I understand it.  

Anyway, where was I... journaling... Mostly there's tarot readings in my written journal.  My word doc journal I use mostly during work hours, so I can save it to post later.  (I have to really be feeling it to cut into my work day to write.)  There's my blog, this place.  And... there's chats with spaceman... spaceman helps me grow spiritually, too.  Our belief systems are so aligned with one another it's uncanny.  I tell him we are mirrors in so many ways.  What ever we see (we often see it similarly), what ever we talk about or go through together, we learn from one another or because of one another.  In fact, we look forward to that.  It's what we do on our own anyway.  And who would want to join into a relationship with someone when they are so comfortable and efficient on their own?  A relationship should add to your already lit joy.

Right now would be the perfect time for a favorite quote of spaceman's...  if only I could recall it... I won't butcher it, so if I can find it, I'll be back later to include it. 

A Wee Update

Hopefully, I’m done with that little spurt of blah!  A couple of weeks feeling run-down and overwhelmed seems to have, hopefully, come to an end.  After a broken molar, a kid with mono (egads), binge watching cosmic disclosure, workouts at the gym, meditations at home, doctors and dentist appointments, work… bleh, I was just so giddy to have a shocking 58 degree F day with beautiful morning clouds and an ever-later sunset to brighten my day.  Plus, I found a new Nahko song and I LOVE it!

I’ll leave you with that, because, as always, I’m supposed to be doing something else right now and need to get back to it. :)

A Shift

It feels like eons that I blogged here, but it's only been just over a week.  I've just been in a different sort of state...

The past week or two have felt another shift within me.  I feel like I'm living in a different kind of energy than before.  There's more clarity in some respects and yet more confusion as I stumble around trying to feel my way through this new energy state.  And I feel tired.  I'm plain pooped most days.  This happiness phase I have been in for a year has somehow lead to this, and it's a good place to be, don't get me wrong, even while it has left me scrambling trying to adjust.  To adjust, I have added meditation back into my routine.  I've added it for other reasons as well, but that just makes me all the more sure of its importance.

You have to see... routine is so hard for me.  It always has been.  But for some reason lately I have this certain determination and lack of as much resistance to working out, eating better and... now... meditation.  Although, it's only been a week on the meditation front and still too soon to say there is more success on an long-term front with that.  It is important though, that I'm even attempting again.  And of course... it feels good.  

I imagine... in time... that the efforts I'm putting in will begin to become easier, a certain kind of lift will generate, making the effort seem, well, less of an effort. lol  I mean, it already does feel less of an effort, but having added meditation back in the mix with working out and eating right... well that's a lot of "change" to incorporate at the same time.  You know what it feels like?  It feels like when I first landed the job I have... I had to add a 45 minute commute into my day, twice a day and it really, really affected my whole routine and took my free time away from me, as I still needed to get done all the same things I needed to get done before that commute was necessary.  

And so I feel tired from adjusting to the solution I put in place (meditating daily) to counteract the new information I gained in the week before.  This information has shaken up my sense of reality, which means I'm sent reeling into reconsideration of past, present and future.

And through this, spaceman has been so good to me, so very good.  He's always the most patient man I know, and always looking out for me and wants for me what I want for me.  Lots of people say that, especially in the beginning of a relationship, but not very many can actually demonstrate it over and over.  I don't know how or when or hell... if ever we will be together on a daily, long-term basis... but I very much do want that.  One of the things we are about to do, is see one another, in-person, for the first time in 10 years.  That's no small event.    It's less than 3 weeks away and I don't feel like my house is ever going to be "presentable" enough lol.  I am not a good house-keeper these days, and... everything is not in it's best state... this place has taken a beating with things that are broken or need addressing from lack of funds to address it.  It's also cluttered and disorganized.  It's my last hold-out, evidence of a long period of depression I finally emerged from a year or so ago.  I feel like it's all too overwhelming to deal with on my own.  And then, I get gob-smacked by a reality-tossing set of new-to-me information.  And I'm tired, so it's just going to be what it is.  I don't feel it's worth dropping the ball of meditation or the ball of working out or the ball of eating well, or the ball of daily talks with my kids and spaceman.  And he says he doesn't want me to worry about that anyway.  

I mean.. how can I sleep in, then take an all-afternoon nap, AND still feel tired by 9 pm??? 

Icebergs and TNT

I don't even know where to begin.  

In 2014, I hired a particular channeler for the second time. The first time had been in 2011, several months after my layoff from HP.  During that first channeling I was told something was happening that I "knew" to be otherwise at that time and dismissed.  Shortly thereafter, I found out it was very much the truth.  An official decision had been reversed, for my benefit, without my appealing it.  It was a big and accurate prediction that blew me out of the water.  Three years or so having passed... I was looking for some more guidance in my life, so I decided to have another session.  During this session, I was told I would "go back to school" and further my education.  This again was not something I had any desire to do.  I still don't, not in a traditional sense.  I currently hold an associate degree in a career field of bachelor-requiring jobs.  What I don't have in traditional education, I have in experience and, sometimes, luck or serendipity if you believe in such things.  That said, going back to school is probably something I should consider.  However, I am not interested in the least.  

However, I currently find myself receiving an unexpected "education" from a completely unexpected source.  I'm fascinated and deep-diving.  Having just typed that word, "deep-diving", I am reminded of a message my spirit guides gave me back during the years in which I had access to them via a different channeler (who has never been and probably never will be, superseded in my mind, in excellence of intimate connection).  I did not know their names, as that was never important to me... but I knew their speaking with me was the most special of important moments in my life.  I drank their words like wine and distilled the rest.  What they had said to me was something about my deep-diving an iceberg, discovering so much more beneath the surface than I imagine or knew about hence-forth.  I feel very much like that now.  In a spiritual sense, in a world-view sense, I'm way below the surface and really don't feel like coming up for air.  This is an education for me.  

What it is, I'm not sure I want to discuss.  It's too early anyway.  I would likely spout rumors and half-truths anyway. What is the point in that?  Especially when I sense the most important point of being privy to such information at this time is for me to simply use it, or develop it within myself.  No amount of making a mockery of myself is useful in that, yet anyway.  For some people it might, and in fact I would not know about it at all if they had not come forward.  I am thankful for that, truly.  

And thus, with all this swirling within me, I don't know what to write about.  I'm kind of a mess, a sweet sticky, fun, enthralling mess.  So much is going so well.  So much is seemingly "kicking into gear".  With this latest information and with spaceman in my life... even the the name spaceman takes on additional meaning for me.  This jumbling of my world order is like... well have you ever played Minecraft?  If you have or you have a son like mine who used to delight in crafting TNT in the game and "blowing up the world" - which equates to detonating so much TNT in one central location in the world map that the entire world of blocks addressed in the game would explode into the air and take literally overnight for the game to process the blocks falling back onto the "ground" in the game.... (if it didn't entirely lock up the computer in the process)... well that's kind of how I feel right now... like all my blocks have been blown up into the air, waiting to settle back to the ground.  What kind of decision-making can be done in that kind of environment?  None, I'll tell you, none.  At this point, there are still blocks of TNT yet to be exploded, which will certainly do so as I dive deeper to penetrate this iceberg.  

And I'm supposed to clean the house today.  Yeah. smh

Success!

It's official!  When I stepped on the scale this morning, I had breached the 10 lbs lost milestone.  And I had cheesecake for dessert yesterday. Haha  And I was feeling really tired yesterday afternoon and day-dreamed about NOT going to the gym after work.  I went anyway. That makes is extra-special sweet. 

Ten pounds gone!

This morning I decided to pull out a pair of jeans I haven’t worn for about 6 months and wear them to work.  They fit just fine.  Happy me! :)

It took way longer to lose this first 10 lbs than I imagined.  When I started (Nov 30th), I figured I could drop the first 10 in a month.  It’s been 7 ½ weeks.  My metabolism must have been in the gutter.  But, I continued regardless of the slow progress… progress is still progress, however slow.  Here’s the 7 weeks of ups and downs.

I’m not done, not by far.  I would like to drop another 20 for sure, but..  according to Google, I should be 107-140 lbs at 5’3”, which means I should drop more than that!  Grrr.  

I personally would be happy at 150 lbs.  But, I will simply settle where my body naturally settles with my good eating and exercise habits.  Who knows where that will be...

So that’s it!  I’m due a reward of some kind.  I’m thinking a new workout outfit.  But… I’ll probably just get one piece.  So far I have been laundering my workout outfit every night after I go to the gym, so I can have it available for the next day.  Which.. I did not accomplish last night, so no gym tonight.  I’m thinking I will buy a sports bra or a tank top.  Not sure which.  I have a couple pairs of sweatpants to alternate between, so no need for that.  I think I'm going for the tank top.  I will reward myself the sports bra after the next 10 lbs. :)

Me Time

I can remember when I used to do all my writing sitting in the other room, the family room, at the desktop computer.  I next to never sit at that computer anymore.  I'm in my room, in my sanctuary.  At least it feels like that again to me now.  I want the rest of the house to return to that vibratory level, too.  This place took a really hard few hits over the past few years... and when you are taking hard hits, it reverberates into so many directions and areas of life, even into adjacent dimensions, I imagine.  

Anyway, my house is in a state of distress, for the most part.  If each of us have our own "pain bodies" to haul around, then so do houses on some level, and right now I'm not the only person living here.  There are 4 of us: my 16 year old daughter, 19 year old son, and my 45 year old brother.  I am 41.  And I rule this house. lol  Maybe not well, but I do.  I'm responsible for its state both bad and good.  If I want improvement here, I need to do the work.  I started where it would affect me the most, in my bedroom.  And although I have not made too much more progress in other areas of the house (I stay busy), the living room is in my cross-hairs.  It was last Sunday (fail) and it is now this Saturday AND Sunday if need be.  

But I am sure I will "play" at least equally as much.  I spoil myself these days... I'm out running around town taking photos by car or on foot, usually a combination of the two with more than one stop along the way.  But not lately... brrrrrrr lately!!! :(  Plus, I'm just coming through to the other side of it being too dark too early to catch a sunset on my way home from work or later in the evening.  

So tonight [last night by the time this was posted] anyway, I am "in" for the evening, have been a while.  My son is at work (he works at a movie theater), and my daughter should be on her way home from her boyfriend's house (there is a 2-hr delay tomorrow or she should have been home sooner).  My brother? Probably watching the news or some entertainment news show, or... yes, football.  There's probably a much wider variety of shows he watches.  I try not to pay attention.  I don't like to watch TV where I'm force-fed from the powers at be.  But I do have my own vices (*ahem* GoT among several others, all of which I could do without except GoT).  I just can't stand to have a television playing every hour I'm conscious like he does.  I guess it's considered "white noise" to some.  If only!  

So tonight, I don a sweater, prop myself up against the headboard of my bed, pull the covers up to my waist, and let my fingers transcribe my thoughts.  This is what brings me joy in life, to be left to my own vices to listen to my thoughts and feel my way through my emotions.  To learn to heed the messages my body is telling me.  To hear what friends and family say to me and care about their outcomes and try to be of assistance when timing and synchronicities collide.  This is done relatively blindly of course... I go with my gut, like I do most other things.  Except when I don't.  And I learn, yet again, how and when, through retrospective thought, I fell out of the flow.  And I notice the pattern and commit it to memory... try to remember this lesson when next I am faced with it again.  

Lesson after lesson, blow after delight, glorious joy and bliss, breaking through a spiral of cycles.  Suddenly stepping up and having the rest of me just sort of, with varying lag, come into alignment with the transformed self.

The Weight Loss Journey

The scale is finally being nice to me.  Even when I feel like I've splurged the day before, it somehow, sometimes, still reports progress in the desired direction (but not usually haha).  Yesterday included a party, and at said party I drank beer.  Beer is made out of hops, aka: grain.  Grain is something I am majorly avoiding, by necessity.  My body reacts in various negative immune responses to grains, lentils, & beans.  It is probably the grains, more than any other single factor, that has been killing my metabolism (more so than age alone) and keeping me fat for so many years.  Although, I must add that beer, a fermented product, is far less offending and shows a different set of symptoms than grains in general.  Beer can sometimes be helpful to off-set the other symptoms of having eaten grains (I attribute it to the fermentation process).  But still, beer is calories, and beer results in bloat, both not good for losing weight.  But since November 30th, 2015, I have been serious about a life-style change that includes much stricter measures on offending foods and working out frequently (3-4 days/wk).

This past week or so, if I didn't know any better, I would say that my metabolism seems to have kicked it up a gear.  I am so hungry!  And I'm allowing myself to eat more so that my body doesn't drop into starvation mode.  And, I'm losing more weight, like more easily, it seems.  Finally!  :)  You see, I should not have stepped on the scale this morning and dropped weight after consuming several beers yesterday evening.  And, I broke down and ate 2 reverse-chocolate chip cookies (the dreaded wheat).  All I can say to this, is.... sometimes the body needs to be kept guessing.  Too much routine is killer as the body "learns" and adjusts its functions to use as little energy as possible to manage functions.  Overall, I'm doing what's better for it and a little splurge here and there, or a day having over-eaten some, just serves to keep the body guessing.  I don't know, it's just a theory of mine.  But whatever's really happening, it's happening well apparently. And, I'm getting so excited that I will soon be announcing my first mini-goal being reached, weight-wise.  But not until then. ;)

Sweetness all over

I have come to the conclusion that my kids really do love me.  Seriously, I just had to shoo one away just so I could write this blog.  And...... she's back, telling me about how she "accidentally started bawling" during this one Parenthood episode.  Yes, we talk about it all.  My kids even ask for life advice from time to time.  But mostly, and I mean RELENTLESSLY (no exaggeration) they annoy me to tears of laughter.  And they enjoy it, gang up on me, gang up on one another... sometimes I gang up on them in an epic out-smart.  Yes, I love those. :D  

Anyway, I think they love me.  At a time in a teenager's life when they are most likely to rebel and certainly not seek out a parents advice and confidance.... yes, I am very lucky.  I don't know how I did it, but these two are funny, annoying, honest, and increasingly self-aware.  I love them with every piece of me.  But yes... yes I look forward to exploring a life of my own in my empty nest years.  

But that's not here nor there at the moment.  I will take life as it comes and live it to the best of my ability until the universe orchestrates the most succinct syncronicities so that I know with my heart where to place my next step.  

Of course I do have some preferences... I'll call them "preferences" but in all reality they are choices.  Through trial and error I have come to know myself.  While that is not always easy to convey (it's super hard and super easy at the same time), I do know in my own heart the kind of person I really am and aim to be.  Only I know myself best.  Only you know yourself best.  And recently I made a decision and I chose spaceman.  I said, no matter what the universe can throw at us, we still have the option of decidedly deciding something and manifesting it.  And I chose spaceman.  Granted, we were already in frequent contact by then, but he wasn't exactly in the best place to receive that kind of attention.  We all go through some serious shit when we experience true loss.  He lost his brother, suddenly and intensely.  I came on the scene again while he was admid that loss.  I can't imagine that kind of loss and it scares the begeebees out of me thinking of my own siblings.  It's one of those emotions that can overwhelm me almost every time if I think of it.  I can't imagine his suffering.  But we reconnected in a much stronger way anyway.  Sometimes timing can be a god-send.  Sometimes it can feel, an antagonist.  

Right now things feel worrisomeless (a new word, just for you).  I feel calm and connected and peaceful and desiring and optimistic.  This is so unlike me when I'm in a relationship.  And yet, it's not.  It's me and how I relate to myself.  It might not be me and how I relate with other as much, but it's still me.  And has certainly been more and more my modus operande for a few years now.  Lately, it's all of it.  I feel all kinds of soul growth and spaceman is a big part of that.  That's the kind of relationship we want.  We are both capable otf going with the flow, and yet we are both strong enough to say what we really want or need... honesty.  Plus we have a bunch of other stuff in common...... 

Anyway, life feels in a certain range of flux lately.  I have kids with increasingly adult problems to discuss and learn to manage, a brother who I need to deal with to get him off and back out on his own again, and a relationship founded in long-term cherishing and admiration.  And yet, he's there and I'm here... and so there is a state of flux that has settled in, into comfort.  It wasn't what I would have preferred, but it is what it needs to be for now.  I had been worried about these things in the beginning.  I worried how I would handle a long-term long-distance relationship.... anything over a year feels like long-term to me.  And I don't even know if that is short-sighted as well.  I really do not know anything for sure except that I want to be with him.  And I have no problem saying that here, publicly, where anyone, including him, can read it.  He knows all this already.  I have made my decision clear at every stage since.  At one point, that even meant accepting defeat and a sub-par dream.  But I couldn't stay away and when I sought him out again, he had had a change of heart.  It's been falling up all over again.  

An Almost-Empty Nest

Yes, I'm the completely Caucasian chick that prefers to eat with chopsticks.  And I love that I'm getting so much better at it.  Tonight's dinner is the same as the past 2 nights, a Greek salad: 50/50 spring mix lettuces, an intense balsamic vinaigrette, feta cheese, and Kalamata olives (the saltiest and tenderest black olives).... with chopsticks.  *shrugs*  Dare I mention... in the candlelit dark in my jammies, in bed already.  

...I shouldn't be eating the feta, but every once in a while... mmmmmhmm.

Today was my physical.  I would say "annual physical" but I haven't had one in... well I can only recall one other in my adult life (outside of my army days).  In fact, before I had my leg pain in early December, I hadn't been to the doctor for even a sick visit in at least two years.  But I decided to make one after my leg pain issue.  A vessel in my right thigh, the main one, swelled up near bedtime and became really painful.  Not even moving around it was still painful.  I had an ultrasound, which found absolutely nothing (of course).  Doctors never find anything wrong with me when I complain of anything.  I guess I'm too sensitive to the slightest of changes.  I don't know.  How can a person have that much pain and it just go away and can no longer be detected like that?  That can't bode well.  

I had already decided to start working out and eating better before that happened.  For all I know, that's what brought it on.  In late November I had edema of the lower calves.  That's when I started working out, eating more cleanly, and quit the mtn dew again.  I've only lost a measley 6 lbs.  But hey, it was over the holidays and the numbers are going in the right direction, if ever so slowly.  I'm currently trying to break my second plateau.  Gawd, I can remember when I could lose 10 lbs in the first week. *smh*  The 40's suck in that regard.

In other ways, 41 (nearly 42) isn't so bad.  I was done having kids at 25.  That means my oldest is 19 and my youngest is 16.  She will be 17 when she graduates high school.  An empty nest is just around the corner.  And boy do I have plans for it! My poor kids, they won't be coddled.  They have been reminded from time to time, while growing up, that mom intends to pursue her own dreams once they're grown, which could including living anywhere, stateside or not.  Mom may not be one of those always-around grandmas for their kids.  

And it's really getting close.  I mean, I've already gone through the stage when, after wanting the years to speed up, I started wishing they would really slow down - it was going too fast, they were growing up too quickly, I wasn't sure I wanted to let go of this period of my life any time too soon.  Now... well now there are plans forming.... nebulous plans, but directions and desires swirling about in more and more specific ways.  

It's just that I need to polish off the edges where my multi-year depression had alchemically changed my spirit and body.  It's not just the coming empty nest.  No.  It's spaceman.  Of course, it's also spaceman.  This man is the love of my life.  I swear to it.  Every time I'm having a bad or not so great day and I think about our coming conversation and might not be as up for it as usual... just feeling blah, you know?  Once we are chatting or talking, a certain cadence kicks in and my heart lifts.  He brings life to my light.  And I'm sure that if you could see auras, ours would glow a little brighter while we are "together".  

Of course, we aren't really together-together in the sense that we live 6 hours apart.  In fact, I have not laid eyes on this man in over 10 years.  Scary, eh?  Kind of, but kind of not.  Like I told him last night, this sweet, sweet flavor of romantic love that we have going on in recent months is all wonderful, but it is not the basis of our love.  The basis of our love is the 10 years worth of cherishing one another through frequent letter exchanging.  Our romantic reconnection may bring us closer, but "we" have always been.  There's going to be a lot of dreams coming true.  I can just feel it.  And, so can he.

That brings me back to these nebulous plans that are developing.  Oh so many hopes and dreams, co-mingling, forming in thought first and later in actuality.  What exactly that will be, we do not know yet.  I like to watch things unfold in real time, and so does he.  It's a living in the moment balancing act that is far more difficult to achieve than conceive. Yet somehow, with him, I feel calm and patient.  I feel confident and truly loved.  I am liberated in a way I cannot describe.  

And so, I'm making progress towards what I want.  After all, just because you yearn for something doesn't mean it will come about.  You have to meet it in the middle.  You walk towards what you prefer and expect wonderful outcomes without being attached to any, but welcoming whatever the universe forms to deliver.  Positive intention is key here... an intention with open-endedness.  Don't focus on the hows.  Just focus on the feelings you want to have.

Right now, I'm having the feeling that I would like to eat something yummy!  It just needs to be healthy, too.  

hmmm... it cannot be that awesome cottage cheese and homemade strawberry jelly I have sitting in the fridge.  I've already had too much dairy (feta; lactose intolerant).  A fuji apple then... with peanut butter... better yet cashew or almond butter if I can find some.

Leaning In

Last night's story had an alternate ending that was, what feels like to me, thankfully and miraculously avoided.  There's no amount of writing it out here that could possibly convey how grateful I am to spaceman for what he did for me last night.  I'm in uncharted waters, this relationship navigation stuff, and he is beyond incredible with his support and understanding.  

Last night I was delivered some news that sent me into a panic... a familiar panic mode because it has happened twice before and I thought I was done with that period of my life.  I'm being purposefully cryptic here, but please suffice it to say that I knew I had to get a grip on my reaction before it ran away with itself... and I was losing the battle.  

I was at a friend's house when the news came and I told them what was going on, that I needed to leave, and added that I didn't know how I was going to keep my freak-out from spaceman because I didn't want him to see me this way.  Their advice?  Don't hide it.  If you want more intimacy with him, be completely open about it.  It was sage advice.  

As open as I can be with people, it isn't easy to be open when your worst fears are triggering.  It's definitely complete vulnerability to allow someone to see such things for the first time, live in action.  It was terrifying, the situation, more than spilling my beans to him, though.  So I went home and asked him to please call me.  Mind you, we have spoken on the phone all of 4 times in the past year, once over Christmas and once New Year's Eve and again yesterday earlier in the day.  We message one another, email, etc., usually... all hours of the night and wee hours of the morning, but not usually voice-to-voice.  It's something I have been wanting for a long time, and spaceman being the self-described hermit that he is, well let's just say he has been slow to warming up. :)  But it doesn't really matter to me over all.  We have such a great relationship already that I have nothing but patience for him.  Anyway, after I got home last night I messaged him and told him I got some really bad news and I really just needed to talk to him. I couldn't type it out this time.

And he did.  He actually said that when we said our good byes while voice chatting earlier in the day that when he said he would like to talk again later in the evening that he had been hoping to talk over the phone and not in chat anyway - which was a huge delight for me to hear that.  I've so wanted to move into this phase and it seems we may just be doing that. <3

So, I put my blue-tooth in and went for a drive around my neighborhood to warm the car up ("feels like" temp was 18F) while spilling my beans.  He listened and spoke and listen and spoke.  The whole experience was new territory for me... to be able to admit when I'm feeling at my worst is one major thing by itself, but to tie so many pieces of my life together in a more coherent narrative for him...  well, it took SO MUCH weight off my shoulders, AND shifted the outcome of my "freakout"... to the point of... well, although I still had this uneasy raging energy flowing inside me, it was subdued, wrangled if I may use that word... It's exactly like, by having shared all this with him, somehow all the additional anxiety I would have felt if I had kept it all in for an indefinite period of time... well not only was that mitigated, I felt lighter and closer to him, having him in such an intimate inner circle with me.  

I have never had this much love and support from any man.  

We made more specific plans for his trip out here in February, half the time in a hotel (for privacy) and half the time here in my home with my kids.  I've told my brother he needs to make himself scarce for the weekend.  We'll see how scarce he actually becomes.  I also told my brother recently that he needed to start thinking about moving out.  I need my home back, for my own sanity, for my own health, for my family.  We need to get the "home" back in this "house". 

The more immediate feeling I have this morning is one of relief.  I know just how badly my emotional state would have been had spaceman not been there to hear me out and be my support last night.  I'm sure it wasn't the conversation he had been anticipating, but he's quite flexible in nature and always wonderful to me.  He, being 11 years older than I am, was able to pull from his own past experiences to help me gain needed perspective.  And where my circumstances have never been his, he was the gentle voice of reason and love that brought me back towards my own center.  And... just being there, voice-to-voice, letting me ramble on in needed distraction, gawd, I just love this man so much.  He's a mirror into myself, and I into him.  Instead of laying awake in an insomniac-stress event last night... after a long very good and important talk with my 16 year old daughter about the fiasco (and about my relationship with spaceman), I, with relative ease, fell asleep.  It wasn't an entirely peaceful sleep, but there was much sleep, the most important feature of... sleep. ;)

This morning I don't feel panic.  I feel a little emptied out, which is good.  Actually, it's no longer "morning" lol - it's 1:45 pm already.  I would like to make it to the gym at some point.  I'll have to look up what time they close and try to make it.  I also want to borrow my son's truck and go to Sears and buy a new humidifier (ours broke).  We are all complaining of dry nasal passages - this being the season of nose-bleeds for my kids who are prone to those sorts of things.  Other than that, I have no plans other than the hope to choose a small project or two around the house and tackle them.  I think I'll marinade some salmon, too.  Yum.

Ignition

What a surreal evening.  December 23rd and the thunder is rolling across the sky.  I had to drive home in the beginning of the storm when it was at its worst.  There was a tornado watch in effect... in December.        

surreal

Regardless, I love warmer weather, skipping winter, and thunderstorms.  I also love feeling like I've received the blessing of a warmer day instead of frigid winter temps and blanketed grey skies.  

This week has been a bit different.  I was flying high with a certain vibration for so long and then Wham!  I've decided to harness the energy for what it is.  It started out with having my ducks in a certain row for increased energy (working out and eating better) and culminated in... I guess you could say... putting to rest a situation that needed to be put to rest at work.  With the support of those closest to me and some great superiors, I feel much better.  However... this anger that enraged from the situation may very well have caught some tinder alight in my being.  With the tinder having already been smoldering, I am wondering if, even after I got my resolution at work and felt that relief, the reason I'm still feeling this strong degree of fire inside me is because it's just another way things are burning through me lately.  

It may not last.  

But what if it does?  It makes me think of things like how I will adjust to yet another flavor of personality showing through.  Now I'm starting to get just how a modern mystic like Sadhguru can become so intensely spiritual.  

I had a dream about him the other night.  I'm not sure I want to share it, but it was a powerful message, in essence a confidence booster and recognition of being on target in my life, even by his designs.  You have no idea how important that is to me.  I tried to make it not important, but it is.  Even while I have thought myself lost.... he shows me I am exactly where I need to be and with whom.  

If you keep getting thrust into situations beyond your former experience and comfort zone, you can wiggle your way through realization after realization.  Yet you can still pursue your own goals.  It all depends on what you want and if you want it badly enough.  I've always known what I've wanted badly enough is epic love.  Having tasted it and found myself battered by my and others' inabilities to contain and balance such love, these things I began and eventually all but gave up on.  I have known great failure with some awesome people and been tested through intense heartache and dysfunction.  But my sweet day has come and he travels in love with me now.  And I feel very little, if any, dysfunction with spaceman and I.  That's an awesome thing to be having going on... and there's more.

Since I also changed my activity level and my eating habits, I'm watching my body increase in health... my core feels stronger, no longer like it's sitting its weight upon itself, I feel like I need my inhaler far less, my lungs feel stronger and less breathy, my fresh-out-of-the-dryer jeans felt less snug this morning, I'm not breaking down to snack nearly as much, I've had only 1 day I drank mtn dew since Nov. 30th, I'm not drinking much, I'm not even worrying or stressing over feeling hungrier - I eat or drink something light and sensible to pass it, I'm not finishing what's on my plate - like my parents always insisted, I've severely restricted grains like I should be, I'm at the gym 3 and 4 days a week, today I beat what I did yesterday by a quarter mile with only 30 seconds more on the clock, I've convinced my daughter to work out with me sometimes with the promise that if she did I might get her her own membership too, she did/I did, I have a couple of friends who also workout there and I love having a bit of a social life at the gym instead of come and go and speak to no one, my routine at home is changed as now I frequently shower in the evening instead of night... I would be requiring less sleep if only I weren't blissfully addicted to conversations with my spaceman.  

There's a lot going on that is awesome, 
so much more than I can list here.  

And yet some people I love and care about are going through some of their worst times...  I'm way up here and they're way down there reaching up but unconvinced of their possible success... or just distraught from heartache or numbness.  Having come out of such a period of inner turmoil from 2011-2014 (surprise addiction/being out-sourced/bankruptcy/anger at society and life), I know too intimately how far down the emotional scale that is.  

Maybe it's no wonder 2015 has been a stellar year for me. But that doesn't even begin to explain just how great it has been.  It's epically rewarding.  I really need to thank Tidbitz profusely, for she shared Nahko & Medicine for the People sooooo many times on her Facebook wall that I eventually listened.  Surely I have recounted the happiness breakthrough story, haven't I?  And then there's spaceman <3.  Need I say more???

So this fire inside can rage if it wants to.  I will learn to deal with it like I have the lack of inhibitions, humor, playfulness, and insights.  A fire inside is the type of energy that tripped me up in 2005 with spaceman. Sedona vortexes can be a bitch if you're not prepared. It's not the same "issues" being dealt with but it's that same raw energy.  Am I ready this time to deal with it?  Yeah, I think so.  Just bring the man to me, please.  Put him face to face with me, soon... Februrary <3.



"I'm going to ultimately liberate my consciousness."
"My eyes are crying over bullet-proof pride, because I know I didn't come to make it out alive."
"I will make a change."