Our New Store

Not something I’d actually planned on doing, but I am pleased with what shook out as I created an on-line Amazon store for Talking to Spirit. So far, I’ve got it divied up into 3 sections. The first has to do with channeling, spiritual growth and head scratching and motivational stuff. The other sections are for 2 of my favorite writers, Diana Gabaldon and Jayne Ann Krentz. The only thing that sort of bugs me is I’ve never worked with an iframe before and this is 4000 whatzits long. Most of the time it just makes the page longer, but sometimes as you move into a more detailed description of the book it gets used up with reviews and comments. I made it scroll, but that was too confusing. What I’d like is for it to shrink and grow as necessary. I’ll have to keep looking for the solution to that one, but for now: We have an Amazon Store!

For the rest of the day I’m planning on easy things. Clean up some more in the study, do some ironing, make brownies and buy the fixings for dinner. We’re going to have our special dinner today rather than tomorrow because I’ve got to work half a day. I’d like to make schwine schnitzel, but if they don’t have boneless pork chops I’ll get some steaks, pound them out and make us country fried steak instead.

I'm Just Thinking

I’m reading, “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle. It’s a small book. It packs a wallop. I recommend this book. It’s making me ask questions left and right.

Bear with me…I’m just thinking aloud.

For many years I’ve been interested in being closer to what I, in the past, called God, and in more recent years have begun to think of as other things in addition to God. This has had a number of names for me and I recognize that there is still, even now, a fluidity with just what that is.

God, Now, Us, Enlightenment, Ascension, Heaven. I don’t know. It’s something different, though.

I can’t think that I’m any different than anybody else. I think of people I’ve come across who talk of being enlightened. What does that mean? For me, I think it means that I would no longer be concerned with many of the things that concern me now, which would actually be a relief. Pain, worry, stress, anger…all that to wash away. How very cool and gee, I wish I could go there.

Love. The guides talk about love all the time. They say it is the glue that binds the universe together. They say there is truth in the saying that love does conquer all, that love makes the world go round. Stuff like that.

What’s interesting to me is that every once in awhile the realization of something bigger than myself, something beyond the boundaries of ordinary life and what makes up my usual reality blasts upon me. It’s sudden. It’s almost overwhelming. Sometimes it feels so good it hurts and I cry, which is a sight because it happens mostly on my way to or from work in the car. Driving along MacArthur Blvd with tears streaming down my face. I hope nobody can see. It’s not like I’m picking my nose. Sometimes I wonder if it is just a stage of menopause. Maybe I just ovulated. Maybe I’m tired. Maybe I’m vulnerable. Maybe I just caught a glimpse of Heaven.

Mostly, I think we’re already saved no matter what we are doing. It’s not like we’ve got to jump on anybody else’s bandwagon or religion in order to make it to Heaven. It’s not a race. It’s a journey. You go fast. You go slow. Who cares? One of the guides just said it’s like a dance, too: one step forward and two steps back.

I guess if you want to learn from your mistakes you make an effort to do that. Otherwise you spend 15 lifetimes doing the same stuff over and over again. Can you imagine? Being a victim to somebody else’s rage over and over again? If that was me I wouldn’t like that. I’d prefer to be in a place where I’m happy.

Now, that brings up something to think about too. If you are blessed with enlightenment does that also mean you are automatically happy? Or is being happy like being sad where it’s not really real like what they say in, “A Course in Miracles”? Maybe a sort of medium feeling is what would be best? And, that brings up another point: What is best anyway? Maybe there is no best. Maybe there is different. Maybe there is variety, but good or bad doesn’t mean a whole lot.

Sheesh, it’s like walking straddling a chasm and I’m only on page 10.

Thank You - TheWatchList

I want to say thank you to the Blog Explosion member, TheWatchList, who gave me a boatload of credits! What a really cool thing it was to see an email from BlogExplosion telling me about it. If you happen to zoom through and read this, please know that I really appreciate the gift. Thanks again!

Ask - Channeling

I’m going to turn this over to the Guide in attendance. I’m not sure who it is. But, there’s always somebody there to talk, to say something.

Blessings. In this time of strife and hopefulness of the season, wanting peace and yet living in the midst of strife seems a great contradiction. Generally, at other times of the year you live in stress filled times and are on guard against the “bad” things that come to threaten you. However, during holy days whether celebrated in temples or in churches or mosques the expectation is that other’s hearts will be as full of spirit as your own feel full. Sadly, this is not always the case and you will see tragedies happen, clustering together. A person, depressed with their circumstances, goes over the edge and in seeking ease from the hurt they feel will sometimes lash out around them affecting others in their blaze of glory on their way out and off this plane of existence.

Does this mean you should only be half filled with the spirit of the day? For some this would be the ideal situation, a more mature and responsible attitude to take. We would certainly not count religious in this for they are hopelessly entwined with Spirit and can never come undone to accept reality.

So, during the holy seasons you move closer to a place where Spirit can be a tangibly felt part of your life. You really feel God in your heart for a few hours or days. You open your heart and God, the Holy Spirit, streams in to fill every nook and cranny. And, then, once the holy days are over you revert to your normal hedonistic self. Now, you are cautious again against those who would seek to do you harm.

Sounds off balance to me.

But, the feeling persists that if you give over to Spirit and allow God into your heart that you are leaving your flanks and rear vulnerable to attack.

Think on it this way and see if you don’t begin to reconsider your position. You are not backing yourself into the corner during the celebrations of Holy Days. “Bad” things are going to happen to you and to others regardless of your state of mind. You do not have to be ever vigilant. There is a way to allow Spirit into your life on a constant basis and still fulfill your obligations to the world around you.

Just ask. Just make the invitation. Just make the commitment. Nothing formal. Silently and with your heartfelt voice say, “I’ve been lonely. Sometimes I need some help. I’m tired of doing this alone. Will you be with me? Will you help? Thank you.”

That’s all.

A Year of Psychic Readings

Well, that’s it then. I just spent the entire day getting, “A Year of Psychic Readings” published at http://www.lulu.com/ I’ve ordered a copy for myself and if I’m pleased with it I will make the book available to the public. Yikes, but this project has been a long time in the works. I never could figure out how to get the fonts embedded in the Adobe pdf file. After creating 3 pdf files I uploaded the word document instead and lulu created the pdf file for me. That worked fine.

The plan, right now, is to offer free copies for downloading and folks can purchase a paperback copy for $10 plus whatever shipping they want. They had a bunch of different options and I went for $1.91 for media rate through the US mail. I’m not sure how long it will take, but hopefully it won’t be too long in coming.

What I’m thinking about doing is to pay lulu $99 to get an ISBN and re-publish allowing the book to be available in other places besides lulu.com. Something for me to think about.

Go Stand In A Doorway

I was writing about fear, the lead-into for a chapter of stuff the guides had channeled for my book of 365 Day’s Worth of Channeling when we had our 3rd earthquake in almost as many days. This sucks. All 3 of them located 2 miles east of Berkeley, the first on Dec 20th at 7:15 pm – a 3.5 magnitude, the second last night, Dec 22nd at 11:00 pm – 3.7 magnitude (which DeeDude and I missed because we were asleep) and the third Dec 23rd at 9:20 am a 3.5 magnitude.

These recent quakes were all on the Hayward fault which runs pretty close to my house. Oct 21, 1868 was the last one. And, we’re due. And, I have to admit I’m afraid.

Here’s the conversation I just had with the guides: “So, if this house fell apart and you were killed what would you do?” No brainer on that one. I’d be dead. And, from what they’ve told me I probably wouldn’t care.

“And, if you lost everything what would you do?” I said I’d start over.

Man, but fear can really suck the life right out of you, though.

So, I’ll mull over what they said…and, go get dressed. The thought of having the house fall to pieces around me while I’m in my jammies just doesn’t hold much appeal.

For those who are interested go to: http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/ to see the latest quakes in California. More information can be gotten here: http://quake.usgs.gov/recent/index.html

Resolutions

This month’s recommended activity. Honestly, I’m having trouble with this one. I don’t know why. I’ve returned again and again to this smallest section of my newsletter wondering what little interesting something I could put in for my January edition. I’m stumped.

Once, during the course of the month, as I was almost knocking my head against the edge of the desk one of the guides suggested, “On your knees and pray.” I thought that was actually quite funny. There’s one thing they have is an incredible sense of timing for the one-liners they come up with. But, here I am 2 weeks later and I still haven’t come up with anything.

So, I thought I might approach it in a way that is similar to how I am currently trying to fashion some watchbands to go with the watch faces I bought. Just sit down and do it and see what happens.

I know we’ve done breathing and writing was last month. I’ve recommended CD’s and movies and books. In January some people might be concerned with fresh starts and the resolutions they’d made. And, I know how hard it is to stick to a resolution. I’m all fired up about in the beginning, but as time wears on my enthusiasm wanes and eventually I stop whatever healthy or good activity I’d chosen as my resolution.

Maybe because there was no reward for me to do the behavior. Maybe in creating a resolution you also need to create the reward. I haven’t tried that one yet.

Okay…so, say my resolution is to lose weight. Rewards for me, any day of the week, would include chocolate. So, that would suck. What kind of a reward could I have for losing weight? Movies? Books? Clothes? A day off. Yes, I could ask for a day off from work to do whatever I want. But, the deal would be I’d have to lose 8 pounds first. 10 pounds? No, 8 pounds. More than 5 and less than 10. I can manage 8 pounds.

Okay, so what other rewards would be good? I guess I could come up with a generic list of rewards, but, they really need to be crafted for the individual person. It’s the donkey and the carrot routine.

I’ve never once been able to stick to any of the resolutions I make. But, I’ve also never had a reward for good behavior either. Maybe this year it might work out better.

Clickety...Clickety...Clack...Ding!

I’ve always maintained that writers have diarrhea of the mouth. However, after participating in the NaNoWriMo program in November I seem to have gotten constipated. I’m not sure why. It might have been the tremendous effort I made to write and it just plumb wore my sorry little butt out. It might be the next step in my evolution as a writer and what is now emerging from my pen is more refined than it has been in the past. And, it might be I got constipated. I don’t know.

I’m just now sort of emerging from it. For awhile afterward I was concerned that what I was writing to blog about was drivel and that nobody would ever be remotely interested. Also, once I looked at the finished pieces they just seemed so silly and whiney that even I didn’t want to read them.

What happened yesterday was that I was reading blogs at Blog Explosion and I began reading a blog I’ve never read before. Actually, I can’t even tell you the name of it now. But, they were talking about mundane and very ordinary events in their life. I mean this was totally pedestrian. Not super hero stuff. Not shining star stuff. Just ordinary stuff. And, I was totally enthralled. I hung on every word this lady had typed. I was really, really interested. And, that’s when my own log jam finally broke up. So, here I am…back in my hair curlers and fluffy slippers with nothing of truly extraordinary importance to talk about. But, at least I think I’m getting back on track again.

Channeling Funny

I’m working my way through the Battle of the Blogs at Blog Explosion. I’m getting ready to have a look at the 2nd one in a pitched battle and the title of the blog is Living With Multiple Personalities. One of the guides said, “I think you should vote for them.”

I thought it was funny.

Peeking Out From Under My Rock

Last month I really pushed myself to write. Every day I wrote. I also encountered any number of stress filled situations. If I started counting them I’d run out of fingers and start up my arm. But, I didn’t lose my cool…not much, anyway. I realized that I was pushing my buttons with the writing. I realized that as I pushed forward on something that I really wanted to do all the psychological issues that had been lying dormant waiting for the ideal opportunity to rise up and clamor for notice and recognition would realize that the time was right. Typically, it takes a lot for me to attend to my own psychological issues. Looking at it another way my higher self, in directing traffic, decided it was time for rush hour.

When the month was over I ran out of gas. I haven’t been blogging very much. It isn’t that I haven’t been writing. There are any number of entries that I made that as I looked at the finished product I decided to put them into my journal instead. It’s not really that they were any different from any other blog I’d done before the month of NaNoWriMo. Same mundane stuff. Nothing really significant. Just regular stuff. But, I didn’t feel that it belonged here. I didn’t get rid of the entries entirely, I just put it into my journal instead. Private. Buried. Not to see the light of day again. That’s how I am with my journals.

Maybe I just need to go with the flow here. I’m still probably reeling from November. Generally a stress filled time is what the holidays are for me. You’re supposed to be happy. You’re supposed to be full of excitement and being depressed is not allowed. I guess.

One of the guides just said to me, “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

The other day I was sitting quietly at work after lunch. I wasn’t reading anything. I’d taken off my glasses and closed my eyes for a couple of seconds. I was sitting at my desk, where I always sit for lunch. Suddenly, from out of the psychic mists came to me a person. A woman. But, she wasn’t real in the sense that she had been a person once upon a time, now passed on and with the Folk in Spirit I talk to. No, she was one of my characters. She was a person who would be in a book I would someday write.

I shuddered with awe. Tears came to my eyes. It was magic. It was a writer’s high and I wasn’t even writing. This was somebody I could get to know and eventually she would tell me her story and I would write it down. It was a pretty incredible experience. I said to her, “You’ll come back to me? We can talk? I can see what you look like?” She said, “Yes. I will come again.” And, that was it. I had to get back to work.

This is what it’s like being psychic.

Believe

This has been on my mind for awhile. I just don’t understand anymore why we have all our strife over religious beliefs. God is God. Period. It doesn’t matter whether you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Agnostic or Atheist.

It just doesn’t matter. And, in the end if you don’t believe in God believe in yourself.

Live a good life.

Fruitcakes

I tend to lose track of my bookmarks. There is no real good system that I’ve run across yet that manages them properly. I did a lot of research finding the all time best fruitcake I could find to send to somebody who absolutely loves fruitcakes. So, I made a fruitcake page at my other site - Talking to Spirit.

Cat Farts

Here’s the conversation I just had with the cat.

“Is that you farting? If you’re farting you can’t stay in here.”

“Meow”

“No, I won’t pick you up if you’re farting. Go in the other room and fart please.”

“Meow” and she left….whew.

Remind Me

This isn’t rocket science, but I think it’s important as a reminder. I tend to forget stuff. I also tend to be easily distracted. So, I need to remind myself to do things. Maybe you are wired the same way and might benefit from this slightly.

Index cards. Yes, I know this is sort of really low tech and simple, but they work. If you don’t have 10 of them kicking around in your house go to the store; grocery, drug or office supply store, and purchase a pack of them. Whatever color you desire. They come in basic white and a few pastel colors.

On these ten cards, in pretty large letters, write something you’d like to do. Think of it this way: You go to work every day and once you are there you know pretty much, exactly what you are supposed to be doing. Or, you go to school every day and your schedule is mapped out; you know what you are doing. Do this for yourself.

On the top of each card write something you’d like to be doing. It might even be as mundane as keeping your area clean. That’s what is on one of my cards. I tend to whirl into my study, set myself down at the computer and go to town. Behind me, beside me and in front of me is a mess. I ignore it, but when the focus of my attention loosens from whatever I’ve been doing to become aware of the mess around me I am disheartened. That’s what I don’t need anymore; that feeling of helplessness and hopelessness about my mess. So, pick it up. That’s what’s on my card. Not, “Clean up the study”, because that could take 2 weeks. Instead, my card reads, “Spend 5 minutes cleaning up the study”

Here are the rest of my cards:

* Drink a glass of water now
* Do 10 slow stretches now
* Do your eye exercises now (Sometimes I see double. To force my eyes back to center I focus in on the tip of a pen held out in front of me. I bring the pen closer to my face all the while focusing on the tip and then move it out again a few times every day.)
* Spend 5 minutes walking in place
* Practice 5 minutes of Tai Chi
* Jump and dance around to the count of 50
* Drink another glass of water now
* Smile to the count of 25
* Learn one new word in a foreign language

The rule with me is that I go once through these cards every day. As I finish one task the card goes to the back of the pile and at the beginning of every day the one card (pick up the study) is at the top.

To make it fun and give you some sort of incentive/motivation you could have some of those little stars you could paste on each card as you finish the task or on the top one to show you’ve been through one day’s worth of stuff.

It takes 3 weeks to establish a good habit. With me I think it must take 3 months. But, these are things that I’d like to be doing more often. Maybe you’ve got something you’d like to be doing more too.

Tune Up

I used to charge for readings. People didn’t seem to appreciate the fact that I was spending my time with them and resented paying for anything I didn’t “work” to do. Yeah, like my time isn’t worth something. They also didn’t like what I told them.

Well, I don’t charge for readings anymore. But, I will not ignore pleas for help. And, in the interest of a busy schedule I keep my replies pretty brief and rather to the point. So, when I tell somebody to go see a therapist I am NOT pussyfooting around.

It’s your decision whether you will eventually go or not. But, seeing a psychotherapist can only bring good things into your life no matter where you are in your travels.

Go get tuned up.

Losing Weight Sucks

Losing Weight Sucks.

Heat

Well, I had a premonition the other day. I awakened with the knowledge that our furnace was going to break. And, it did. About 10 minutes later.

It originally broke last March. It wasn’t until about three months ago, or so, that we got a new one put in. The only problem was that it would occasionally make a big KaBoom noise and if the light was dim enough you’d see a flash of light as a fire ball traveled up the length of the furnace. The first time it happened I was walking right beside it. I was so shocked that I crashed into the wall. Good thing I wasn’t holding a cup of coffee.

And, as things mechanical do, it wouldn’t do the KaBooming noise when our landlady or the furnace guy came to look at it. He came one Saturday last month and spent all day with it. I think what had happened was that the KaBoom was strong enough to blow out the pilot light. He got it lit again, but couldn’t figure out why we were having the mini explosion. My thought is that it was some sort of delayed ignition or something like that.

Plan B is that we will go find another furnace guy who can fix it.

Now, my other thought is with the premonition. Though I’m not thrilled that our furnace is not working (DeeDude got us another space heater from Costco, so I think we’re not going to freeze our patooies off), I was thrilled to have had advance warning about it. It was not a random thought. It was a real definite knowingness that it would happen. And, I was not alarmed about it. This, to me, is what being psychic is about. I’d like to have more things like that happening.

Surfing Fine

Last night DeeDude picked up our new Comcast modem and I began the process of installing it. From what everybody said it was a no-brainer. Well. It wasn’t exactly, but eventually the process smoothed out and we had broadband really high speed internet access with Comcast in about an hour or so.

Right out of the box I reached for the instructions which didn’t turn out to be the right thing to do. The first thing it said was, “Connect your modem”. My question was, “To What?”. I read further in the instructions and it got into a bunch of fine print stuff that nobody ever reads (nor did I) and decided I’d better call them. No phone number. So, I went to my computer at the back of the house and via dial up, called up www.comcast.net looking for a telephone number. Nothing. Nada. Zip. They evidently don’t want to talk to you a whole lot. Lots of forums, but the pages were turning so slowly I didn’t want to spend all night trying to figure it out. So, I called 411 and got directory assistance, which also took an inordinately long time to answer the phone. Maybe they’ve been cutting back too.

So, phone number in hand I called up Comcast and was on hold while I took the time to look at all the other stuff in the box. There was this CD that said on the cover, “Feed this to your computer.” I looked at it some. I remembered what people had said that it was all a real no-brainer operation and decided to put the CD into DeeDude’s computer. That’s where the REAL instructions were. So, with pictures and real simple and easy to understand steps it walked us through the hook up process. And, it was pretty easy.

Except, it didn’t work. So, I called Comcast again and this time stayed on the line long enough to talk to a really nice guy who took all of 2 minutes to fix us up. He had to do something technical from his end.

Then, the next step was to get all the computers in the house working. We have the 2 desktops and a wireless laptop. So, I unhooked the modem from DeeDude’s computer and hooked it up to the Linksys router. Then, I hooked the router up to DeeDude’s computer. Mine was still hooked up. Nothing worked. So, I called Linksys and while I waited on the phone did as the taped message suggested and went online to their website. I had to unhook the router and put the modem back on DeeDude’s computer to do this, but once I was there we downloaded some quick hook-me up no-brainer program that, once I’d unhooked the modem and we no longer had internet access, was able to still run and tell us what to do. Step by easy step.

I still wanted a cigarette and a rum and coke….but, not as bad as before.

Finally, the 2 desktops worked and it was time for DeeDude to get his laptop working. I have absolutely no experience with laptops other than I don’t want to use one (I don’t like how the keyboards are laid out or the way the mouse works. Plus, there is the fact that I don't have a lap.), so he took care of configuring that one. The Linksys security key was a gazillion letters and numbers long and you had to enter it 2 times and that was a little stressful, but at the end of it all 3 computers are working now. Very, very good.

It's Over 20,907 Words

Okay, I've declared the writing over for me. The word count stands at 20,907 and, interestingly enough this morning I wrote 222 words. How's that for a neat coi-inki-dink? I figured that was the universe's way or my higher self's way of saying, "Stop already, it's over. You did good".

I'll be glad to start posting here more regularly again. I've missed it, and had even started a few entries only to scrap them once I'd let off steam. They weren't particularly interesting, even to me. Why bother? Also, it felt like energy I needed for my other stuff was being syphoned off into this whiney voice and I didn't want to spread that around. Sort of like having a cold and passing on germs, I guess.

We still don't have DSL. Poo on SBC/AT&T. Comcast modem is supposed to arrive tomorrow though the computers are not yet ready. I need to take a trip to Office Depot...maybe tonight after work.

How the Universe Works

Point your nose in the right direction and the universe will help you to move right along. Our DSL is down. I needed to get cracking on what I’ve done channeling for the NaNoWriMo project. Guess what? Surfing the old fashioned way just does not appeal to me. It takes forever for web pages to turn and pictures to load. I’m just not used to that anymore. So? I’m being super productive this weekend. I got 1,000 words done yesterday and another 1,000 today. About. Just sort of rounding it off. Total channeled/written for NaNoWriMo sits at 18,386 right now.

Writing Away

I got up early again this morning. I’d forgotten how I really work better keeping “Writer’s Hours” which for me are to work while everybody is still sleeping. I put on the headphones and zone out on my brain wave altering music by Dr. Jeffrey Thompson. My current favorites are the Delta wave stuff. All of them work fine, but I tend to reach for that first. Funny, you would think that something along the lines of Alpha would work better for me with the channeling, but the Delta stuff is just fine.

Actually, years ago the best stuff I found to listen to while I was working on “the Stone” which was my murder mystery, swash buckling, horror, romance, three hanky tear jerker novel presently under my bed, was a subliminal tape designed to get a person to lose weight. I didn’t lose any weight then, but it surely did jump start my creative batteries. I never really understood how that worked. All I know is it did.

Anyway, word count is at 15,833 this morning. I’m about 5,000 in the hole as far as what I’d wanted to do and found that to be slightly discouraging for awhile. However, I’m working at it most every day. And, although I’m only getting between 500 and 800 out at any one sitting it’s more than nothing. I’m finding that I need to rethink what I consider to be “good work” and what I consider to be “slacker performance”. It will all come together in the end. It’s good training for me and I think I would like to continue this mode of writing and channeling for a good long while after the end of November rolls up.

If you think about it, if a person were to just write 500 words every day. Every single day to take half and hour to 45 minutes to write at the end of a year they’d have more than 180,000 words. That’s pretty decent.

Blog Rolling

Wow. Over time I have accumulated a whole bunch of blog/websites in my BlogRoll. Lots. And, the only order there was that they were alphabetical. Otherwise, cooking blogs were right up there beside writing blogs. I wanted to categorize them, but I hadn’t wanted to spend the money…until yesterday. I went to BlogRolling to upgrade so I could make categories and come to find out now ALL services are available to the free level members. Holy Rat Shit, Batman!

So far, I’ve got two categories to separate folks into. I’m thinking on the others I want to create. Which sort of moves me into that area of, “Maybe I need to make another blog?” God, what have I unleashed? Well, other people have lots of blogs. I’ve got 3 of them already. I’ve got a lot of interests. I’m thinking beading blog…I’m thinking cooking blog…(Maybe after I’ve lost weight)…and, maybe a weight loss blog. Who wants to read about a fat psychic? Anyway, I’m sort of busy this month with the NaNoWriMo stuff (14,621 words this morning).

A Dream I Had

This is from my journal: Just a quick note. I want to conserve my writing energy for the Thing I’m channeling for NaNoWriMo. It’s 2:47 am. I went to bed at 7:30 last night. Enough sleep and up to write. Writer’s hours. I awakened from a dream. Coming from university again. Walking with a girl toward our digs. Talking to her and said something like I wanted to have a few minutes to read over my English notes. Military. Naval. Then, lying in bed with dogs and cats all around. I said to one of the cats, “It was always more interesting when Mama Cat was around.” She said to me, “Yeah, she was our leader. We always followed her and she found neat things for us to do.” I was talking to her daughter, but it didn’t seem that it was either Samantha or Mattie.

Then, an Airedale terrier lay on the bed and stretched. I rubbed him. And, another dog was within reach. I reached up to pet a cat sitting on a window sill away from the dogs. There were kids all over the place. The mother stood at the kitchen sink and as the two husbands came in the door I thought to myself how young they all looked. The one husband went to kiss his wife and I noticed that his hair was different, shorn on the one side and curly dark locks on the other. I thought how things had changed in the military. And, she said announcing to all that if we got up then and got ready to leave we’d be in East Oookem by noon. There was another place name that she said. This was a British place and British place names. I wonder if there is an Oookem? I was thinking that I was to be included with the group leaving.

13,915 words

You know, I do this to myself. When they ask me what I’m doing these days I tell people I’m participating in NaNoWriMo. Then, they want to know what I’m writing. Letting the cat out of the bag (with me, anyway) is a sure fire way of jinxing the entire operation. Especially, when I say that I’m channeling the work. What? Then, I need to go into the explanation of what that is. Why do I do this to myself? I don’t need the aggravation at this point. I’m already 4,000 words in the hole. Yikes. Anyway, posts to these blogs are going to be short and infrequent over the weekend because I’m busy. Word count this morning is: 13,915

Progress

I thought to mention that I'm at 13, 582 on my word count for NaNoWriMo It's not what I'd hoped to do, but making allowances for my boil, which is healing, and back ache which is better, I figure it's not bad. I just did 1,000 words this morning. I'm looking to the weekend to get caught up somewhat. I'm pleased with what's been done so far. I also had the opportunity to make a cameo appearance myself this morning in what was channeled. Whether that stays or not is debatable...but, I personally got some good work done for me.

That's one of the major benefits of channeling. You have the opportunity to do your own work and have somebody help you with it too. It's why I wanted to do this in the first place. I didn't want to be hieing myself off to psychotherapist and psychic alternately paying out the big bucks for the rest of my life. Do it yourself...that's my motto. Some guide just made a crack about learning dentistry. I do draw the line, bud.

Anyway, upbeat this morning and need to go get ready to go to work.

It's Friday!

I'm Not Writing

The creative juices sort of dried up today as far as the NaNoWriMo.org program goes. I was however, able to channel a bit off topic and posted it to the Learn to Channel blog and wrote a pissy little piece to post to The Psychic Vents. Then, not to be undone, I figured to be fair I ought to post something here even if it isn’t anything of real importance to anybody in the world. How’s that for blah?

Well, I could let everybody know how the boil on my back is coming along. It is healing, but it sure looks gross. To point out what a very loving and attentive husband DeeDude is he did not even recoil in horror when I’ve asked him every day to tell me how it is doing. If it is appropriate (he uses his judgment because I can’t see the damn thing) he works at squeezing the pus out of it. Now, isn’t that gross? It does hurt like hell. But, I cannot stand the thought of having this thing on my back. It’s like an alien has imbedded itself under my skin (a channeling funny for you, somebody just said, “Watch out.” ….LOL) to grow and be something that swallowed Cincinnati.

I read on the internet today all sorts of cautionary notes about squeezing boils, except, it’s not hard anymore because I have been using hot, moist compresses a lot and I think the antibiotics are working. It eventually melts. I fully expect this sucker to be healed by the end of next week. I hope it doesn’t go any longer than that.

The bummer about this is folks with diabetes are prone to getting boils. My first experience was many years ago maybe a year or so before I was officially diagnosed with diabetes. They kept saying, “Use antibacterial soap, quit wearing tight clothes, use wet, hot compresses.” And, that year I must have had 10 of them. I was so miserable. It was horrid. I stopped calling the doctor about them. They never did give me any antibiotics. I should have been more forceful. Note to anybody with a boil: Do not pick at it unless you plan to totally disregard what wiser heads have to advise about them. A totally mind blowing cautionary note I read this morning about them were about boils on your face. Pick at them and you tempt brain damage. What? What? Okay, it’s on my back. It’s not on my face.

But, I don’t feel very good. And, the momentum to write serious stuff, stuff for my project at NaNoWriMo is just not there. So, I’m blogging instead. At least that’s sort of useful.

Write Every Day

I don’t know if he still does this, but there was a time when Stephen King would write every single day of the year except for Christmas, his birthday and the Fourth of July. If ever I wanted to have an idol it would be him. I love the way he writes. I love that he kept trying even after he’d gotten rejection after rejection. I love that he came from humble circumstances. He’s an ordinary guy. He’s done an extraordinary thing.

He scares the crap out of me, but he is also the reason why I am a channel now. I OD’d once on his novels. And, after that the weird psychic stuff started happening. And, here I am today.

But, if you need somebody to help you over the rough spots in your own path of creativity pick somebody who is working in the field of your heart’s desire and pattern your own work or the way you work after them. And, if he can show up every day to work, so can I.

NaNoWriMo word count this morning is 9,988, still real close to my goal of 1,000 words a day.

Writer's Hours

I wondered how I was going to do so much writing/channeling for the month of November for NaNoWriMo.  I’m getting up an hour or so earlier.  I awakened shortly after 4:00 this morning.  I’ve channeled now for an hour and count wise it’s an additional 850 words.  Not bad.  I need a break.  Total count so far is 8,210 words.

I have found that I just can’t sit here and write the way I used to which was a credible 4,000 words a day.  I wasn’t working in those days.  Interestingly, I devoted a month to working Tony Robbins Personal Power Program once and took that 4,000 words a day up to 20,000 words a day.  A day.  It was all journal work.  But, it was pretty incredible.  I just wanted to see if I could do it.  I could.  But, that was years ago.   It was also interesting how doing the exercises in that course ended up pushing a lot of my buttons.  It was painful, but ended up being the best thing I could do.  I was propelled into a lot of inner growth and inner emotional healing.  But, that’s okay.  Now I know how to do it.

Though, writing and channeling are intertwined, they are two different things.  I’m actually more comfortable sitting here and writing this than I am with channeling.  I wait upon my guides to say something with the channeling and try to put a sock in my mouth while they say it.  Sort of.  It’s difficult to stay out of their way with what they say.  Sometimes, if what they are saying makes me edgy I’ll lose track of what they are saying just because I’m nervous or anxious about it.  Not that they say weird things like the world is going to end or anything like that.   What happened this morning to sort of wind up our session was they started saying nasty comments about critics.  Excuse me?  What?  That just busted the whole thing up.  Now, did they do that on purpose to make me take a break or did they really intend to say it?  I’ve left it in the piece.  Maybe later as I go back during the editing process where I find all the rampant spelling mistakes I usually make when I’m channeling with my eyes closed they’ll be amenable to changing what they said.  

I don’t know.

It was weird.

Maybe I’m tired.  I can lay down for half an hour before I need to get ready to go to work.  This is hard for an old lady like me.

My Husband's New Book

Dennis and his friend Eric's new book is available on Amazon and, probably, in your neighborhood bookstore. Check out San Francisco in Photographs

Weekend Progress

Did a nice bit of channeling this morning to the tune of 1,400 words.  Not bad.  I might do some more later on today.  I’ve scaled back what I’m asking of myself now.  I wasn’t in shape to do this at all, as I’ve discovered.  So, rather than be upset with myself I’m taking my friend’s advice and just scaling it all back some.  So, instead of 50,000 words I’m aiming for 30,000 words by the end of the month.  That works out to 1,000 a day which is manageable.  I expect that on the weekends I’ll be able to get more done.  And, I feel a whole lot better about the whole thing.  They ought to have a NaNoWriMo warm up in October to get folks used to writing.

First Progress Report

I built a way cool spreadsheet this morning to keep me on track with NaNoWriMo. The last column, the telling column, is titled, “Just How Far In the Hole Are You?” Right now I am sitting at 2,694 words in the hole. That’s just for today. I’m getting about 900 words a session and my back is not, I repeat, not in shape for this. In a week or so I’ll think about getting a widget installed to track progress.

I did some Tai Chi this morning hoping that will gently bring it all back into some sort of order. If things haven’t improved in a couple of weeks I’m going to ask for a referral to physical therapy and see if they can’t recommend a few exercises for me to do so that my back doesn’t hurt so much.

Just Started

Working away on the channeled work.  Not sure that this qualifies for the NaNoWriMo goal of writing a novel, but have in my heart reconciled myself with it.  What are rules but to be broken?  I’ve written 2,224 words so far.  Hey, there’s that 222.  Interesting.  Anyway, the guides are addressing creativity.  I don’t know where it will all end up.  In any case, it is interesting and it is a push for me to sit still long enough for them to speak on stuff.  Speak on Stuff.  Now, that’s nice and articulate.  I think I’ll go to work and crunch numbers.

Happy Halloween

National Novel Writing Month starts tomorrow. The only thing I did to get ready was to clean up my desk a little bit. Not too much. I don’t want anybody to get any ideas. I’m really not sure just how I will begin. I think I will just plunge in and see what happens.

We hadn’t planned on having anything to hand out tonight for Halloween. Last year we got a boat load of candy and nobody came. Likely, we won’t have anyone come tonight either seeing as how Oakland just made national news as the 8th most violent city in the US. On the heels of that announcement yesterday the cops exploded a pipe bomb in Montclair, one of the nicer areas of the city. Nobody was hurt.

Anyway, I started having second thoughts about not having anything to hand out for Halloween. As a kid it was one of the high points of the year. You spent a long time on your costume and got to come home with lots to eat. It was terrific. Even if we turn the lights off folks might make the trek upstairs and that is dangerous in the dark. I asked DeeDude to pick up some peanut butter crackers and we can give those out if anybody comes. If not he and I can still eat them as snacks afterwards.

Oh, My Aching Back

I didn’t do any ironing.  DeeDude keeps making references to what a messy place my study is.  Three weeks worth of shirts are hanging over the chair behind me.  Then, there’s stuff I got shopping yesterday on top.  He says, “If my area looked like this I wouldn’t be hearing the end of it.”  Meaning I’m a nag on my better days.  But, my back has been hurting me for days.  Last week I started out thinking I was having a kidney stone.  The pain was moving around on my back.  Also, I noticed, or I think I noticed that I wasn’t peeing as much.  Stone.  Couldn’t be anything else.  So, I began drinking water like crazy.  

I had a stone some time ago and it was pure agony.  I don’t want to go through that again.  If I even get a hint that something like that is going on I will begin drinking large amounts of water.  Actually, I should be drinking 12 glasses of water every day anyway and not wait for the threat of a stone to rise up.  

I know when to go to the doctor and it wasn’t time yet.  Also, I was feeling better by the end of the week when the nurse finally got in touch with me.  I wasn’t in the best of moods when she tried to tell me that my record said I’d not had a stone before.  Officially, I’m lying?  

I said to the lady, “I was in the most excruciating pain I’ve ever felt.  The pain in my back moved from the back to the front.  I couldn’t stand up straight and I had to keep pacing while I was waiting to see a doctor.  Then, later once I got home, while I drank water like nobody’s business I couldn’t pee.  The pain was horrible when the stone passed and afterward I peed like Niagra Falls.  And, that’s when there was absolutely no pain.”  She said, “It sounds like you had a stone.”  But, her voice was doubtful.  She told me the urine test they’d performed indicated there was no stone and my record didn’t indicate whether I had an ultra-sound or something else she said that I can’t remember now.  I said, “I was in too much pain and I don’t remember what sort of procedure it was.”  What I didn’t say was, “Why wasn’t whatever procedure I had noted in my record?”

She said I could come in for a 24 hour pee test.  I don’t even want to know what that is.  I told her no thanks and I feel better now.  Good thing I’ve still got the Tylenol with codeine that they gave me the last time I had a stone.  I know what to do and it doesn’t include going to see the doctor if all they are going to do is tell me to drink water. At least not this time.

Anyway, these are the things I’ve learned researching places on the internet about kidney stones.

1. There are 4 different kinds of stones.  Best way to determine which kind you have is to pee through a sieve or cheesecloth.  Great. The doctor needs to know what kind of stone you’ve got in order to proscribe a good treatment….like change in your diet or drugs.


2. One kind of a stone is calcium, but the 1,000 mg of calcium I take at night shouldn’t contribute to a stone forming.  You’ve got to be taking something like 2,500 mg a day of calcium before you should be concerned.


3. Once you have a stone the likelihood of you having another is greater.


4. Being diabetic I might be prone to kidney stones.


5. Drinking half a cup of lemon juice a day will help lots.  Mix it with water and sugar-free sweetener to make lemonade.


6. Drink 12 glasses of water (lemonade counts too).  Soda containing caffeine, coffee and tea do not count toward the water requirement.  They act as diuretics.


7. If you can’t flush the damned thing(s) with water you will need to visit the doctor.  They have different procedures and I have not really investigated them much.  I did hear tell of some sort of sonic blasting to break down the stone so you can pass it in smaller pieces.


8. But, best not to let the suckers form in the first place.  I’m going to go the lemon juice route.  I bought a big old bottle yesterday.

Pink

I’m gearing up for writing in November. Not that I don’t write a lot normally, but this is going to be a heavy duty push forward in regard to what I channel. I sometimes can go weeks in between times of formal channeling. Now, I’m committing to at least 15 minutes a day, at least in the beginning. What I’d like to see is half an hour a day. That, at the end of the month, ought to produce a decent body of work. It might not be the 54,000 words required for a “win” at http://www.nanowrimo.org/ but it will satisfy me.

However, one of the things I’d noticed lately that did not work the way I always would like them to are my eyes. Turns out I’ve got outward facing eyes. They don’t focus the way they used to and I have to do exercises every day to strengthen them and, hopefully, straighten them out. I hold a pen, business end up, in front of me at arm’s length. I focus on the tip of the pen and slowly, while I’m looking at it and trying to keep the thing in focus bring it forward. Then, I move it back. That’s all.

But, my eyes, even with the new prisms I’ve got in my lenses still wig out when I’m tired. Everything I’m reading goes double, blurry and the letters just won’t stay still. It drives me nuts. It’s especially irritating at work where I deal with numbers all day long.

So, I’ve fixed my computer so that my “window” is a very light shade of pink rather than white like it normally is. How to do this for anybody with a Windows operating system is from your desktop right click in a clear area. What unfolds is a menu. Go to the bottom of it where it says, “Properties”.

Go to the fourth tab over which is, “Appearance”. From there click on the button at the bottom of that area called, “Advanced”. Then actually click on the area of your sample displayed screen to select that element. For me, to change the color of the paper in Word, I click on the larger window area.

The little drop down now displays the element to change which is: window. White (by default) is the color displayed and where you want to change it is to click on the little drop down arrow next to the displayed color. You get a minor sized collection of colors. Pick one of them if they thrill you….or, go to the word, “more” and have a ball picking out the absolutely best, most perfect, fantastic color and shade (using the slider at the side of the screen) you want. Hey, you could even color coordinate your outfit or your décor if you wanted to.

I remember the first time I found out about this I changed the color of every element I saw. Hours later after I’d screwed it all up I discovered that there were preset themes already there. Eventually, I reset it all to Windows Standard. But, now I need pink. I think it’s easier on my eyes.

Writing That Lasts

You know something? It never goes away. What you think, what you say, what you record in your blog will always, always be there. Even if you delete it. Now, if you were to post and delete very close together chances are it is not part of the Akashic Records of the Internet. What leads me to this thought are two things.

I saw somebody post something in their blog the other day to the effect that they had deleted what they considered to be questionable material from their blog. They washed their hands of it and walked away with soul cleansed. I didn’t say anything. If they think it’s gone I wasn’t going to burst their bubble. Right then.

I will now. I’ve had more people do searches and come up with this blog at its old address at blogspot. And, that’s as far as it goes. I can’t get anybody at Blogger to help me out on this because they are all concerned with rolling out the new Beta Blogger. Finally, I just let it go. If they’re supposed to come see me at the new url http://www.thespiritmovedme.com/ then, they will.

The other thing that set me to thinking along these lines was reading a young person’s blog where they were complaining about adults who can’t remember what it was like to be a child. Well, yeah. That’s not so bad. Except, I remember what I used to write in my diary when I was 16 years old and there’s no way in Hell I would ever want that stuff to be read by anybody now. Hey, even back then I used to hide my diary under my mattress so my brothers wouldn’t find it.

Angelic Apple Salad

I wanted an apple. But, not just any apple. See, I’m on a diet and I have these horrible cravings that just don’t stop for Hostess Apple Pies, for Pop Tarts, for Almond Joys. You name it and I’ve been craving it. I made the comment not so long ago that it’s like being an alcoholic. The problem is I just can’t stop eating. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. What happened next was a guided concoction to keep me happy. And, it’s good. I call it:

Angelic Apple Salad

Cut an apple into chunks. Leave the skin on or not, however you prefer. Sprinkle in a little bit of coconut and a few nuts. Mix 1 teaspoon mayonnaise, 1 scant teaspoon honey and 1 teaspoon of Maruken Rice Vinegar (the kind in the orange bottle) and mix about half of it over the apple. That’s it. What could be simpler?

Work

This was something I channeled this morning:

If you wait for the perfect moment in time to begin a particular task many times the task will never get done. This is where having lists comes in handy. For instance, you have a job and that job requires you to be at work on time, to work 8 hours and to perform specific tasks while you are there. The incentive is that you get a paycheck. An added benefit might be that you feel creatively challenged while you are there, but we understand sometimes that this is not always the case. The major point of this particular treatise upon working habits is to illustrate the importance of the idea that you show up and commit to work.

With a task that does not come under the heading of work, something that you do for no pay or obvious remuneration, the task of creating a body of work is harder. Something substantial in the form of worthwhile channeling in exchange for a numb butt, a sore shoulder and an imminent case of carpel tunnel syndrome is not what we would classify as worthwhile remuneration, however, when the channel is sufficiently greased, not in the sense anymore of having imbibed in several alcoholic drinks as was once the case, but relaxed and willing to channel, some glimmer of hope or help might come through for someone reading the work.

It’s all in how you look at it.

We do not seek to chastise, but to explain the process. If you sit, with your hands upon the keyboard, with your ear phones on effectively blocking out noise and activity from around you, ready to channel, we will certainly oblige. The quality of what you channel is another matter.

It is difficult to shout over the noise of a tremendous storm. However you seek it, plan on solitude, plan on peace, plan on quiet in your mind. Practicing these attitudes on a more than frequent basis in the midst of your ordinary activities will certainly spill over into the times when you sit waiting for channeling to ensue. Our blessings.

Blogging, Dyeing, Reading

Even though I’ve been blogging for awhile now there are still things I don’t know or haven’t really understood about the blogging scene. It might be because I’m 51 years old. I just learned about BlogMad today. I already surf Blog Explosion and Blog Advance, but BlogMad is new to me. So, I joined up today.

I also bought some henna for my hair. I need to do the special gray advanced version which is to use coffee instead of water and add a couple of teaspoons of vinegar to the whole thing. My trip tomorrow after work will be to purchase some plastic gloves, a paint brush and maybe a heat cap. Depends on what they look like and how expensive they are. Anyway, my gray hair isn’t real interesting yet and until it is I’ll probably be coloring it for awhile. What is irritating is the huge white splotch on the top of my head that from across the street looks exactly like a pigeon hit me…right on top…ugh.

Still working slowly on, “Loving What Is”. So slowly, in fact, that I bought the book. This is going to take awhile. Already, though, I felt a huge shift in how I feel about the twit downstairs. That’s been a heavy, huge pain that I’ve been feeling for awhile now. The guides said he was afraid of my anger. Well, that sort of took me aback. Twit. Anyway, I felt it shift. I still am not talking to him (actually, I haven’t seen him much), but if I could let go of the pain and anger maybe I could concentrate on more fun things. This is the first time since I got mad at him last March that I’ve felt any easing of this situation. Anyway, this is one of those BOOKS that I think can do a whole lot to change the quality of my life. I’m almost looking forward to it.

DeeDude Celebrity Look Alikes

These are the celebrities with faces closest to my DeeDude's face. Pretty neat! Upload your own photo at www.myheritage.com

Where I Work on a Meditation

This is a useful meditation to use when you are full of anger. We don’t care why you are angry and you need not justify it to anybody. This is just a meditation that you can do when you are angry.

Now, the first thing to do is to read a very short piece, a prayer or supplication of sorts to your Higher Power; God, Goddess or whoever that might be.

Help me to let go of the anger I’ve been feeling. Help me to, once again, reconnect and have a better understanding of me. My anger is masking something else and I don’t know what it is. Help me to understand. Help me to allow the assholes in my life to be the happy assholes they want to be. I can’t change them. Help me to understand that. Help me to stop attracting these people into my life. I swear I’ve learned enough.

I’m sorry…start over? Well, we were going to wait until you were done. Do you really want to let go of your anger? No, I don’t. It makes me happy. We think it makes you sad. You’re crying right now. This is why I’m a mean secretary. Right? Right. This hurts. Yes, I know.

I’m so afraid. I’m 51 years old. I guess I like people when they start being about 27 years old. You don’t like your managers. Well, you have a point there. I was making a pretty long shit list yesterday.

I had a dream last night that we were in terrible financial trouble. DeeDude was afraid. He’s never afraid. When he does get afraid then I know it’s deep doodoo. I was strong in the dream. I told him it would be okay even when I knew it would be hard. We’ve done this before.

I’m just constantly worried. I’m constantly in pain. I’m constantly in a horrible mood. It’s been awhile since I was just happy.

On the plus side, I’m losing weight. Slowly. But, I’m losing weight. At this rate I’ll fit into a normal sized coffin when I die.

You are in a bad mood.

You couldn’t tell?

You know what your mother would say, don’t you? No. She’d take you in her arms and tell you it was okay. She’d just hold you. No matter how old you are you will always be her daughter. And, even though she has passed she will always be your mother.

Should we work on this meditation another time? No, we can continue on with it if you like. I’m sorry. About what? What in the world do you need to be sorry about? Because I’m a shitty channel. I don’t see that you are. I can’t concentrate. Well, be quiet.

When you are in a deep and dark hole and it seems hopeless that you could ever climb out of it, it is important to remember that you can climb. Find or make the hand holds and foot steps that you need. If you cannot imagine yourself climbing out of the hole imagine that you are hewing steps that circle it bringing you ever closer to the surface with each time you go around. As you set your foot a step appears for you to put it.

Part of this is to believe or to pretend that you are where you are supposed to be and if that place is to climb out of a hole of depression, then, fighting it is harder than doing something about it. Granted, there are still issues that you will have the opportunity to address, but we would say that, for now, it is not as bad as you think.

So, imagine that you are climbing out of your hole. Imagine, if you need it, a hand rail that holds you closer to the wall as you circle around and around. Look up occasionally to see the light at the top of the hole. Imagine that as you get nearer to the surface you are hearing sounds from outside. Those are birds. Bird song such as you might hear first thing in the morning before anybody else is up. Birds in the trees outside welcoming the day and calling to each other. You hear this bird song as you come closer to the surface.

Now, you can smell the morning air. It smells different than the night smells. It is the smell of vegetation opening to the sun. It is the smell of freshness. It is the smell of new. It is the smell of a brand new day. Hope. Springs. Eternal.

As you rise above the surface of your hole you see a flat plain before you. There are no houses. There are a few trees. You are quite alone. The grass glistens in the morning light with the dew of the night clinging still. The light silvers it. You set one foot into the grass. You set your other foot there too. You walk away from the hole in the ground. There is a tree nearby and you walk toward it. In the tree is the bird you heard. The bird sings still and is not alarmed by your approach. You do not feel like an intruder. You feel, instead, as if you belong here.

At the base of the tree are some flowers. These are tiny little flowers, just poking up through the earth; crocuses, yellow ones and purple ones. You put your hand out to steady yourself on the tree. You can feel the bark of this tree under your hand. Steady. Solid.

Now, you hear a chittering. Talking. Gopher talk. Prairie dog talk. You look over your shoulder and you see a small prairie dog sitting upright looking at you. He is talking to the birds about you. He is talking to you. You don’t understand what he is saying, but you smile.

And, then you can feel the warmth of the sun as it dapples through the leaves of the tree on you.

There is no need to move. There is no need to hurry.

Thanks. Are we done yet? Do you want us to be done? I’m feeling a lot better now. It is a step.

Where I Got Ticked Off

Unfortunately, I got pissed off the other day. I keep thinking it’s because I’m reading Byron Katie - Loving What Is It’s like being on page 200 of The Course in Miracles; you just want to heave the whole thing off of the nearest bridge. But, I gave into temptation and created a new place to vent my anger. I’ve read enough blogs to see that others don’t hold back. Why should I? But, the thought of exhibiting the dark side here was too much. So, I made a new blog. It may or may not last. Meaning that I might feel remorseful sometime in the future and remove it from cyberspace…though the couple of posts I’ve done so far will remain…far into the future…ah…revenge….or, at least a slight feeling of satisfaction.

Anyway, if anybody wants to see me kicking the walls go to The Psychic Vents.

On the flip side (which means there is a positive side to this) I now have the opportunity to try out the new Blogger Beta program with the new blog. It’s interesting, so far. I do like the idea of being able to categorize stuff, but I’m wondering how much flexibility is available to add extra code to a template…like my stat counter. Maybe when I’ve cooled down I’ll look into it.

The Work

What I would very much like is for all my problems to go away.  Nagging, never ending, crippling at times, problems.  Just go away.  Could you imagine?  Anyway, to that end I have just started reading, “Loving What Is” by Byron Katie.  She’s the one featured in the video about money a few entries ago…look down below this.  She has such a kind way about her that she’s going to common sense you right out of all of your problems.  Makes all the bad stuff go right away.  You ask yourself 4 questions.  
1. Is it true?2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?3. How do you react when you believe that thought?4. Who would you be without the thought?
That’s it.  It’s called The Work.  I’m still on the first chapter.  I’m encouraged.  It’s going to be my recommendation of the month for my newsletter once I’m done with it.  I can tell.  This is a keeper.  

National Novel Writing Month Is Upon Us

Okay, so if you figure you get approximately 600 words to a page (on my Word program), writing 3 pages each day will yield 1,800 words. Multiply that by 30 days and you’ve got 54,000 words, enough to snag a win from the National Novel Writing Month organization. The criteria is simple. You sign up. You begin writing your novel (or book) on November 1st and stop writing on November 30th. In between you can call upon the support of an incredible group of writers for support. To qualify for a “win” you need to write 50,000 words. They suggest writing a hundred extra just because of the differences between word counting programs.

I’d heard about NaNoWriMo 2 years ago. I forgot about it last year until it was too late. But, day before yesterday I stumbled upon somebody who was going to participate this year. Me too. And, last night I signed up.

I’m not a schooled writer, other than making my way through high school and a year of college where I partied until I flunked out. But, I love writing. I love reading. The grammar I know is by the seat of my pants, which means I know some of the basic rules, but other than that it is by ear. Mostly, I break a lot of rules. I used to worry about it. Now, I don’t. Not much anyway.

So, as I lay in bed last night thinking about what to write about (always the hardest thing in the world for me to decide upon) my guide Seth suggested that I channel a book. I got this thrill of delight that shot up my spine. I knew from the sensation that was the perfect answer. I’d love to write a novel, but a channeled book would be more appropriate at this time. Right away I thought, “Oh, no. I couldn’t. That’s not writing. That’s channeling.” But, one of the things about channeling is you need the skills of writing to do it. And, though I could sit here and channel it takes a tremendous determination to let go for long enough for the guides to get the material out. Especially when the channel ain’t willing to sit still long enough to get anything productive done.

So, this would be the commitment I make to myself and to them. That I will sit still and channel here at the keyboard for the 3 pages a day during the month of November that it takes to create a work that is 50,000 words long. That’ll be a decent book, I think. And, seeing as how I’ve got another one sitting in the wings waiting to be finished up -- well, that’s just icing on the cake.

The book under the bed that took me 3 years to write on my own is about 175,000 words. I remember how I gauged how long it should be. I picked up a paperback book and said, “That’s the size of book I want to write.” Then, I counted the number of words there were in a sampling of lines in the book and averaged them. Then, I did the same with a number of the pages. That’s how I knew how many words to write.

Then, I did what I’ve since learned is called the snowflake method. My version of it was that I started with the kernel of my story. Then, I wrote a paragraph. Then, I expanded that paragraph. I kept expanding until I had 10 paragraphs. Those became my chapters. And, interestingly enough, they stayed that way throughout the course of writing the book.

So, I see that I’ve come to the end of my page. And, that would be a total of 619 words so far.

What I need to do now is to crank up the olde channeling muscles and start getting used to sitting still for heavy duty channeling again. It won’t be for the book, but just channeling in general which can be either for the blog or for private papers. Just to get me in shape for next month.

As time goes on I might decide to have a different blog just for the book. That might be helpful. I’m getting a “thumb’s up” from the guides, so I’ll mull that over this morning. Also, a title. Need to come up with that too. Could always change it as time goes by, but I’ll want something to call it for now.

Friday the 13th

My level of chicken-ness is pretty high today. There are a number of factors involved here. One is that it is Friday the 13th. That’ll generally stop most folk cold…at least for a little bit. Then, they go, “Okay, how adult are you anyway?” and continue on, albeit cautiously, with whatever they were going to do. However, I’m not even going to pretend today. I’m chicken.

The other thing that is going on is that my biorhythms have hit rock bottom. Totally, definitely, without a doubt, flat-out rock bottom. Presumably, this only happens about twice in a person’s lifetime. Guess what. I’m really going to be chicken today.

Luckily, it is Friday. Generally my mood on Friday’s is pretty good seeing as how I’ve got the next 2 days off and can sleep in, take naps and do whatever I feel like doing over the weekend. I like that.

Good luck to everybody. Though we are not superstitious it still doesn’t hurt to err on the side of caution at times. Don’t open up any strange emails today either.

Thanks

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to talk about tonight only that I wanted to talk. I decided to surf blogs at Blog Explosion for awhile. I’m back in the saddle again as far as they are concerned and happy I am to be there. This blog was removed for a time. Said I was too commercial. I tried to reapply and got a resounding no and so, I waited awhile. In the meantime I killed (by accident) my blog and then rebuilt it with the lovely purple tulips Caz made. After awhile I reapplied to Blog Explosion and laaa they accepted me.

So, now I surf again.

And, though I was hoping for something along the lines of inspiration to turn into something I could write about it never came.

What did occur to me though was how interesting the internet is for people who don’t get out much. Like me. I feel like I am connected with a great many people. Though I don’t actually get out there and meet and greet people I do read about their everyday doing’s. I can commiserate with somebody who just got home after a really long day at work. I can be frightened for somebody who spent the weekend in an emergency room. I can learn more in a nice gradual fashion about blogs and Google adsense and page ranking and things like that. I can laugh with somebody as they relate the dinner date they went on. It’s just really fascinating to me.

It’s a way to decompress. Thanks.

Nutrition Information

Here’s a really handy website. It’s the USDA Nutrient DataBase. According to the Wellness Letter I get from the University of California at Berkeley it’s the only one like it in the world that is free and kept up to date.

The Story of Money - Byron Katie

This lady is going to blow you right out of the water. She's just amazing. Thank you to Thayer for telling me about her.

Farting News

Swallow air now….Fart later.  Resolution:  Don’t eat so fast.  

That just popped into my head.  I submitted it to The Poop Report, though it might be a tad too short to warrant being considered as a story.  

Right now I’ve got a headache.  My plans for the weekend have not yet taken off, nor do I see them doing much of anything in the foreseeable hour or so.  More likely I will go take a couple of Tylenol and lay down for awhile.  Sleep was weird last night.  I awakened at 2:30, lay in bed for an hour and finally got up to read my email for awhile and surf a little bit.  Then, at 5:30 I went back to bed.  That’s probably why I have a headache.

I Can Only Imagine

We meet teachers every day of our life.

ExLinks

I just heard about ExLinks. They haven’t gone live yet, but are inviting people to join up. Give your site more exposure and click here to find out more. Here's to more traffic.

Leave. Now.

I had another psychic hit this afternoon.  I wasn’t feeling real well so I went back to bed for a little bit.  I was drifting in and out of sleep and I could hear my husband and his friend talking in the living room.  Suddenly, my body went into paralyzing body buzz mode.  It’s been a hell of a long time since that happened to me.  I wasn’t alarmed, merely surprised and interested.  I’d actually just been talking to somebody about it in an email yesterday so I thought it was really interesting that I was experiencing it again when it’s been years since it happened to me last.

That’s when it changed.  The paralyzing part was the same, but the buzziness aspect of it got more intense than I’ve ever felt it before.  Then, I had a falling sensation which is also something I’ve not felt before.  

Then, I’m seeing white.  Totally white and I realized this was the same scene I saw the other day when I saw the two guys.  The white is snow.  I’m seeing a tiny little shack.  Narrow, like an outhouse.  It’s dark wood stark against the white snow.  And, I see the tail end of a Ford Explorer driving away.  I didn’t recognize the vehicle as a Ford Explorer, I just knew that’s what it was.  All I could see of it was the back end and the bumper.  It was dark, it might have been black.  

Then, I felt the fear.  Terrible, terrible fear.  Then, I pull back into myself saying, “This is a psychic vision.  There’s no reason you should be afraid.”  And, I felt myself pulling back, the scene before me getting fainter and farther away.  Then, I think about the fear I felt and have an urgency to tell somebody to leave.  Leave quickly.  Now, I don’t know what is going on and the vision is finished and I’m awake and back in my body.

I’ve never had a vision come to me two days in a row for the same thing.

What I'm Working On

Just a short note.  I’ve been busy and will likely remain busy with working on my resource and links pages at Talking to Spirit.  I’ve done about 15 of them and have at least another 60 to go.  What I’m doing is writing a little piece to go on each page so that it isn’t just the links and resources.  I’m commenting on this stuff too.  

I thought it might bring some more people into the site.  Then, I will work on my book.  I promise.  Today was Web Rings and Writers.  

I’ve also been consciously relaxing.  I felt it was important for me to do psychically.  One of my problems is that I forget the stuff I’m seeing.  When I come out of it I remember the highlights.  So, today while watching Psychic Detectives one of the psychics said that she takes a tape recorder with her when she goes into trance and just talks into it.  Smack me in the head real good.  What a fantastic idea!  

Anyway, I have this faint memory of watching 2 people doing something.  Going somewhere.  I just don’t remember.  I do know it wasn’t ordinary day dreaming.  It was some sort of psychic hit.  But, I don’t remember.  So, I need to work on that aspect of all of this.

Yakkity Yak

I have to confess that I think it’s a blast to be able to channel.  I just have a ball with it.  I’m 51 years old.  I don’t act like I’m 51.  As I’ve gotten older I think I may even be regressing.  But, do you think I need to wear hose and high heels to talk to the guides?  No.  I can be in the most reflective room of the house (our bathroom) perched upon the throne and yakking away with somebody in Spirit.  (Somebody just said, “Not me.  You won’t catch me in there.”)  Anyway, before we were interrupted…I was talking about how you can be anywhere talking to Spirit.  

I was having a rather interesting conversation today with 2 people who don’t know that I channel.  Anyway, here we are having this really interesting conversation about God and how God is perceived by folks of different religions.  Somebody started talking about Hell and that’s when they started muttering things in my head.  I almost choked when I tried to stop a laugh.  You don’t want people to think you’re laughing at them.  The conversation just rolled along smartly so I didn’t have to explain myself.  But, it was funny and had I been around folks who know that I channel I would have relayed on the message that they were keeping a spot warm for them…Just like they do with me on occasion.

I know the guides are teasing.  They’ve told me before the only Hell is the Hell people think they deserve to go to after they die.  After being there for awhile somebody in Spirit comes to sort of wake the person up and gets them to realize it’s all Heaven after all.  Don’t get me wrong.  The Guides have said that everybody is held accountable for what they do in their lives and judgment is passed, but they figure that by the time you are back at source you’re also smart enough to figure stuff out mostly on your own.  They’ve also said that you get to experience everything you ever did to anybody, including animals, fish and plant life, up close and personal.  You, now, are on the receiving end.  If I were a bad guy that would be enough for me to mend my evil ways.  Anyway, that’s where you decide you need to work more on this, or that, or the other thing.  To my way of thinking it’s an incentive to do good works in this lifetime.  Also, to live your life to the fullest.  Basic things.  Don’t hurt others.  Treat others as you’d like to be treated.  One of the guides just said to me, “Not so many bad words anymore.”  Okay, I’ll try.

Computer Guts

I’ve had a second computer tucked under my desk for some time.  There was also a second monitor beside the one I generally use for all my computing needs and a second keyboard and mouse that occasionally hit the floor when things got too busy.  It was pretty crowded.  A couple of weeks ago a friend gifted me with a Belkin switcher thingie that would allow me to use one monitor, one keyboard and one mouse with my two computers.  That would be a great space saver.  

I held off until this weekend to hook everything up.  And, it was a mess.  Lots of cables snaking all over the place.  But, I eventually got it all sorted out.  I went to turn on the computer and it was deader than a door nail.  I hauled it out to the kitchen where we have another grounded plug and more room on the counter where I could take the whole thing apart and look at it.  Deader than a door nail.  I gave it the old whack.  A light came on inside.  I gave it several more whacks, but nothing else happened.  

I pondered what to do.  I could take it into my computer guy and spend $100 (at least) while he fixed it.  Or, it might be the power supply.  I looked online.  They weren’t that expensive.  But, it could also be the switch.  Too complicated and getting more complicated by the minute.  

Too bad.  I had a lot of programs on that hard drive.  And, it was a relatively big hard drive, too.  Another light came on, this time in my head.  Why not install the hard drive to use as a second hard drive in the computer I use all the time?  Ah….so, I removed it and read about installing hard drives online.  I need to get a split ribbon.  I think.  Otherwise, it ought to work.  The master and slave arrangement is already set up.  I would still want my present hard drive to be the controller, so that is the master.  Anything I add in would be a slave by default, so I don’t have to fiddle with that stuff.

So, another project is launched.

300th Post

In honor of my 300th post at The Spirit Moved Me and Look What Happened I thought I'd post one of those Magic Eye pictures. This particular one comes from a Google search and the website is: http://iyi.yi.org/junoi/grafix/stereograms/index.html

They've got quite a few of them there. Why I'm particularly interested now is that my eyes need exercising and one of the exercises that was recommended as being useful was to refocus my eyes to see the "hidden" picture. Hopefully this will help me not to see double anymore. It's gotten to be a drag.

Well, That's Crappy

I have spent a thoroughly enjoyable evening reading some of the stories and the comments at The Poop Report. If you’re a regular reader of this column you will have noticed I have no fear at all of talking about farting and normal stuff people do all the time. Why this is, I really don’t know, though, the family I grew up with had a real barnyard sense of humor and the man I married was no different. Anyway, I was googling information on why my butt is sore. It comes and goes and actually isn’t anything I really want to talk about right now, though, it doesn’t hurt anymore. Butt, I happened upon The Poop Report.

I’ve now registered at the site and will henceforth be known as Psychic Pooper. Everybody selects a name that somehow reflects their interest in poopy matters. Some names that caught my eye were Bunga Din, The Dumpster, GottaGoGirl, PooperScooper, C Everett Poop, MasterCrapper, The Holy Shitter, Mega Dump, HairyPooter…it’s just hilarious. The stories are well written. Concerns people write in about are valid and many times are things you just can’t talk to other people about.

Anyway, one of these days after I’ve read a little more and learned the etiquette of the site I will probably write about how Jeannie and I created a masterfully authentic counterfeit turd and took it to school. We were in the 10th grade in Hagerstown, Maryland at St. Maria Goretti. We left it in a stall in the downstairs bathroom. This was between classes and the bathroom was crowded with girls. We left just as Sister Phyllis went into the stall where we had positioned the turd, stuck artfully on the seat and trailing down into the water. We were almost dying of laughter as we left. The only thing missing was an odor. As I recall it was mainly constructed of mashed potatoes. We’d added cocoa for color and some corn for visual effect.

And, now, she’s your psychic.

Well, will wonders never cease.

Changing Habits

Somehow I think we are always trying to find the most comfortable place for us to be in. At the one extreme would be somebody who just passed their hand too close to an open flame. That’s hot. That hurt. They drew away from the fire to a place where it’s not going to hurt them. So, too, does somebody who is hooked on cigarettes crave that next cigarette that will calm them down and allow them to continue on their day easily. A person who overeats will reach for something to eat more to comfort them than to ease their hunger. These practices are mostly unconscious with us. If we were to think about what we were doing as we did them we might not derive the same sense of satisfaction from them.

Maybe that’s a first step toward changing a bad habit.

Not actually doing anything drastic. Not actually making a commitment to lose weight, quit smoking or stop drinking. Just sort of noticing what you’re doing.

Notice the times you develop cravings to eat. Is it right after you’ve had a difficult conversation with somebody? Is it during a lull in activity? Is it right before a class or a meeting? When do you want to smoke? It’s like every 25 minutes, isn’t it? It’s when you can’t smoke. I remember I could not go to movies for years because that was where I could not smoke and it was almost a guarantee that I was going to be crazy for a cigarette. And, how about a drink? Can you go days between having one or do you need to have one every day?

I don’t think that’s too much to ask a person to do, just to notice something. It’s interesting that I already quit smoking and stopped drinking, so I know I can do it. Those were real hard to do. I developed (I hope) strength of character. I can’t quit eating, but I do need to become more conscious of what I eat. I need to make every bite count, so maybe I need to count every bite? Something like that. Just for now. Just to ease me into the idea that losing weight is a comfortable proposition.

My husband has lost 25 pounds in the last few months. He’s using Weight Watchers, which is a terrific system. He’s always asking how many points something is. “Okay, that’s only 3 points. I can have that.” He’s very, very aware of what the points are now. That’s all. There’s a system to figure out the points. We’ve got a couple of books. We’ve got a slide rule gizmo. We also signed up for Weight Watchers On-Line where they’ve got lots of foods already pointed out and you can even put your favorite recipes in to figure out what they’re going to be.

Maybe I should just swallow my resistance for a few months and lose some of this weight. I’ve managed to lose 10 pounds since January. It’s not a whole lot, but at least I don’t honk the horn anymore with my belly when I’m in the car. I think I can find something else to aspire to if I think about it.

Bread

As we speak I am making bread. Well, I put all the ingredients into the bread making machine (it’s a Bread Man) and it did its stuff. I took it all out after the first rise and dumped it all into a bread pan. When you complete the entire process in the bread machine and dump out the loaf after it has finished baking it always tears a hole in the bottom and those couple of slices, once you get that far in the loaf, don’t look so hot. But, I absolutely love my bread machine. It’s terrific for kneading and my shoulders just aren’t up to the job anymore. Most of the time I just deal with the holes, but tonight I wanted a special loaf. This one is going to a friend.

Anyway, here’s the recipe for tonight.

Put into the bread machine for a 1 and a half pound loaf

2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon salt
Half a cup of milk, warmed for a minute in the microwave
Add a quarter of a cup of water
Half a cup of sourdough starter (I just help myself to the starter. It’s not much and I’ll feed it this weekend)
Swish this all together until the honey is mixed into the liquid.

Add 2 cups of all purpose flour
1 cup wheat flour
3 tablespoons of wheat bran flakes (not wheat germ, though that would probably be good)
Add 2 teaspoons of dry yeast to the top of the pile.

Start your dough machine or plunge in up to your elbows if you’re not using a machine. As with kneading by hand you will want to monitor the progress of the knead. You might need to add a little bit of water tablespoon by tablespoon, or it might go the other way and you’ll need to add a little more flour. Knead for 10 to 15 minutes by hand until the surface of the dough is smooth, put it into an oiled bowl and cover with a towel (or just walk away for awhile if you’re using the machine). I think it rises about 45 minutes for the first rise just until it is doubled in size. Punch it down and remove from the bread machine. You’ll probably need a sprinkle of flour across your counter so it won’t stick to everything. Knead it a little bit and form into a loaf. You can get creative and braid it if you feel like it. Scatter a little bit of corn meal into the bottom of a loaf pan.

I fired up the oven just enough to take the edge off and heat it up a little tiny bit about 4 or 5 minutes if that. Then, I turned the oven off, put a kitchen towel over the pan and set it into the oven to rise the rest of the way. I suppose I could have left it all out on the counter to rise, but it’s not that warm there. Better to rise in the oven. About 45 minutes. I spritzed some water onto the floor of the oven to make it just a wee bit humid. It’s the water I have to squirt at the cats when Fluffy Drawers has gone across the divide between the houses to bedevil poor little Sheba on Phil’s patio. Or, you could always mist your plants with it too.

The plan is that after 45 minutes if it has risen enough I’ll fire up the oven to about 350 degrees and bake it 40 minutes. I’ve tried this twice before and the oven was too hot and the time in it was too long, so, I’m figuring this time it ought to be okay. If I do anything different I’ll adjust this recipe. And, if Blogger will finally cooperate and act right I'll be able to upload a picture. For whatever reason I have not had a whole lot of success uploading pictures to this blog lately. More often than not it won't work at all. Every once in a while it does. I guess you can say, "What do you want for free anyway?"

I began experimenting with my recipes when it happened that my loaves were coming out all wonky. I didn’t know if it was the yeast or the other ingredients. Now, I believe that it just wasn’t rising enough for all the “extra” stuff I have been adding to the loaves. This particular loaf, in lieu of a picture, came out pretty dark.

Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve

I saw this on the Groovy Green Blog. Green burial. Simple, inexpensive, kinder to the earth. Truly a very simple way to do it. There's a list of eco-cemeteries in the US at the end of the Groovy Green article.

Black Listed

Well, I’ve been black listed by Blog Explosion. They said I was too commercial. I don’t even sell anything. Figure I’ll re-apply a few months down the road and see if whoever put the jinx on my blog dried up and went away for awhile. Maybe I should start dabbling in spells. That would be an interesting sideline….some guide in the background is rubbing their hands together. I wonder what that means?

New Blog Template - Purple Tulips by Caz

I thought I should make mention about the new template I’m using.  I’ve been tweaking it for a week or so, ever since the last one gave up the ghost.  I’m pleased with Purple Tulips by Caz.  For the most part I’ve been able to resurrect most of the doo-dads I had on the previous blog, though some have slipped by the wayside.  It’s sort of like cleaning house.  You find some things that just don’t work anymore and decide to get rid of them.

The only thing I would very much like to do about this blog is to center it on the screen.  If anybody knows how to do that, would you let me know?  I have a feeling I’d need to alter some of the jpg’s involved, which might present a problem.  I don’t know.  Anyway, for now, it’s a change and, I hope, a good one.

Max Magnus

I ran across this blog some time ago.  Beyond being just plain fascinating as an artist’s blog this blog has English on one side and Swedish on the other.  It’s Max Magnus – Artist Blog.  In the interest of learning a foreign language this is a terrific resource.  I lived in Norway for 3 years when I was a little girl.  That was my first exposure to another language and I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for things Scandinavian.  Interesting, too, that as I moved through school and took up other foreign languages my teachers always said I had a Norwegian accent.  The art is great and you’ll have fun here.