This post should be locked into the top of my journal. Thanks, author_by_night!

( Ahavah's Emergency Contacts )

Hello!

I'm posting to you from my very own house and my very own internet connection! I've caught up on emails and hope to catch up on the rest of LJ/FB/twitter/etc. sometime in the very near future.

For everyone who has asked and wondered about our new coordinates, thank you so much! I have an 'Emergency Contact' post that is permanently linked in the top of my journal, and my personal information is linked from there. If I know you in real life, or know you for a good while online and you've requested it, then you should be on my 'Emergency Contact' filter and have full access to my address, phone, etc. If you can't see that link and would like to, please let me know.

I have pictures of our new house linked up on a facebook album. I'm not sure if you have to have a fb to access it, but there's the link. Let me know if you can't see it and want to, and I'll either upload some to flickr or just make a proper picture post.

Slowly but surely, we're coming together.

Also, if you'd like to have some posts or phone calls from us, feel free to leave your own personal info in this screened post that is permanently linked in my sidebar.

I miss you.

Well, looks like it's a no-go with our first choice. They weren't willing to pay the closing costs if we accepted their full offer, and we weren't willing to pay our full budget for a house where we'd still need to build outbuildings and an addition.

So, time to regroup and refocus. We have two second-choices, so now we have to decide which to offer on. I guess I need to call and make sure they're both still available. I do feel confident that we'll get a farm. If those fall through though, I'll just focus on finding a cheap lot for this trailer and getting that set up. The rest of my money can grow for a while, and maybe we'll be able to afford more on the next go round.

Either way, I still see this working for us. Thank you guys so much for all of your support!

Here is a post that is not just about finances or house buying. I've been preoccupied lately, so I'm trying to stay connected.

* They say money doesn't buy happiness, but since we've gotten the money and started shopping for our dream-farm, I have to say that my depression is waning. I still get very sad and feel guilty about being excited. I'm also sad & feel guilty that I never got to go do the vision quest I was planning, and now suddenly it's fall here in the mountains. I'm going to start meditating again, and I think I'm going to make Josh take us up to Sam's Knob and let me have at least a full day walking around by myself before we leave.

* I've gotten the house mostly back in order from our trips, and I've been a good little Flybaby each day while Josh is as work. I'm culling through our things and we will soon (today?) be in the packing stage. I'm being optimistic and seeing the house thing go through.

* Amidst all this madness, I'm considering trying NaNoWriMo yet again. I've never hit 50,000, but I've always had fun and gotten a bit further in my WonderSaga. I would hopefully be in the throws of moving, but we'll see.

* It occurred to me that if my story were ever a movie, I'd want that guy who plays Sam Winchester to play my favorite character. Now I'm fangirling over my own character.

* I did an intro post in the NaNoWriMo community, and I wrote the sentence “I'm recovering from grief by making all of my dreams come true.” I think this is very apt, and it might become my new mantra.

* If this Missouri house thing doesn't work out, it will be time for me to register our homeschool here in NC. I've been holding off, hoping we'd move first. Eden is six and a half now, so if we don't move in the next month or two, I'll have to go through the red tape here.

* She just showed me her drawing notebook. She has lots of pictures of the family, including all the animals. She also has lots of pictures of me and Josh riding motorcycles. I thought that was awesome.

* I feel mom a lot lately. Nothing specific; I just feel her around. I'm glad for that.

Our wrongful death case is officially settled.

Legally, I'm not allowed to speak about specifics. I will say it was less than we hoped, but that's part of the whole 'mediation' thing. We're all just glad it's finally over and done with.

Next week we go to speak to someone about structured annuities, which would give us money every year and help keep that money tax-free (as opposed to if we just took a lump some and invested it ourselves). Josh and I have some decisions to come to before then. Mainly, I think we want to move. Our neighborhood has been getting steadily worse since new landlords took over, so we need to get out. I need to get away from this place, because everywhere around Asheville is just too full of mom.

But we have time.

Thank you guys so, so much for all your prayers and support during all this.

♥

The bike needs a name. I'm still a bit bumbly on her, so I don't feel we're really speaking to each other yet. Josh is threatening to name her out from under me. I'm improving though, so I think she'll have a name soon.

My learning-to-ride saga has been fun. I'll admit, I was quite scared. Everybody asked me, “Well, have you at least ridden a dirt bike or Josh's mini-bike or anything?” Nope. I never even got the hang of roller blades. Balance and me have never done well. I would have started learning on Josh's mini-chopper, but it's broken.

My bike is nice though. When I first sat on it to try everything out before we bought it, I was surprised at how light it is. It's a Honda Shadow just like Josh's, but Josh's is much heavier. We thought this was a pretty good bike for me to learn on. My feet sit flat on the ground when I'm on her, and she's all dented up so I don't have to be too afraid of learning on her (unlike Josh's mint-condition bike). I thought it was light, but boy, my upper body has been feeling the work-out of learning to hold her up and steer her!

The first day was, well, I sucked. By the time we got it home and got me out on it, it was already pretty late. I only had about half an hour or forty minutes to play around before it got dark. Josh taught me the basics, and I'm pretty sure he was surprised at just how basic my lessons needed to be. Josh had at least ridden one once and looked at magazines for years, so he knew pretty well much how they worked. He had to teach me how to turn it on, the brakes, I didn't even know motorcycles don't have reverse (which is why it's such a work out pushing that thing around). So yeah, my first day sucked hardcore, but at least Josh was nice and patient about it. Keia laughed a lot, but Josh said he didn't do much better the first time he road Josh's mini-bike, and he'd also ridden dirt bikes before.

So anyways, day one was a lot of start-stop, start-stop. I couldn't control how much gas I was giving her, so once I started going, I was going. Then I'd get scared and slam the hand brake, then I'd bow up like a dog taking one, then struggle to keep the bike up &/or not hitting anyone. Finally, we just kept it in neutral and Josh held on to the sissy bar like he had to do with Ivy on her bike, and I practiced trying to steer and keep her up as we went down the driveway. Then he'd walk me through turning her around, and I'd actually drive back up the driveway. I got okay controlling the gas if I was driving up our slight little incline, but since I couldn't really stop, I could not give her gas while going downhill. It wasn't bad for the first day though, even if I felt bad about Josh holding on to us. He didn't want me to crash first thing though, and I did eventually get better at steering.

The second day, we felt comfortable enough to practice on the long stretch of dirt road just below our house. I had to get better at stopping somehow, and I needed more room to work than our driveway gave. At first, I just practiced going slowly with my feet hanging down, so I could just stop with neutral & my feet. Eventually, I got comfortable enough controlling the throttle to be able to put my feet up. I even managed to stop on my own just before getting to the hilly part of the road. Then I put it in neutral so I could coast down the hill again, and that's when we went down. It had rained the night before and washed a little groove between some rocks on the dirt road (mountain dirt roads, for those not familiar with them, always wash out in even the slightest rain). I hit wet sandy dirt and lost control. I felt myself lose control and panicked, slamming the handbrake. I went down hard on my knee (on a rock), and the bike landed on me.

We hadn't even been out there an hour before I laid her down. Only problem is, she'd been laid down several times before (all those dents that made it a good “learning bike” ), so the foot peg was a little loose already. Well it did some funky bending thing into my gears and stopped wanting to go into neutral. I was hobbling and hurt fairly decently – although going down was not near as bad as I thought it was going to be, at least not at that speed – but Josh wanted to take it into the shop to make sure it was okay. I wanted to keep going, but even he was having trouble with neutral, and he flat-out refused to let me back on it til we were sure it was safe. I'm not normally the type of lady who lets her husband make flat-out refusals on my own things, but I actually found it incredibly sweet.

So I followed him up to the closest bike shop, where we'd bought supplies but, so help me, I will never take it there for work again. It had only messed up with neutral once on the way up, but Josh still wanted to get it looked at. It was pretty busy, so they guy said we'd have to leave it. It was 24 hours before they even put it up on their rack and looked at it, and I had stopped by and called to tell them I'd pay whatever for overnight shipping on parts or whatever so I could get my bike back right away. I was so pissed when I called the next morning and they hadn't even looked at it yet. We went to go pick it back up, because I'm not putting up with that shit, and they'd looked at it and said there was really no problem. Whatever. The guy's a punk. We took it across town to MR Honda and bought some of those crash bar things, just in case, and the guy there looked at it and in like two minutes of wiggling told Josh that the connector pad thing was just rusty. He came home to put the crash bar thing on and just had to take a little sandpaper to the pad before he put it back together. Bike worked fine.

I had no idea how expensive bike stuff is, either. Ten dollars for oil? Two hundred for the piece of metal you put on just to dent up, instead of the bike? Ridiculous. I'm glad Josh already had me a helmet, and I was able to find boots on sale at K-mart for fifteen bucks instead of a hundred and fifty. It's insane!

Anyway, my pretty little bike is back and wasn't even really messed up to begin with. And I'm barely limping, so back to riding! After Josh got my training wheels crash bar situated, we went up to a wee little community center over the mountain from our house. It's one of those tiny things way out in the boonies where there are rarely cars and I've never seen a cop that far. This is my practice lot. I practiced first gear and stopping, and the dreaded turning. I say dreaded because leaning over on those things really scares me. Since it's a small lot, too, I don't have any room to get out of first even though I now want to, so doing slow turns was tricky. I mastered that shit last night, though! I am now ready to find a bigger parking lot and move up to shifting. Hopefully I can still do all right stopping when I'm moving much faster. We're going on recon today to find a suitably large and abandoned lot, so wish me luck on that for 4th of July Saturday. Ha! I may have to just wait until next week, since I was unable to make it to the DMV for my permit yesterday like I thought I would.

That's where it's at. I've gotten exponentially better each day, and I've really only spent an hour on it most the longest time. Pretty soon I'll be ready for riding the road! We're both looking forward to being able to ride together. It's been a dream of ours for years. It's going to be another year or so before we can afford sidecars, which are also way more expensive than I expected, but at least Josh and I will get some practice riding together before we attempt to take out the girls. They're anxious too, though. We can't wait! I'm so glad we're actually on our way to getting goals accomplished. It's a good thing right now.

My facebook friends already know what I've been up to, so I thought I'd better share with all my friends. Guess what I did!

( I got a motorcycle! )

Ordinarily, today would be my birthday. Not today though, not really. I renounced it.

It's unconventional, I know. I've gotten several wonderful birthday wishes, and I'm very grateful and surprised to be remembered.

Why would someone renounce their birthday? It started as a joke, really. When Josh and I were picking wedding dates, we were waffling between April and May. Now, my mom's birthday was always right before Christmas, and quite frankly she always got gypped on presents. I joked that with our anniversary, Mother's Day, and my birthday all within a couple weeks of each other, maybe I'd just change my birthday.

Then everything with mom happened. Happy, overly-celebratory May kind of soured. Now our anniversary and Mother's Day will always be tied with her death. There's no way out of that. I think I actually forgot my birthday last year until Josh wished it to me. It sucked. People called for well-wishes, but everyone was still crying. It was just another anti-climactic day. Mom had always said birthdays didn't really matter once you got older. They're all just the same.

So, something about that little joke stayed with me and I decided it was a damned good idea. Josh and I actually argued for several months about this. He says it's a bit idiotic and you can't just up and change your birthday. Legally, I suppose he's right. I look at it like changing my name when I got married, though. Everything did change, and I'm a new Amanda. May is so overwhelmingly sad. Our anniversary, and Mother's Day (which she actually died on) will never ever again be as happy as they should be. I renounced the whole damned month, really. If there's supposed to be one day that's supposed to be about celebrating and happiness and partying - for me - then I should get to pick a day that can be that.

It's liberating, really. Since I renounced it last year, I dedicated 2009 to The Year of the Birthday. I have to test-run these things to make sure I'm making an informed decision. Here's my criteria:

1. Not May

2. Nice weather, preferably grill weather (I got spoiled on Memorial Day weekend, what can I say? Of course, it's pouring today, so there you go.)

3. Can't use anyone living's birthday, unless they offer it

4. It has to gel astrologically – either with what I currently am, or with what I'd like to manifest into my life. For birth chart purposes, I'll still stick with having been born in Davenport at 4:20 pm.

So far I've had one test-birthday. I celebrated on April 27, which is a month early and was actually my due date. We had an absolute gorgeous day, and we went up to my sacred spot. I've considered myself twenty-eight since that first birthday this year.

I'm considering trying out June 3. It's just a week later, so still in the ballpark. Since I'm definitely very Gemini, I would just be switching months. I may try June 10, too, just to have another celebration. I was originally born on a Wednesday, which lines up this year, so I should try out the Wednesdays in my area. Lyz suggested I use Papa's birthday since he's not using his anymore. That was mom's dad, and his birthday was June 25 – right in between Lyz's and Josh's. I'm not sure if Josh wants me encroaching on his birthday, though.

My options are open. I'll be holding auditions through, I don't know, maybe October. I considered switching to my half-birthday, but it's too close to Thanksgiving and my ex-stepdad's birthday, so the Gemini-Sagittarius nemesis thing resonates for me. Better to stay clear of the holidays, although Halloween has always been my favorite, so I wouldn't mind snagging some of that.

So there you have it. And if I've inspired any of you to seek your own liberation, feel free to use May 27. It's open. There really is a benefit to having it both near Memorial Day weekend most of the time and at the end of the school year. It served me well for twenty-six years. I think I will do a little “thank you and goodbye” ceremony tonight, just to complete the circle. I'll let you know when we officially ring in the new one.

Greetings, Fellow Travellers

Sep. 11th, 2005 at 11:38 PM


I am just another seeker on the path. This journal will be used to keep record of my travels. We all have something to share.

I'll try to keep this as positive as I can. Creation is made by thoughts-words-deeds. This is where I will share my thoughts, putting them into words, and hopefully create something positive. If I revert to a diatribe of self-pity, forgive me. We all wander off the path occasionally.

I am Ahavah. I am a Stay-At-Home-Mom: a doula, Reiki Master, and writer. I just had baby # 2. As so often happens with life-changing events, I've had to take stock of where I am and where I want to be. I think sometimes we all have a tendency to forget Who We Really Are. By keeping this log, I aspire to be a bit more mindful. By exploring my journey here, keeping track of my goals, and sharing it with you, I have the added impetus of public accountability.

And most importantly, though we each have our own paths, we do not travel alone. I'm going to put myself out here for anyone who's interested (or unfortunate enough to stumble upon it...) If something speaks to you, or if you have insights of suggestions to share, please do so. Our paths have now crossed. Maybe we'll walk together a little ways.

Wow, thank you guys for all the awesome energy! My back has improved so much so darn fast.

Josh went to the drugstore to get me a heating pad, and left me with a staff in case I had to hobble to the bathroom. I intended to do just that, and suddenly I was able to walk better again! I still had to use the staff, but I'm shuffling quite quickly now, and I can even walk around without it as long as I go carefully.

I felt so much better, I was even able to make the bed and fold up the laundry piled on the couch. Our laundry basket is actually full and sitting on the floor. I couldn't do those, because I still can't bend over to pick it up, but I got everything that was already sitting up on the couch.

Josh has returned with my heating pad, and it's really helping too. Still, after having such a hard time yesterday and an even worse time this morning, I did not expect such drastic improvement. I chalk it up to you all beaming greatness my way. Thanks so very much!

I never felt old, before last year.

I found my first silver hair in August 2006. I remember this, because I was driving to Florida for ladysmith's birth and I found a beautiful shiny thread on the upper left of my head. I loved it. I always thought I would look great with salt-and-pepper – or even silver or grey! - hair.

My mom was one of those women who fear and hate aging. She never celebrated her birthdays, and I couldn't understand it. She cried when she turned forty. Actually, she may have cried at thirty, too. It always made me sad, and I said I'd never feel that way about getting older. I enjoy the thought of getting older, torn between the vision of aging gracefully like an infinitely wise crone and being the crazy lady who screams expletives and chases children past her yard with a potato launcher. Either way, I look forward to it.

That said, I didn't expect it to happen so darn quickly. I also remember the first time I actually felt old. It was May 9, 2008. My wedding day. I was dressing and putting on make-up in the hospital bathroom, a private one I had scoped out for just this occasion. It had that wonderful florescent lighting that let me see each and every crevice in my face. There were more crevices since I'd first arrived after mom's accident. By the time I was in the unforgiving bathroom, preparing for my marriage ceremony, we'd already made the decision to pull life support the next day. I took a deep breath and looked at myself, and it wasn't my normal face. Everyone always said I looked like mom with dark hair. When I took a breath and looked at myself that day, I looked like Grandma with dark hair.

Those grief-lines have abated a bit, or maybe I just wear them better. If you'll recall, my sisters and I went out for a salon day afterwards and got cut, colored, the works. They hadn't noticed, but I'd noticed that during that long week, my one silver hair had turned into a head full of grey. I recently cut my hair again, but I wanted to cut the color out, not touch it up. Some of my highlights are still there. My first bright silver hair is back. I stopped at Tina's house Friday after going to the laywer's, just to drop off some of her things I'd gotten from mom's. I only stayed a minute. As she hugged me goodbye, Tina gasped and her chin dropped. She reached out, grabbed it, and whispered, “You have a silver hair!” I totally saw her thoughts ripple across her face. First she was shocked to see it, then she looked at me and realized for the first time that I had aged, and then she realized that meant she had aged. (Her birthday is next week, only twenty-five. Still, I know I read it right.)

I laughed and said, “I had that one a while ago, remember? There are more, but I think they're still colored at the moment.” She just nodded and said quietly, “I remember. Sorry, I was just surprised.”

“I know.”

But today...oh God, today, I believe I went and threw my back out. I bent over and lifted one leg to put through my panties, and boy, that was IT. My lower back on my right side just spasmed uncontrollably and I had to grab the bathroom counter to catch myself. It reminded me of when I was in labor with Ivy. I couldn't stand back up. I managed to finish dressing and stumbled to fall on my bed. We had to go to the store, as we were nearly out of most things but especially toilet paper, so we went to Walmart and tried to stock up on some of the cheaper things. I thought walking a bit would help, and at first it did, but after I sat down to drive home, it was so excruciatingly worse when I got out of the car. Josh tried to get me to buy a freaking cane to help me in Walmart and I refused to do it, and now I'm wishing I had. Maybe I'd be House-sexy.

I am not an infinitely wise old crone yet, and with this pain, I'm certainly not up for chasing anyone with potato launchers. Right now I'm a twenty-seven year old girl who feels like an eighty year old woman. I hurt. And my crevices are coming back.

I'm continuing my cyber clean-out. Soon I'll be hitting Facebook and LJ, and I'll be dropping anyone that I never really hear from anymore or anyone I just don't gel with anymore. If you'd like to leave first, please feel free. If I end up dropping you somewhere and you're not happy with that, don't hesitate to email me or something. Just doing internet maintenance.

kali_kali asked to see: your kitchen. As it is right at this moment. No cheating and doing the dishes before taking the picture ;P

For shame! Okay, although I wish I'd cheated.

( Dirty kitchen )

theafaye wanted to see: the view from your front door. I told her it wasn't much a view, so she also offered: well do that one and your favourite view from around where you live, so it could be from your house or on a walk.

I decided to just climb the hill opposite our house so you could see the view of one half of our yard. The tree on the far left is our Faerie Tree.

( From our door. And then our yard, in a valley surrounded by mountains )

If you'd like to see any part of my life, feel free to request a pic here.

snagged from nursemae

I did one of these, like, three years ago when I first started LJ. Since it's been a while, and since I'm currently trying to fiddle with my new camera a bit more (thanks, merenda for the photography books! Slowly but surely...), I thought this would be a good time to see what aspects of my life my friends would like to see.



Ask me to take a picture of any aspect of my life that you're interested in or curious about. It can be anything from the house I live in to my favorite book. Leave your choice here as a comment, and I will post the pictures in a later entry when I have a chance to do so. Feel free to make your requests as mundane or creative as you like!

I know people are tired of hearing it, but I for one am so happy to finally see a President that I helped elect take oath - and it's such a historic moment for our country!

I watched it with my girls, explaining why I was so happy. We had a talk about War, and a talk about what our United States are supposed to stand for. Liberty and Justice for All. How important that's supposed to be for our country, and how many - too many - people have seemed to forget those important concepts.

Today, I am so proud to be an American.

I don't think Obama is the Messiah or anything. In fact, after the incompetence of the last administration, I'm well aware that he'll have his hands full.

Still, I feel like President Obama did (squee!) when he finally let his grin loose before stepping up to the podium.

It's a good day for our country. I hope, I really hope, that it ripples through the world.

“That's nice, but you colored outside of the lines right there.” I peer at the paper. Where? Oh that, up at the turtle's head. I was almost finished. I just got sloppy. “You should really try to stay in the lines.”

I like to color, and I'm good at it. I choose surprising colors and I mix them, make shading (even the background), and I don't leave any white. Sometimes I mess up - maybe the tip isn't sharp enough, and just the smallest smidge feathers outside the lines. Then I take my crayon and I outline it real heavily, to make it look like I did that on purpose.

Then I start outlining inside the lines. It looks better that way, and it all stays even.

Everybody likes it, and my friends all start outlining too. They think I'm clever.

Eventually I realize that colored pencils are much better, rarely sneaking over that printed black. The outlining phase has run its course. I just start lightly on this side of the line, until I make it to safe ground. I experiment with blending, but I always seem to leave smudgy fingerprints outside those stupid little lines.

Smudging runs its course. I put away the coloring books for a while.

I like hopscotch, but I hate those little cracks inside the blocks. I take extra special care making each block even, but then sometimes those little sidewalk cracks have to creep in and ruin the whole thing. I work with them, extending them, turning them into a part of this art. It has to look right. It has to look even. “Come on, can we just play?”

“Just a couple more minutes. I'm almost done.” It's a little vine with flowers, curling around to flow into the zero on the ten. Just a few more...I can't mess the whole thing up now. I'm almost done.

I love art, and I can't understand it when my grades start to slip. “Amanda, you really need to finish your project.” I work on it longer than anyone!

I can't mess it up. I can't get sloppy. “That's just laziness, Mandy.”

It looks real good, doesn't it? Why did she give me a C? “I'm sorry, Amanda. I gave you extra time to complete it.”

I doodle on my homework. The doodles have to be even. If the pen leaves blots, I write the whole paper over. I copy worksheets onto notebook paper and tell the teachers it just got too cluttered as I was working out the problems. I swear off Bics and their stupid random blotting. I throw out a journal they ruined, too.

In college, I have an art teacher who hates realism. Say what? She gives me crap grades even though I'm doing a great job. She can't even draw anyway. She lectures me about not doing anything spontaneous. I turn in my journal that week with a collage of Dopey porn, pouring an arc of purple jizz across two pages onto Snow White's quivering breasts. I take a white-out wand and scribble all over it, making the biggest unholy mess of my life, drawing a gigantic middle finger and dotting it with sprinkles.

It was hard, letting go like that and doing artwork so freely. That bitch gave me a D.

I drop the class, buy a fifty-nine cent pack of colored pencils and a Noah's Ark coloring book, and spend a few therapeutic hours coloring oh-so-very-carefully.





This has been my Week 16 entry for therealljidol. If you enjoyed it, please consider voting for me if there's a poll this weekend.

I hate starting posts with definitions, but since there are several ways of looking at this word, I wanted to narrow it down to one to focus on. This is the one that seems to stand out for me:

Having a decided purpose; determined; resolved; fixed in a determination; hence, bold; firm; steady.

I had a decided purpose once, but boy, 2008 really set me back a bit. If I look at this word and myself honestly, I just plain wasn't determined, resolved, or steady. In fact, 2008 has probably been my worst year ever, when it was supposed to be my best.

After seven years and a beautiful family, Josh and I finally got married. But the week of my wedding, mom had her accident. Even though we got married anyway, and I love him more than ever for it, the hardest thing in the world was standing there committing our lives together while my mom's was seeping away, knowing we'd put off a honeymoon to pull life support instead. She died on Mother's Day, and our church, where Josh worked, saw fit to 'let him go' the day after. Then our car broke. I don't believe I've ever had a lower point in my life, not even when I was homeless.

I didn't care about purpose at all. I had just started my own Reiki school, and I stopped doing that completely. I couldn't care less about finding doula clients, and I know my recertification isn't all that far off. I've almost completely abandoned my Mission 101 list, and it's due to end in May. I look at my goals, and I still want to do most of those things, but...I just don't care.

I should. What happened to my decided purpose?

My Solstice and healing ceremonies helped. I have left the darkness behind, and I move into 2009 with a clean slate. That's really why I don't want to move on with those goals of the past. I need a fresh start. Maybe I'll make another goal list, but it will be a rededication to what's important to me. I cannot have lists of old 'Musts' holding over my head if I want a new beginning.

So today, on the first, I start with just one. I wrote my Personal Mission Statement several years ago now, but it's been so long since I focused on it that I can barely remember it. That is the first thing I want written on my clean slate. Right now I have only one resolution: To return to my path, and keep going.



My Personal Mission Statement

I am a Divine precipitation,
dedicated to remembering and exemplifying Truth,
and to glorifying God with all of my thoughts, words, & deeds.





This is my entry for this week's therealljidol topic. If you enjoyed it, please consider voting for me. I'm in the last tribe. Thanks!

The world's oldest person has died. As I read things like this in the headlines, I always say a little prayer and offer healing to the departed. I thought I would share and pass that on here.

I strongly believe that people's love/prayers/energy/thoughts help others as their souls cross over. I've been around birth a lot, and though I'm fairly new to death, they seem to me to be very similar as far as being life's biggest, strongest, most powerful transitions. I think my mom's crossing was extra powerful because so many people were praying for her. I think that kind of outpouring of love helps offset fear, pain, and confusion.

When I think of people like Edna Parker, who has lived longer than most of us could ever hope to, it brings with it a very humbling thought. Do you have any idea how many people she's impacted in her life?

She was a teacher before getting married and becoming a housewife, too, so once more with feeling: Do you have any idea how many people's she's impacted in her life?

I see how my three and five (and a half) year olds have impacted strangers, and I'm glad that (for the most part) we've instilled respect and common courtesy into them. I'm only twenty-seven (and a half) and I know I've had an impact on the world. It's also a humbling thought, but it's true for every one of us. Some, I've impacted badly. I've done my best to apologize and make up for those, and I've been all right with keeping daily maintenance on the forgiveness process. Some, I've impacted wonderfully. I know this because some of you have let me into your homes/births/hearts/families. (And believe me, that means a lot when I'm feeling down.) My mom was only fifty, and yet she had touched so many, and so deeply. Brenden Foster was only eleven, and yet his kindness and generosity of spirit is at this very moment continuing to feed homeless all over the world.

So it is my sincere wish that you take a moment when you hear about someone who's passed on, or right then and there when someone really impacts you, take that moment to give them the love, prayer, and support that they deserve. Pour it on out to their families and everyone else who's ever been blessed by them. Even if you don't believe in the afterlife, just take a minute to give them a warm and fuzzy hug for their work here.

My old laptop mutinied again. So now I have a shiny new one. It's very nice. It has a built-in webcam and neato graphics card, so when I'm done with NaNo & house-repairing craziness, I'm going to finally get to try Second Life like several of you wanted me to do a couple years back. :P

I finally got access to my NaNoWriMo project again, so I'm doing crazy mad catch-up. I just broke 10,000! It's about time!

My car is still broke though. Mission this weekend is to call about several.

Sister kept the girls overnight. So time to get back on the FlyLady wagon.