New Moon in Gemini

I subscribe to Astrologer Dawn's email newsletter and one of my favourite emails to receive is on the New Moon and New Moon wishes to focus on.

The New Moon started today and is in Gemini. Gemini rules communications. Last month's new moon was also in Gemini on May 20th. She wrote two similar newsletters for both of the new moons. The 2nd newsletter gives more details. I'm going to quote from both newsletters.

I chuckled as I read them both today (I'd kept a copy of the 1st one last month) because I realized that the newsletters were actually applying to my recent blog entries.


In Dawn's email she says, "When the New Moon enters Gemini your wishes need to be around expanding your communication skills."
In relationships she wrote, "Moon in Gemini revolves around being heard and hearing and seeing others. You might write, I find myself easily communicating my thoughts, emotions and needs in a loving gentle manner. Or I want to find myself setting healthy boundaries and the ability to communicate those boundaries in a positive light." This applies to my blog entry on Social Media and friend requests.

"This month is also about changing your perception about issues in your life. Make some wishes around clarity, I want to find myself peaceful and calm in the face of difficult situations." My blog entry Snake Venom and the Wolves

"Another wish might be I want to easily find myself looking at situations in a positive manner; coming up with a variety of solutions." Both blog entries
Snake Venom and the Wolves and Today's Investing in my Happiness.

"Until we design the life that we want to live we are just reacting to the world. We need to be responding so that the decisions we make fall in line with who we are, where we want to go and how we are going to get there."

I've worked with setting New Moon goals for several years but since I've been following Astrologer Dawn's I've been getting more clarity on specific things to focus on with each Astrological sign the moon is in. The closer to the new moon that you make your wishes, the better. And the new moon period is up until the full moon.

I'm off to tweak my new moon wishes on some other bigger changes I want for myself.

Hope it's something you'll consider doing too. :)


EY

Investing In My Happiness

Since Saturday’s question of where the venom comes from, I’ve been taking another look at what makes me happy. I took an uncomfortable look at the ways that I am filled with venom. The ways I can be dismissive or downright mean. Hey I’m no saint. :) The more I thought of those difficult, woman in the mirror, realities of my personality, the more I thought about ways to solve it for me. And that is to focus on making myself as happy as possible as often as possible. I know that when I have a focus that is larger than the annoying realities I can shrug the annoyances off. My best example is when I worked in retail and kept my focus on my writing and never got caught up in the work place dramas or affected by nasty customers etc.

If I’m going to continue to transform the venom injections of each day, I need to have a ready repertoire of what makes and keeps me happy. You know, simple and manageable stuff that keeps me going.

Have you ever checked out Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project? Gretchen spent a year “test-driving the wisdom of the ages, the current scientific studies, and the lessons from popular culture about how to be happier.” And then she wrote a book. She can guide you with far better information on, well, making a project out of it.

My little list started with the promise that I would get back into getting up early to write and do yoga. As a motivation, I decided to tell myself that it was an investment in my happiness, so I wouldn’t press the snooze button and roll over. The rest of the list is just choosing from things I already own or things that are free or cheap. To remind myself that I don’t have to spend money. Although it’s nice to spend money once in awhile. :)

1- My number one goal is to get back to doing stuff for me in the mornings before I go to work. That’s at least my morning pages and a session of Kundalini Yoga. Truly, that investment is the one that pays me the most. I just plain old 'feel good'. I am putting my goals first, making my goals a priority by getting up to do them. I feel more motivated when I get to work, less distracted. Some times I can be in a bad mood simply because I’m mad at myself for not getting stuff done. So I’m getting up when I wake up. Monday it was 3am and this morning it was 4:07 am. I used to be a religious 4am riser but then I let it fall by the wayside. Dr. Wayne Dyer mentioned it in the most enlightening way quoting Rumi –“ The morning breeze has secrets to tell you, don’t go back to sleep.” I love that idea, I will hear the secrets if I simply get up. Get up! Get up! And the secret is that I’m way more productive and happier if I don’t press snooze for 15 more minutes of shut eye. Plus when I get up the moment I wake up, I’m actually less tired than if I sleep by the snooze button.
A good article on reasons to rise early

My other ways to invest in my happiness in no particular order are:
2- Sitting somewhere to feed the squirrels. I love squirrels, they make me laugh, they are fun to watch and feeding them reminds me that the Universe always provides so trust in the Universe.
I love what Squirrel Meaning and Symbolic Thoughts about Squirrels has to remind us about squirrels.

It's not commonly known that the squirrel only actually finds 10% of the nuts he hides for safekeeping. This is another message from the squirrel that we can also foolishly over-prepare.

Although, I like to think that what one squirrel doesn't find, another squirrel does.

This one says:

The gathering power of Squirrel is a great gift.
It teaches us balance within the circle of gathering and giving out.
They remind us that in our quest for our goals,
it is vital to make time for play and socializing.

Squirrel teaches us to conserve our energy for times of need.
If your totem is Squirrel or Squirrel has recently entered your life,
lighten your load of things that are unnecessary –
things that you have gathered in the past and may be cluttering your life –
thoughts, worries, and stresses.

3- Music & Singing – I have a vast music collection because I love music and I worked at a Record Store back in the day. I used to meet up with a girlfriend every Sunday for breakfast and she also has a vast collection. One year, she decided that she would play all of her music in alphabetical order and every week we'd meet up and she'd say, "I listened to the Bangles, The Beatles... Next week I'm moving onto the C's."
I'm going to pull that idea out of the vault and start doing that.
And the singing part is self explanatory. lol I love to sing and my cats tolerate it. :)

4- Playing with my cats (speaking of the cats). Gatsby , my tuxedo, loves to play fetch with a straw. He will sometimes bring the straw to bed to remind me that anytime I’m ready, he’s ready. Zelda, my grey domestic long-hair, loves to get under the sheet just as I’m flicking it in the air to put on the bed. She meows as I tickle her through the sheet. And I giggle! I've been trying to do that earlier every night so I can play longer with her before I have to go to sleep.

5- Ken Burns Jazz . I like to slip in a DVD while I’m getting ready for work and listen to stories of Jazz. I wish there were more affordable Jazz collections.

6- Crockpot cooking. I used to do more of this. And would try out zany recipes. I need to pick that up again. Cheap, easy, set it and forget it and leftovers!

7- Scribble Drawing – I literally scribble on a piece of paper. And then look for shapes and colour them in. It’s like looking for shapes in the clouds only doing it on paper. I have a sketch book filled with them. Perfect to do in a waiting room.

8- Long Walks – walking dates. This is my favourite way to get together with friends. A good walk across the city, through the ravines, along the water, anywhere. Sadly, not enough of my friends say yes to it. My one friend Lolo will walk until I say stop because my joints are hurting. Lol It’s free, you spend quality time together, you get a work out, you get to see the city.

9 - Spiritual Cinema Circle – I’ve been a member for several years now, so I have quite a collection of movies and shorts. They are a nice change from the Hollywood blockbuster. I watch them more on a winter weekend and I’m always thrilled with what I watch. One of my favourite shorts is about a little girl who outgrows her imaginary friend.

10 - And of course the zillions of physical books I have in my place, still unread. Plus my kobo and kindle that I carry every day!

11 - And Food! The summer and the best fruits. Blueberries and raspberries for breakfast makes me smile with each bite. Walking with a bag of CHERRIES! Oh Cherries, how I squeal the moment they are available. lol Fresh Strawberries in an almond smoothie. Watermelon, morning, noon and night! It's so easy to eat healthy in the summer!

So, yes, that's my easy list. Are you thinking about yours? Please do tell me what you do to invest in your happiness?

EY

Snake Venom and The Wolves

Hay House was live streaming Dr. Wayne Dyer's movie My Greatest Teacher this weekend. I guess to fall in line with Father's day.

The quote from it that started my day yesterday was, "It's not the snake bite that kills you, it's the venom." The interpretation was that we stay so focused on the bad things that happen to us that they become a venom in our systems.

So many little things can get into our systems and affect our reactions to everything. You know, so many of us walk around with a negative spin on life and we don't even notice it.

I went to my cats vet clinic for their open house, yesterday. I've always wanted to know what it looked like behind the scenes. What a gorgeous place. When I adopted my Gatsby from them, I had promised that I would use them for all my cats because my experience with them had been so positive. They've cared for my 4 cats and were beyond compassionate and gentle when I had to put down Picasso in 2010 and Quincy in Feb. I love their staff, so it figures that I would get a large dose of inspiration going there yesterday.

I left my house with the question, "Where is the venom coming from?" Because I knew I wanted to write about it. I know I still have a lot of work to do with my level of patience in certain situations. I have to admit, I am so tired of working with people who don't know how to do their jobs, after years or months of working in their positions. I can't always hide my disdain. It is becoming venom in my system. I need to remind myself to keep my eyes on the goal, my goal.

I sat with my co-worker on Thursday and we had a conversation about a disturbing news piece that has been swirling around Canada for the last little while. The news has been about a guy (I refuse to mention his name and give him more air time) who killed a Chinese student in Montreal, mutilated the student and mailed his parts to a political party office and to Vancouver. It's such a disturbing story and with every new breaking news piece, it just gets to become more disturbing.

My co-worker and I were talking about how these news pieces can really set us up to think that the world is one big cesspool. I'd commented that since I got rid of my television that the only way I can watch the news live is by watching the morning shows like the Breakfast television livestream. Of course every hour they cycle through the same news stories and it almost becomes like a mantra of murder and violence and the incomprehensible. It becomes venom in the system. I've made a new promise to myself that I will only listen to the news in one cycle and then I'll turn it off.

There are so many areas in life, my life where there are opportunities to be injected with venom. Am I going to let the venom poison my bloodstream or am I going to transform the poison to make me stronger?

I was processing all these thoughts as I entered the vet clinic. Everyone was smiling as I walked in. The vet clinic manager walked right up to me the moment I got in there. Big friendly smile, her little poodle named Reggae in her arms. Reggae is a poodle with dreads. Cuteness overload! The manager says with a smile that she will be happy to give me a 'backstage' tour but would I like to help myself to something to eat and drink first? I opted for the food and drink first, I was hungry. lol

Now just as an aside, are you thinking, "oh of course everyone is smiling, they are having an open house. They want your business!"? Sometimes I think that and it's a little negative spin on something that is nice. It's a drop of venom. It takes away from the friendliness. It gives everyone an ulterior motive and I can't fully enjoy myself. Thankfully I wasn't thinking that when I went it. What I was actually thinking was, 'it will be nice to see how many people work here.' Every time I've been there with my cats, I've met someone new.

I got to see the vet who put down my Quincy in February. She had been so touched with Quincy and me, when I had to put her down, that Jamie sent me a condolence card saying so. I balled my eyes out when I got that card, saying that she was touched to have been a part of my experience with my girl and that even though she didn't know me that she felt the love that I have for my pets and that I was a good cat mommy for doing the right thing for Quincy.

I gave her a big hug when I saw her and told her, "I was hoping I'd see you."

I had some strawberry cake with a crazy, tasty fondant. I chatted with a guy who has a hot-dog dog. Yes, I know what they're called. I still like to call them hot dogs. lol
I got my tour, got to pat some kitties and dogs in boarding and got a good appreciation for what their place is.

There was a woman painting a painting of Reggae, the dread-locked black poodle. Her name is Emilia Jajus. I watched her paint a little and I was ready to go. Then out of the blue I looked at her and asked, "How long have you been painting?"

She's been painting since she was a kid of course, said that she moved to Toronto when she was in her twenties, realized that Toronto was more of a 'business' town and got herself a job in a corporate office. She kept painting on the side and as she put it, "my entire cubicle was filled with my work, all my co-workers kept saying I was in the wrong business."

When the economy tanked she was laid off and took that opportunity to put her focus on painting full-time. It wasn't a difficult transition because she had been doing it on the side. And she literally had a painting gig for Starbucks, I think, to sit in one of their coffee shops and paint for a week. She's been painting full time since 2008.

We exchanged contact information and she emailed me yesterday, as promised.

I left the vet clinic feeling inspired by Emilia.

I went to get my groceries and in the grocery store, they made an announcement that the BBQ chicken that is normally $8.99 was on sale all day for $6.99. I thought I'd grab one so I could have a readymade lunch. I wanted a relaxed day, might as well have cooked food, so I don't gotta! :)

I get to the check out and the chicken rings up as $9.99. I mention it to the cashier and she says the price will reduce in the end. It didn't. She checks and rechecks my bill, then says, "I think you have the wrong chicken."
I say, "but those are the only chickens there."
She offers to take it off my bill and I originally say yes, then I change my mind. I wanted that chicken, it was the best looking golden, brown chicken of the bunch. And then a drop of venom as I was leaving the store - "Stinkin' store, they tell you they have a sale and then only offer the expensive chicken that's not even on sale."
And I caught myself, I could have refunded the chicken but I chose to keep it because I wanted it. GET OVER IT AND JUST ENJOY NOT HAVING TO COOK!

It was tasty. I had a couple chicken legs and thighs and a beer. And the rest of the chicken made into chicken salad for sandwiches during the week. A nice Saturday afternoon bite, some leftovers, and a great day overall.

And Emilia. She reminds me of another friend of mine who got laid off from her radio job and decided to focus full time on her singing. Every time I go to her gigs, she just looks so happy. She told me, "I may have to get a part time job in a few months but I really love the way my life has turned out since I've made my singing a priority."

It really reminds me that the main key to transforming the venom in our systems, in my system, is to be focused on what we love. Back in the day, when I worked in Retail, I always had my mind on writing. What I was going to write that night, what I was going to write in the morning before I went to work. I didn't have the venom. Or better yet, I transformed the venom before it affected me. Nasty customer? Shrug shoulders, as soon as this shift is done I'm going home to write.

This morning as I was checking Facebook, my friend Che had shared the picture up there of the two wolves and which wolf you choose to feed. I commented on her share that it was timely. ha! It sure was.

I want to feed the wolf who looks for the inspiration in life. It's everywhere. :)


Check out Emilia Jajus website and gallery. She is as talented as she is beautiful


EY

Putting Yourself/Myself Out There

Liking my page, reading my blog, friendship requests and selling myself on the internet.

Some people just don’t care what you’re up to. They don’t care. And they have every right not to care. I have a Facebook page as Shelley-Lynne Domingue, writer. I haven’t sold my writing, I haven’t completed my novel. I’m putting myself out there, fitting myself into the shoes of the someone I want to be. Wish me luck, motivation and perseverance.

I haven’t asked many of my friends to like my page, in fact, I’ve never mentioned on my personal face book side that I even have the page. I’ve only sent invitations to people who I was pretty sure would support me. And I kept the invitation no pressure, “like my page if you like and if you don’t want to don’t worry. No hard feelings and I won’t ask you again.”
I kept it low pressure because I have witnessed it all before. I was right about most of the invitations. I have 12 friends who pressed like on my page and 8 people who didn’t. I only invited 20 people.

I have a singer friend who declared once, “if you don’t come to see one of my gigs this year, I will take it to mean that I’m not really your friend.” She of course forgot that many of us had been to several of her gigs over the years. After her ultimatum, I never went to one of her gigs again and I actually liked her singing.
I have known actors who only want to discuss what show they are in now and whether you are going to buy a ticket. Thankfully my actor friends are more sensitive about their sales pitches and usually wait until you ask them, what are you up to?
I have friends who have Facebook pages who send repeated invitations and then put as a status update, “I have 1000 friends why do I only have 10 likes on my page?”
Sometimes, when I’m cranky I want to say, what if I like you but I don’t like your work? It is more than possible. There are some people i like but I don’t like their work.

I discovered/ realized when I first started to blog in 2006 and 99% of my friends ignored my blog:
Maybe people don’t care
Maybe people don’t pay attention
Maybe people don’t like your work
Maybe people are overwhelmed.
And I’m sure there are more maybes to add to the above. But those are the maybes that are affecting me these days. :)

How much of an Internet Presence is good versus overkill?
I’ve been thinking about my internet presence by default. I’ve been watching what others are doing and what I think will work for me or not work for me from what I like and what annoys me. I’ve been asking myself how much I want to be connected to others and in what way.

I have been in overwhelm since I did Robert Lee Brewer’s MNINB’s Platform Challenge . I signed up for almost everything that Robert suggested during the challenge except for Linked In and Klout. As the platform challengers grew in enthusiasm and decided to keep a community they started a Facebook group, of which I joined. We’ve exchanged twitter handles, Facebook pages links to be liked, blog addresses. I have followed and liked and subscribed to every blog that provides an email subscription. I’m so overwhelmed with all this activity, I’ve only been able to check out a couple blogs and make somewhat encouraging comments. There is some great writing out there and I need to free up more of my time to read that great writing.

So with that said, as people from the group start sending me invitations to be friends on Facebook, I have decided to decline. I have to have a place where I can keep up with the people I actually know face to face. There are a few friends on my Facebook who I’ve never met but we have connected through their work for several years and we feel like we “know” each other. We have things in common that we’ve discussed a lot over the years.

I am 2 people short of 500 friends on Facebook. That can be a lot of items in my newsfeed. There’s no way I’m going to be able to catch everything about everyone. Honestly, I don’t know how people manage having 5000 friends and the possibility of all those people popping up in their news feeds. And people who have their twitter account connected to their Facebook so that every tweet shows in their Facebook feed. HELP! OVER KILL!

For me, it makes more sense to have a page and use that to connect outside of my personal Facebook account. I want to be a part of a writing community but I can’t have it be in every little nook & cranny of my online presence. I need to have a place or two for my personal life. I know someone who says, “Writing is like breathing to me.”
Nope, breathing is like breathing to me. And writing is writing. I love writing, I do it as much as possible but I could continue to breathe without it. I’d be sad but I’d breathe. Maybe writing is more like a lover to me. :)

Some of the things I’ve noticed as I’ve increased my on-line Presence:
Facebook: Absolutely everything has a log in as Facebook option. Why would you want to log in everything on to Facebook? Then when you read the article on some condition you don’t want your friends to know about, they know anyway, because yahoo tells Facebook and Facebook provides an update with a link saying you read the article on “name that embarrassing condition.”

Facebook pages vs Personal Profile: Most people who have a page put the same content on their pages as they do in their personal account. The same status, the same “read my blog entry” notification, the same everything.

Personally, I have different content on my Facebook page compared to my personal profile. In my opinion, why should my friends bother liking my page if they can get all the same stuff on my personal profile? Plus, I don’t sell to my friends, so I don’t post my blog entries on my personal profile, ever. If people ask me where they can read my writing, I tell them about my page and my blog. Also then they are genuinely interested. I feel like if I post my blog entries on my personal profile that my friends then feel obligated to read them, whether they want to or not and then they have to compliment. So I don’t create that atmosphere. I want my friends to be my friends. I don’t have any other expectations from them. I don’t expect them to be my readers. I want my friends to be my friends.

Twitter: almost everyone who has something of theirs to sell seems to send that initial Direct message (DM) the moment you follow them. “Hey, Thanks for the follow! I have, I have, I have and follow this and this and this” ha-ha! It’s a bit of a turn off.
I’ve only received 2 DM’s where the people said specifically “if you are interested in prosperous Martians, consider my latest book on prosperous Martians.” As luck would have it, their topics are something I am actually interested in.
And a third DM was sent from Erik Wahl, who has the distinction of being the only person to say, “Hey I’m an artist and this is where you can check out my work, WHERE can I check out yours?”

And Twitter: Did I mention the twitter updates that are posted on Facebook? Every single one? Again, so why am I following you on Twitter when I’m getting the same content on Facebook? (shrugs shoulders)


When I have something to Sell:
I think one of the things I’m seriously considering is how do I like to be sold to? I like buying and finding things to buy in an organic, natural way. I never ever buy anything from overkill. In fact, I will not buy something I like from overkill, out of spite.

While it’s lovely to have great blog stats of page views, and lots of people liking our Facebook pages and enough Twitter followers to rival The Bieb, what does it really mean? If most of them are tuning us out because they liked our pages out of obligation, what purpose does that serve?

When I first started to blog in 2006, once I had a fair amount of blog entries, I emailed my friends to tell them I was blogging. No one replied to my email. No one told me if they even looked at my blog in passing. I was hurt at first but then I put it into perspective. They were too busy, disinterested, forgetful, or they checked out my writing and didn’t like it.

I had to decide, if none of my friends ever looked at my blog would it mean that what I had to say wasn’t important? I let the hurt go and kept with my goal.

Then one friend subscribed to my blog. She was a new friend, at the time, who asked me where she could read my writing and after a bit of reading, she subscribed. She has always been a great reader too. When we saw each other she would tell me about the blog entries that she liked, or made her laugh. And if something really connected with her, she would email me to tell me how it spoke to her, how it reminded her of something she’d been through etc. It really built our friendship. And in the grand scheme of followers, it’s so much better to have one reader who actually reads my entries than a whole bunch of followers who ignore my entries altogether.

I did end up with other bloggers who became followers and subscribers. People whose blogs i read, people who discovered me on their own through who knows what avenue. And some of them are now my Facebook friends, but that’s after years of creating a relationship.

I think it’s good training ground anyway. When I finally sell my work, when I have that book launch or whatever, most of my friends will not show up. Some will purchase my work but most probably won’t. Some people won’t even give it a second thought, for whatever reason. I expect that now and I have no control over it. And I'm OK with it.

So I'm going to keep on doing what I love to do. Find the common folk with the common interests in an organic way. And keep my personal little nook of the interwebs personal. I hope there are no hard feelings. I'd love to have you subscribe to my blog and like my page on Facebook. And leave a comment every once in awhile, if you feel like it.

In my little, figuring out what I have to say in my writing Field of Dreams, "If I write it, they will come... eventually" :)

EY

Cycles and Patterns - The Cycles of Years

It was last year that Christine Delorey (creativenumerology.com) mentioned going over my previous personal years and writing down all the events I could remember. I took her advice as just, “Oh that’ll be fun and interesting,” not realizing how informative it would really be. I went back into the 1990’s and made notes. This year I’ve been going back further, all the way to my birth. And by the way, if you were ever considering writing your memoirs, this will be a perfect undertaking.


This year, I’m in a personal 9 Year. I’ve taken her advice a step further and I cut and pasted all my previous 9 years into this year’s notes to see at a quick glance what I can learn from the past that will help me today.
Early on, I seemed to sense what the themes would be or maybe what my focus would be for this year. This year for me, is about clearing out the past – and as I’ve discovered through looking at my previous 9 years – Trusting in the Universe.


In looking back at my previous 9 years, I kept it simple. I asked, What have I done in previous 9 years and I listed all that I can remember.


In previous 9 years, I have had major changes that were originally painful but I was happy with the change in the end. I’ve dated disappointing men - a theme of them who all virtually said the same thing either in actual words or with actions (in 1985, 1994, and 2003!)and they all showed up when I was at my happiest (when I felt good about myself) and they wiped it out! When they were done I’d lost some of my light and it felt like a struggle to get it back.

In 2003 My new male theme was to meet men who were taken but only said so after I started to show interest in them after they’d been trying to get my attention. I’ve met at least one per year (every year) since then.


I realized a lifelong goal in one 9 year (1994).


I had a note in my personal manual that says “Remember 2003 when I left my job and trusted that the money would appear and it did!”


I’ve left major jobs that everyone said I was crazy for leaving (1994, 2003). In 2003, not only did I leave a major job that everyone said I was crazy for leaving but I decided not to look for work. I decided that for once in my life, I was going to Trust the Universe without fear, that the universe would provide for me. And it did. I was out of work most of the year, I lived off my savings, worked one shift a week at my part-time job, and I took a course that was $2500, (a lot of money when you don’t have a job!), and other money appeared. And when I thought that I would need to work soon because I was going to need money for rent, my old boss called me and said, “Hey, you want to come back for a 1 year contract?” I was working a week later. That information is so important for me to know. To help me to relax, because I forgot about that time in the new cycle of personal years running from personal year 1 to this year, my personal year 9.


Teaching in my 9 year what I learned in my previous 9 years:


Also I’ve been telling friends this. Artists who have spoken to me about their sadness for a good thing ending (a great show with great cast and relationships or a full-time music playing gig coming to an end) I’ve told them, ‘You created this good so create more of it.”


A friend who has been looking for an apartment and was in the stressful zone, I said, “write down the qualities of what you want in your new apartment and let the Universe take care of it.” Last report, she told me that her current landlord has given her more time to look for a new place and the places she has been looking at have been more within her interest and what she can afford.


Another friend I was telling about paying off my credit card and how I wrote down as a goal that I would pay it off by June 2012. That I had no way of knowing how it would be paid but just to trust that the Universe would help me, guide me to getting it paid. And it was paid before June 2012.


In 2003, I started that cycle of trust but somewhere along the line I lost my way. That’s why I have a document that I call my Manual of Me where I keep track of stuff. It’s so easy to get off track, to get distracted.


Trust in The Universe
In this personal 9 year, I want to go back to living in that Trust that continues on in each new personal year and not just in Personal 9 years. That is my new goal, I know it works.
EY

My Personal 8 Year

I went through 4 years of complete hell. The more time spent in hell the more I turned to Christine DeLorey’s wisdom. Creative Numerology . Finally at the end of my personal 7 year in 2010 which brought me to my knees, I decided to purchase Christine’s personal year book for my personal 8 year which would be in 2011. Mostly because my personal 8 year was going to move me in a positive direction. One of the things Christine had mentioned to me personally in our Facebook communications was that if I faced down the demons of my 7 year, my personal 8 year would clear out most of the junk and dirt. I had to be brave. The personal 8 year would be more of a solitary year but with a difference.

In 2011, my personal 8 year, I found that it took me a few months, probably three, to shake off the stench of the previous year and the fear of the previous four years. It was interesting, I entered 2011 with the attitude of, “If I have to fight for my rights, my voice, my value, I will burn everything down in my path.” but I also had the trepidation that “more of the same” might be my destiny. You know how when you first get off a motorcycle your legs are still vibrating? Well my everything was still vibrating. I was focused on climbing out of the shit pile but that shit smell was still following me a little.

I’m big on themes and titles and at some point I called 2011 “Solitary with a Purpose.” By the end of 2010 (my 7 year) I declared that the push and pull and abuse of the year was all orchestrated to make me say it... I wasn’t going to be a door mat for anyone anymore. I would try to be nice about it first but since the previous hell years proved time and again that that not every one could hear nice, I’d have to make the decision to speak up for myself in all incidences. ‘It doesn’t matter, things will happen the way they happen, speak up for yourself!’ I promised myself that I would yell it until they heard me. And if certain people still couldn’t hear that, then they had to go. No looking back. I’m done with you, cross the street if you see me. ha-ha!

At some point within 2011, I realized that the Solitary with a purpose theme was to enable me to hear my voice and dream my answers. I’m not big on unsolicited advice because it blocks out my voice and when my voice is blocked I don’t remember the dreams I have at night that actually provide me with the answers that I need.

I started keeping notes of any event that felt pertinent. And now as i look back they will provide me with info for years to come.

In January, I made a decision about a person I had an acrimonious relationship with that not only would I get my act together (Make a plan) but I would move on when I said so (my decision, not his). I wasn’t going to simply run away.

In February, I was ‘walking in anger’ as I called it in my notes. I was confrontational and I was calling it as I saw it. Yes a few people were left in tears, it was a process that was needed. The pendulum swings to extremes before it comes to the middle.

In April, during the Easter Long weekend, I had what I call a Spiritual Awakening that included a complete emotional breakdown/ release. I love the timing of life sometimes. Right on time! The Thursday before Good Friday I watched You Tube videos of elephants specifically a series on Shirley and Jenny. (We can watch TV and be on the computer at my part-time job.) By the time my co-worker came to give me my break, I was brimming with emotion. I tried to tell her about those videos and all that they were teaching me but instead I went into these uncontrollable sobs. The best part of it all was I kept trying to stop the sobbing and I kept trying to talk.

What a scary mess of an ugly crying emotional tornado. The poor kid, she was 19 years old, so adorable and innocent looking AND her name means innocent! She’s watching me meltdown like the wicked witch of the west being doused with water. I kept begging myself to walk away and stop talking so I could get my composure but I had no control over any of it. I couldn’t stop sobbing, I couldn’t stop talking, I couldn’t stop any of it. I finally went to the washroom to clean up the evidence of the ugly crazy cry and then I went outside. I went around the corner so if anyone else who came out on their break they wouldn’t see me or talk to me because I knew that I would lose it again.

I’m standing outside and I look up at the sky and there are these clouds. The shape of the clouds? Six elephant heads looking down at me like a cameo you wear on a necklace. Mother elephants. I started to cry softly and said to the Universe, to God, to All That Is, ‘tell me what you want me to do. I’ll do whatever you tell me.’
I felt the message, “Forgive and move into your light.”
You know that voice inside that whispers only once? It was that voice.
I nodded my head.

Apologizing to my innocent co-worker yet again when I went back, she told me a story of her own crazy cry that she had in front of all of her co-workers and a customer. I held my hand up to my mouth, my eyes wide and whispered “No!”
She says, “yeah, we’re women, we cry!” Wise words from the innocent!

As you may have guessed there were elephants in my dreams that night and when I woke the next morning, my morning pages were filled with what it meant to me to step back into my light. And how I need to forgive myself as much as the other people and situations that I need to forgive. I finished the morning pages in time to watch the only morning show that I watched then, Unscripted. It’s an interview show that only shows the person answering the questions. The person on Good Friday was actress, Dee Wallace of Steven Spielberg’s ET movie fame. UnScripted - Dee Wallace

So here I am listening to Dee Wallace reiterating what I just wrote in my morning pages and she gives me a better affirmation, “I want to Feel good,” which became my guiding light from there on. Instead of speaking up in anger to people, I was telling them, “You’re a worth while human being and you deserve honesty. I want to feel good so I cannot have you in my life anymore. “ Imaginez – Vous? As my mother used to say.

I could have used all of the accusations and said screw off but instead I truly felt the gift in forgiving the past and moving on in a way that we could both feel good about. I want to feel good so I won’t be mean to you. And I want to feel good so I’m cutting you free from my life and me free from yours.

Elephants! I could re-hash all the reasons why I’m moving on, but it doesn’t matter, what will make me feel good is moving forward. I wish you the best and I hope that you too can find what makes you feel good. I also bought Dee Wallace’s book Bright Light, simply because I couldn’t’ get my hands on Conscious Creation. Having since read both books, I actually prefer Bright Light.

In July I had the only major angry out burst of the year. In my notes, I call it an Emotional Detox. It was with the person I’d had the acrimonious relationship with for the past few years. In retrospect, I think he needed to see me reach my limit.

Four days later, when we had an opportunity to talk with calmer heads (my calmer head, he never lost it), we had a heart to heart that transformed our relationship. We had a heart to heart where I fully understood what he was going through and my compassion was ignited. We had a heart to heart and everything that went before was forgiven and absolved.

In my personal 8 year, I learned that miracles happen. That I don’t always have to walk away which has been my M.O. throughout my life. That I can feel good and let go of people who I’ve outgrown. And when I’ve tried every angle, I can lose my cool and transform everything.

EY

Be True to Who You Are

The Women I Follow

Your Personal Year

I’ve been chatting with friends lately about knowing your personal year and getting in depth with looking at your patterns in life. I’m completely fascinated with cycles and patterns in life.

I’ve always called my bouts with depression cycles of downtime that are healthy when they are simply a month and problematic when they last over a year. Knowing my personal year and then ultimately looking over years of personal years has helped me to see patterns, cycles and themes in my life.

I’ve been following Christine Delorey’s work since at least 2006. On her websites she provides so much free information like your personal year forecast, plus monthly and weekly ones as well. Check her out, read her work and once you see how accurate her work is, buy her work. That’s how I end up supporting people, by the way. It’s through a person’s free work that ultimately enables me to trust and then happily pay for all that they’ve given. I trust Christine, she has helped me to discover so much.

Truly if you want to gain powerful insights into yourself and your life, run over to her website and find out what your numbers are.

I follow other women: Susan Miller’s Astrology Zone and Guru Rattana’s New Millennium Being. Susan Miller’s monthly forecast is best for me to know specific transits, like the new moon, full moon etc. Guru Rattana helped me to look at the signs we are in, we’re currently in Gemini, and create a focus pertaining to that signs qualities. Plus she got me interested in Kundalini Yoga as a practice that fits more with my personality.

I’ve always believed that yoga had a spiritual focus which included meditation, and chanting as well as the physical aspect. Kundalini Yoga fits with my belief.

Like my relationships, I don’t jump into anything quickly. I’ve read all of the women for years before I purchased their product and when I did, I felt I had no choice because I believed in their work. I purchased Christine’s book Life Cycles several years ago and I continue to purchase it as gifts or at the least recommend it as a “must buy.”

Christine DeLorey's wordpress - Creative Numerology
Christine DeLorey's Creative Numerology.com
Susan Miller's Astrology Zone
Guru Rattana's New Millennium Being

EY

The Feet that belong to these shoes

Theatre Rusticle One of my favourite theatre companies. :)

EY

Theme of Bad Moods?

Life is good so why am I so cranky?

The theme this week seems to involve me going into a bad mood then pulling myself back out it again.
Sometimes it’s stupid little things that bug me, like an uncalled for remark. Other times it’s bigger things like cleaning up other people’s messes as if I made them myself.

But the key to staying in a bad mood or getting out of it lies in my thinking.

I stay in the bad mood when I go down the road of thoughts such as, “Well, that isn’t fair, she should have done such and such;” or “How is this my problem?” or “I’m so tired of blah, blah, blah...” ha-ha! And the list goes on.
Everything is about control isn’t it? If things could simply be the way I think they should be, I’d be happy, wouldn’t I? Or would I? Probably not...

Life has been great after 4 years of soul crushing beat downs. I want to feel good and enjoy my great life now, while I’m in it. I know, for me, that I need to look at the stuff that I do appreciate in my life. There are always things to appreciate.

Trying to be in control will make us crazy. When I still had a television, I used to love watching ‘Hoarders’ because 1 – it always motivated me to go through my clutter and chuck it and 2 – it really made me see how crazy we can make ourselves in our need to be in control. It’s like an addiction. Actually, I think it is an addiction.
Back in April 2012 I wrote this in my journal, The “trying to change what is” addiction. April 2010 - All addictions start as a way to try to control what you can control in order to compensate for what you cannot control. But what you can control becomes out of control.
- Trying to change the system, change other people’s behaviour, change the weather. In our frustration that nothing has changed we hoard, smoke, drink and drug too much, we self-medicate in some way.
- Accept what is – accepting yourself as you are – accepting others as they are.
- The more I focus on what I don’t want the more of “don’t want” I attract.
- Don’t think of what I can’t have, create what I want
- What do I want? In this minute, for this day, for my job, for my life, for my relationships
- In silence – I can find my questions and my answers

I have a manual for myself of reminders of important thoughts I’ve had. It is filled with epiphanies like the addiction to control. It has spiritual dreams I’ve had; info on my power (totem) animals, cycles in my personal years in Numerology , personal manifestoes, and notes from readings that I’ve received. My thoughts are like a skip on a record {vinyl, of course :)}sometimes. I can get stuck in a thought instead of looking at a full experience. Stuck in the skip instead of enjoying the full song.
In the rush of life , in stress and overwhelm, it is so easy to get off track and stuck in unproductive thoughts. I’ll try anything to keep myself moving back to my center.

Julia Cameron, in Walking in This World, mentions creating a first aid kit for our moods. You know, a box that we fill with the stuff that will improve our moods, change our thinking, get us out of the funk. In my box would be pictures of my cats; recordings of songs by Pharaoh Sanders, “High Life”; Earth, Wind & Fire, “Turn it into Something Good”; Sounds of Blackness, “I’m Going all the Way”; and their full album, “The Evolution of Gospel.” And a multitude of other songs from various artists. What would you put in your box?

EY

Sidebar - Chatty Cathy's

I know a few women named Cathy and none of them are all that chatty :)

A girlfriend of mine ‘King’ said to me, “sometimes when I feel too drained by other people’s needs I want to say, ‘I am not your leader!’” ha-ha!

Here are a few of the types of chatters who drain my energy:


A - The Horror Story Triplets
One will mention a horror story in the news and the other two will jump in with an endless supply of related stories and similar stories and stories from their country of birth, and stories about bad things that happened to their friends, and workplace accidents and… excuse me while I go slit my wrists now before we all die in some horrific way.


B - The “I have 3 anecdotes for your comment” person also known as the “snow plough” conversationalist.
That was the day Tony mentioned to me that he heard my cat had died and he managed to offer his condolences. Lauri walked up in the middle and said, “you’re cat died? Yeah my mother’s dog died and she was devastated. Then her cat died and she still hasn’t stopped crying and I don’t know what I’ll do when it’s time to lose my bunny. I love my bunny. He’s my little pal. He comes up on my bed and tries to nibble my toes …”
I stop her with, “well, I’ve got to get back.”

The snow plough conversationalist talks with a level of anxious, mile-a-minute frenzy that
1) doesn’t give you a chance to participate in the conversation
2) overwhelms you with information and images that makes you realize you have an emergency that you just remembered you have to deal with NOW!

The snow plough has to make sure they take the time to tell you every thing they think about well, everything!


C - The “don’t stop reading on my account” person, who proceeds to ask you questions while you’re reading. After reading the same sentence over and over, you close your book/ turn off your e-reader and she says, “No honestly I don’t want to interrupt you.”
Well I can’t read and answer questions at the same time.


D - The “unsolicited advice” person. This person asks an innocent question then gives you unsolicited advice based on your answer. I’ve had a few people who have given me that stunned, head and body pushes back, look when I’ve come out and said, “Listen, I didn’t ask for your advice. You asked me a question and I answered it.”


E - The “I always have a problem that needs to be solved by you” person. Except they ask for you advice but have all the reasons why your advice won’t work.


F - And their cousin, “I always have the same problem that needs to be discussed repeatedly” person


G - And her brother, “I tell the same stories over and over and…” person


H - The “we’ve just met and we’re best-friends” person also known as the overly familiar person. Now some people you click with but the clicking is always both ways and you both know it. I don’t mean those people. I mean the people that you may or may not like with time but you need the time to see if you will like or not like them.


Anyone out there in the interwebs have any examples of their own? Please share, I’d love to hear them.

EY

Silence

I’ve always wanted to do a silent retreat. From the first time I ever heard it existed, I’ve wanted to do one. I have a feeling I’ll probably become addicted to them.

I’m a person who thrives in silence. Especially because my work life is so filled with constant chatter. I work with all men by day and if you think women are chatty, we’ve been sold a bill of goods. Ha-ha! My part time job is also a chat-fest. No matter what job I am at, people always want to know what I am doing in that moment and if they don’t ask about that then they have to tell me something random. I’m not always interested.

I’m not an idle chit-chat kind of person. I have no use for it. I have no patience for it. I think it’s a time filler and I could be doing better things with my time. I also believe that if you have nothing worthwhile to say then don’t say anything. It may sound cranky but not everyone’s a chitchat person. A little bit of silence never hurt anyone.

There are so many reasons why people engage in idle chit-chat. It’s a way to avoid the silence. For many people it’s uncomfortable to be with someone and not talk. Some people feel that they’re being rude if they don’t talk. Some people don’t understand that you can be connected in silence with a simple smile. Some people just love the sound of their own voices. Some people are bored and want you to be their entertainment. Some people are trying to get you to like them …

For me, the constant chatter drains me. I’m a good listener, a great listener actually, and it’s exhausting being a great listener. I empathize with what I hear, I feel it emotionally and physically. I have anxiety and worry for the person I am listening to if it’s a troubled story. I feel heavy in my shoulders if the chatter is just foolishness. It’s all energy.

I was raised to be seen and not heard. I’m of that generation. Being seen and not heard, something I perfected, meant I did a lot of listening. I knew a lot about the adults, things that I shouldn’t have known at my age, but I was so good at being quiet, they’d forget that I was there. And if they’d look over at me to see if I was listening I’d busy myself in some way or not show any facial reaction, to make it seem like I didn’t understand what I was listening to. I literally was raised to be a good listener.

It’s hard now, though, as an adult, and I almost need to shake it off, shake that energy out. It’s hard to explain. Part of it is because I’ve actually never analyzed it, I just know that it drains me.

I found myself at one point in 2003, feeling down in the dumps for an extended period of time, subsequently being diagnosed with depression and refusing to go on the meds (for a year minimum). I always go through cycles/seasons where I need more time to myself and I need to cocoon and recharge to be healthy. In 2002/2003, that season turned into an entire year. It wasn’t healthy anymore. I made the decision that it was my thinking that got me into this trouble so I’d have to use my thinking to get me back out of it.

I took a hard look at the people in my life, what they gave me, what I felt they took away from me. We can really spend an entire lifetime doing what everybody else wants in the name of maintaining relationships. I looked at how much I loved the people in my life. Was the love strong enough for me to continue the way things were? Was the love strong enough to commit to discussing with them the changes I needed for us to remain in each others lives? I became more honest about how I felt. And most importantly, I became more precious about my time.

My time. I’m not going to leave my house to sit at your house to watch TV. I can stay home and watch the shows I actually want to see. I’m not going to suffer through another dinner with friends of yours who I’m not in love with (not even in like with)if that’s the only way I can spend time with you. I’m not going to come spend time with you on your work break to have to sit through a thousand and one people coming up to talk to you because they just have to tell you something that they could have told you all day long. And you don’t bother to say, “Listen, come see me later, I’m with my friend Shelley who I never get to see.”

My time. Hah, Depression made me learn to put myself first in My Life. I’m not going to do everything your way so you feel great and I feel like an exhausted piece of shit. My life.

I’m such a firm believer that illness is an indication that change needs to happen in our lives. The gift of illness is like a decluttering. With my stomach problems when I was a teenager, my doctor a stomach specialist, told me to speak up for myself otherwise I’d be sick for the rest of my short life. Because I wouldn’t live long with those stomach problems that I had.

In 1991, My Naturopath asked me after I’d been hospitalized for 2 weeks with 3 types of rashes all over my body, “What or who is getting under your skin? What’s making your blood boil that’s turning your skin into 3 rashes?”

And in 2000, after two years of getting colds where my ears would fill with liquid and I couldn’t hear, I finally started to ask myself, “What do I not want to hear?”

Today, Idle chit chat is one of the things I don't want to hear. lol

The thing about listening to others all the time is that, at some point, I can no longer hear that voice in my head. You know that voice? She’s so quiet. She whispers and she only whispers once and her whisper is connected to my gut. Somehow her whisper yanks me in my gut , untangles the knot, and creates a subtle energy within me that makes me nod my head once and I know what I need to do in a surefooted, tunnel vision, focused way. She brushes over my mounting fear when I’ve reached my limit in a situation and burn a bridge. Sometimes the only way you can leave or change is by burning that bridge, leaving yourself with no choice. She whispers “don’t worry I’ll lead you through this. Just listen.”

When I make the space to stop listening to every chatty Cathy, I create the room within me to hear myself.

EY

John Francis, a Pisces like me, made me think about listening and silence. 17 years of not talking?

Grieving a Death or a Loss

Keep a journal pertaining to the loss. (I kept a journal for an entire year after my mom passed away.)

Write about how you feel on any given day, emotions will fluctuate.
Write about how you are coping.
Set some goals, some promises
Create new rituals for milestones, anniversaries etc.

I still haven't read that journal I kept after my mom passed away. I don't know when I will but I know where it is.

EY

Before and After

I recently saw a picture of Anna Nicole Smith’s daughter who is now 5 years old. Remember Anna Nicole? She was a bit of a train wreck and yet there was something really likeable about her. I remember being really upset about her death. One, because she left a motherless baby and two, because her son had died less than 5 months before she did. No matter what the media said about her, they couldn’t dispute the fact that she loved her son as the closest person to her in her life. The whole ending of their story made me really sad.

I know the grief that you feel when you lose a loved one in the parent/ child category of deaths. That first year of grieving is a kind of brutal that is so raw and filled with emotional triggers. You have to go through everything for the first time, your first Christmas without your mom, your first birthday etc. It’s any wonder that Anna Nicole didn’t make it through that first year, or if anything were to happen, that was the time. The years after the first year are hard too but they are a different hard.

Some how when my Mom passed away, not having anyone to provide me with any concrete guidance on how to deal with the grieving process, I decided to keep a journal for that entire first year. I started the journal going back to how I was informed that my mom had died, through the week I spent in Montreal getting her affairs in order. And continued through the milestones of my first Christmas, my first birthday, her birthday and Mother’s day...
I wrote in my journal when I woke up out of nowhere at 4 o’clock in the morning to cry. I wrote letters to my mother. I wrote anything pertaining to coping. How funny friends become in your grief.

We are a society who doesn’t know how to grieve or how to handle others in their grief. I felt like some of my friends disappeared because they were scared that what I had was contagious and they would lose a parent too. Most likely, they didn’t want to think of the mortality of their own parents. Some friends couldn’t understand why I couldn’t do all the same things I’d always been available to do. I couldn’t go to movies in that first year. I couldn’t sit still in a movie seat. I needed to pace, to be in motion, my concentration was out of whack. I liked going to parties though. I liked parties because I could be around other people and not feel the pressure of one on one interactions. (One on one interactions were fraught with expectations, it seemed, and I didn’t have it to give.)

I have a friend “Bee” who used to have these all night parties where all the apartments on his floor were open. You could walk in and out of everyone’s apartments. There were musical instruments set up in one apartment, a projection screen with movies and images set up in another apartment, weed smokers in another apartment... I was a regular at those parties and would get there around 10 at night and wouldn’t leave until 8 or 9 the next morning. Between the all night jam sessions of these crazy talented musicians, the dancing and the quality of recorded music being played, the people, you could drink or not drink, smoke weed or not smoke weed. These were authentic “grown folks” parties. There were no brawls or thefts or weapons or cops breaking up anything. There was no drunken or stoned out behaviour. These were grown folks who showed up for a nice time and had one without any of the pressures or drama.

After my mom died everything in my life had the division of what happened before she died and what happened since she died. Obviously “the Before Mom’s death” Shelley was different from “the After Mom’s death” Shelley. I spent many painful mother’s days and mom’s birthdays not knowing during the build up to those days how I was going to feel. I have a girlfriend, “Vannie”, who for years, spent every St Patrick’s day with me because it was the day before my mother’s birthday. We partied like it was St Patrick’s day but we had the unspoken knowledge that it was more than that. To this day, I send her an email every St Patrick’s day to tell her I love her and I remember what she did for me.

To help someone through their grief, we don’t have to be available every single day. We can pick a day and be consistent with that day. That’s what I learned from Vannie.

It has taken me a good ten years to get out of the fog of the pain. Better yet, it’s taken me ten years before I was ready to look at my mother’s life and death from a different angle. The not knowing how I’m going to feel on her birthday, each year is a bit much. The overwhelm of not having a mother to gift on Mother’s day is, ack, it sucks!

I don’t remember where I heard it, probably an Oprah episode. Didn’t Oprah tell us mostly everything? :) Someone was talking about the values and rituals we carry forward in our lives and how we do them because they are learned and we don’t necessarily notice if they actually work for us or where they came from.

There was an anecdote about the three generations of women who when they made a roast beef they would cut off the edges before they put them in the oven. The daughter asked her mother, “why do you cut off the edges? Does it change the flavour?”
The mother answered, “I don’t know, my mother always did that so that’s what I do”
And she asked her mother and her mother asked her mother and the answer was, “I never had a casserole dish big enough to fit the entire roast so I had to cut off the edges before I roasted it”

That anecdote made me really think about changing my rituals and what I wanted my rituals to be and made me think about how I could take more control over mother’s day. I took control by adopting a mother for mothers’ day. For several years, I bought a gorgeous expensive plant with beautiful flowers for a woman who has all sons and doesn’t know what it’s like to have a daughter. The hug? The hug!

This year I’m choosing a single mother, friend of mine. Her two children aren’t teenagers yet and all of her money is used for practical purposes. She works hard and tries to give her kids as many opportunities as her salary can allow. I’m going to get her a gift card for a massage at a well known spa in Toronto. It makes me feel good to make a mother feel good in honour of my mother. I also know that my mother wouldn’t want me to be living in pain

EY

Adopt a Mother for Mother's Day

Find a mother who could use a pick me up. Who couldn’t really?
Give her a mother’s day present in honour of your deceased mother.
It’s a nice way to bring joy to yourself, to the recipient, and to the memory of your mother

“This gift is just as much for me as it is for you.” That’s what I tell the recipient of my mom’s mother’s day present.

EY

Maybe This Is the Best

I’m a tweaker, I’m never really satisfied with the way things are. You know, my life would be better if I could lose about 20lbs, work out daily, be committed to my Qigong and Kundalini Yoga practice, write daily, complete my novel. Oh if only I could be neater, keep a cleaner apartment, have a fail-safe system for well, EVERYTHING! (rolls eyes)


I can drive myself crazy with all the things I didn’t do, haven’t done, could do better. My life would be so much better... but would it? There’s always one more thing to fix, one other thing that is missing.


What’s brought this up is that lately life has been pretty good for me. My really difficult work issues have been resolved, my debts are being paid down – one by one, life at home is calm, I’m no longer in physical pain. I’ve been through so many trying times emotionally and physically and now that things are good, I’m still a bit scared of any bad that may be around the corner. I want to enjoy this good but there’s still that part of me who has to brace herself for the worst case scenario. Then, on top of that, I want to enjoy this good but if I could tweak this situation a little, well...


I think it was Nora Ephron who wrote that when you’re 50 you’ll wish you still had the thighs you hated when you were 30. Isn’t that the way for all aspects of our lives? In retrospect that extra 5lbs wasn’t as bad as this extra 20. Doing daily Kundalini yoga isn’t as great as the long walks I used to regularly take with my gal-pal.


Maybe this is the best anything is going to be in my life right now. Can I learn to love my life exactly as it is? Can I learn to accept my so-called fat, my messy, my imperfect and laugh anyway, enjoy my life anyway, love anyway? Can I remind myself that in 10 or 20 years I’ll wish I had enjoyed myself more?


There’s a piece of advice I always give to people who are in between jobs and are searching frantically. I tell them to try to take a bit of time everyday to simply enjoy all this free time you have. I know that bills loom and you need groceries and all that practical stuff but when you do return to work, the only thing you’ll wish is that you did more of the things you enjoy when you had the time.


Of course we all know that the advice we give to others is usually the message we need to hear the most. This issue is so huge for me, enjoying my life right now. Go out anyway, even if I think I look fat in this outfit. Write a blog entry on my lunch break and call that daily writing, even if it’s still not novel work. Simply try to be a little more satisfied in this moment without thinking about how I’d tweak it to make it better. Because, really, when the bad times or hard times show up again, as part of the cycle, while I am trying to dig myself out of it, I’ll also be wishing that I enjoyed the good times a little stronger when they were here.



EY

Liebster Blog Award

My EY Page Blog was nominated for an Award by the lovely Bonnie Vesely at Just Venture Coaching

The Liebster, from what I understand, is a way to highlight bloggers with less than 200 followers. It is a pay it forward award and the responsibilities are as follows:

1. Thank the one who nominated you by linking back.
2. Nominate five blogs with fewer than 200 followers.
3. Let your nominees know by leaving a comment on their sites.
4. Add the award image to your site.

One of my goals for 2012 was to find myself a writing community. Thanks to Robert Lee Brewer's April Platform Challenge I've become a part of an active online writing community that we call "MNINB Platform Challengers."

It's been a little overwhelming on the social media front. Because of the challenge, I now have a Twitter account and a Facebook page. I never thought I'd ever have a Twitter account, turns out I like Twitter. Who knew? I've got a whole lot of new blogs that I've subscribed to from the MNINB group and I'm working BIGTIME on time management. ha-ha! All this activity keeps my mind on the writing so what more can I ask for?

As an aside, I love that Robert's Blog is called, "My Name is Not Bob" because the EY Page stands for, "Shelley with an EY." How many people out there have pet peeves about their names? :)

As soon as I find five blogs to nominate I shall mention them here.
And Thank you Bonnie for the kind words about my writing. :)

EY

Baby Massage

Absolutely Beautiful!

Woman's Work

I recently got my own office at my day job. Well, I share it with my boss’ assistant but he has so many meetings that he’s hardly ever there. Being moved to my own office has really changed my attitude. I’m a whole lot less cranky. In fact, I’m downright happy!

When I was down in the main office, I was the go to person for everything. If a contractor, security, the mailman, housekeeping, Joe Blow came into the office, they came to me first. If the phone rang, the expectation was that I would answer it despite the fact that we have two other extensions.

As is the case in every workplace, we have more and more work to do and the same amount of hours to do the work in. When there are three other guys ( I work with all men) in the office you would think that one of them could take it upon themselves to answer the ringing phone especially when I look busy. What they do instead is they look over at me as if to say, “isn’t she going to answer that?”

That’s what started to make me cranky.

I’ve never worked with so many people who receive so many personal phone calls at work in my entire working career. I can honestly count on one hand the number of times I’ve received personal calls at work . Three of them, on Sept 11th, 2011 because I didn’t have internet access, didn’t have a radio and it was important to know if the world was ending. It really did feel that way. All my friends and family know not to call me at work, if they even have my work phone number, because they’ve been told, “Don’t call me at work.”

In this day and age, you can contact me on my land-line, my cell phone, by email (I have two personal accounts), on Facebook and you know, leave a message. But call me at work? No! I’m at work to, you know, to work.
A couple of years ago I broached the subject with my co-worker that I would appreciate it if he answered the phone half the time. “It would be different ,” I said, “if all the calls were work-related but half the calls are personal and a lot of them are yours. I don’t see any reason why I should have to stop what I am doing to answer all the calls to say, it’s for you.”

He told me that he looks at the call display to see if it’s for him and if it’s not he doesn’t answer.
“Well no, that’s not entirely true because I’ve sat here and watched you not look at the phone repeatedly.”
“Fine,” he said with THAT tone of voice, “I’ll tell my wife to stop calling.”

Um, in what part of this discussion did I say that your wife calls too much?

We had a silent moment and I backed off because I didn’t want to turn it into a war especially since we get along so well. And I tried a new tactic. If I saw that a call was for him, instead of answering, I’d say, “it’s for you.” Something about that change made him realize that yes, it was true, he wasn’t looking at the phone, ever. And he improved somewhat. He started looking at the phone sometimes. Especially on the second ring when he realized I might not be answering because it was for him. Of course there was still the case of everybody else’s personal calls.

With my move to my new office, I still have an extension to the main office but now I have my own direct number. If a call comes through on the main office number that looks like it might be for me, I answer it, but 90% of the calls I no longer answer. The guys now have the responsibility of answering the phone and there is some serious grumbling about it.

It’s become like an episode of ,”The week the women left,” a show where the women of a small community are transported to a week’s vacation sans children and their husbands are left to fend for themselves taking care of all they’ve taken for granted. It’s a lovely world when everything is automatically done for you. It’s a rude awakening when you find out, through experience, that it’s darn time consuming when you have to do it yourself.
A couple of my guys have asked me, ‘Don’t you answer the phone anymore?”

“I answer it if it’s for me but it doesn’t make sense for me to answer the phone to put it on hold and yell down the stairs to tell you that it’s for you, especially when it’s a personal phone call.”

“OH!”

Don’t even get me going on what we deem “women’s” work or a “secretary’s” job…

It’s one of the stories of my life actually, that expectation that I’ll take care of everything and know my place. I do for a time, until I get tired or I take a good hard look at the unfairness of a situation and I speak up. My assertiveness always pisses off the other person, the person called on their actions or lack of actions, as the case usually is. But I have to speak up.

It reminds me of the first time I finally spoke up within my family. When I was assigned all the housework at 13 years old. My step-dad would come home and survey the house to see what I ‘d done or more appropriately, what I hadn’t done yet. And he’d tell me, “you haven’t cleaned the bathroom yet, you haven’t cleaned the kitchen yet…” He was my first micro-manager. Lol No wonder I can’t tolerate being micromanaged, but I digress.

In my meekness I suffered in silence for months but then even I couldn’t take it anymore and I spoke up. I stood in the living room while he and my mother were watching television and I waited until they noticed me.
“What do you want?” he asked with that tone of voice.

I looked at the carpet and said softly, “If you don’t pay me to do the housework, I’m not going to do it anymore.”
The volume of the television was quickly turned down and the stepfather said, “What did you just say?”
“If you don’t pay me to do the housework, I’m not going to do it anymore. You come home and all you ever notice is what I haven’t done yet.”

Then came the yelling and swearing and the accusations of being an ingrate and troublemaker and how they could never simply have a nice quiet night at home because I ruined everything. Everything!

I was sent to my room with a, “get out of my face,” and had to sit in silence listening to all the qualities that proved there was something wrong with me. As I listened though, there was a little smile mixed in with my thundering heartbeat because I’d said what I wanted to say despite how completely terrifying it was. The yelling and complaining ended with something along the lines of, “I’ll show her if she thinks she’ll get away with this.”
The next step of course is that I knew I had to actually follow through on my word. And for a week I didn’t do the dishes, the dusting, didn’t clean the bathroom or any of the other chores I’d been assigned to do. With a few more days of bad moods and worse words, they caved and started to pay me.

Now, I have to say that I understood why they had assigned me the chores but the unfairness was that I’d inadvertently found out that Step dad’s daughters, who were both younger than me, received a larger allowance and received “extra” money from my mother. That I Could Not Tolerate! So yes they paid me to be their live in maid and complained to anyone who would listen that I MADE them pay me. But it taught me a fine lesson.

At work, for the first time ever, it has been someone else who saw the unfairness in my situation and fought my battle by moving me. It was my boss’s boss (the big guy) who’d come into the main office, watched what was going on and asked, “How the hell does she ever get any work done with all those interruptions?”

Right? I told the big guy recently that I am so thrilled that every time I see him I’ll give him four kisses, one for each cheek. Ha-ha! (I got that joke from Charlie Parker who kissed Richard Nixon’s cheeks four times.)
It’s still not resolved, I’m sure. There will probably be more complaining before the guys finally realize that maybe they should receive their personal phone calls at home or suck it up and answer the phone since I’m not going to. Time will tell, and I will continue to state the facts… I wasn’t hired to take messages from your creditors, your dentist & doctor, your wife, or your friend who wants to know if you’ve gone on break yet so he can meet you on it.

EY

26May12 - Watching Ken Burns Jazz and the quote is actually from Duke Ellington. He was honoured by the then President Nixon at the White House and in accepting the honour kissed Nixon 4 times. When Nixon asked him, "Why 4 times." Duke said, "once for each cheek." :)