Filling the Divots and Holes

For the past week I have been listening to a book and absolutely loving it.  Now, let me say this first, I am not a big reader or someone who listens to books all the time so for me to knock one out in a week means something.  This book, all I can say is perfect timing.  It is exactly what I needed to hear right now.  It made the past 49 years make sense and helped me see what I need to do next to better myself and get what I want.

Since I started it I caught myself thinking outside the box a lot more, trying new things I always thought were just out of reach, and getting out of my comfort zone.  I stopped finding excuses and started just doing the things that I know I love, need to do to love myself more, and focusing on what is most important right now...ME.  I have been so focused on everyone else for so long, so concerned what others thought, so afraid to rock the boat, fearing that people would think less of me if they knew who I really was that I hid behind the curtains, only allowing them to see the puppet version me that I made move by the strings of societies norms. 

It wasn't until just now that I really understood just how much of myself I have kept hidden.  Why?  Why do I really care what other people think?  Who is so damned important that their opinion of me should make me feel bad about myself.  I realized this stemmed from my childhood and that growing up in world where my mother was always spewing mean and cutting words at us as well as the pretty regular open hand or thrown object and my father made it abundantly clear he didn't want daughters.  I had been looking for their approval for so many years as a child, during those important years when our psyche is being molded, so impressionable as a piece of clay in the hands of an artist.  When those hands are hard and hurtful, they can create holes and divots instead of the solid and strong form which can allow for doubts and fears to sink in and fill the empty spaces. 

I am glad to say that this is not irreversible, just means a little more work is needed to remove those hurtful feelings of fear and doubt and fill those spaces with the power within.  Now, before I go on, now I am not blaming my parents for anything that has happened in my adult life.  I am not blaming them for the choices I made or anything else like that.  I will not give them that power over who I have become because I have made it to this point in spite of them, not because of them.  I am damn proud of where I am now and know that by making a few changes, now finding the things I need to fix and healing from within I will become an even better representation of me.  I will no longer find myself afraid to be me, giving a shit about what others think of me, fearing repercussions of removing the puppet strings and just living life to its fullest.

This book has not been the whole reason for this change in mindset but it has been another tool in my arsenal that helped me realize what I need to do, how I need to do it, and gave me ability to see my inner strengths that will propel me forward to the goals I have set for myself.  In the past few months the amazing writings I have listened to in audio books have really helped me tap into my inner warrior and given me an excitement towards the future I did not have, lit a fire for lack of a better term.  I am so ready for the next chapter of my life, having already started writing it with my new art pieces and business avenue added to my already full arsenal of beautiful things I capture and create.  Watch closely because there is so much more to come.  This is going to be an amazing year and I am excited to be able to share it with everyone. 

Next step...

Not Batshit Crazy

Off and on over the years since my husband passed away I have tried online dating. I used to think that you get what you paid for because I was coming up with lots of throw-backs on those sites that were free. Same pictures of the same guys who seemed to be all too perfect and were apparently from some other country or working in another country and lining up suckers for when they got back.  Yea, I said suckers.  I have seen those fake profiles that someone with even half a brain would know were fake.  It blows my mind people actually fall for that crap.  First question:  How do women fall for that and why in the world would they give money to them?  Yea, I have watched the talk shows that have the pathetic women on telling how they have given thousands and thousands of dollars to the scam artists but they are still in love.  Seriously?  Mind blown!

Then there is the ones who are real men but who build up their profiles with pictures that are at least 10 years old if not older and have them looking like super models or are only from the shoulders up.  Why people can't be themselves is the question?  Do you think that the rest of you hiding in the cropped out part of the picture are not going to be visible when you meet?  Do you not think that your date will be quite disappointed in the fact you could not post a current photo showing that you are now bald with a keg not a great head of hair with a 6-pack?  Why is it people can't be honest about who they are.

And talk about pickup lines.  It seems that the guys on those singles sites are sitting there at their computers with the dating app open on one screen and Googling cheesy pickup lines on the other and using them like bait on a hook, dangling them to see who will bite.  Come on guys, do you think those really work?  Ladies, please say it isn't so?

I even tried paying a membership fee in hopes that it would bring a higher class of potential suitors.  Well, that didn't work.  Same trolls over and over with the same 10 year old photos, profiles that were just too good to be true.  Only difference is that the pool was more shallow because less men were willing to fork out the pennies for potential dates.

The best thing though was the compliments.  "Love your pictures."  " You seem perfect for me."  "You are so beautiful."  "You're gorgeous."  "How are you single?"  Now don't get me wrong, those are nice things to have said to you and at first I was flattered.  The problem is they seem to be a different bucket of pickup lines made for the online community of trolls.  They all say the same thing, then when you don't want to give them your phone number or meet them immediately they either become pissy or disappear all together.  The 'dating experts' say you should meet in a reasonable amount of time, however when you have a life outside of the computer, sometimes it is not as easy as drop everything to schedule a meet-up.  Also, sometimes if you chat just a little longer, their true selves come out and you don't end up wasting the make-up and getting ready time to meet just another troll.  By the way, how does one become a 'dating expert'?  Do they just do nothing but date people?  I mean really?

Yes, I sound cynical at this point, I know.  Honestly, I guess I am.  I work from home so meeting someone at the office is out, my children are grown so the single dad pool is gone too, and after the countless disappointments the online dating community has dished out, how could one not be.  I don't go to bars to meet people because what you meet in a bar you lose in a bar, and my grocery store is filled with old people so we won't fall madly in love at first sight over the salad bar.  I have always jokingly said the man of my dreams will need to knock on my door and say, "Here I am sweetie" or I may never find him.  My computer is apparently the only avenue I have for meeting people I would otherwise never 'run into' in my daily life.  I am a hopeful romantic feeling hopeless about the possibilities of really meeting the right Mr. Right for me and that kind of sucks.

Yet, I will continue to keep trying.  I will keep hoping I will find the man who is my best friend, my other half, my soul mate.  I will not give up, maybe take long breaks but never give up.  After all, I did get the best compliment just recently and no it was not a Google search special.  "You are still the only one I've met online that's not batshit crazy."  There may still be hope yet.  Wish me luck.

Creating Beauty

This week has finally had a turn around.  After what I believe was a successful release of the man in my dreams, I was left with a great energy that needed to be put to work.  I started trying my hand at a new form of artwork in the form of wiring.  No, I'm not done with my other types, the canvas for my next painting is waiting on the easil and my camera is sitting by waiting for another opportunity to capture beauty, but I love being able to play in so many different creative arenas.  For me, it is like being able to see all the colors of the rainbow, not just the red, yellow or blue.  With all the different mediums I play in I am able to capture and create beauty with them all, maybe even combine them to see what can happen then.  Who knows. 

I used to think bouncing from one thing to another was a bad thing.  Someone actually commissioned a painted chair from me saying, 'I want to get it ordered before you go on to doing other things.'  I didn't quite know how to take that at first, thinking something must be wrong with me if I can't stay with one thing.  The person who commissioned it did.  She is amazing at the craft she does and is quite successful.  Me, on the other hand, have bounced from thing to thing with small successes in each but nothing that has taken off and become my one thing.  Now looking back though, I do not think that is so bad.  Quite the opposite.  I love it because it does not stop me from trying new things or pushing myself to my limits to see where the line is and how much I can move it to become a new limit. 

So, here is to new and exciting avenues of creation.  Here is to the beauty that will come from my two hands and my heart.  I am thrilled to see what new beauty I can create.  Blessed be.

The Man in my Dreams

As much as I would like to say this is a romantic story, one that would make your heart skip a beat, one where the man and women ended up in each other's arms kissing and stuff, this is not.  This is the story of a tortured soul who has a story to tell but because no one listens, no one hears him screaming for help, no one can even see him...when they are awake, he has only one way to get his story out.  In their dreams.

For 4 of the past 5 nights now I have been tortured at night with visions and dreams of someone who I can see, a white man in his late 20s early 30s, short brown hair, no beard or mustache or even stubble.  He has something to say but I can't make it out.  At first I thought maybe my imagination was running ramped in my sleep. I would wake almost 3-4 times during the early hours between midnight and 3:30 AM and have to get up and walk a bit to go back to sleep.  Then Monday morning as I was sitting in the chair by the living room door writing my blog, the door which was locked and is never used flew open and slammed into the door with what seemed to be the force of someone pushing it and a gust of wind so cold it sent chills through me flew by.  I was hoping that it was a sign that whatever was waking me was leaving.  That night, although I had an eerie feeling someone was watching and had to check all the doors more than once before finally laying down to sleep, I did sleep uninterrupted.  It was a blessing...and a curse.  I thought that whatever it was had left...but I now fear that wasn't the case.  He was just letting me know it wasn't my imagination.  He's still here.

Again last night and this morning he woke me several times during the early hours and had me dreaming of the water but this time was the beach.  This time my children were in the dream, when they were young, just playing in the sand on the beach.  Some of my friends were also in the dream, a elderly mother and her daughter that live together.  We were staying at their house on the beach, I was try to get my swimsuit on and found she had washed and dried it and it had a hole in it.  I know it sounds weird but it is some of the bits and pieces I remember from the dream.  They don't make a lot of sense however I feel I must capture them.

One other thing.  For the past week in my waking hours it has felt like my eyes were burning.  I do work on the computer a lot so I chalked it up to that, screen fatigue.  This is not normal however and now I think I understand why.  I believe that this poor soul somehow lost his sight.  I feel that because when I woke this morning and came down stairs, let the dogs out, got my coffee and headed to the living room to write.  As I started to enter the room I had this massive sense that he was sitting on his knees, no hovering just over the floor in the middle of the room looking for me yet not looking.  Facing towards the doorway I would enter through, eyes open, but his eyes were just white, no pupil, no color, just white as if someone has stolen his sight.  He was just there, my minds eye could see him but I was not afraid.

Now, for those of you who know me and know my reaction to spiders and creepy crawlies, let me tell you no, I did not spill my coffee, not even a drop. I did not jump, not even a shiver.  This fact even now as I am writing this shocks me.  For those of you who don't know me, I jump like I am trying to grab the ceiling and squeal like a little girl so for me to have no reaction doesn't make any sense either.  I walked in, calmly put down my coffee, grabbed the sage stick and feather, lit it, and proceeded to completely sage my home, top to bottom.  I fear this did nothing but scent my house and rid it of evil, which I do not feel he is.

Putting it all together, I feel this man has drowned, somewhere where there are boats and sand.  My fear is I picked up a hitchhiker on my way back from New Orleans.  So now I have to figure out what he is trying to say so he can leave again.

I wish this was just the story of a vivid imagination and had a nice, happy ending but as of right now, the ending is not here...so we wait.

UPDATE:  After a deep analysis with my sister witch, we have come to the conclusion that this may have been a lost soul from the south who lost their life due to a hurricane (wind blowing open the door).  Lost sight from injury (eyes and clothing damage).  Kneeling as if to show being humble, asking or requesting something, not there to scare or harm. 

Time to remember him and release his soul. Blessed be.

Happy Cooking

Late last year I started setting up my kitchen to help me figure out what I needed to do to lose the weight for good.  To remove the processed crap from my plate I started making everything from scratch.  What I had apparently forgotten is that I truly love to cook.  I knew I loved to bake, heck I owned a coffee shop/deli/bakery for a while so my love for the kitchen was not a super surprise.  What I didn't know is just how much joy I could get from slicing and dicing foods, preparing them, adding seasonings, the amazing smells that would radiate through my house, and the looks on the faces of those I had cooked for when they taste my latest masterpiece.  This was an unexpected but very much welcomed side effect of being in the kitchen.

I do have to give a little credit to the tools which I have been using.  There is truth in the fact that doing something with the right tools can really make it easier which can lead to enjoyment of the act which can make you want to do it more.  While I had not seen myself as being a consultant for the company for life, I had sure planned on getting those amazing tools I had wanted in my kitchen so I could cook easier and have more fun.  Success.  My absolute favorite pieces are my knives.

There is just nothing more important than a good, strong, sharp knife that can really make the difference. Without one can struggle to get things properly cut up, lose the ability to have even sized items (not that it really matters to some but it is kind of fun to try), and most important it can be dangerous.  If a knife is not strong enough or is not sharp enough one can get serious injury.  I can't tell how many times I have cut myself trying to do something and the knife slips.  I even had one snap when I was cutting something, I think it was an apple, and the blade went flying.  Cheap is cheap.

So many people have said to me as I was doing a show or event, 'it's so expensive.  I can't afford that.'  What people fail to understand is just how much they are spending buying the cheap versions over and over again when they break or fail.  If you spend the money one time to buy a good quality knife that is backed by a lifetime guarantee, you will be spending in a lifetime of buying over and over again the same as buying quality once.  It took me a minute to wrap my head around this as well but it's true.  Spend your hard earned money on something that will give you the best results and last or be guaranteed instead of knock offs that will fail and fail and fail.

Now, don't get me wrong.  If you are not going to be using the tool a lot, if you are not going to be pushing it to the limits, enjoying using it, getting your money's worth out of it, don't buy it.  If you are only going to use something once or twice for a special occasion and then never need it again, buy cheap.  It's OK.  Just don't punish yourself by buying cheap on everything.

So by now you have noticed I have not mentioned the company name.  I did not start off writing this blog post as an advertisement, however, that is what it appears to have become so I guess I will go with it.  I am a Pampered Chef consultant.  No, this is not my day job but it has served me well, filled my kitchen with more than I will ever need of fabulous tools and gadgets to help me prepare foods and really get back where I enjoy being.  It has reminded me just how truly happy I am knife in hand dicing up foods, listening to the sizzle of the veggies in the pan as the heat brings their flavors to life, putting them into amazing dishes to feed friends and family.  It even paid for me to go on many trips this year for my other business as a photographer so I could capture some really amazing shots and as an artist so I could paint my beautiful paintings from those shots.  All in all, it really did help me in many aspects.  But the most important was bringing me back to the thing I didn't know I was missing.  My kitchen is my new happy place where I can make magic to share. 

Well, off to make another scrumptious meal. 

Next...

Well, not only have I eliminated all the clothing and shoes I do not use, I have also started tackling the other things in my room.  While doing that I have also been planning out the new decor.  I am actually enjoying the release and freedom found from removing the clutter, the leftover memories, the things holding me prisoner in my past.  To put it in writing it just sounds super silly but I really feel those things were holding me back, stopping me from moving forward into the new and exciting experiences I have yet to have.  They were just another excuse not to allow someone to get too close, to penetrate the walls I had built around myself to stop others from hurting me, to save myself another pain.

These past few months have really opened my eyes to just how comfortable and secure I had become in the prison of my own design. The house which I fell in love with years ago as safe place to raise my children and grow has now become something I constantly complain about, letting it just become a cluster of memories and things that had no value to my continuing growth instead of a place I could recharge my mental and emotional self and expand my horizons.  These things that once made me smile and had purpose in my world now adding to the bricks in the wall hiding me from the life I am meant to have.  With every one that I remove, with every memory I release, I feel one more brick is also removed from that wall.

I had made goals for myself this year, not a resolution because we all know those get lost within a few weeks or months.  One of my goals was to lose the weight that has plagued me for so long.  I have done the diet of the month so many times, from Weight Watchers to Slim for Life to Atkins, even the cabbage soup diet and others raved about by skinny bitches on the internet and while I had little successes here and there, nothing really did it for me. What I did for the diet part will be the subject of another blog, but I touch on it here because what I didn't realize with all those diet gimics that I tried was that they were not finding the underlying cause of the problem.  That silo-like wall I had built to save me from hurt and pain was also in the form of fat on my body.  I think that mentally and emotionally I had been hurt so much in the past, not only from the death of my husband and the broken relationships in my adult life but also from my childhood, being sexually abused, first by a male babysitter my mother had hired to her boyfriends that came through the revolving door of our home and not having someone there who could save me from those hells.  I think that in my mind I decided if I put on the pounds I would be safe. 

So, back to the goals.  One of those goals was to lose at least 20 lbs by my next birthday, my big 50.  I wanted to be on the path to getting my happy body back.  What I have figured out though is that while I was just focusing on the weight on my body, what I had not taken into consideration is the weight of crap sitting on my soul.  SO, technically in just starting with my step 1 I have lost about 100 lbs in the past few weeks.  That is 100 lbs of stuff holding me back, weighing on my mind and body.  I have not failed in my goal, I have met and surpassed it and as I continue down this path of release, I feel that mentally and physically I will continue to become stronger and be able to accomplish all that I set my mind to. 

Here is to the next 100 pounds.