Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Blog Challenge Day 7 - Pet Peeves and 10 Favorite Foods

Hmm... This one's going to annoy me and make me hungry, I can see that now.

So, what annoys me? What are my pet peeves?

My Grade A, #1, Numero Uno pet peeve is drama. I have enough of it in my life already. Get me stirred up and you've got a dragon on your hands. And I don't let it go easily. Start drama with me, and you'll probably find yourself flying out the proverbial back door pretty damn fast. So, just don't. No. Don't.

Whining and off-key singing are up there with drama, but not nearly to the degree of fire-breathing, dragon-inciting annoyance as the drama-mamas out there. Mostly, I'll just tell you to knock it off, then leave if you absolutely MUST do it... Ear buds are my friends.

Enough about that shiz... let's move on to tastier topics, shall we? 

My 10 Fav Foods? With Intuitive Eating, I'm finding that my tastes are changing, but here's the top ten list as of today:

  1. Pizza - Especially with shrimp and pepperoni (thank you to my hubby who introduced me to this delight!). Okay.. Qualifying statement time: I love pizza of almost any kind. The cheesier the better, and the shrimp and pepperoni thing is a rare treat (almost no one makes it anymore, and popcorn shrimp is kinda pricey for our budget). I usually opt for a meat pizza, or Hawaiian is good... but shrimp and pepperoni makes my mouth water.
  2. Chocolate ice cream, with chocolate sauce/brownie bits/peanut butter/goodies in it. Plain chocolate is a pass for me--I'd rather have it with bits of something in it. Nuts, not so much; but toss in some peanut butter cups, swirls of peanut butter or fudge, cookie dough, mint chips or brownie bites? YUM!
  3. Corn dogs - Yes, this one's a little weird, I guess. I love corn dogs. I hate hot dogs, but I love the crunch of a good corn dog. My first pregnancy, this was one of the few foods I could eat without getting sick, and I still love them, 18 years later.
  4. Cereal-Corn Pops, Cocopuffs, Chocolate Pebbles, Kashi, granola. Usually sweet cereals entice me more than plain "healthy" cereals, much to the detriment of my waist line in the past. Oh well! This stuff is yummy! And it makes for a quick meal when I'm distracted by creating and am too busy to cook, but still need to eat.
  5. Cinnamon Rolls - The ooey-gooier the better! Hot, sticky, dripping with frosting. One'll do me to fix a craving, but oh the bliss while I'm fixing that craving! Follow it with a hot cup of tea and a brisk walk, and you've got a morning made in heaven for me.
  6. Salad- Okay... when you're done getting treatment for that whiplash, or when you've finished picking your chin off the floor... Yes, I love salads. I have to be careful of the amount of the good, dark green, leafy stuff because of yet another health condition, but hey! I love a good bowl of crisp lettuce topped with some grape tomatoes, walnuts, a light coat of dressing, and maybe some tuna or mandarin oranges. Time for another salad, I think!
  7. Oreo Cookie Milk Shakes - Oddly, not a fan of milk shakes in general, but these... The chunky kind from Jack in the Box... Mmmmm. I've made them at home, and almost have the mix down right, but these are a special treat when we go into town. 
  8. Apples with nut butter - I have always liked my apples cut up into slices; even more when I have some peanut butter, almond butter or sunflower seed butter to dip them in. But recently, I discovered Apple Nachos, and made this the other night for dessert, and it became a hands-down favorite of the family. Warm peanut butter drizzled on thin-sliced apples, with a handful of dark chocolate chips on top. *drool*
  9. Salami Sandwiches-My grandma used to make me salami sandwiches with Miracle Whip, and it was always this huge treat. Now, as an adult, I tried for years to replicate her technique, and never could, until I realized that, being married to a guy that didn't like Miracle Whip, plain mayo just isnt' the same. When I switched to Intuitive Eating, I treated myself to a small jar of Miracle Whip, and Viola! Taste matched, heart happy, mind sucked back into best memories. Nirvana reached.
  10. Sourdough Bread-I grew up in the San Juaquin Valley in California, just a couple hours away from this tangy treat's home base. Sourdough was a staple with any soup we had, and to this day, I can easily get lost in a few slices of warm, buttered sourdough. I'm pretty sure I look odd, sniffing packages before I buy them, but that's the way to do it! Only fresh, and only if I can smell it. 

Hope today's post prompted some deep thinking of your own. See you again tomorrow for Day 8!

Monday, May 30, 2016

31 Day Blog Challenge - Day 6 - My 5 Senses Right Now and 3 Personality Traits I'm Proud Of

Wow! What disparate topics!

Today's topics are "My 5 Senses Right Now"and "Three Personality Traits I'm Proud Of."

So, what am I experiencing right now?
(not my first post about using our senses.. check out an older post here)

  • Hearing: I'm listening to "Till I Collapse" by Eminem. Got my ear buds in, and I can vaguely hear my daughter singing to herself as she plays in the next room. Freedom (my dog) just joined me, and wandered back out to the living room, apparently I'm boring today... or at least not cuddle worthy just yet. I told him it's bath day, so I'm not his favorite person.
  • Taste: I can still taste my pomegranate green tea that I had this morning. I'm finishing up the green tea I have in the cupboard now, and then switching to herbal tea. Caffeine is okay, but I'm finding that the more I honor my hunger and my body's needs (check out my post on Intuitive Eating and my guilty pleasures here), the less I want caffeine. Mostly, I just crave something hot to drink first thing in the morning, and I can get more variety with herbal teas.
  • Sight: Obviously, I'm watching my computer screen, though just beyond that, I can see outside, and have been watching the weather try to decide if it's going to be a warm sunny day or overcast and humid. Welcome to living by the beach!
  • Touch: My toes are freezing. but I know that if I toss a blanket over them, they'll be sweating in a few minutes. So they'll be cold. My fingers are a little cold, too, mostly because they're flying over the keys in a flurry of blog posting this morning. Again, they'll warm up when I start doing something else here in a bit.
  • Smell: Our apartment smells clean this morning, probably because we just changed the sheets and laundry is hanging to dry in the living room. Yummy. I think there may still be a hint of garlic in the air from last night underneath the laundry detergent, but I can't quite be sure.
  • Intuition: Oh, I know I've done the 5 basics, but this is one I'm learning to use more and more, in addition to the other 5. I'm working my way through Elle North's Wisdom Within course, and loving every minute of it. I can't be entirely sure, but I have a hunch (haha) that you'll meet my Intuitive Self somewhere along our journey. She's quite playful and eerily wise and observant, so she's definitely worth knowing.
Three personality traits I'm proud of...

  1. Honesty: I believe there is almost always a kind way to share the truth as I see it. My truth may not be the same as your truth, but it's truth all the same. We can agree to disagree. We might agree to go our separate ways. But I don't believe that hard feelings need to be the result, nor that we need to smear each other all over social media. 
  2. Professional: Even in my personal dealings, I think there's a right way and a wrong way to do things. My style happens to be as friendly and professional as I can be. Yeah, I have less than stellar moments that disappoint even me, but I can still moderate my own words and actions to put my best foot forward. After all, who deserves my best self more than the people that put up with me when I'm less than my best?
  3. Creative: I am a creatrix-I create my own world, literally. I play in a game called Second Life, where my husband and I own a store that we fill with the things we build and create. I own a budding business that I am creating from the ground up. I create my own jewelry that I wear (I'm wearing a new wrap bracelet I finished over the weekend made with blue gold-stone and clear glass), and crochet cotton shopping bags that last for-ever! My biggest challenge right now is creating a space to list all the cool stuff I've been creating for the last few years so that I can share them with the world. 

31 Day Blog Challenge - Day 5

Yummy... Day 5 gives me two topics I like to write about...

My guilty pleasure is...

I have a lot of them, yet I oddly don't feel all that guilty about many of them. Perhaps the only one I really do feel guilty about is my love of cereal. My tastes change regularly, but I love sugary cereal, within limits, and could eat it several times a day.

No, I'm really not supposed to eat cereal at all, according to my doctor, but after she cut yet another group of foods out of my rapidly dwindling list of "okay" foods, I finally decided I'd had enough. Yes, I lost 50 pounds eating the way she wanted me to. However, when my short list got shortened even more, I made the brave decision to find joy in food again. Oddly, I haven't gained any weight back, so maybe there's something to this.

Maybe my guilty pleasure is simply that I love food, and I love eating again. I'm learning to honor my hunger and my body's needs and wants, and I'm finding that I come full circle once again, and I'm craving more nutritious foods again, though now, it's from a place of "this is what I want to eat" not "this is all I'm allowed to eat." Funny how that makes all the difference.

What's my guiding principle now that I've quit dieting? Intuitive eating. I'm learning to listen to my body's hunger signals, stop when I'm full, and savor what I eat. Make a fist. That's really all the bigger your stomach is! Now, think of how much food you cram onto a dinner plate. Do you really think you're enjoying all that food? Do you walk away from the table feeling like a fattened calf?

I'll step off my soapbox, but will highly recommend this book (you can grab it on Amazon by clicking the link):

10 songs I love right now...

I picked 10 songs off my favorite playlist that I listen to every day while I'm writing or creating. They fuel me, give me some oomph to carry me on into my day, and move me forward. They are:
  1. FIGHT SONG - RACHEL PLATTEN
  2. FIGHTER - CHRISTINA AGUILERA
  3. STRONGER - KELLY CLARKSON
  4. LET IT GO - PENTATONIX
  5. POCKETFUL OF SUNSHINE - NATASHA BEDINGFIELD
  6. TEN THOUSAND HOURS - MACKLEMORE
  7. BANG A DRUM - SELENA GOMEZ
  8. UNSTOPPABLE - SIA
  9. BEST DAY OF MY LIFE - AMERICAN AUTHORS
  10. WE'RE TAKING OVER - BEA MILLER

31 Day Blogger Challenge - Day 4 - What I'm Afraid Of & My Earliest Childhood Memory

Since I discovered I'm working from two entirely different lists, I'm giving you a two-for-one every day that the lists differ.

Day 4 is one of those days (yeah, I know I'm behind, we'll get that fixed soon). Today's topics go hand in hand, I guess. What I'm afraid of, and my earliest childhood memory.

What's my earliest memory?

Falling off a horse. Literally. I can remember my mom taking me to her friend's house, and putting me bareback on a mare.. who moved nice and slow, but I can still remember the slow slide to one side of her withers, trying to haul myself up by her mane, and falling off the other side. She didn't do anything wrong... I was just too short to really hang on with my legs. No harm done to me or the horse, but I still experience a sensation of being about to fall whenever I ride (which admittedly is very rarely).

Attached to that memory is feeding the horses, and Mom putting me in the horse trough to keep me out from under sharp, heavy hooves, and the horses crowding around me to check out this new treat.. That part wasn't scary, really.. funny, weird, awkward; wonder if that's why I still get antsy when I'm in a stall with a horse?

What am I afraid of?

Pardon me while I take a moment to laugh. Why do I laugh? Because I'm someone with a severe anxiety disorder. I'll spare you the details, but in a nutshell, a lot of things scare me, including being judged, being around people, loud noises, the unfamiliar and loosing my family.


When I say these things scare me, I'm not talking about that nebulous, vague kind of fear that we all have of general things. I'm talking about the paralyzing, sweating, heart-palpitating, freezing me in my tracks kind of fear.

I got to a point where grocery shopping was anxiety-inducing. What my rational mind knew to be true was utterly irrelevant to my emotional, ego-mind. There might be a thousand dollars in our bank account, but I was terrified that the debit card wouldn't work for insufficient funds. I was terrified of not having food in the house, so I'd go hungry for days, afraid to eat what food we had for fear of running out. Every stranger posed a potential threat to me and my family.

Yes, I've gotten help for this. And the dog I wrote about back in my other blog? He and my husband worked well together to get me to a point where I can kind of function normally again. Freedom no longer goes out with me, but he does help me "detox" after a day trip into town for supplies we can't order on Amazon. Riding a crowded bus full of strangers is still a painfully overwhelming energetic experience that takes days to recover from.

Yes, I'm kind of screwed up and very much in the "weird" category.

But those who are part of my life love me anyway, just as I am, and they help me deal with issues one step at a time.


31 Day Blog Challenge - A Slight Deviation

So.. the list I've been working from isn't the same as the one I posted... oops! Oh Well. I suppose this means that you as my reader get a little extra inside information about me. I've never been one to actually follow directions. I kind of tend to do my own thing, as long as I end up with the same results. So... the alternate Day 3 "About my Business Name" got done, Let's tackle the one that's actually ON my list...

My favorite quote.

This rotates. Sometimes daily. What fits me today might not fit me tomorrow; c'est la vie! I think though, the most enduring favorite quote that settles in my memory on a regular basis is by Eleanor Roosevelt, "No one can make you feel inferior without your permission."



I grew up in an environment where I was constantly reminded of how far I fell short of older sisters, either in fashion, looks or grades. And all I really wanted to be was nerdy lil' ol' me. I wasn't a stellar student, but I loved to learn. I wasn't one of the pretty girls, I had unruly curls and acne. I was Hermione Granger, long before the books were conceived of. I was me.

It took me another 20 years to fully embrace that. And another 10 years to be able to say "This is who I am. Love it or leave it, I'm not changing who I am for anyone."

No one can make me feel inferior without my permission, and I'm not giving anyone permission ever again. Thank you, Eleanor Roosevelt. From one awkward, less than gorgeous (outwardly) woman to another, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your words.

Friday, May 27, 2016

31 Day Blog Challenge - The Meaning Behind my Business Name

Day 3...

I'm still here. Yup. Still working on this. Today's challenge is to explain the meaning behind my business's name, "Unlabel My Love". There is a corresponding website for my biz, that's still in development (published, and always under construction), called Living Without Labels. Similar, and in the same theme, there's a story behind the name. Isn't there always? So, as I love to tell stories, get comfy, and I'll share the story behind Unlabel My Love.

I have always been a people pleaser. You know, that needy little person who bends over backwards for the smallest bit of praise? Doing everything to please everyone around them... Being "the good kid"... Striving for the goals set for me by other people. I worked my butt off in school to get the good grades, so I could get into a good college and get a good degree to open the doors to a good career. As defined by someone else.

What did I really want? Meh.. As I'm knocking on the door to 40 years old here, I couldn't even tell you what I really wanted because I was so busy trying to make others happy. I do recall wanting to be a race jockey, but by 4th grade, I was already taller than most professional riders, and heavier by at least 20 pounds. But that wasn't what killed that dream. "Girls don't do that," I was told. So... I shifted focus a little... "I'd like to be a veterinarian when I grow up," was met with girls don't do that kind of work.

Pshaw... Really?

Fast forward 15 years, and I'm married (to the wrong person and miserable for it) with two kids. I wanted to stay home and raise them, but I was, instead, working 50, 60, 70... sometimes 80 hours a week for a paycheck I didn't have time to spend, yet we never had money. But I was "a good Christian wife" and didn't believe in divorce.

Give me another 5 years, and I managed to overcome that belief, remarried, have another beautiful daughter with my military husband, and I'm living with the label of "Army Wife"--which honestly, I never minded so much. But O.M.G.! The labels they use in the military (and I'm not just talking about the soldiers--those labels are useful and necessary to maintain discipline, order and chain of command so that things don't get uber messy and ugly!). "Oh, your husband is only a [fill in the blank, complete with condescending tone from an officer's wife]?" Wait.. since when did my husband's position define me as a person? Hmm...

Another 2 or 3 years down the road, and our little one has started school. I've developed several debilitation medical problems that all fit hand in hand with each other, and I'm dealing with disability paperwork, medical appointments, drugs of all kinds, pain like you wouldn't believe (or maybe you would?), and my daughter is showing signs of her own problems. Like ADHD, autism, and a speech disorder. She's having trouble with learning to read, and I'm fighting tears with every lesson, because she's just not getting it. I'm overwhelmed because I want her to enjoy school, to love reading, and to savor learning (a tall order for any 5 year old, I know... but what can I say?), and I'm on the phone, crying my heart out to her teacher that I just don't know how to make this work.

You know, the teacher we had for our daughter's kindergarten and first grade years should be nominated for sainthood. She stood by our daughter, advocating for her long after we were no longer in her class, advising me as mother and "learning coach" (the online public school title for a parent who does all the teaching, but doesn't have teaching credentials, so the school gets all the credit for the student's actual learning). This woman was a phenomenal force in our daughter's early education, and her best advice to me was this:
Sometimes, you have to throw away the manuals, and do what's best for your child. If she's not learning it the way they want you to teach it, find a new way to teach it. The end result is really what matters the most--that she knows you love and accept her as she is, and that she grasps the material and how to learn even more from what she already knows. Take away the labels and the stereotypes, and let her be herself, let her learn in her own way, and you'll all be happier for it.
"Take away the labels and the stereotypes..."

 We did.. we did just that. We did get her into speech therapy and get an "official" diagnosis of ADHD so that the school would allow us to let our daughter learn the way she learns best (sometimes, she moves really fast through information that she gets, sometimes, it takes her a while to get a concept if she's resisting it and the school just wasn't going to allow that without "a medical reason"). They slapped her in special education classes, even though she's extremely bright (she developed a love of Shakespeare in 3rd grade). And it took some really extreme measures to get her special ed teacher to stop treating her like an imbecile (test scores are everything, and my daughter tests low on standardized tests for reasons I won't go into here). Those measures earned her the label of "twice exceptional," which really just meant that they expected even more from her in areas outside of school, adding pressure, and they didn't take me seriously when I said that this kid learns at her own pace. She might fall behind for a month while she fights to understand a new concept in math, but then she'll make it up in the next two months, and be 5 months ahead of her peers. The labels that the school slapped on her restricted her (and us as her parents) so much that we finally said to heck with it all, got our certifications and decided to homeschool her completely. (The best choice we ever made, by the way, though it's been a difficult road of it's own.)

Around 3rd grade, the school started pushing us to pursue getting our daughter tested for high functioning Autism spectrum disorders. I started that process. And then, when we got to the point of calling to schedule that appointment, my daughter looked at me and asked "So, if they decide I have this, what other labels am I going to be stuck with?"

There are moments in a mother's life, that change everything. 

This was one of those moments. Getting this diagnosis wasn't going to change anything for her. We were already planning on pulling her out of public school, and this label wasn't going to change how we parented, or how we saw her or handled her education. What's more, I had researched this thing, and talked to several parents who had children diagnosed with this. I'd talked to teachers about it, And I was dealing with a couple people in my life at the time who used ASD as an excuse for some really poor behavior (perhaps this is ignorant of me, but if you know that you abuse people because of a medical or mental disorder, it's time to get some professional help. It's never okay to use or abuse others and excuse it with "I have [fill in the blank], so you have to put up with it."). I excused myself from the abusive situations, moved on with my life, and after careful discussion with my husband, we opted not to move forward with having her tested for ASD.

The bottom line, was that our daughter simply didn't need another label on her life. She is who she is. Period. And that's how we want her to see herself, and how we want to see her. That time in our lives led me to really start looking at my own life, and my own beliefs. I found that there were dozens of times every day that I would label others and myself. I was hiding behind my own labels, and using labels others had stuck on me as an excuse for not following my own passions and taking care of my own needs.

Long story short (I know, too late, right?), Unlabel My Love and Living Without Labels are the brain children of a woman who has spent the last few years peeling stickers off of her energetic life, trying to find peace within a space where stereotypes and labels aren't welcome, where people are free to be who they are without restriction, and where my dreams, and the dreams of others can take flight in a peaceful place filled with love and nurturing for spirit and soul.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

31 Day Blogger Challenge - 20 Facts About Me

On with the 31 Day Blogger Challenge! Today, 20 facts about me...


  1. I'll be 40 soon. 
  2. This makes me a Fire Dragon in the Chinese Zodiac. I'm not entirely sure it fits, but it is what it is!
  3. I'm also a Gemini, which makes planning anything tons of fun as I go shooting off in a million directions at once.
  4. I'm the mother of 3 wonderful children and step-mom to another His, mine and ours is about the size of it. And they range in ages from 20 to 11. The youngest lives at home with us (the others all live with our ex-spouses).
  5. We jointly homeschool our youngest. She's brilliant, high energy and creative. It keeps me on my toes.
  6. I love to write. (I guess this is a given, provided I have a blog, but I suppose that doesn't always mean anything). Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, spreadsheets... it doesn't really matter, I guess. as long as I'm stringing words together.
  7. One of the few things I love more than writing is reading. I'll read just about anything, Romance, non-fiction, teen fiction, chick lit.. If there's a half-decent story line to it, I'll read it. If it's not utter gibberish in terms of non-fiction, I'll plow through it. 
  8. I love to cook. Throwing ingredients together to create something tasty is a personal point of pride for me. Presently, I have home made split pea soup on the stove with some leftover ham that I froze a month or two ago.
  9. I love my husband. He's my high school sweetheart. And yes, we did the big stupid and still married other people. Long story short, we're together now, and despite problems in our past, we're stronger than ever.
  10. I have held several jobs in my life, from nursing assistant to accounting clerk to legal secretary. My favorite job by far, though, is Mom.
  11. I am a proud US Army Veteran's wife. He's former Army, and very proud of it.. and I'm proud of him for all he's come through.
  12. I absolutely believe in the power of animals to help heal humans. I have a faithful dog that's been there for me through a lot of crap in my life the last 5 years, and he's stepped up to meet me every step of the way. He was introduced in my old blog, and he's a whole other story in my life. But I wouldn't be able to be who I am today without him.
  13. I love the colors blue, purple and silver. 
  14. I love crystals and rocks. Always have. Can't see that changing anytime soon.
  15. I have fibromyalgia and chronic migraines. Pain is part of my daily existence. It's become a driving force in my life. Shortly after my diagnosis, I met woman after woman with FMS, and we all had similar stories. Those stories drove me on a bit of a spiritual quest. More on that in another post.
  16. I love talking to like-minded women (and men!). Especially about energy healing, all things spiritual and about kids and school.
  17. I love all things Scottish. Irish, too, but especially Scottish. I'd love to spend a year in the Highlands, but that's another post (teaser!)
  18. Chocolate is not my favorite treat. I'm partial to those things that are gummy, like peachies, gummy worms and orange slices (Jelly Babies are an especially great treat, as they're hard to find this side of "the pond).
  19. I live a mile from the ocean, and I love it. Though my heart is in the mountains...
  20. I hate endings. And this is the end of this blog post (but not the end of the story!). Stay tuned for more fun in the coming days. 
If you missed the first post in this series, no worries. You can zoom right back to it by clicking here!

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

31 Day Blogger Challenge, Intro

If you've been following my posts lately, you know I reached a crisis point a few weeks ago, and had to step back and both rest and evaluate where I'm going with several things I've got "on my plate" right now.

For those that aren't "in the know," I am studying Reiki with the lovely Elle North at Drawing Within, in tandem with her Wisdom Within School of Intuition. On May 2, I received my first Reiki attunement, and I've been kind of in a chaotic-buzz-dreamy-lost-slightly overwhelmed place since. I've also been doing physical therapy for my heels, trying to wrap up a challenging month of courses for myself and wrapping up year end records, lessons and assessments for our 5th grade homeschooler.

To say that life has been slightly crazy for me in the month of May would be a delicious understatement. However... I'm back, still putting a few things back in order regarding the blog and my business, but, I found this blog challenge while puttering around Pinterest one day, and thought this might make a fabulous way to come back to blogging. It gives me a chance to get back to writing while things are still slightly fuzzy, and it gives you the chance to learn a bit more about me!

So... for 31 days (if I'm really good, and don't get crazy busy again), you'll get to learn little things about me (to see the challenge, check out Veggiewitch by clicking here). Today, the assignment is easy, introduce the challenge, myself, and give you a recent photo of me.



Friday, May 6, 2016

For My Soul's Sake... Taking a Short Break

Be really, really, really careful what you ask the Universe for. You might just get it!

There is this place... where your soul just breaks, and begs for you to stop and think for a bit...

I'm there now. In this moment. Utterly overwhelmed. So I'm taking a little break from the blog to gather myself, my thoughts, my soul, back into a single track and figure out what the next step ought to be.

Something deep inside me broke open last autumn, about 8 or 9 months ago, I guess. I sank into this depression, chronic health issues flared up and left me pretty much bed-bound, exhausted by doing the most basic of tasks; even eating became an absolute chore. And one day, laying in bed, listening to the hum of life in my home going on without me, I realized that I was soul-sick. What was happening in my body was a mirror of what was happening in my heart and soul. I was exhausted from doing nothing with my soul's purpose.

I didn't even know what my soul's purpose was.

It took me a week to find the courage to ask my husband for some regularly scheduled alone time. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do with those couple hours, twice a month, but I knew I needed to develop something that nourished my heart and soul.

It took me another 6 weeks to figure out what my heart and soul needed, and I came to the realization that I was reaching a bend in the road of my life. I realized that I had a purpose in this life, though at that moment, I wasn't entirely sure what that was. And I made the commitment, out loud, to the Universe, to find and live that commitment.

Remember how we started here? Be careful what you ask for?

I asked the Universe to help me find my purpose. And I got the answer in spades! Over the next few weeks, the signposts that appeared in my life were so obvious, a blind man could have seen them. And only the truly daring would have ignored them. I followed, my energy and excitement building with every step of the way, until I reached a nearly fevered pitch...

But it wasn't exactly healthy...

My mind was going in 100 directions at once.. the ideas were flowing fast and furious, sliding into spaces that weren't meant to be filled, I think. I stopped sleeping... Food didn't interest me again... I was in a constant state of brainstorming and planning, and trying to execute 100 ideas at once.

Be careful what you wish for...

I had carefully crafted this vision of what I wanted my life to look like. What did I truly want? I outlined, wrote, recorded, and set forth my intentions, but without any real timeline for these things to happen. I was somehow under the impression that I could do it all, and do it all at one time! (You'd think that after suffering a severe burnout from stress several years ago, which destroyed my health, I'd learn--but no. I'm a bit hard-headed that way.)

I got what I asked for. All at one time...

I couldn't do it all. I can't do it all. I am still, no matter what I might tell myself, just one person, with only 24 hours in the day. I have some pretty serious priorities and commitments in my life that precede my choices back at the end of 2015, and those haven't wavered one bit. And to be honest.. all these great ideas that came flooding to me.. they just weren't sitting well in my heart. There were parts that just didn't feel like they fit in this great plan of mine.

Hello, Intuition!

Of all the things I've undertaken this year, I've started my Reiki level 1 training, and received my first attunement a few days ago. I'd set the intention to spend a few weeks taking care of myself and being extra compassionate towards myself during this period, but before the "big day" of the appointment with my teacher, I was breaking down. I couldn't focus on anything. At all. Nothing. It wasn't happening.

I couldn't write. I couldn't think. I couldn't even focus enough to read a book (oh, the horror! I can live without food, but I can't live without books!). I'd get so lost in aimless thoughts that I'd forget I had dinner sitting in front of me. I'd shut down completely.

So, dear friends.. please forgive my quietness for a few weeks.

I've come to a place where I need to regather my wayward thoughts, reset some intentions (for this blog, my business, and my life, both material and spiritual) and find my feet again, so that I can once more fly among the proverbial stars that make up the path I am meant to be on.

It is my sincere hope that in taking this break, I can better serve my readers and my clients, and help those that are meant to connect with and through me do just that.