Why This Quirky Woman Blogs - Blog Challenge Day 31

It's finally here. The finish. Grand Finale. Le Fin.

Why I blog and a quirk I have.

The author David Eddings once said that if you're a writer, you will write, whether you want to or not.

I spent years fighting it. After all, writers seldom make money, and the image of a starving artist wasn't really in my life plans.

I've done a lot of different jobs in my life. Few of them really sparked my interest, even if they felt good for a little while. What I found, though, was that very often, I would loose myself in a story that I was making up in my head to occupy my short-attention-span creative brain.

This is boring, let's make up a story to make it more interesting...

The less creative my job allowed me to be the more... well... bitchy I got. It's harsh, but it's true. Much like a grumpy old female wolf, I'd snap at anyone and everyone. I chose jobs that had a lot of stress, because then, I could justify how miserable I felt using a mask of "I'm stressed out because I had a crappy day at work, leave me alone."

It doesn't work well.

Okay, so maybe millions of people around the world are making it work for them. It didn't work for me.

I got sick, I was tired. I spent years feeling like I'd been plowed under by a bulldozer.

And finally, I realized that I felt better when I was making up stories in my head. Not necessarily stories about my life, but fictions, with characters that lived in my head.

Why not put them on paper?

I am now, telling those stories, crafting tales that have lived in my head for a long time. I'm stretching my wings and learning to be a novelist.

In the meantime, I blog. It gives me an extra outlet, a chance to practice my craft. I suppose that this is also my quirk: I'm a story teller and a weaver of words. I answer questions in stories and carefully mold characters to reflect aspects of life as I see it.

I started this blog with most of an idea of what I wanted to write and create as a business in my head. That has evolved, and I'm not sure how often I'll come back to this one. I've got ideas in my head, but my focus has changed as I've found my feet in this world.

I am a writer. Writers write. And while, on one hand, it's difficult to let go of what I started, I'm finding that it's okay to let it go.

I have drafted the first of a 3 book series. I am planning another novel entirely for National Novel Writing Month. I am fostering my need to be creative, and planning the launch of my creatives business next month (Sage Wolfsong Creations), for which the blog is already running. Sage Wolfsong is all about being creative, being a writer, and the things that come from my heart and into a physical form.

As a family, we've started a concerted effort toward building our used bookstore, Once Written Thrice Read, and the blog for that business is up and running. There, I blog about the books we post for sale in Amazon, reviews of books, some of our daughter's writing, and a little more about living the life of a writer.

Funny side effect of writing my first book: My confidence has soared as a result of finishing that first draft. Aowynn and Teo (the main characters) have become my friends and a part of our family. My actual family has caught the spark, as hubby and daughter are both lovers of the written word, and they have both begun writing their own books. Apparently, we just needed someone to take one for the team, sweat it out, and get the ball rolling. Never really thought of myself as a trailblazer--I've always preferred someone else lead, to be honest. Yet here I am, setting an example by not worrying about what they're doing, and giving myself the time and space to write, and great things are happening.

Today marks the end of a 31 day voyage that took me 3 months to complete. You know more about me than I probably ever dreamed I'd share with strangers. I've learned more about me than I ever imagined I'd find over the course of a summer. I had a summer romance with myself, I suppose. It's over, and yet, it's only beginning.

I hope you enjoyed this series. If you want to go back and read the posts from the beginning, you can start here, at the Intro. If you're a blogger, or just getting started, and need some material that's a little more personal and offbeat, by all means, feel free to use it. I just ask that you credit your sources, and be kind. Then hop over to my Facebook page and let us know, so that we can all follow you, too!

Makeup Bags and Comfort Food - Blog Challenge Day 30

Ha! We're almost there, and this one's an easy one, if not quick.

The contents of my makeup bag, you say? I keep it simple. Leave in hair conditioner, a wide toothed comb for my curly hair, blush, two palettes of eye shadow (both browns, one sparkly for the rare evening out), lipstick in a nude color and one in a bright red, tweezers, toothbrush, toothpaste, flossers, a hair scrunchy (yes, they went out of style a decade ago; they are still the only hair ties I can use without ripping out my hair), and a bottle of bright blue nail polish. Pretty cool, huh?

So, what is my comfort food?

Cheese.

Anything cheesy does it for me when I'm really down.

Cheesy garlic bread straight out of the oven. Cheesy roasted cauliflower. Cheesy tuna casserole. Cheese biscuits. If it's ooey gooey, hot and melty, it's making me feel better just thinking about it.

And that just sounds.. cheesy. Okay, okay. Yes, bad joke. It's been one of those days, I'm afraid.

Want to read all the posts in the series so far? You can hop over to the Intro to start from the beginning. If you're enjoying this series, please feel free to use it on your own blog. I just ask that you blog ethically and cite your sources, and maybe hop over to my Facebookpage and let me know, so that we can all follow along! Have a great day, everyone!

The Last Time I Cried & What I'm Looking Forward To - Day 28

Whoa... two topics that I either haven't written about, or that I can stand to write about again. How about that? Totally unexpected for this late in the series, but these two are intertwined for me at the moment, so here goes: 

I cried last night. 

Not a little, either. Last night, really hit me hard. I killed someone. Two people, actually, and it broke my heart to do it, even though I knew it was coming. 

Well, now that I have your attention, I suppose I should probably explain myself a little better. These two people? They only exist in my computer. They are, well were, characters in a book I'm writing. One was expected, she was old, and needed to die to make room for the things that push my protagonist to move forward toward her destiny. I expected her to die. I planned for her to die. And yet, it totally caught me off guard how deeply affected I was by her death. The second character that died was nameless, faceless, and she may get revived in the revision of the story. I wasn't happy with how that scene came out in the drafting, so who knows. That's the beauty of being a writer: You can make those changes. Usually. 

I've been trying to honor my commitment to writing for 1 hour a day. Every day.

I'm doing the NaNoWriMo challenge in November, and since I have two solid story ideas, I figured I'd use one to get into the habit of writing, and start finding what does and what does not work for me when it comes to writing. I'm reverse engineering this particular story; rather than developing the characters and setting and all that before drafting, I'm drafting the story, and going back and making notes about my main characters as I go. It's not easy work doing it this way, but I only have about 6 weeks left to get this drafted before my focus fully gets turned to the book I am writing for NaNo. That book is getting done in the "proper" way: I'm developing characters and settings and plots and archetypes before writing. 

Now, there's really no wrong way to write a book, I'm told, other than to not write the book that's in your head. Give yourself permission to write badly, just to get the idea down on paper. You can always go back and edit later. And you won't have anything to edit if you don't write in the first place.

So, this idea of writing badly, led to my tears last night. 

I spent 1 hour writing, probably looking a bit like a mad woman, pounding away at my keys, moving music into playlists as I went (I like to write to music, so I'm building playlists for the writing of both these books), and knocked out about 2,000 words in that 60 minutes. I have my work single spaced, so that comes out roughly to 5 pages of text. I think, just based on how I felt after writing it, that about half of that will get cut in the revision process. But I wrote. I honored my need to write, and did it.

Nothing sucks for a new writer nearly as much as spending an hour writing crap and killing off a loved character all in one night. I had to cry. I needed to purge the crappy feeling. I cried on my writing buddy's shoulder and gave myself permission to let it go. Tonight, I'll write again, and keep my protagonist moving towards her destiny. I'll work on my characters for the NaNo Book, and start shifting my focus just a bit towards their story.

Which brings me to what I'm looking forward to.

I'm looking forward to NaNo. I'm looking forward to write-ins with my buddy at her place in SecondLife. I'm looking forward to holding a finished manuscript in my hands; a story that I pulled out of my head and gave life to on paper.

That said, I'm also a little scared of it. My writing buddy and mentor, Allie McCormack, has encouraged me to submit my NaNo book for a competition that takes place in the months immediately after NaNo, which means getting that book revised, edited and ready for public consumption in just under 5 weeks (throw Christmas holidays in there, too, just for kicks and giggles). 

Her faith in me scares the hell out of me. My husband totally supports this idea. 

But Allie is right: It's motivation. If I commit to it, and pay to enter, then I have a really big reason to see it through. Even if I don't win, my book has been put out there, and that's not something I've ever done.

This whole year has been full of stuff I never thought I could actually do. I never thought I could get my craft business off the ground, and here I am, setting up an online store. 

I never thought I would find a good Reiki teacher that I could afford, and yet, today, I received my Reiki First Degree certification from my Reiki master/teacher, Elle North.

I never, ever thought I would see my dream of owning a bookstore materialize, and yet... Our online shop is open and doing business, with plans coming together for a physical store-front in the next 2 years.

I started this year out with a bunch of dreams that felt like a really far reach. And yet, here I am, standing near the end of the year with so much coming together that it drives me to tears sometimes. 

I don't think we would ever have been given the gift of dreaming, if our dreams were out of reach. So dream big, darling. Dream Big.

Oh, and if you are curious about this NaNoWriMo thing, check it out. If you're brave enough to write 50,000 words in a month, sign up, and grab me as your first writing buddy (JennBradshaw is my user name). If you're curious, but not sure you're ready this year, join me on my Sage Wolfsong Creations Facebook page, and let me know you want to be my cheerleader. I'd love to have you! If you happen to be in SecondLife, look up our NaNoWriMo Obsession group, and join us for write-ins, sharing, feedback and mutual cheering on. 

If you're enjoying this series, please hop over to Facebook and let me know! Or, you know, you could just drop a comment below. If you've missed any posts, you can skip back to the Intro and read from there.

Are you a blogger that's flailing for content and need a little break from your normal topics? Or perhaps you're just getting started, and would like to populate your blog with some great posts that help readers get to know you? Feel free to snag this challenge and run with it. Just... do so ethically, please. Cite your sources, And then, pop over to that Facebook page and let us all know you're doing the challenge so we can follow you, too!

Fav Childhood Book and Difficult Times in my Life - Day 24

Okay, I gotta admit. Duplicates annoy me most of the time, but when it means catching up on a project that I wanted to finish 2 months ago, I can deal with them.

Day 24 is supposed to be my favorite childhood book and a difficult time in my life. They're already done, so I'll just leave links here for you to go read that which attracts you the most.











 Muah. Love ya, darling readers. Until next time!

Challenge Day 23: Dream Job and Pet Peeves

So.. when working from two different lists, I end up with duplicates, and Day 23 is one of those, so I'll link up the previous posts that address these two topics: My Dream Job and Pet Peeves.

So much fun! Until next time!

Something I Miss - Day 21

As we head into the home stretch, we'll probably have more of these duplicates. Today, we have "something I miss" and my 10 favorite foots, which I covered way back here on day 7.

Ever notice how freaking fast life zips by us? We get so hung up on the daily grind: get up, get dressed, put on your makeup, slam down breakfast and run out the door, grind out 8 hours (or more) at a J.O.B., fight traffic getting home, hurry through dinner, rush the kids to activities, zone out for an hour or two in front of the t.v. and then crash, hard, in bed (if you're lucky to have made it that far).

If you're lucky, you'll do this routine, with a few vacations, day after day after day for 40 or 50 years. Finally retiring to enjoy "the good life" with your spouse, kids, friends, grandkids... If you're one of the lucky ones. If not, you'll crash like an old workhorse that dies in his traces, dropping like a stone, spending the last few moments of your life thinking about all the things you still wanted to do but never got around to.

Or, you're one of the many, like me, who worked hard for 15 or 20 years, only to slowly degrade over a short period of time, your health something you're constantly reaching for, and finding more and more, every day, that it's further out of reach. Your blood pressure goes up, you get sick easily, you can't think anymore for the constant, horrible pain you're in every. passing. minute.

And then, you have to walk away from everything you've known, and kiss your financial security and work-life goodbye. You find yourself cut off from the world, barely making ends meet (if you're lucky and have some reserves) while you scramble through the exhausting process of getting help.

You start looking at those posts on social media about people on disability and state assistance in a different light. You are no longer on the bandwagon that lumps everyone into the "lazy" category for being out of work. You're not lazy, after all. You're just trying to survive and deal with the constant pain and fatigue that your life is now enveloped in. You just want to know that you'll have enough to cover rent and some food for your kid.

You're not taking vacations anymore-there's no money for getting away, and even if you could afford it, you don't have a job to get away from anymore, and there is no getting away from the constant pain and fatigue you live with.

You realize that your entire life has been redefined. No longer do you define yourself by your job skills, or the excellence with which you execute your job duties. No longer is your worth defined by your annual salary or your tax bracket. Now, your life is defined by the moments you can get past the pain just long enough to enjoy your daughter's kindergarten drawings and listen to the song she's made up for her writing assignment. You count time in doses of medication and how many days you have to feel up to going out to get your refills.

You don't worry about make up anymore, because you now spend an hour trying to get ready, and look "normal" enough to go to the post office. You've learned to mask the intense pain your life is soaked in now. "How are you doing today?" is no longer a blithely answered question; do I tell the truth, or pretend? And if I pretend long enough, will I have to explain to this person at some point that I really am not okay? You've learned, on a deep, personal level, what "invisible illnesses" really are.

And then, one day, you start dreaming again. You start looking at life through the lens of what you've lost, and what you wish you still had. Life has taken on a whole new meaning for you, and you see what you would be missing now, had you never lost all that other stuff. But on some other level, you miss the normality, the consistency of that old life.

There are days I really miss knowing what day of the week it is based on what's going on at work. I miss showing up, making the coffee, going through my day, planning for the weekend. I miss the regular paycheck that came more than once a month, and having money to put in savings and being able to buy clothes when we need them instead of having to plan 3 months in advance to buy a single pair of shoes.

I miss the security of having a job and the health to maintain that job. I came to grips with that last year, and decided that it was time to start slowly working towards some resolution to that situation. We homeschool our daughter, and that's helped somewhat with the regular routine that a job used to provide, but that doesn't pay the bills and allow for savings.

We've made a lot of progress toward some of our financial goals this year, but there's a long way to go yet. I might miss my old life at times, but then... I turn around, and look at what I do have instead of that, and I'm filled with overwhelming gratitude that I have all this other stuff in it's place.

How about you? What do you miss? Jump in the comments below and share, or hop over to the Facebook page to share. If you're a blogger, or thinking of starting a blog and want some fun topics to help you get going, feel free to use this challenge for yourself. I ask just two things if you do. First, use this material ethically - cite your sources, and share credit where credit is due. Second, let me know you're doing this challenge, too, so we can all share in your journey!

Enjoying this series? If you'd like to read this series from the beginning, hop over here to the Intro.

Until the next time, Live Large, Lovelies! Muah xoxoxo

Blog Challenge Day 20 - Where I want to be in 10 years & A Difficult Time in my Life.

We'll be two-thirds of the way through this challenge by the end of this post, so hang on, folks. This might be a little long'ish (blame my inner story-teller, okay?). Looking forward and backward today as I talk about where I want to be in 10 years and a difficult time in my life.

Let's talk tough, shall we (and save the feel-goods for the end)...

"Be kind - everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." (Ian McLaren) While your life may have been easier or more difficult than mine, the question relates specifically to a difficult time [for me] in my life, so I ask for a little space for this, dear reader.

My life hasn't been easy, for starters, but I could spend an entire book on that. Narrowing it down to a single, difficult time, is not easy, but I would pinpoint a few years ago, a trip to the hospital, and a serious health scare as the most difficult.

See, I get migraines. Not just a headache, but blinding, mind-bending, personality altering migraines. If you've never had one, well... Think of having a cold, the worst flu ever, a sinus infection and having your wisdom teeth pulled without anesthetic, all at the same time. Thinking hurts. Light hurts. Hearing your kids laugh... hurts.  Without medication to manage them, I get migraines daily.

Every. Single. Day. 

Most migraine medicines knock you out. Yes, there are a few out there that don't, but there are serious health risks (like serious fatigue and death) to taking those every single day. So, I'm on a medication to control them, and it works pretty well. I now get only 2 or 3 a month, versus 28-30 a month.

The first management medication I was on worked GREAT! For about 2 years. But because of that period when I was taking the short-acting migraine pills 3 or 4 times a day, every day, I would have these little periods of time where I'd just zone out. Poof. I'd be talking, and would just stop. Wasn't responding, couldn't move. My doc decided that these appeared to be a form of seizure, and since my migraine control med was also an anti-seizure medicine, she upped my dose very, very slightly while we waited for my neurology referral to go through and for my appointment to come up. 

The seizures got worse. 

My lovely little dog, Freedom, who had already taught himself to alert to my fibromyalgia flare ups and anxiety attacks, started learning to notice the seizures, and my doctor got more worried. I was still taking a much, much lower dose than even the lowest dose for seizures (the dose for migraines is a fraction of the dose for seizures), so she upped me to a slightly higher dose, and put in a call to the neurologist to get me seen sooner. 

The seizures got even worse.

I was no longer just freezing up. I was trembling. I couldn't talk after the episodes. They were getting substantially longer. But I was still a week away from my appointment. So, up went the dose to the minimum therapeutic dose for seizures. 

They got even worse.

The night before my neuro appointment, I ended up in the ER by ambulance. My seizures were happening every hour, and I was out for 10-15 minutes at a time. Since I was going to the neuro the next day for testing, the ER discharged me without doing any further tests, and I went home with my mom, instead of going home with my husband. At this point, hubby decided it was time to surrender me to someone with some actual medical training until we figured out what was going on. I'd lost about 10 pounds in this last week before my appointment, just from not being able to get through a meal, and from the severe shaking during each episode.

I never made it to my neuro appointment...

The entire trip into the city for my appointment is totally lost to me. I apparently spent most of the trip going from one seizure to another, and we ended up in the ER, then admitted from there for emergency tests. To this day, I can't remember exactly how many days I spent in the hospital, hooked up to machines measuring my brain activity. 

As out of it as I was, I still hadn't hit the bottom.

I had spent some of the weeks leading up to all this, discussing plans with my mom. We didn't know what was going on, and even though I'd been dealing with these migraines for almost 3 years, no one had bothered doing an MRI (mind you, every doc I saw wanted to know if one had been done), so there were still a lot of possibilities out there. When I say we were discussing plans, I'm talking things like burial and my youngest daughter's education, dealing with my ex and talking to my older kids; all that fun stuff that goes along with the "what if's". Hubby wouldn't go there with me, and I needed to make sure these things were worked out with someone.

And then, I hit bottom...

I'm guessing I'd been in the hospital for about a day and a half when I hit the scariest moment of my life (considering that I've had cancer biopsies twice and this scared me more.. that's saying something). 

My sister had come to visit with her little ones, as she was in the city for something else. My hubby was there with me, as was Mom. I'm pretty sure that Mom never left my bedside the whole time I was there, and I'm pretty sure she never even left to use the restroom (credit 40 years of practice as an RN). Hubby went home nightly, and he was looking pretty haggard, even though he pretended he was okay. Thankfully, our daughter was not there at this moment in my life. 

I woke up from a particularly nasty episode, and was clueless about where I was, when it was, and was truly confused about the people around me. When had my mom gotten so gray? And who was the guy standing beside her? And when the hell did my little sister grow up and have kids? I was missing 20 years of my life. 

Here's where I plug my two biggest heroes: my mom and my husband. They've always been my heroes, but this was a moment when they both stepped up and rose to the occasion. Neither freaked out, just talked quietly with me to help me reorient to the time and place, and over the next few hours, we managed to piece together parts of my life that were most important.

There is absolutely nothing worse than the feeling a mom has when she can't remember her husband or kids.

After a few days of tests it was decided that I do not in fact have epilepsy. And weeks later, we ruled out anything fatal via MRI. It was determined that the seizure-like episodes I have are an extreme form of anxiety attack, and that the migraine med I had been on became toxic in my system. Both are fairly easy fixes, though almost 5 years later, I still have episodes and we get through them. Meds were changed, and maintaining a low-stress lifestyle has cut them down drastically to every few months rather than every few minutes. I still have gaps in my memory, though no particular explanation for the memory loss can be found. I figure that I've got the important stuff sifted back out of the dim recesses, and the details of years of abuse can just stay lost in the dark.

It took me months to get fully back on my feet. As in, I had to use a walker to get around, because my body had gotten so weak from those weeks of wasted energy. I'd lost almost 40 pounds to the tremors and lack of eating (those had no problem finding their way back to me, by the way). 

Again, my husband and mom totally rocked in helping me meet my own goals for walking and being able to get around on my own. I still can't drive, but that's not a huge loss to me if I have any say in the matter.

What doesn't kill me makes me stronger...

I've been on a bit of a search in the years since that time in my life. And I've found a path that works well for me, even if not everyone in my life likes it. They're free to follow their own path, and I'll stay on mine, thank you very much.

My life has led me to look forward in the moments that I look up from "now" to plan where I'm going. So...

Where do I want to be in 10 years?

In our own home, with our own book shop, and my own Reiki practice. We've come a long way since my husband was discharged from the Army in 2007, and it's not been an easy road.

But all those difficult times in our life together has led us to a place of greater compassion for those with less, and a greater understanding of those with more. We've got a plan for where we want to be, including having our own home and business. 

In 10 years, I'd like to have written and published at least a few books, and have our physical book store open and thriving. I'll have completed my Reiki master level, and would love to see that aspect of my business thriving alongside our bookstore. And we'd like to have a little bit of land up in the mountains for when we retire, someday. Though, I'm not sure that I'll ever completely retire from writing and Reiki. Some thing are a life-long calling that shouldn't be ignored.

I'm headed there. Little by little, things are falling into place. And they will continue to do so, as long as I stay on target and focused on those things in front of me, not the things behind me. 

How about you? Where do you want to be in 10 years? Have those difficult moments in your life led you to who and where you are in this moment? Feel free to hop in the comments below and share, or jump over to my Facebook page and share them there. 

Are you enjoying this series? I sure am. I'm finding that I have to think a lot deeper than I do on an average day, and it's a great way to find my writer's voice here in the blog. If you'd like to read the whole series from the beginning, click over here and check out the Intro. You can grab the list from there if you'd like to do this for your own blog, I just ask that you practice ethically and cite your sources, please. Then head over to the Facebook page and let us all know that you're doing this challenge, too, so we can follow along!

Until next time, Live Large, Lovelies!

Blog Challenge Day 18 - What's Behind my Blog Name and What am I Afraid to Do.

The problem with working with two lists, is that you start to have overlap. Today, is one of those days. I wrote about "What's Behind my Blog Name" way back on day 3, so I won't repeat myself there; however, I will give you a little teaser that I'll be starting up two new blogs in the coming weeks that flow along the lines of the business concepts that we're pursuing and that I talked about a few days ago here.

So let's talk a little about fear and what I'm afraid to do...

My husband likes to turn the word fear into a lovely little acronym:
F. False
E. Expectations
A. Appear
R. Real

I have what's called Social Anxiety Disorder, along with PTSD. There have been times that going to the grocery store for a loaf of bread has been too much for me. But Anxiety isn't the same as fear.

Anxiety, for me anyway, is more of the heart-pounding, head-swimming, brain-shutting-down, I-think-I'm-going-to-die-for-no-reason kind of experience. Anxiety doesn't have a reason to it. It just is.

Fear, I can rationalize why I feel this emotion. I can explain to you all the reasons that doing this thing is a really bad idea. Fear happens when I'm more focused on all the negative stuff that can go wrong, than I am on the positive outcome of this thing I need to do. Don't get me wrong. Fear has it's place in the world. Without fear, we wouldn't look both ways before crossing the street. We wouldn't think twice about lighting ourselves on fire, or not using a hot pad to pull the pizza out of the oven without fear. Of course.. the world might be a little less populated without fear, but we love our people, right?

So, the question on the table is, what am I afraid to do?

I think, if I come right down to it, I'm afraid of getting truly, completely healthy.

Let that one soak in for just a moment. How healthy are you, really? I am, and have been for a number of years, living with several chronic health issues. Some, I can do something about, like my weight and my cholesterol. and those things, I am attempting to resolve. My mental health issues, are something I can work around. Living in a very small town, with no car, I get lots of exercise, and can manage what little crowds we have here with very few problems. But I'm not at a point where I can do the city yet. And I'm not sure I could hold a J-O-B. Yes, I'm dependent on my disability payments, and I know that they aren't a long-term solution; which is why I'm working towards developing a business where I can flex my hours when I need to.

But to get totally healthy? I haven't been that in so long, I don't even know what it would look like or what it would feel like. Not being able to envision something like that is downright scary. And that makes it hard to see it clearly enough to manifest it, let alone be comfortable with it.

So where does that leave me? 

Do I not even try? 

Or do I take what I can envision as it comes to me, get comfortable with it and make it happen? I'll go with the latter. I can work on small things, little steps toward getting more and more healthy. Will I ever be "truly healthy?" I don't know, and I'm not going to stress over that point. Maybe at some point, I'll sit down, and look back on this post and say to myself, "Hey, I actually did do that thing I was afraid of doing! Look at me!"

What are you afraid of? What scares the bejeezus out of you? Jump in the comments below and share your feelings, or hop over to my Facebook page and share there.

Enjoying this series? Want to check it out from the very beginning? Go to the Intro to read more, and follow from there.

If you're a blogger, or thinking about starting a blog, and would like to use the 31 day challenge for yourself, go for it! I only ask that you blog ethically, and give credit to your sources, and that you hop over to my Facebook page and let me know, so that I and my readers can join you, too!

Until next time, Live Large, Lovelies!

Muah!

Blog Challenge Day 17: My Most Proud Moment and Favorite Childhood Book

Since yesterday's post was so long, today's will be a bit quicker. On the list I posted back in my Intro for this challenge, Day 17 is "My Most Proud Moment" but I've already done that one, so we'll move on to "My Favorite Childhood Book" instead of repeating.

Let's just cut to the chase here:

I've been having a love affair with books since I was really young. Like, 2 and 3  years old young. Like, before I can remember, young.

I remember reading my mom's nursing textbooks at 6.

I remember memorizing This is the House that Jack Built.

Our neighbors gave us copies of old Dick and Jane books to go with the ones my mom let me read from her childhood.

But my all-time, bestest favoritest read-it-to-me-again and again and again and again book?

The Pokey Little Puppy


There was just something about this crazy little dog that couldn't keep his nose out of trouble that fascinated me. And his mommy wouldn't let him have dessert when he wasn't very good, either. Totally empathized with his plight right there!

My copy ended up going to my little brother and sister years and years ago, but I still love his round little face and am so thrilled that this book is still in print. I'll have to add it to my collection for the grandkids we're sure to have someday (did I mention we have 6 kids between my husband and I? Pretty sure our odds of having grandkids aren't too bad).

It's been happily ever after for me and my love affair with books ever since.

Anyway... thank you for joining me on another little peek into my life. If you're enjoying the series, head over to my Facebook page and let me know, or just comment below!

If you'd like to start from the beginning, you can find the Intro here.

Are you a blogger, just starting a blog, or maybe just wanting to do something different for a while, and you'd like to use this challenge as well? Awesome-sauce! Please feel free to use this challenge for your own blog, but do so ethically. Give credit to your sources (whichever list you decide to go with.. I goofed and ended up with two lists by mistake), and then hop over to my Facebook page and let me know that you're doing this challenge, too, so we can all follow along!

Until next time; live large, lovelies!

Blog Challenge Day 16 - My Dream Job and the Top of my Bucket List

Halfway point... Day 16. Let's talk dream jobs and bucket lists...

Dream Job, you say?

In the 40 years I've lived, I've never managed to actually answer the question "What do you want to do when you grow up?" I have been a nursing assistant, a secretary, an accounting tech, a bill collector, a telemarketer, a mom, a Mary Kay and Avon sales rep and a homeschool teacher.

This past year, I've been "recreating" myself. 

The past several years have taken a toll on my body, mind and spirit, and this past year, I finally woke up to the fact that I've been trying to take care of my body and mind, but I've been utterly ignoring my Soul. And I realized, that I've never really asked my Soul what it wants. 2015 ended with a conversation something like this:

Ummm.. hi, Soul. What exactly is it you want me to be doing?

Have you ever talked to your Soul? It's not always the best at telling you what it wants. Oh for a communications class on talking to your soul! [Beware of what you ask for--you might get it!] 

I told my lovely spouse that I needed some significant change in my life. Oh... What kind of change? I dunno. Spiritual change... I've gotta do something about my spiritual life, and figure out what the heck I'm supposed to be doing with my life-life.

We agreed to a couple of things, like more time alone, moving my laptop into the bedroom so I have some quiet space to work on my inner world and meditate, and setting aside a little extra cash so I could buy better walking shoes.

And... I started working on my insides. I started meditation, and I started walking. I paid better attention to my diet and what I ate. But mostly, I asked the Universe to give me a little help down here, and help me learn to how to listen to my Soul. 

If you've never done this, I highly recommend it if you actually want to learn. If you're not totally ready and totally committed to learning, don't. Just. Don't. You will be sorry you did. 

Because when you ask the Universe to teach you something, it will rain down lessons on your head like an Arizona monsoon storm. There will be lightening, thunder, and teachers and information coming your way so thick and fast that you can't catch your breath. 

They might all be so subtle that you'll really have to look for them, but they are all around you, all the time. There's no getting away from the storm that you've unleashed.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear, right?

It did. Within a week, I had a cloudy little picture of what I was supposed to be doing, so I dug at it some more. An email came in that gave me a clear feeling of "This.. do this and do this NOW." Then another, and another. As I felt my way through these emails and offers and information, the picture came in clearer. I got a view of what I was supposed to be doing, and I committed to those parts that were clear.

And then, another email came in. Now I've committed to doing something with my life that my Soul loves, I've got this email in my box that is a schedule of FREE classes that are coming up on a week that my daughter and hubby will be out of town, and these classes are all about having and running soul-based businesses, doing what your soul wants you to do, and how to achieve, define and handle success. 

Well, duh. 

"Here's your sign."

Out of that week of classes back in February, I've made connections I'd never dreamed of. The more I ask for clarity about anything in my life, the more clarity I'm given. 

I wanted to have a business where I could use my creative talents for helping others heal. I make stuff. I read. I write. I wanted to put these skills to use to provide for my family. But I wanted the healing part of my business to be intuitive and energy based. I did research. I wrote out exactly what I wanted my life to look like in 3 years. I was still feeling my way through this. 

I should mention that I'm a Gemini, and we like to day dream... We never plan simple projects. Ever. Our projects tend to run off in a hundred different directions and we end up feeling a bit like the guy getting pulled apart by 4 or 5 horses. This was me at this point. 

I had this idea that I could do life coaching, financial coaching, crystal healing, Reiki, write books, write a blog, design my own websites, and... and... and... 

I didn't even know what the heck Reiki was. I knew that it was a kind of energy medicine used in massage therapy. And that. was. all. I. knew. But I was going to learn it, yes I was! 

Then, reality came crashing down. Reiki courses run thousands of dollars. Crystal healing courses aren't much better. We have maybe $40 a month in disposable income. This wasn't happening on my own here, folks. So, what did I do? Oh, right. I went back and asked the Universe for a little help. This is what my Soul thinks I should be doing, and I have no idea how the heck we're going to swing it, so... a little help here?

"Here's your sign."

24 hours later, another email pops into my in box from a very lovely teacher about a week of free exploration into the intuition. Well, duh. Yes, I'm there.

I struggled through that week. It felt right because I was learning how to listen to my Soul. It felt scary because it challenged a hundred beliefs I'd held all my life. It felt confusing because I wanted so much more than just a week of this.

I went to the final online class for the course. I cried through it because the ritual at the end touched me deeper than I'd ever felt anything before. And the teacher offered something that I never in a million years would have expected. She offered her intuition course at  price I could afford! On top of that, she was throwing the first level Reiki training in free. There were other things she was gifting as part of signing up, but I think at that point, I wasn't hearing anything she was saying. I was in tears, wanting to know from my husband if it was okay to commit part of our income to this. 

And there it was. I was on my way to making things happen.

I've refined a lot of the details since I wrote that first plan back in February, but my dream is becoming reality. We've started our used bookstore (online only for now, more on that later), and I've begun writing for more than just fun. The Reiki training is clicking along nicely, and by the end of next year, I should have completed my master-level training. 

Does all this seem a little too wishy washy to you? 

Would it simplify things if I just said this:

My dream job is to have my own used book shop, with a space for doing Reiki and crystal healing work and to write stories that touch women on a soul-deep level so that they, too, can recognize that little voice in side asking them to do what their Souls want them to do.

The top of my bucket list?

To have a used book shop and Reiki and crystal healing practice and write awesome stories... 

I'd also like to travel around Scotland and Ireland, dive the Great Barrier Reef and celebrate one of the solstices at a stone circle. We make our own dreams come true, right? So why not!

Live large, lovelies.

Want to read all the posts in the series so far? You can hop over to the Intro to start from the beginning. If you're enjoying this series, please feel free to use it on your own blog. I just ask that you blog ethically and cite your sources, and maybe hop over to my Facebook page and let me know, so that we can all follow along! Have a great day, everyone!

Blog Challenge Day 13 and 14 - My Favorite Quote, My First Memory, What's in my handbag and If I won the lottery

So, it seems that my lists cross over here, and I've already done both of these topics.
You can find these:  My Favorite Quote, My First Memory, What's in my Handbag, and If I Won the Lottery

Unfortunately, none of these topics change much over the course of a couple months, so I'll use today as a bit of a catch-up, two-fer-one deal for you, my lovely readers.

Hop on over here to read Day 15 (which gets both lists rolled together) or here to read the intro and catch up on my sources. I'd love to have you join me on this challenge; if you would like to, please make sure credit goes where credit is due, and let me know about it, so that we can all follow your challenge, as well!

Blog Challenge, Day 15 - My Average Day

Phew! We're almost halfway home on this journey, and today, the lists merge into one neat little topic. One list calls for "A Timeline of my Day" while the other calls for "My Average Day". I can roll these into one less confusing headline, so here we go!

.

I'm a writer, student and homeschooling mom with a few chronic health issues that can leave me sidelined for days if I'm not careful; therefore, I try to maintain a bit of a routine to keep me on my feet and not too worn out. Our day around here, looks something like this:

7 a.m. - hit the snooze on the alarm until...
7:15 - crawl out of bed, dress, wash up, put on my make up, stumble my way to the kitchen for a cup of tea
7:45 - read, sip tea, eat breakfast (currently, I'm reading "Women Who Run with the Wolves" by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.
8:30 - Get daughter up and moving, check email, social media, to do list for the day
9:00 - start school, help with foreign language, grammar, creative writing, science and math while I write and/or do my own homework
12:00 p.m. - grab something for lunch, go for a quick walk to check the mailbox and library, swing by grocery store to pick up dinner if necessary.
2:00 - Hand off daughter's schooling to hubby, do my meditation and spiritual growth time - this is my time for doing my japa mala, work on my intuition course, and any other soul-related courses I'm working on. On a rough day, this becomes my nap time, and everything else gets adjusted accordingly.
4:00 - Writing time - Knock out a few pages of writing, blog post, content creation
5:00 - Make and eat dinner
6:00 - Creative time - This is either time to continue writing, crochet while we watch TV, or go on Second Life and do some building for the store there.
8:30 - Start to wind down. Have a cup of tea, read, play computer games, generally start to shut my brain down, if I can at all help it.
10 p.m. - Bedtime - clean up, crawl into bed, listen to music and maybe read until I fall asleep.

Lather.
Rinse.
Repeat.

Right now, I've got some deviations throughout the week for medical appointments, travel, and generally getting caught up on some projects that I'm working on. Otherwise, this is pretty much how I spend my day. Fun, huh?

Up next, My Dream Job and The Top of my Bucket List. And of course, if you'd like to use this blog challenge, go for it! I just ask that you credit your sources (like any wonderfully ethical blogger would do), and then hop over to my Facebook page to let us know that you're doing this too, so we can follow you! Want to read the whole series from the beginning? Hop on over here to start with the intro and read from there.

Blog Challenge Day 12 - If I Won the Lottery & What's in my Fridge Right Now

Day 12 is upon us, and I'm buzzing still just a bit from a really amazing video call with mentors Elle North and Sora Surya No. I have my Saraswati playlist on Youtube pulsing gently in my earbuds as I loose another day of blog posting for you, my lovely reader.

Question 1: If I won the lottery...

First off, I'd be absolutely dumbfounded. I don't play the lottery at all, so this would be defying the odds in so many ways. But... In the spirit of not excluding manifestation of long-held desires, I'll over-look that nagging voice in the back of my head, and lay this out for you...

• I'd start by paying off all my debts. From years of not working, there's a nice, tidy stack of unpaid bills that I'm working my way through, in small amounts, faithfully paying what I can every month to clear this energy from my life.
• I would set aside a tenth of my winnings in an investment account. Let that portion work passively for me.
• The taxes would be paid off immediately, so that those hang over our heads as little as possible.
• My husband and I would buy our house and store front. We've joked about opening a book store here in our little town, and in the past few months, it's become more than a joke. It's become a serious intention and planning for it has begun. Steps are moving forward to make it happen.
• My hubby would get his Elio car, in a custom color that matches our business logo. He's been following the development of this little car company for months, and it's the first thing I've really seen him get serious about forming an intention around manifesting in his life. It would mean a lot of freedom for him to cut down how long he has to be away from home for his monthly appointments.
• Anything left over would get split up for the kids and put into investment accounts for their futures. 

Question 2: What's in my fridge right now? 

We're nearing the end of the month, so pickin's are a bit slim according to the snacksters in the house. Next week will see us with a full fridge again. (and I'm only including what's in the refridgerator portion of my fridge. The freezer's a mess of corn, chicken and frozen peas)

• half a gallon of milk
• 2 loaves of bread
• sunflower seed butter
• jelly
• barbecue sauce
• lemon juice
• pickles
• some questionable grapes
• margarine
• salad dressing
• bacon
• cranberry juice
• mustard
• ketchup
• mayonnaise
• Miracle Whip

Today was a quickie, wasn't it? Join me for the next installment when we get juicy with my favorite quote and my earliest memory. 

Want to read all the posts from the beginning? Jump over here to read the intro and all the blog challenge posts to date. If you'd like to use the blog challenge for yourself, hop over to my Facebook page and let me know so that we can all follow you! Happy reading. Muah! 

Blog Challenge Day 11 - 15 of my Favorite Things and My Most Proud Moment

I'm humming a piece from The Sound of Music as I write this morning. Here we go...

Let's start with 15 of my favorite things.

1. Pizza - crusty, lots of meat and gooey cheese. Perfecto.

2. My meditation time - Spending that quiet time slowly moving over my mala beads is one of the highlights of my day
3. Walking on the beach - We live a little over a mile from the Pacific Ocean, and we try to walk there at least once a week for a breather. The dog gets to run around, chase seagulls, splash in the water, the kiddo gets to do kind of the same thing (minus splashing in the water - puppy paws dry faster than human shoes and socks). And Hubby and I get to walk quietly along the shoreline and soak up all that fabulous energy from the waves and salt water.
4. Writing - I love writing. I'm a storyteller at heart, and writing is my medicine.
5. Baking - I've got a sweet tooth, and sometimes, the chemical taste of store-bought sweets just annoys me.
6. Daydreaming - Some days just beg to have me sit on the bed, close my eyes and drift off into some other space and time.
7. Being in the woods - We're blessed that we not only have ocean beach, but some gorgeous woods that are available for hiking. There is something blessedly restorative about walking among the trees and all their old, hanging Spanish moss.
8. Creating - I love crocheting, painting, writing, drawing, cooking, baking, dreaming...
9. Music - Almost always on in our house. Classical, jazz, meditation, pop, instrumental, Celtic, rap, bagpipes... Tunes are on. Or they're playing in my head. I love making playlists that I can use to set various moods. I'm working through a 40-day Saraswati course with Elle North, and one of our challenges was to create a playlist that inspired traits of this Hindu goddess of creativity, knowledge and order. I did mine on Youtube so that I could share it with the class. You can go check it out here.
10. Books - Anyone who knows me knows that there is rarely a moment when a book is out of my reach. They are a portal to the thoughts and stories of another person. Captured moments in time for anyone to pick up and savor.
11. Horses - There is something about watching a horse move across the landscape that absolutely takes my breath away. I could sit and watch them all day (oh, yeah.. I have done this! In person, and on Youtube). I used to spend hours grooming the horses in a nearby field (after getting the landowner's permission)... There is a gentle rhythm to brushing, stroking, and loving on a horse and being in their accepting presence that is a balm to the soul.
12. Wolves - Again with the beauty and grace thing. My totem animal. Keeper of my spirit. Something quiet and powerful goes through me when they call to each other.
13. Crystals - I love me 'dem sparklies! I have a box of crystals that I play with from time to time, and my favs are out on my altar space. Amethyst, selenite, quartz...
14. The library - Ours is nothing short of amazing. Free college courses, tons of books, documentaries, magazines, music, movies, tv shows... And an amazing team of librarians that knows us by name, and can make recommendations for our daughter.
15. My bed - There is nothing quite as wonderful as falling into bed and dropping off to sleep. We've got this awesome scroll work iron bed that was given to us from my mom, and the coverlet is hand crocheted by me. Somehow, that blanket can be either cool enough for the summer, or warm enough for our mild winter nights, with a little help from an extra blanket thrown over our feet. Sleep well!

These are a few of my favorite things...

There are moments in life that take your breath away, some that make you hang your head in shame, and others that make you glow with pride.

The moment I felt the most proud was...

My husband and I have been sweethearts off and on since we were in high school. Now, he's three years older than I am, so he graduated the year we met, and headed off to Army boot camp the day before my 15th birthday. I had a few years to go, but we traded letters and saw each other whenever he was home until I graduated. For those not young enough to remember a time when email wasn't everywhere, and not everyone had a computer, we hand wrote letters (my sincere apologies to my English Lit teacher in high school-I was actually practicing my grammar and syntax skills on my boyfriend in your class), pages and pages and pages of letters went back and forth between us for three years.

Things happen, as they do, and we parted ways after I graduated. Went from nearly engaged to zilch in one phone call - all because we didn't simply talk about the assumptions that each of us was holding.

Nine years went by.

Things happened.

And through a series of little synchronicities, we ended up talking, and eventually got back together. In time, we married... and that... THAT moment, when I got to say "I Do" to the love of my life, was a moment that will always hold pride-of-place for the "Most Proud" moment. It was a moment I'd been waiting for most of my life, and one I'll never regret. Very few people get a first shot at real love. We were blessed to get a second chance at it. Needless to say, we didn't screw it up this time. Yes, there have been exceedingly painful moments in the 11 years since we said our vows, but we've stuck it out, worked it out, torn down the old to make room for the new, the more stable, the stronger versions of us, and we're committed to doing so for the remainder of our lives.

Enjoying this series? Do your own blog challenge! You can grab my sources and the list of topics on my intro blog post, then let me know you're doing one, too, so I can read along and share your challenge on my Facebook page. Enjoy!

Blog Challenge Day 10 - My Best Physical Feature & My First Celebrity Crush

Day 10, almost 1/3 of the way through this.

And today, we've got my Best Physical Feature and My First Celebrity Crush.

I hate talking about me, sometimes.

I was so conditioned, growing up, not to be vain, and here I have to pick a part of me that I'm especially proud of. And I've never particularly considered myself all that attractive, so we're going deep here to show myself a little self-love.

I love my eyes.

Truly. They are usually a blue-gray, but sometimes they are darker or lighter, depending on my mood. If you watch closely, my mood is reflected in my eyes, so that I can't really pretend that I'm okay when I'm really not. (But who looks that closely anymore, right?)

As for my first celebrity crush... 

God am I ever glad that my husband is totally secure in his man-hood. I still have massive crushes on a number of celebs, but we're only going with my first here, right?

That would totally be Corey Feldman. Yes. I know that totally dates me as a child of the 80's, but so it is. I would watch anything with Corey Feldman in it (Lost Boys, anyone?). Had the posters on my wall, the whole shebang. Had it bad. And I was so glad when I "grew up" and stopped having crushes (you can stop laughing at any time now.. never mind. I'll just join you. I still have them!).

Yup. today was a quickie. If you'd like to start reading from the beginning of this challenge, check it out here. If you'd like to use this challenge on your own blog, go for it! I just ask that you practice ethically, and give credit where credit is due, and let me know, so I can get to know you, too!

31 Day Blogger Challenge - Day 9 - Worst Habits and Piercings and Tattoos

Day 9 has arrived.

I will get through this challenge if it takes the rest of my life. 

Okay. So maybe I'm being slightly dramatic here. It just feels like it's taking my whole freaking life to get through this challenge. This summer has been a roller coaster ride of ups and downs, craziness and utter fatigue, but I'm pushing on. I need to write, need to honor my need to write and create. So here I am, faithfully sitting at my keyboard, tapping out my story, my medicine and dedicating a few minutes of my day to putting my story out there into the Universe.

Today was one of those Holy-Crap-Wow kind of days, as I work my way through Elle North's Wisdom Within School of Intuition, her 40 Day Journey with Saraswati course, and the opening of the Enter the Temple with Sora Surya No. After a morning of meditation, intuition work and visualization.. I desperately needed to get out for a walk and do a little grounding before I came back to work on writing for a bit, lest I end up very woo-woo and not making any sense.

Anyway, that's where I'm at mentally this afternoon, so let's get back to this slow building of a long description of the writer of this blog. Today, we're talking piercings, ink and my worst habits. Here goes some real truth telling:

Piercings and tattoos:

This part will be short. I have no ink (though I have it on my bucket list to eventually get some tattoos, I have them designed in my mind, but haven't had money or guts to sit for the work yet). I used to have my ears pierced; the normal single piercings in my earlobes, and when I was super-brave and 20, I got a cartilage piercing in the top of my left ear. That was a doomed piercing, as it quickly got infected, swollen, and my husband had to use pliers to get hold of the pieces of the piercing stud to pull them apart so we could remove the stud. It eventually healed over, but still bothers me from time to time, 20 years later. the single holes in my ear lobes have long since healed over, as well, as I'm terrible about remembering to wear jewelry. It's not really my thing, though I love my crystal necklaces and bracelets. Earrings? Not for me.

My worst habits:

Ah yes. Let me take a moment to put my inner critic in her corner, so that I can do this without completely destroying myself with judgments.

I'm a horrible grammar nazi. I have literally stopped reading news articles that were badly written. I will put down a book and quit reading it (a chore of epic proportions for me) if the author, editor, line editor and publisher couldn't be bothered to review the work for spelling and grammar. I pick apart my own work mercilessly, and pray that when I do publish something, I've caught all the errors. Sadly, I've taught this habit of carefully constructing sentences and paragraphs to my 11 year old daughter, who will, without hesitation, correct her dad's grammar.

I also have a tendency to feel a person more than listen to them. As an empath, I can feel what others are feeling and thinking, sometimes even pick up on the emotions they themselves aren't entirely aware of (which sucks when you know that someone isn't being honest with you, and they are smiling at you as they stretch the truth further and further, or you know that they really don't want to talk to you). This has left me in a very introverted, very withdrawn place in my life, because frankly, I'm pretty good company for myself, and I'm not left wondering what I did wrong when the other half of the conversation is obviously not interested in talking. I'm working on "bubbling" myself to block some of this information, but it's not always possible, or I simply forget to do so.

And then there's my terrible carb habit. My doctor would love for me to give up all flour, rice, oatmeal, potatoes, and corn. But let's be honest here: I love my bread. Maybe a little less than I used to. And I'm slowly letting it go. I've learned that I truly don't like potatoes, except in the occasional cup of clam chowder or baked potato soup. I can't stand rice. Corn is something else I can pass on, unless it's on the cob. Corn syrup is in practically everything, though.. and it's more exhausting than I have energy for to read every label sometimes. My doctor would love for me to live on salad and veggies with chicken once in a while, but that's not me. Not who I am. And I know. I've tried. Good grief, how I tried to eat that way. I felt really great for a while. But after a couple of months, I couldn't handle the cravings, and had zero energy. That was weird. I was eating about as healthy and ideal as you could ask for, and I felt like crap. So... I've let go. I've put some weight back on, but I love cooking and eating again. I make oatmeal cookies sometimes (I'll be making cookies with my daughter after I make dinner tonight), I have bread less and less often. I love having fruit smoothies in the mornings. And I have small salads. I have to be careful with the salad, as I'm on medicine for blood clots, and that doesn't play well with the leafy greens I love. I take my eating one day at a time, and feed my body what it needs and wants, when it needs and wants.


Bonus:

Because this has turned into a bit of a downer post, let me throw in something less negative for you:

I love to tell stories. I'm a storyteller. Perhaps that is my Swedish, Irish, Scottish heritage breaking through. But story is healing for me. Telling them, weaving them, creating them, hearing them, reading them... They are a link to other realms, other realities, the mind and thoughts of another human being or culture.

I'm working my way into a devotional practice of writing down the stories that live in my head. I love these characters, these stories that exist within me. And I think that they love me back. You might think that's odd, but I believe this: writers birth the stories and characters that come to them. They may be fictional, but they are still living, breathing, sentient beings. Ask any writer. Most will tell you that at some point in their writing career, at least one character has done something that surprised the writer; made a choice, performed some act, said something that the author never saw coming, didn't plan for.

Story is living, breathing, sentient.

It finds the creator that it needs to bring it into the world, like a cosmic mid-wife, and then wends its way through the world to find the listener or reader that it needs to speak to, in order to birth some other idea or creation.

And this is where I am at. Who I am. I am that cosmic midwife for the stories that have found me, and ask me to bring them into the world. What the Universe decides to do with the stories after they leave my hands is beyond my control. My job is simply to bring them into being.

Enjoying this series? Head over here to check out the whole list of posts. Feel free to grab the list and run away with it for your own blog challenge (just please be ethical, and cite where you found it!), then let me know you're doing it, so we can all enjoy learning about you, too.