42 Things In 42 Years!

There are soooo many super-awesome people who write awesome things that I follow :) They're about travelling, building your own business and being able to live on the beach in the Pacific, releasing, the funniness of life. Some of these are young whippersnappers! I love that, too. I get inspired by their 27 in 27 years posts...so I'm challenging myself here to make my own but to keep it short :) So I actually finish! Ha! :)

42 Things I Have Learned In 42 Years To Make Life More Succulent,
To Move Through The Suckiness Faster,
To Get To The Part Where You Drink In The Good Things Again

1. Breathe it in when it's good. Treasure those good moments, good days, good months, good years!
2. Trust that life will get good again. It will.
3. In quiet moments list in your head what you are grateful for. I do this when I'm falling asleep.
4. Be outrageous! Live wildly when you can!!
5. When someone asks you why as in "Why did you travel to 20 countries?" sassily retort: "Why not!" :)
6. When you are stuck, move 27 things. I think the fabulous Denise Linn says if you move 27 things around it shifts the energy.
7. Declutter! Why? Why not!
8. Read inspirational, positive people/websites/books/blogs.
9. Start by loving yourself. Keep loving yourself.
10. Expect nothing. (Not from yourself of course!) This is a good trick or technique to get through days you're not especially fond of, like holidays or birthdays. This way you're overjoyed at the nice things that happen.
11. Be grateful for even the smallest things. Even when life is going great for you. Especially when life is not going so great!
12. If you are feeling crabby or unloved, do ONE (small or big) thing for yourself to nurture yourself and your spirit.
13. Are you an artist? Even if you aren't, create art as often as you can. Who cares if you think you can't whatever. Just do it.
14. Look at your art. Treasure it in your heart.
15. Look at other art.
16. Be open to allowing new things in. Listen to get a sign for the next book to read. Take a moment to talk and laugh with the person waiting in line with you to check out. Lovely moments are always happening!
17. Cultivate a life you love.
18. Have courage to release the negative and the toxic. Yes, even if it's your family. At the end of the day, you are obligated to nothing (no-thing) :)
19. Allow yourself to flourish. I have loved sinking into more of who I am as I've gotten older.
20. Jump into it! Take that daring leap and go live in that foreign country.
21. It is true that your only regrets are what you haven't done - it can stay in your mind.
22. Forgive yourself easily. For everything. For your interactions with others that didn't go so well. For not leaving sooner. For not jumping in soon enough.
23. Allow.
24. Make treasure maps. Some call them vision boards. I have collected pictures and phrases over the years and kept them. Now I get notebooks that were lying around and tape everything in.
25. Surround yourself with images and phrases of what you want to bring in.
26. Say yes when it comes in! Even if you're scared! Even if you forgot how it is to live succulently!
27. Get some great shoes!
28. Walk great places in your great shoes.
29. Listen to what people around you are telling you with their words, their stories and their actions.
30. Forgive yourself for anything you see as a mistake. My thing has been forgiving my parents for not teaching me more, and my mom for not loving me unconditionally.
31. Access your beautiful interior. Do this by reading beautiful words and travelling to countries where you do not know the language so you must spend time by yourself.
32. Believe the Universe/Spirit/God/Goddess has FABULOUS things in store for you!
33. Yes, you are worth it!
34. Surround yourself with crazy, succulent, fun friends!
35. Trust that whatever journey you are on, you are meant to be on. Yes, I'm a single mom. Yes, I was with someone not so great. I feel sooo blessed to have my daughter, especially now that I'm not sure if I'll have any more beautiful children naturally :)
36. Walk away from negative nellies faster. I haven't yet mastered the art of tuning them out while having experiences with them. I bless them and then bless myself for knowing I'm greater than their fears. :)
37. If you have a dream, take one step towards it. Take another. And another. Pretty soon you biked 88 miles in one day :) Or wrote that first book (I've got 16,000 words already in mine!)
38. Expect miracles. And then be grateful for what you allow in :)
39. Treasure things/experiences/most of all people and release when its time.
40. Be grateful your life is better now than it used to be.
41. Trust your life will get fabulous again. I tend to have an "18 months of suckiness period". I know, it sounds funny. I'm grateful to have passed through another one!
42. Learn. Learn about yourself. Set big dreams. Go for whatever is in your big, beautiful heart. Always believe in yourself!

Living More In The Now

I was just lying in bed, not trying very hard to fall asleep. I started to say what I was grateful for. My mind slipped to thinking about how I'd like to start doing some leg/arm exercises daily and to do some exercise daily, too. That, of course, got me wondering how to do this when I start working again. It's easy now that my days are filled with me...but I expect to be working in some new office again very soon.

It's fun being a single mom ~ or even being a mom for that matter, isn't it! :)  I don't know about you, but I have LOTS on my plate! All these things to see if I can fit in the day when I'm motivated to do so (are you chuckling already, too? ). And those things to do to improve myself and our life. Ah, well.

No wonder my mind keeps drifting from saying gratitudes to myself just before I fall asleep. This time in wondering how I would fit in this blossoming desire to take care of myself in different ways, I drifted to how I did it when Bella and I lived in our own little studio apartment seven blocks from the ocean in Miami Beach. We would crash awake, bumble around and had to get out the door by a certain time. I had careen from 14th street all the way to 70th street or so on Collins Avenue. Now I can feel the whir of the art deco hotels and rising sun on my mind's eye.

I would drop my precious little daughter off at her pre-kindergarten daycare called Happy Kids. What a lovely name! She had mostly good experiences there! I am chuckling to myself remembering an instance where a mom came up to me as the moms lingered a few moments after picking their children up. She asked if I wanted to get her son and my daughter together to play. I was always open to meeting new people when we lived there, to bringing new experiences in.

That changed in the blink of an eye when in the next few days I was told about 'an incident' with our kids. Kids are kids, that's my belief. She was upset with my daugher, leaving all blame in our court. The teachers weren't watching the kids and just these two went in some small room and were sharing their parts with each other. They were only five years old. Rather than be mad at anyone, I immediately wondered where the teachers were when this happend. That's why I chuckle, it's just the nature of kids~not that this occured any other time :)

Lying in bed, I couldn't remember which bridge or causeway I took to allow me to get to work on time. Probably the 41st street one. It's interesting that my memory is already fading. In many ways, this is a great sign. I tend to miss the life I just came from when I move from the tropics to the tundra. Now nearing the end of what I could call a tropical tundra winter, I am enjoying myself. Enjoying much of my days. Happy to be alive and on the mend. Just plain happy to be feeling better! As I was telling people last month 'my 18 months of suckiness are over'. Thank goodness!

I see it as a good sign that life in Miami Beach is fading. Obviously this raised in the midwest girl will forever treasure those ocean sunsets. That favorite drive in the Florida Keys with the Atlantic Sea on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other is forever etched in my heart. Yet these days I strive to keep putting one happy foot in front of the other. I'm working with some writing clients and figuring out how to take 1-2 classes this summer to go back to school for a nursing degree. Yes, really. I have been thinking about it for years, since Bella was born. So that's over eight years. Time to do something. I find myself wondering out loud if she and I will be in Minnesota until she's 18 so she can go to her same great school district. I figure that's enough time to become a nurse, since that's only 10 years left...till I could live on a sailboat and sail around some of the world. Yep, that's one of my current dreams - to get rid of almost everything and live on a sailboat. Yep, I've got a lot of fabulous dreams in my heart!

Here's to hoping fabulous Y O U is having a terrific new year so far and that your dreams are starting to play out!

What Has Changed In A Year?

I've been reading some fabulous year-end reviews like Benny's. I started mine. Yes, I actually started it. And I'll finish it soon and post it.

Tomorrow is my 42nd birthday!! Wow. I'm incredibly grateful that I've had what seems like a complete infusion of living positively (again). Yay! Just before I put my daughter to bed tonight, we shouted out into the darkness of night this horrible birthday song:

Happy Birthday, ugh (big grunt!)
Happy Birthday, ugh (another big grunt)
Misery and despair
People dying everywhere
Happy Birthday, ugh.

What is sad is that for the past few years I have not at all been excited about my birthday. To me, it symbolized that I've been living a sucky life and, introspectively, what I haven't done. All that's been in my heart.

All those wonderful things I want to do are still in my heart. And I hope to do at the very least 1- 2 of them in this next year.

For whatever reason, I've had a shift inside. I've been more consciously working on releasing all these crap beliefs I'm holding inside me for how life needs to look and act and feel like. No thanks! There are so many ways that have never served me that have attached themselves to me somewhere along the way. One gift to growing older is realizing it's okay to shuck the shitty things you collected along the way. Perhaps I could rename this post Shuck the Shit. Ha! Big laughs!

It feels great to say to myself, you know it's soooo okay to believe you deserve good things and to be happy again. What an amazing concept for me. This year I am saying goodbye to feeling badly emotionally and physically. I am saying goodbye to any niggling remainders of being a victim. I honor my past. I am grateful for all these lessons I lived through. And even happier I'm on the other side of the dark space. I never do well in these dark spaces of my life. And yet when I'm in them, I know and trust they will pass. Eventually.

The reason I had Bella and I sadly sing that sadder song into the dark night is because I didn't even want it in my living space. I work hard to create a living space that's soothing and makes me feel good. (Note to self: need to work harder on that by painting my table ocean this weekend with the warm Minnesota winter!)

I am feeling great these days. I'm working in an office for now. I had a much better xmas and New Year's where I created more of what I wanted instead of having huge problems with my parents not honoring my daughter and I last year. I am so grateful I am choosing to create a better life these days, and to expect life to keep getting better and better. And it's not that things are even that fabulous, it's just my attitude is much more positive. I've been feeding it positive cereal for a while!

Am I Supposed To Let Go More?

My daughter just turned eight on October 29. Yep, she's a pumpkin. I'm always feeling blessed to have her. (Especially as the years keep going by and I haven't yet met someone new to marry and have a family with ~ so I'm workng oncreating a succulent life again!)

It used to be that I would get so emotional her birthday month. It was very traumatic for me when I had my daughter. In being reminded of her coming into this world, my world, I would remember back to the sadness of that time. That her dad chose his drugs over wonderful us.

I'm so happy it's eight years later! Eight years to heal, to make more mistakes to heal from. To start realizing I've got to live my own dreams. Many, many lessons to be blessed with.

I might not be fully healed. I've gone through other minor traumas of my spirit, my being. And that's okay. I no longer feel I have to be so conscious about pulling myself up with positiveness and actions. It's happening by itself now. Thank goodness, another blessing.

I am immensely grateful for my LOA coaching group. In our weekly calls, interactions, implementing, and processing what I'm being reminded my spirit knows, I am choosing to release a lot. To move quickly through turbulent emotional moments. I'd like to relase those, too! ;) Hemal Radia teaches us when something hurts to do things that make you feel better to allow a higher vibration.

So, alas, my daughter again received a crappy birthday present from her absentee dad. Late, too. Seeing the crap he gave her without even a card, I am reminded why I left him. I am reminded, slapped in the face to let go again. What an onion of letting go of the king of toxicity! When will I learn to release any expectataions, any hopes of him being what I want? I need to realize he's no longer in our lives for many reasons.

Part of my expectations are mine alone. They stem from childhood and adult disappointment from my own parents and family for birthdays and holiday gifts. For speaking my truth and not being acknowledged on my special days. As I keep getting older, amidst the seemingly millions of things I am working on internally, I truly am learning to let go of my expectations of others.

What I'll be pondering is how much do I fully let go and how much do I speak my truth? Do I visibly release him even more from our lives? At times like this I am strengthened by my good choices I've made for me in no longer allowing him in our lives. Or allowing him to have a strong emotional pull. He must have a bit of a pull if I am reacting so strongly, even if it only strong disappointment. What the hater or the comedienne in me would absolutely love to do is tape the package back up "return to sender". The note I would put inside would allude to me asking him to give her a gift card and to take these low quality/too small things back so he can buy a rock. I won't. Maybe in the morning, I will write it out and burn it with my other daily morning wishes to bring in.

I am strengthened by myself. By the good, strong choices I have made regarding her father. More and more of me these days is stepping into a better life and allowing that which I no longer need to fall by the wayside. And I must smilingly say I did pretty good this year on my own for her birthday presents. More than that, I am doing great building a beautiful life with the resources I do have for my daughter. Yes, my daughter. Happy birthday, shining light!

Releasing For More

I must confess I feel encumbered by my clutter. Goodness, it's not like I even have all that much, yet I still let it "box me in". My daughter and I are blessed to rent out a pretty good 1000 square foot "apartment" in my parent's basement. Yes, I pay them and yes, it's in a basement. Thank goodness we have a full kitchen (minus the extravagent counter/cabinet space) and a huge bathtub (we don't use the jacuzzi). Yes, the plan is to move out soon. I'd rather keep saving/readying myself to move back to the ocean after Bella's current school year finishes, however it may only be nearby so she can go to school here for a few more years. Gosh, who knows, we may even end up staying here for her to finish high school here.

That thought scares me. I am finding we are at the mercy of the core beliefs we develop during our growing up and our situations after that. Or lack of courage, in my case, to go out and live the life I never knew was waiting for me (aka the ocean ~ I've lived in Key West and Miami Beach). Another thing I'm learning about myself: I let the fear keep me in an unhappy place.

That is exactly why I declutter, along with advocating it. I have done it before. I love how decluttering is a not-so-simple physical thing you do yet it reaches into many parts of your life. For us, we can physically release items so we will have to pack less up and move less. I have an expansive belief that whatever I need or desire will come to me, especially the things I surround myself with for daily living. Every time I move and begin setting myself up again, what I need comes to me.

I have an underlying (perhaps core?) desire to live by the ocean again. A few years ago, I released many things I had brought back with me from leaving my abusive ex-husband. I was blessed to release everything. My then-friend Gypsy from Big Pine Key and I had an idea about going into owning a pizza delivery place together. On the heels of her husband's death and refinancing the house left to her, she bought into the pizza place herself. Meanwhile, what I manifested through big releasing at that time was the courage to find a better job within a week that paid a fabulous amount of money. So I stayed at that new job for 6 months, and then I moved. She is no longer a friend and I can see her addictions as everything she tries turns into a puddle of nothing.

What I directly observe in my life is when I release the clutter it releases fear and stuckness, and translates to gaining momentum, belief in myself, and courage. Hooray!

On a Friday about a week ago I put my Ivers & Pond baby grand piano up for sale on Craigslist. It's funny to me that I hadn't even thought to take pictures of the keys. Some great women I work with suggested this. I posted several pictures of the piano. I posted specific details about the condition of the piano, along with its serial number. And I asked on the low end of what I found in researching its value. I had one person interested late Tuesday night. Wednesday night his brother came to view it, as he was out of town on work. By Thursday night, they had put my asking price into my Paypal account. Friday afternoon it was moved out of my house by professional piano movers.

I was amazed. Long a believer, I have also begun working with law of attracting coaching within the last few months. I listen to weekly coaching calls from Hemal Radia and have an extremely enjoyable time interacting with our private facebook group about all the things we are growing through and learning from right now as we transform our lives. During this process of selling my piano, I did something different. I held faith for myself that the good things would actually happen. I am well versed at creating things but then allowing them to disappear just as quickly. I am finding it is a matter of holding faith, being calm, and all-over simply choosing to now believe in yourself during all of what is happening. It worked!

I am amazed also at the relief I felt in having the piano physically gone. Yes, it's awesome to have the extra bit of money to consciously spend and enjoy. For me, it reaches farther. When I purchased this piano, it was on a whim because I felt it was hardly any money. And then on a Monday morning about a year and a half ago I walked into my five month old job working for a female neurosurgeon and was fired. That same week I spent more money to move the new piano into my home. Now that sadness can begone. The bigger life belief for me is that I manifested what symbolized a dream (it is on a treasure map I did in 2006). It wasn't exactly what I wanted (shiny and beautiful and I loved to play it), but then again living in my parents basement both of us helping each other out hasn't been ideal either. I feel no more sadness.

I trust because that piano came into my life easily, another one that I love more will come when it is meant to. For now, other things are coming into our lives. Decluttering. Working and earning money again. Being more conscious about what I do spend my time on. ...and then there's all that I desire and am working towards. Sigh. Happy times are here!

I know you haven't heard much from me lately. I want to thank you and other helpful people in my life. Physical nearby friends these days are few, so I'm grateful to surround myself with reading fabulous minimalist blogs Joshua and Ryan, Courtney, Leo Babauta and a handful from people who are choosing to travel the world for years Wandering Earl, Ayngelina, The Mad Traveler, awesome pictures, and also ones ones focusing on living more succulently like Benny and A Big Creative Yes.

Life Is Getting Good Again!

Ah. I am so happy life is getting good again! It's not that I am even doing that much differently yet I am having a better attitude each day.

I started working again. Yes, it is only a temporary office job as an administrative assistant. It is super easy, yet the perfect thing for me to ease back into working life again. Yes, I was spoiled having a year off of working :) What a blessing. I adore the times when I have taken time off work. Time well spent on the internal and, this time, with my daughter.

The only negative thing I happily shake off is not feeling the best. I'm still dealing with sore hands and bones/muscles that ache or hurt. Honestly, I know what to do (stop drinking coca cola!) yet I haven't fully wanted to give it up. I'm managing.

I am simply so dearly grateful for my attitude changing and feeling better all around. All I needed to do was get out. To just do something. Even to do it badly. It's not that I'm doing it badly. The job I attracted to me is the perfect one for me at this time. I have spiritual practices I used to do that I see now truly helped me. You do something that's good for your body, your spirit and you don't necessarily see it at the time. That's me. With all this time I had to reflect on life, I certainly took in what worked and what I wasn't or am not currently doing.

When I get up these mornings before dashing off to my short commute to work my easy job, I am immensely helped when I do the morning pages, some leg exercises, eat some healthy oatmeal or scrambled eggs and take my vitamins. For now, I am grateful for doing these things for myself. I am grateful I am already at the point where I can manage getting off to work in the morning, being at work all day and keeping a great attitude about it, and then coming home to spend time with my lovely Bella (my daughter). We either have take out (yes, on the lazy days!) or make dinner and then have gotten into the great habit of taking puggi for a walki. :) I don't think about how bored I am where we live right now. I am grateful to get out and make myself exercise, along with the little dog. I've come to need the walking already. I love that.

I love doing good things for myself and then, in turn, needing to continue them. I have also continued to read positive things by the writers/bloggers I follow. I'm cutting down on my "television" watching and not as tied to the computer lately. I need to get back to writing. I need to, yet I am also gentle on myself. I do what I can to boost myself up so I continue getting to a space where I love life again. I know I will, I have so many times enjoyed life already. For now, I'm grateful for all the wonderful moments right now. Even if they are only moments, they are all welcome.

I Realized Lately...

I'm not making any excuses for who I am today...I am a work in progress and live the life I'm living right now in gratitude. YET I adored the succulent traveller and liver of life I used to be. This isn't about getting into what might or might not have happened to walk me down this path or how I've slowly been picking myself up (...happily!!).

I am amazed! I have been following with my succulence appetite a few blogs, getting to know the writers through their truth in words and photographs. People such as Joel Runyon. Through him, through my now being on twitter, through the magical powers of the universe, I have found many kindreds. Sure, some of them are in their 20s. Who cares! I did that stuff in my 20s and am excited to do more things in my 40s!

It helped me to remember something. I remembered who I was. I was myself and I went out and lived, not necessarily listening to all the naysayers in the world. Family of origin, those who are scared they'll combust instantaneously unless they stick to their rigid paths. Wow! I can hardly believe I've careened back into living a bit of this way, of allowing these beliefs to invade my happiness, my being.

I read about people who give up what I call day jobs to pursue a heart-filled life of travel. The unknown. I have told people since running far away from my abusive ex and into the unknown (I'm still there!) I prefer to travel in a foreign country where I don't even know the language, where I can decide to go to Belfast for a few days because there's a cease-fire, show up at the bus station in Dublin and wait around until it comes. Armed only with my pen, journals and books. And a knack for talking to the world. I get giddy thinking about all the travelling experiences I was blessed to live. Give me the unknowns of all you experience during travels and I'll take it!

A part of my heart connects with these people who seek also to travel for the sheer love of it. People would always ask me why I was going to Europe or Belize or Negril. Why not? Perhaps that will be my new motto in life - why not?

We all have to keep each other motivated, alive, a little more juicy in this game of life! There's another adventure just around the corner!