Do you believe in omens? I always try to see the messages in the world that come to me which is why I love this Animal Spirit Guides book by Steven Farmer.
Anytime I see an animal or dream of an animal, I look it up in this book to see what it means. Kind of like a dream dictionary but for animals.
For weeks I watched as these baby robins outside my window. I got to see their parents feed them, I watched them grow and I got to see them hop around the yard while they were learning to fly.
It was a pretty amazing experience. Because I had been lucky enough to witness this I figured it must mean something.
I checked my Spirit Animal Guides book and sure enough it had an important message that meant something to me. Among other meanings, it said I have a beautiful song inside me, do whatever it takes to share it. Expect new growth, be patient and watch how my dreams come true.
I’m sure this could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but to me it means keep writing and keep creating. My time of more success is coming.
I walked through the tomato garden with my Poppy after the fresh rain. The smell of wet earth hung in the air. Bright green vines hung from the plants. My shoes sunk in the moist soil with each step. We walked together as he spoke to me about the tomatoes. I plucked one from the vine and bit into it’s juicy red skin enjoying it’s sweet flavor. Mrs. Pine’s German Shepherd was nearby. My Poppy was house sitting for Mrs. Pine while she way away. He always took me on adventure’s there. Her house was like a castle, filled with rooms to explore.
Inside, it was like a scene out of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. As I explored each room, I expected to find the magic wardrobe, but never did. The house library was magical though. My Poppy used to read there. Books of every kind lined the walls. A latter extended up one wall so that you could reach. It smelled like book paper, bindings and old cigarettes. A huge desk sat in the middle of the room. It was full of papers, books and trinkets. Poppy sat in the chair and read as I continued to explore.
I often wondered what he read that kept him so interested. I longed to write stories that kept people’s attention the way books kept his. We spent a lot of time together reading, playing board games and exploring the public library. It was his love of books that inspired me to write. Writing reminds me of his love and the time we spent together.
Don’t allow your anxiety to cripple you from becoming who you were meant to be.
Easier said than done right?
Anyone struggling with anxiety knows it’s not something that will just go away, it’s something you have to work through, and it’s hard. I struggle with it often and find it difficult to even function some days. The days in which I can’t work through it and have to wait it out are the worst.
I try a lot of things to help ease my anxiety like teas, paleo santo, essential oils and CBD. I also read a lot and try to implement different tips and practices that I find.
I watched this great free course video the other day from life coach, Natalie Bacon, on how to conquer anxiety. She defines anxiety and gives you pointers on how to work through it rather than escape it. It was almost 40 minutes and it full of helpful insights.
It’s not the kind of free course that will make you wish you could go back in time and get those minutes of your life back either. Trust me, I’ve been there. It provides real tips you can apply to your life and makes you think.
She has a podcast on anxiety too that I haven’t listened to yet but you can access both the podcast and the free course video I watched using the link below.
If you have anxiety, check it out. You might find it useful.
We went to Jim Thorpe, PA over the weekend to walk around and go shopping. Yes, shopping! IN STORES! It was the first time I had been shopping in a store that didn’t sell groceries in 4 months since COVID started. Jim Thorpe is this adorable historic town with shops, museums and train ride scenic tours. Unfortunately, the museums were still closed and the train tour wasn’t running but most of the shops and restaurants were open.
The shops carry all sorts of items from homemade soaps and new age items to antiques and books to handmade crafts, mead and wine. One of the shops, BeeStung, had character/movie themed items like jewelry, boxes, bottles and other tchotchkes that were made by the shop owner.
I couldn’t resist all the Alice in Wonderland themed stuff! I love different versions of the story and have quite a few renditions already from novels to graphic novels to pop up books! This was the perfect opportunity to buy props for photos for my bookstagram account.
With loot in hand and plenty of Alice in Wonderland books at home, I was ready and excited, to set up my displays. Check out my photo shoot from this weekend.
For those of you who don’t know, Bookstagram is a community on Instagram that shares photos of all things books! There’s also a lot of writers and authors that are part of the community. Not only are the photos people share amazing but the community is really supportive.
I started my Bookstagram account kind of by accident. I wanted a place where I could share short quotes and writings that weren’t in a long blog format.
I started by sharing a few posts that included my writings on backgrounds that I made with an app. Then, I realized that I have this awesome secretary desk and vintage books that I could take photos of and pair them with my writings. So I took a bunch of pictures one day and started sharing them on Instagram with short passages I had written.
I don’t know how, but I stumbled across these other accounts who shared photos of books. Not just books, but entire libraries of books. Shelves and shelves of books and bookish items. I instantly fell in love with all the beautiful book aesthetics!
I realized that I could do something similar but combine my writing and marketing knowledge with it. Now I share photos of books, journals, my writings and marketing tips.
I actually took a photo of one of my journals, open, so that I could use one of my editing apps to write my passages on it for posts. I hope to gain more followers, but in the meantime it’s just been really fun to set up the photo shoots and share my thoughts with a like minded community.
I wrote this a little over one year ago. At the time, I was in a job that made me unhappy, lost an employee and had to pick up that slack while continuing to do my job that was already too heavy a work load. I had also lost my cat to a 6 month struggle with cancer and had been searching for a new job with little success and much frustration. I realized that I could actually take on more than I had thought, even in the midst of grief, anger and stress and actually come out on top. A few weeks after I wrote this, I accepted a new job, bought a new car and was well on my way to achieving the goals I had set out for myself.
These past 2 weeks I’ve have to learn how to be a graphic designer because the one at my company quit. I’ve been doing my job as marketing manager and the job of a graphic designer. It’s been challenging and it’s been stressful. But, I’ve learned so much about graphic design and myself. I’ve done things I never thought possible. I did those things. Me. Spectacular me.
Is the art of letter writing dead? It certainly must be unique if we refer to it as an art, when once it was the only way to communicate. It takes time to craft a sentence that is moving. A phrase that has true meaning and depth. There’s something about putting a pencil to a piece of paper that connects you to a deeper sense of yourself and with your own thoughts.
In an age where we create things to be better, faster and more efficient all with the goal of saving time so we can have more time, it seems as though we have sacrificed something greater to get to where we are going. And where are we going? It just seems like we’re going faster than ever more consciousness of time but less consciousness of each memory in it.
As each day passes feeling more and more like a routine… Weeks pass, months pass, years pass. You look back and realize you lived every day of it, but were you a conscious player in the making of your own memories? Were you practicing mindfulness? Or were you just moving through each day to get to the next? We move through life so quickly because if it’s faster it’s better, so we can move on to the next best thing that’s even faster and better than the last. So I just put my pencil to my piece of paper and breath.
Let’s be real. We’re all human and we’re all trying our best to make through life without falling flat on our faces. Trying to be a good role model, trying to stay on top of the bills, and trying to be successful at work and whatever we have a passion for. But reality can often feel like a train wreck.
We are resilient creatures. We get beat down, stepped on, we fall apart and break down but we get back up again. Perseverance in the face of adversity, injustice and oppression is what makes us stronger. It’s what affects change. It allows us to continue to make ourselves and this world a better place.
You can only fail if you don’t try. Just because something doesn’t work out the way you planned, doesn’t mean that it’s not working out the way it should. It’s impossible to know what the future holds, so don’t get stuck in what is temporary. There will be a time when you will reap the befits of your perseverance, just keep going.
I’m going to preface this post with…I wrote this awhile ago and feel a little differently about it. While I do believe in the afterlife and God, I also think that feelings of greater things to come and connection to the universe comes from just that….our connection with everything. In this fast paced world where we don’t have time to even think about what we are doing so that we can move on to the next thing, we lose the ability to feel connected with the universe, each other and God. It’s only when we stop, breath and listen that we can feel this connection. It’s so important because making that connection allows us to be who we are meant to be. The farther we get from it, the more unhappy and lost we become.
I always felt like I was born to do great things. That there was more to life than what I can see and comprehend. I wonder now if this is something I feel, not for this life, but for the life after death. There is something so great, so wonderful, that I can’t put my finger on it so it must be other worldly.
It is said that the spirit of God is in all of us, but that most of us can’t hear him because we aren’t listening. I finally listened. What I heard was that the feeling of there being more to life, is what exists in the after life. That feeling is the connection with God and that feeling stems from waiting to be with God.
I struggle often with social media because I don’t know what to post. Who really cares about what I have to say? Do I even have anything to say? Of course I do. I just don’t do exciting things or go exciting places. I live a pretty ordinary life. That’s what others may think anyway, if they scroll through my feed only to see my cat and the thousands of food posts.
But the truth is, my life is not ordinary. None of these people know me. They don’t know I lost my longtime boyfriend, at the age of 25, to a brain aneurysm. They don’t know I was there to experience him dying in front of me. They don’t know I lost my cat to a long battle with cancer and my 42 year old brother to complications from a brain tumor. They don’t know how I’ve grown through caring for a step daughter, landed a great job after going on endless terrible job interviews and how I became the person I am today though years of experiences both joyful and heartbreaking.
No one’s life is ordinary. So what if you didn’t travel to 10 different countries this year and 1,000 people didn’t like your post about what you had for breakfast. Maybe you read a book to your children today, maybe you brought your parents groceries because they couldn’t do it themselves, maybe you forgave yourself today or someone else, maybe you put clothes on for the first time in weeks instead of PJ’s, or maybe you’re grieving and not ready to do anything. Whatever you did or didn’t do, don’t let comparing yourself to others’ lives make you feel like yours is less than spectacular. Don’t let the number of “likes” you get, determine your worth.
The name’s Red. I had a real name once, but that doesn’t matter anymore. I flew down to this hellhole called Earth via wings. That’s right, wings. Ya see, I’m an angel. Don’t look like much now do I? Well, that doesn’t make a difference.
I was sent here to fight a war on demons until I fell in love with a human. I gave up my wings to be with him. But the demons had another idea. They killed him, took him from me knowing I could never return to heaven and knowing that without him, I wouldn’t want to stay on Earth.
They hunt me and terrorize me. But I’m a fighter. After all, my mission here was to kill them and kill them I will. Every last one of ’em. Righteousness may not be my saving grace but I wanted this human life so I’ll be damned if I let these monsters take me, literally.
The Illuminated Page 