Y4 – Day 101 – Peace 101

I choose peace.

Wonderful sunsets and then twinkly lights.

A level playing field.

Loving to paint, write, act, draw, play an instrument, take photographs, design and whatever else expresses itself creatively in you and you losing all track of time because you are in the flow.

Envisioning and meditating for any length of time, the more the better.

Respecting, Trusting and Being in Love with Someone who returns it.

Springtime.

IMG_1120apple blossoms, I believe, in Arrowhead, yesterday on a walk with Cindi

 

 

Y4 – Day 100 – Follow the Flow

Day one hundred of year four, is today.

Joyce Carol Oates’s advice to writers is to “write your heart out”. She’s a published author of great renown.

“Follow your bliss”, said the late, philosopher, professor of mythology and the student of archetypes, Joseph Campbell.

How about “Follow the Flow”? That can be my motto and advice. The word flow is inside of follow. Follow your inner guidance or guide.

Today, at the used bookstore in the Arrowhead library branch, I found some more gems, some, lo and behold, are about this subject of listening to your intuition and your heart.

Values are innate within us, I believe, and I have been writing my heart out, Joyce!

 

Y4 – Day 99 – Garden Update 2016

I am still in the mountains. The longest I have ever stayed up here. Consequently, I walked with my next door neighbor, chatted with the couple down the block who gave us St. John’s Wort plants as we strode by and was shown what a Manzanita tree looks like.

And that was all before 11 am.

Lots of living to be done here – Meanwhile down at our other neck in the woods, hubby sent me tomato progress!IMG_1112

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Y4 – Day 98 – E’s Creations

My daughter E is getting to be quite the vegan cook. She has sent me pictures recently of her creations and I am impressed. It doesn’t hurt to live with your vegan sister who accomplishes her own magic in the kitchen.

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Vegan chicken patty on a bed of rice with chopped red cabbage, green and red onions and a dash of soy sauce.

IMG_1102Thai sweet chili vegan patty tacos with spinach, cabbage, cilantro and pico de gallo.

IMG_1101Curried tofu, onion, green onion, cilantro, corn, spinach and sweet chili sauce.

You might think there’s a theme here but then she sent me a picture of a dessert and also pretzel bagel slices with four different kinds of hummus, marinated tofu, cucumber slices and cinnamon spiced almond butter.

Adventurous and nutritious!

Y4 – Day 97 – Pens

Nothing like a good pen. I could write and write and write with a good pen. And, lined paper, preferably wide spaced, like the kind a child learning how to first draw her letters practices on.

My preferred pen is the Pentel refillable EnerGel. It glides smoothly and quickly over the page. Its liquid gel ink hits the spiral notebook, diary or legal pad with aplomb.

I write every day or try to in my spiral notebook. I attempt to get it done before anything else enters my brain or I see something that takes my focus away. I usually feed the cats, get a cup of coffee and head back up to my room and write while Cindi nuzzles her nose, lifting her blanket and covering herself with a fluffy layer, beside me.

My life is important enough to annotate, dictate and re-evaluate. That’s just a cute sentence but seriously, I let that energel pen rip for at least three pages.

I started writing morning pages years ago when I first read Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way. It must have been about fourteen or fifteen years ago. I get all the junk out of my negative, monkey mind. I propose my schedule for the day and imagine the future. I complain, judge, criticize and rage on the page. And then, I can shower or bathe with all that behind me and released. I can start my day.

I have written volumes of early dawn ramblings in plenty of spiral notebooks. That’s why it’s so important to have the right pen. The stream of thought is faster than my typing but I have a rhythm with my handwriting. I can tell how angry I am by the size of the block letters that take up five or six spaces.  I swirl my script when I am enchanted with the world around me. I jot down facts I would otherwise forget, later.

I re-read my intimate diaries from time to time. The same issues keep coming up, year after year, until I resolve them or find solution, usually as action that needs to be taken with plenty of forgiveness, self-love and acceptance. And when I improve, my nearest and dearest, my attitude and my perspective improve too. I see my growth, my flaws and my transformation in written form, before my very eyes, as a testament to the process.

I take my current journal with me everywhere I go. And, most of the time, I am gripping a Pentel EnerGel, medium or fine point, in blue, black or purple ink.

Y4 – Day 96 – Off the Grid Thought

Technology has me by the throat. I didn’t even know it. Try doing without it yourself.

I think I want to write, meditate, walk, be in nature and be creative but I actually waste valuable, precious time instead with media and interruptions.

I can see how people in the old days had time for all their chores. There wasn’t much else to do.

Leisure time has taken over creative time. I need to be making the space and time for creativity instead of avoiding it.

 We create when we are in a relaxed, open mind state. An empty, quiet moment is when ideas catch on.

But filling our brains with nonsense is just plain escapism.

Shame on me.

Y4 – Day 95 – Unplugged Review

I am sure more will be revealed but I certainly accomplished all my tasks while switching off all technology for one whole day. It wasn’t all that difficult until I remembered I couldn’t look something up on Google or couldn’t check the inane and absolutely huge, big, fat waste of time called, FaceBook.

I didn’t waste hours looking at homes on zillow or decor magazines or sales events at any of the thousands of email promotions I get.

I didn’t watch my taped TV shows or the news or hockey and I entirely missed Ted Cruz’s family on CNN. I could have taped it, but not interested.

I didn’t check the weather, Pinterest, my calendar, fitbit, messages or play solitaire on my phone like I do at least ten times a day.

I didn’t surf nor even wade on the internet. I was completely wireless, smart/dumb (land line) phone and cable free.

Here’s what I did do:

I bathed, meditated and practiced yoga all without spa music which was not as much fun.

I walked Cindi. I fed her and myself. I also had to call her name even though I vowed silence when I needed her attention.

I didn’t leave except to walk because I didn’t want to hold up a sign that said I took a vow of silence. I just nodded and smiled to passerby’s.

I did one load of laundry and folded, put away what was in the dryer plus this one load.

I washed dishes.

I cooked.

I prepped and painted my toes and finger nails.

I painted two small walls in the bathroom and learned a new distressing trick by accident.

I strung working white tiny lights on the mantle.

I read at least for four hours here and there and started to read a new book even though, of course, I didn’t finish any I had started.

I timed my writing using the oven timer and did two of those types of prompts. I started a new notebook just for prompts.

I watched the birds and wrote, and wrote and wrote. I wrote about what I was eating, doing, thinking and planning.

Here’s what I learned:

I waste time because I am obviously just as hooked as any body on being entertained outside myself. I am not special.

I feel guilty about reading and lounging around but not about watching television. Why is that?

The day goes by slower without distractions.

My dog must be bored half the time and that’s why she sleeps so much.

I never want to do this again for this long. Twenty four hours was just way too much and I absolutely hated being disconnected during dinnertime and after when I usually snuggle up with my honey. I almost cracked from about 4:30 pm to seven.

I couldn’t wait to get into bed and read myself to sleep with my new memoir about one woman’s passage and authentic journey from empty nesting to knowing who she is now. Ironically, she fled to her cozy, Cape Cod cottage for a year with just a phone and had a miraculous metamorphosis. I am not sure I can do another 24 hours and she did a year.

Perhaps that is why she is published and a success and I am not. I just don’t have the same quiet desperation she had nor the willingness to be away from it all for long.

Would I do this again?

Absolutely, but with one condition. During the day is fine, but by late afternoon till evening, I need to be plugged in.

I am not cut out for “complete” isolation even if I do enjoy being alone in my sanctuary.

I like to have options, and I embrace, even love and need, technology.

If I ever need to hunker down and have a deadline to write something, this is the only way I will be able to do it.

With of course, the caveat of needing my evenings, ON the grid.

Y4 – Day – 94 – FitBit

Today is the day I am supposedly off the grid and completely unplugged so I thought I would write ahead of time to post this little tidbit about my FitBit.

According to my trendy new bracelet that everyone wears now (although I have different colors and patterned ones), I get about four and one half hours of sleep on an average. Some days more, some less, but I believe it to be true. I lay there for anywhere from seven to eight hours but apparently I only sleep for a little over one half of that time.

What a waste! I mean seriously? I could be writing, cleaning floors, creating recipes and/or taking a walk!!

My fitbit also likes to exaggerate. I couldn’t possibly be walking as many steps it says I take. I would be pin thin. And, does it take into account mountain air is harder to breathe? Does it realize how many stairs people in two story homes/offices take?

I used to use map my walk and that was a great app but I have since deleted it because I get such a charge from seeing how little I sleep and how much I can still move forward.

 

Y4 – Day 93 – Gluten Intolerant?

I have six out of the eight possible symptoms for gluten intolerance. I don’t think I have celiac disease and I haven’t been tested, but for the last few days I have avoided gluten and feel just a tad better, at least no headaches. Here are the 8 signs to look for:

  1. Brain Fog
  2. Unexpected Weight Gain
  3. Dental Problems
  4. Headaches or Migraines
  5. Joint and Muscle Aches
  6. Fatigue and Exhaustion
  7. Skin Problems
  8. Abnormal Immune Function

I have the first six. I will continue avoiding gluten and see if I also get rid of weight, memory/word loss, mouth sores and this tired feeling I experience way too much especially after chomping down on some pizza, pasta, bread, etc….

Plus, I am saying goodbye to sugar again. The first few days make me cranky so I am glad I am alone up here in Arrowhead.

I really need to commit this time.

Y4 – Day 92 – Travel Day

Sheesh, it took me all morning to pack my wares and clothing ensembles. Finally, we were on the road by ten minutes to ten AM and sped up the hill before the rain I knew was predicted, fell.

It took me just as long to unpack or longer and finally, after a walk with Cindi, a smidgen of raindrops started plopping onto our heads. We dashed home in a spry manner and the dog was given a treat and I made myself a splendid salad with sundried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, chopped up cilantro, Kalamata olives and the juice of half a Meyer lemon from our backyard. I used some sundried tomato oil and the olive and artichoke jarred liquor to saturate the butter and spring green lettuces.

By now, I have taken a call from one chickadee and texted with at least three people, one of them, the love of my life.  I emptied out the dishwasher, brought in enough logs and dry twigs and needles for about two to three days, filled the bird feeder, started up a pot of decaf (pumpkin flavor) and I am happily typing away. With no TV on, no music – just the crackle of my well appointed fire and the pitter patter of a true rainfall at present, I write in a calm, focused manner and will lose myself a little later into some reading, in some sort of reclined position with mutt and blankets around me.

Mmmmm, great mug of coffee with almond milk and stevia in my Universal Studios cup the kids got me I presume because it says “Mom’s Day Off” on it. There’s a depiction of Marge Simpson lounging on a low beach chair, sipping an icy drink with a straw with one hand, the other behind her up do blue hair, eyes rolled up like she’s in pure heaven. Thanks, guys, my favorite chalice for a great cuppa java up here.

I am here to vegetate for a week. In anticipation of my possible future attendance at a Zen silent meditation writing retreat in September, I will practice no internet, no phone, no communication with the outside world and here’s the rub – no talking – on Wednesday.

We shall see how that pans out.

I will follow the regulations and schedule as I understand them and I can read my writing out loud and I believe, speak a bit before or after meals ( I need to check that for accuracy) for 10 minutes to other secluded, cloistered guests, which in my case is Cindi, our dog.

I might have to wear duct tape and I seriously wonder if I am allowed to at least hum? Again, I need to check that before Wednesday.

I figure a trial run is worth the effort before I commit to five whole days of silence and being unplugged and off the grid. I will pre write Wednesday’s post and schedule it to run on the right day. I gave my husband the next door neighbor’s number just in case. And, thankfully, I can tape any shows I don’t want to miss.

The sheer preparation for complete quiet is making me anxious and it says a lot about how hooked I am to the very technology I fought off for years.