Friday, May 8, 2009.  I wrote this heading toward sundown yesterday. It was a really good day.  I got an early start and got lots of work done.   I took the greatest call from a a subscriber – she was surprised I picked up the phone at 7:00am. She ordered subscriptions for each of her 12 grand daughters.  The early bird does get the worm! I’d transplanted several small loquat trees yesterday, and so I watered them each in early this morning, and watered the turk’s cap and arbicola along the north fenceline.  I’d pruned the mulberry tree last month and stuck the cuttings in the ground along the north fence, and I could see many of them have taken root.

Ginger in bloom

Everything is really beginning to grow rapidly with the sunny, warm days and a daily watering.  I’m especially giving a deep watering to the tall crepe myrtle and the young oaks that are coming up outside my west office window.  I’d like to make a nice, shady walk for the Florida Power and Light meter reader for those hot, summer days. I’ve been underwatering my ginger on purpose, since it can tend to take over.  It does have some beautiful blooms on it right now, as you can see here to the right.  That one is about as big as my head and is at eye level. Continue reading →

Thursday May 7, 2009.  Should I warn friends and family when I see them getting caught up in multi-level marketing schemes, and networking time-and-dollar-wasters?  Questions like this come up in readings all the time.  You have friends who belong to a national franchise named Wealth Something or Income Building Something and they are always running around to meetings and business workshops where they pay for their own training, in the hopes of beginning their own business, or meeting up with possible investors or partners.  They come away with lots of marketing materials and/or inventory, thousands upon thousands in fees on their credit card, and their heads filled with exaggerated income claims. Continue reading →

Wednesday May 6, 2009.  I got a call the other day from Lia Firmani who purchased several of my cds and she particularly liked the Sleepytime Recharge. She told me that “Listening to it repeatedly helped me a lot and made a big difference in how I see life.  “That’s a breakthrough for me, ” she said.  Sometimes we just need a gentle reminder in a friend’s voice while we’re falling asleep to set our subconscious to work for us.  Some of the suggestions on Sleepytime include: “I no longer worry over events of the past.  Every day begins my life anew and every day is a new beginning. I feel optimistic about my future possibilities.   I find greater satisfaction in my everyday life.  I find fun and interesting ways to spend my time and I have an increasing sense of mission and purpose.”

These are just simple phrases.  No magic words there.  But for someone who has had a very challenging life and is just now coming to understand that our thoughts help determine what our future experience will be, thinking these thoughts can be a revelatory and life changing tool.  For someone whose only happy memories are in the past, it’s life altering to suddenly be guided in the direction of finding more meaning and satisfaction in their everyday life.  We all know people like that.

And I know it can be as easy as hearing a fellow diner say “I love salads.  I eat them twice a day” that reminds me how much I love salads and begin to eat them twice a day.  It can be as easy as someone saying “I find happiness in everything around me” for someone else to consider that as a new belief and for it to change their world.

What new thoughts and beliefs do you share with those around you?

What do they walk away feeling filled with?
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,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ :¦:-Connecting with your Angels, Guides, Teachers $10
ø¤º°`°º¤ :¦:- Free mp3 file Universal Manager with $10 purchase

Tuesday, May 5, 2009.  I have a friend who recently joined Facebook and she’s not sure exactly how it works.  Why do all these people want to be my friends? It’s just a networking gambit, so if you’re on there to network and bring attention to your website, just accept new friends.  What if they only have stupid things to say.  I don’t want to read all that from everyone. Just use the “hide” feature to hide them from your news feed.  I have 743 “friends” yet less than a dozen on my news feed.  On my news feed, I have a handful of friends I actually know and rarely get to see in person.  I use Facebook to stay in touch with them, and I like hearing about the goofy things they do throughout their day.  I like hearing what they think about what they do and what they think about what they see around them.  I like knowing what Aimee from childhood is having for lunch and what she does at work.  It gives me a glimpse of their real lives, lives that I don’t  otherwise have time to keep track of. Continue reading →

I’m stoked.  I’m really loving the cool nights we’re still having in early May. I like sleeping with the windows open, so I can hear the night sounds.  There’s a night blooming jasmine just outside my bedroom window, and the scent is heavenly!  It’s been blooming like crazy lately, since I’ve been keeping it watered. It’s amazing how much difference it makes to just keep the plants watered every day.

My usual story to myself is that I am too busy to worry about moving hoses and sprinklers all around and what days I can and can’t water, and I should just let nature take its course.  But then I realize that I really do want to give the plants enough water to help them thrive.  So I have to make myself look at it a different way, not as a task that burdens my already busy schedule.  So now I look at it as what I get to do when I take a break from the computer during the day.  I can just hook up the longest hose and start way in the back and just give every plant a little drink and move all around the yard in less than 2 hours.  I get to say hello to each plant and I get to notice it and be mindful of it.  I can tell which are growing, who gets the best sun, who drinks more water.  I can count it as part of my daily spiritual practice, a daily checking in with other beings who share my space.  The idea of that appeals to me.  That sounds like a movie I want to star in.

Even so, I know that my intention is simply to keep the plants sufficiently watered.  So what if I have to trick myself by some mental play acting in order to motivate myself to get it done?  The play acting turns to reality as I find satisfaction in the daily doing of it all, as it makes my experience more fulfiling and allows me to draw more living out of life.  It gives my life more meaning.

And it gets the job done.

I just read that Kim Kardashian’s measurements are 35-26-40 and at 117 lbs (and 5’2″) she’s a size 2/4.  I thought that was interesting since when I was 35-22-37 at 115 lbs (in 1970 at 5’9″) I was a size 9/10. Now I see all the fuss about sizes!!!  All they are doing is changing size criteria, right? I just found this:

US standard clothing sizes were developed from statistical data in the 1940s-1950s. They are similar in concept to the EN 13402 European clothing size standard.  However, as a result of various cultural pressures, most notably vanity sizing, North American clothing sizes have drifted substantially away from this standard over time, and now have very little connection to it. Instead, they now follow the more loosely defined standards known as US catalog sizes. These are on average 6 sizes smaller than the original standard. So, for example, a size 12 on the old standard would today be described as a size 6, while a size 6 on the old scale would be what is today known as size zero.

That explains it.    Like when they talk about how “big Marilyn Monroe” actually was.  At 35-23-35, she was a size 8.  And Kim kardashian? She’s gorgeous either way.  Who cares what the number is?  Just stay healthy and fit.

Now I know why the tiny petite friends I have have such a hard time finding clothes that fit.  They would drown in a size zero if it’s really the standard size 6.  Vanity sizing.  What a riot.

Sunday, May 3, 2009.  I’m loving the chilly nights we’ve been having, and the mild breezy days. The mild weather this late into the year always means the upcoming hurricane season will be mild also.  Which means no scary stuff for us this year.  So remember that a few months from now when the weather folks start pointing out every storm that brews in the Atlantic.  We don’t care.  We know that whatever they are, they will be manageable and just follow their course.  And even if they pass right through us, well, we’ve had big winds already this year and we’re still here and we’re still fine.

I spent yesterday finishing the billing and opening last week’s mail.  Saturday is also my day to use the sprinklers so they are on nearly all day, with me moving them every hour or so.  I have created front and back privacy walls of ficus, bamboo, arborvitae, turk’s cap, lantana, philodendron, loquat, mostly by just sticking cuttings in the ground every time I prune a plant. I prune by the moon phase, so I prune anytime from 12 hours after full moon until the last quarter, 7 days later.  Continue reading →