Just after daylight this morning, I took the exercise bike out to the street to leave as a gift for someone. I could not adjust the tension on the wheel, which made it more fun to just ride my bike. I opened the garage door and was putting air in the bicycle tires when I heard a huge BOOM!! and a flash of light just beyond my neighbors house across the street. It was an electrical distribution transformer blowing, which I’d heard before (it IS Palm Bay,) but I’d never been outside to see the burst of light. First came the sound, which made me look up in time to see the light flash. I asked my neighbor if they were without power. They were. After 3 neighbors called Florida Power & Light (they send a truck after they receive 3 calls,) a repair truck was out two hours later. Living here since 1983, I don’t recall that transformer ever blowing. It’s usually one several blocks to the northwest of me. There’s one on the property line behind me but I don’t recall it ever blowing. Good, that means it’s doing its job. I was mesmerized by reading how a transformer works and wondered how often the transformers blow near the homes of meditators?
Author Archives: Andrea
Prepaving a Buen Camino de Santiago if I ever decide to go
After reading Sonia Choquette’s Walking Home, about her pilgrimage on the Santiago de Compostela Camino which is a 600+ mile walk across northern Spain to the North Atlantic Ocean, I searched my library for Shirley MacLaine’s 2001 The Camino where she shares her journey walking it. I figured it would be with all my MacLaine books. There are like 10 books and I couldn’t find any of them. The next morning, I checked the smaller bookcases in all the rooms and found them with the astrology books. The Camino was not with them. Time to organize the books. No sooner said than the pre-paving to organization began! I found a Word document from 2011 listing books I’d been sent for review the last 20 years. That gave me a great starting place. I sorted the list by author name, which helped in letting me know just what I have and how I want to organize the library. It’s easier to prepave when I have enough info. More on that later, right now I want to talk about the Camino de Santiago. In the book Walking Home, Sonia Choquette mentions the Martin Sheen/Emilio Estevez movie The Way. I wondered if it was on Netflix, so I checked online. I came to a Netflix page giving me the option to watch the movie right there. I never thought of watching Netflix on my computer. I’m usually in the living room where I can stand and stretch and work out while watching. I watched it and was inspired to further learn about those who pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. In The Way., Martin Sheen plays Tom, who comes to France to deal with the tragic loss of his son. Rather than return home, Tom decides to embark on the historical pilgrimage on the Camino to honor his son’s desire to finish the journey. Continue reading
New self publishing authors: don’t let friends proofread, hire a professional
I’m reading a preview of a Kindle book written by a pilgrim on the Camino and self published by Authorhouse. The typos in the preview make it a distracting read (i.e., the “Pyranees.”) New authors, if you’re going the self publishing, vanity press (print on demand) route, don’t hire friends to proofread, hire someone qualified. Having said that, I downloaded a novel by an author friend who emailed to let me know she was embarrassed to find many typos, now being corrected for the print version. She writes in such a compelling way and the typos were few and not glaring, it made it easy to choose content over form in that case. I let her know that many of the review copies of books I receive from publishers and publicists are galley proofs, so I’m used to reading even famous and bestselling books in their preliminary, uncorrected form. But new authors, if you’re going the self publishing route, don’t hire friends to proofread, hire someone qualified.
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March 22, 2015 in Palm Bay, FL scattering Mataji’s Ashes — and in New York on March 28 celebrating her life
IN FLORIDA, on Sunday March 22, 2015, at 4:00 p.m there will be a ceremony of scattering of Mataji’s ashes on the ashram grounds. Scattering ashes has spiritual benefits for the departed and for those who scatter. We will meet in the Durga Temple at Palm Bay Ashram, Yoga Shakti Mission, 3895 Hield Rd NW, Palm Bay, FL 32907 321-725-4024 Email Palm Bay ashram at yogashaktipalmbay@gmail.com.
IN FLORIDA on Sunday March 29, 2015 Noon-4:00pm the Annual Friends of the World Gathering will be held in the Pavilion. Free admission. All Welcome. There will be Philippine, African, Middle Eastern, Indian, Hawaiian and English dancers are expected to perform as well as a Capoeira group, bluegrass and Russian and Irish singers. Indian and western vegetarian food will be sold and locals will display their wares.
IN NEW YORK, on Saturday March 28, 2015, at 3:00 p.m. a celebration of Mataji’s life will be held A Life Dedicated to Service. Ma Yoga Shakti International Mission Yogashakti Yoga Center, 114-41 Lefferts Boulevard, S. Ozone Park, NY 11420 call 718.641.0402 and 718.529.2153 Email New York ashram at yogashaktiny@yahoo.com.
Some books and CDs I have in my library
Here is a partial list of books I have in my library. The list is alphabetical by title with a list at end of authors with multiple titles, of DVDs and CDs. Continue reading
7 simple tricks to impressively speed up slow iPads
My iPad 1st generation was getting slow. Most help sites say close all apps and do a clean sweep and re-install of your operating system. It didn’t make mine faster. I found this article and it made my iPad1 faster. Here’s seven simple tricks to impressively speed up slow iPads that works. Continue reading
It totally confuses me when someone promotes their channelling work comparing themselves to Abraham-Hicks when what they do is not remotely the same. Promoting themselves by that comparison might make someone miss the value of THEIR work as it encourages them to spend their time, like me, wondering what they thought of theirs was like the Abraham work. Be yourself, it is more than enough. If everyone only knew that. <steps off soapbox>
Freedom has nothing to do with the state of the world around you
Frank Maiello says “Freedom has nothing to do with the state of the world around you. you can be in a straight jacket in a rubber room and be free; yet on the other hand, you can be on a wide open beach on the ocean and be in a vision-stifled prison. the difference is created by the mind. if you’re free of the mind, you are free. if you’re captured by the limits made by the mind you are incarcerated. and yet, even if you’re apparently captured by those mind limits, you’re STILL free…because the limits are as illusory as a dream. do you see? you can be in a dream and swear you’re being chased by a tiger…whereas when you wake up, you realize there never *was* a tiger. And so it goes.”
My fave line from the movie Don Juan De Marco is when Depp says to Brando, the shrink (paraphrased): “If you think I’m simply a delusional person in a mental institution, you have a limited perception of my reality.”
It’s time to organize the home library
I seriously need to organize my library! Hmmm, by author name or topic? After reading Sonia Choquette’s Walking Home, about her pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago, I searched my library for Shirley MacLaine’s 2001 The Camino, when she walked it. I figured it would be with all my MacLaine books. There are like 10 books and I couldn’t find any of them last night. I just now checked all the smaller bookcases in all the rooms and found them with the astrology books. The Camino was not with them. Time to organize the books.
Despite what you’ve been told, yes, you ARE soliciting
Jehovah Witnesses in the neighborhood! I made a new sign for my door. I added the definition since I’ve had girl scouts and church ministries ignore it and say they are not soliciting. They have been told this by “those in authority.” They may think what they’ve been told is true. With all due respect, if you are knocking on anyone’s door asking if they want to be involved in anything that requires their time or money, that’s soliciting..