…. Frieda Lefeber age 100

Frieda Lefeber, who recently turned 100, is celebrating her first solo art exhibit opening this week at Rosemont College in Pennsylvania. Frieda began taking art classes at age 76 and earned a degree from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts at age 83. “I had no idea I could paint,” she says. “It keeps me young.” Frieda published her autobiography at age 88, exercises five mornings a week, and still drives. She lives with her daughter, cooks dinner for the family and cleans up every night.  My friends in their 50’s and 60’s and 70’s, please stop talking about how you are near the end of life. This woman wrote a book and got college degree in her 80’s and first solo art exhibit at 100! Cultivate an interest, keep yourself busy, stay in motion so your bones and muscles keep working for you, eat right so you fuel your body, not slow it down. Get out with people, volunteer, there is so freaken much still to do, plan for it by staying fit and in motion.

Wow, when you’re in the flow, you’re in the flow! A friend is putting together an event and asked if I could contact a few possible sponsors and vendors. Eight out of ten committed on the spot and made advance payment. I drove out and bought a lottery ticket while I’m riding this wave of Everything Going My Way.

Talk about vibrational matching! In doing the technical editing for a friend’s new book, I’ve been reading a lot of action scenes. Out of the blue, I hear from an author I worked with seven years ago who’d like some help pumping up the action in some of her new scenes. And by out of the blue, I mean I attracted it by virtue of my focus the last several weeks being on reading and appreciating stories with action and intrigue. I’m stoked.

Yesterday I watched 8 Minutes, a reality series where a team offers resources to those in the sex trafficking trade, if they want out of the life.  It’s a cool show, I’m sure I attracted it since the heroine in the mystery novel I am editing for April Rane goes after sex traffickers. An example of law of attraction at work.

Had a mega busy day yesterday editing a story that was so good I didn’t notice it was 7:00pm before I finished. Asleep by 9:15, I woke up at 7:00am. It’s been years since I slept 10 hours in a row! I dreamed I was on a boat and trying to find provisions in the galley to make lunch. All I could find were slabs of ribs, birthday cake and gin. I see why people wake up groggy after sleeping all night. I was still barely awake after I’d walked my one mile route. I’m used to waking up bright eyed and bushy tailed. Maybe that’s cuz I only surface sleep. I also see why folks gulp caffeine first thing and don’t want to be talked to until they’re not groggy. This reminds me what a drug coffee is, and most people take this drug every day.

I am dying laughing. A friend had a crisis! I dashed to help. She’d bought a giant economy sized box of Poise pads for light bladder leakage. She’s 5′ tall and 96 lbs. The pads were Extra Long. She showed me they reached from above her navel to the middle of her back. When we stopped rolling on the floor laughing, I told her to exchange them for regular length. READ LABELS!  I wrote about a cool experiment with Poise pads here http://horizonsmagazine.com/blog/?p=8015

What a supercool walk this morning! I once again wore my uber padded flip flops and I like them better for walking the pavement than my hiking boots or running shoes. I am digging this walking for an hour in the morning. I tried out my new trekking poles on the street and on the dirt of the easement. Since it’s completely flat land the entire way, I was surprised how much the poles kept stress off my knees and how easy it was to go faster and propel forward once I found my rhythm using them. They give my arms a good workout, which doesn’t happen when I just walk or bike. I took them into the oak hammock at the end of the street, since there are little 5-10 foot “hills” inside, and they help pull you up the hill. Mine are like this but silver, not blue. $24.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007YT854S?ref_=sr_1_5&qid=1427274966&sr=8-5&keywords=trekking%20poles%20silve&pldnSite=1  Usually after I’ve done my walking route, I can feel it in my knees. Not this time, I felt like I wanted to keep walking.

I love that my burst of painting has given me almost two years worth of cover art. Here’s my Ganesh With Bass, he’s the May cover of Horizons. Known as the remover of all obstacles, the first prayer during puja is traditionally to Ganesha. Any auspicious work or project in Hinduism is begun with an invocation to him.  Ganesh’ vehicle is the rat, because the rat can chew thru anything.  I show him here with a bass guitar, painted for the bff, who plays bass in the kirtan band Rayananda. The bass is symbolic with Ganesh, as it provides the bottom and is deep and foundational in nature. It holds the groove and locks the band together. Just so, giving your first prayer to Ganesh before any new undertaking gives it a good foundation and helps hold the vision for its successful completion.  Ganesha can be seen all over my home and office in many forms.

RELATED: Doing a series of paintings as a form of shamanic soul retrieval
Update from the art studio
Painting is a daily meditation for me
Painting as a method of altering consciousness
I like being able to digitally correct my painting faux pas
Introducing Junelle, with open hands to take away your pain
Introducing Moon Gal with Raven and Moonstone
Introducing Rosa of the Aqua Eye

I’ve been studying mystery novels on Kindle the past month. Yes, it’s cool you can publish your Kindle book with no writing experience but please, please learn the basic skills, you can study it online for free. Here’s a good basic checklist. Signed, everyone who has to read it.
http://www.be-a-better-writer.com/creative-writing-tips.html
I’ve not read fiction for years so I wanted to catch up with what’s out there on Kindle since I’m editing April Rane‘s next novel. One month and a dozen+ mysteries later, I appreciate April’s writing skills so much more.

I woke up and wanted to walk right away, I love when that happens! I did 2 miles twice yesterday and 4 the day before. I wouldn’t have begun the walk if I’d have known it was 4 miles. Until I measured it later with my car, I thought it was 2. My own thoughts and beliefs would have limited me and prevented me from beginning, but my thought and expectation that it was just 2 miles allowed me to do it with ease. As always, what I expected and believed to be true came to pass. Cool how that works, huh?

10 benefits of Nordic Walking (walking with walking poles)
Nordic Walking is an outdoors exercise that consists in walking with walking sticks. It is specially beneficial (as aerobic exercise) to strengthen legs, hips, thighs, arms and buttocks. Results can be obtained with only 3 hours of Nordic Walking a week