There was a song when I was growing up – hell I’m still growing up who am I kidding – but there was a song when i was “much younger” … by a group that I don;t think is even still “around” much anymore… Seven Mary Three The song was called “Cumbersome” – the lyric in this song that always comes back to me is “There is a balance between two worlds one with an Arrow and a cross” and then a little known lyric on one of the versions of the song “You must decide for yourself, between what is won and what is lost”

Life is perpetually sending me reminders “Balance in all things”…. that song, always comes to my mind when I’m getting another one of those little jiminy cricket moments, its like he is channeling the group and singing on my shoulder.

So infection seems gone… and I’ve been working to “reduce” my dependence on the Steroid that I’ve been taking since the last radiation. It has overall helped my health, and kept alot of very unpleasant symptoms under control. However, my intuition has told me that its time to reduce this as a part of my healing.

Also recently, I had the revelation that I was drinking a little bit much caffeine. I mean coffee – like all things is good in moderation, but its also not the only source of caffeine I imbibe nor is it little on the scale. As I’ve done in the past, I thought “Heck” lets do a detox from caffeine!

The universe was quick to remind me – balance in all things. Less than 24 hours after making this decision — I suddenly felt exhausted, and really really run down. Like 12+ hours sleep, with a nap, and that two days in a row.

Man what was wrong with me? I talked it out to P and he is like “Um, why are you giving up caffeine again? (He knows me so well, and he has been through a couple of these detox things in the past) and I’m … well I pause and realize Maaaaaaaybbbbbbee this isn’t the best time for this decision. So I get some coffee and like magic I suddenly feel better.

Balance in all things grasshopper. The time will come, the season to reduce caffeine, but this isn’t it…. reducing steroid is good for my overall health right now, and the caffeine will help deal with symptoms from that.

Had the RR workshop last night, and the lady went through the EFT as a tool for releasing suppressed emotions. As I know this is a HUGE thing for me – I’ve been doing this actively for months now, casually for a couple years…. I paid close attention. EFT is such a profound thing, I need to explore it more.

Its really cool to be doing this workshop with my mom. She has such a different perspective – and also some of the same perspective. Her takeaways are always very intriguing for me.

Next week is my next “performance reviews” — MRI< CT< Bone scan — then the week after will be the appts with the doctors to “review” the results. I will admit I was alot more nervous about those before the workshop last night, somehow it gave me a little spring in my step that these are going to be good reviews this time, and that I just need to keep focusing on the positive.

Roasted a pumpkin yesterday – and the seeds, which somehow I burned the seeds…. also I “learned” that the seeds can be (according to P – for more favorable taste/texture) shelled…. although the shells are very edible…. and “some” of the ones I roasted were still edible… I think its the spices that I used that actually burned, so next time a little lower temp, and a little longer on the roast, and shelled first 🙂 …. but I have to say OMG I’m so happy. The pumpkin turned out amazing. I can’t believe I have been confining myself to the can so so long. The true pumpkin was so easy to do, and tasted just as I’d been hoping/craving.

It makes the most AMAZING snack with a little greek yogurt. I roasted it with pumpkin pie spice & coriander — with a little avocado oil inside to keep it moist. The spices permeated through the shell and it just turned out so so so yummy.

I can’t believe its taken me this long to try this – I’ve roasted winter squash for a long time and just love them … but this was a first, and will DEFINATELY be repeated again. Had to have P help me with the in half cut, as I have always had a bit of a Knife restriction in my life – but even more so of late.

The balance is real, and for all the struggling I’ve been having to try and find a way to enjoy pumpkin without all the sugar, this was a true blessing. It satisfied my craving, so that itch now has a scratch.

I get to have my coffee, pumpkin and eat it too! aha Balance… Life is good.

When I was a teenager, one of my guilty pleasures was watching the soap opera “one life to live” Something about watching other peoples lives spun out in ultra dramatic format seemed glorious to me.

Its not that there was NOT my own fair share of drama, its that these people – well first they all had money, and amazing things that were supposedly to be aspired to…. Sure they had people going crazy, and people trying to kill each other, but my somewhat irrational teenage mind, while acknowledging that this was entirely a fictional show … somehow reconciled that: “Wealth brought its own share of problems”

Since coming to realize that this show was … well soap operas in general, I suppose serve a purpose — much the same as the news anymore…. they are about sensationalism, and drama.

The pure and simple fact is — I have one life to live, and its filled with one love – a pure love for everything. That doesn’t mean that I won’t be grouchy or agitated or angry at some of the things that that “one love” has brought before me….. but it does mean, my goal is ultimately to remember that I love them, at the core beneath the surface annoyance.

Sure that guy that cut us off on the road, and nearly caused a four car back up, because the guy behind us was riding our rear, as was the guy behind him, and him and him…. Maybe the guy in front really didn’t see us…. there are all sorts of rational justifications for the worry and stress he put me thru … choosing to react is my choice. Particularly when we were, ultimately, safe, and not harmed other than the “shock” of it – but then there are alot of shocks these days …. most of them are also not worth reacting to….

Its hard, when the sources of so much of the shock and inconceivable story is propagated by sources that from a society perspective – from a leader perspective are supposed to set a tone and example for “how” my behavior should be – and they are anything but calm.

But then, I think if the soap opera had just been like leave it to beaver or hazel – probably I’d have turned them off. There is a part of my personality that thrives on sensationalism. But its a balance.

There is a reason why they call it the “calm before the storm” — your supposed to get a period of calm “before” you get the shit show. I guess from a very high level view, this “is” the period of calm… and while it “seems” like its a perpetual shit show…. maybe this isn’t the real one… maybe this is the time to just be happy and enjoy the amazing things that ARE here.

To remember, the words of Bob Marley – “One Love” — Lets get together and feel all right….. “”Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right.”

Had some weird clarifications this year about some appearing divergence in spiritual thinking that isn’t really divergent at all its just perspective thingies creating the illusion of difference – as usual, practicing what you preach brings illumination. Energy is energy – its all one. Religion is about creating a banner or business to promote the delta rather than the uniformity. …. Kinda like in spaceballs when they sold canned Air, sure its possible to can it – sure its possible to can it, and for some folks that is what they need…. Just one calorie.

I love ritual and religion is chalk full of that… so I think, I’ll continue to take/embrace the ritual that works for me, and still continue to discard the labels applied by religion. …. its like the theme song for the show on Showtime – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4KfJztaJ5I (Little Boxes is the name of the song) == oddly the TV show was called “weeds” and was about selling POT. — It had alot of entertainment value for the sensationalism aspect.

I feel like maybe I’m old enough now to just remember I have one life to live, and that all I need is love – and to remember its all around me.

We got invaded! There were two of them, and they scared the living begesus out of us when they were clawing at the glass on our back window last evening. Its fair to admit that I thought it was Henry, the neighbors dog arriving for a visit – as he does or has in the past, because the clawing was persistent and had Starbuck all barky barkerson.

No it was not Henry – it was two enormous Armadillo. While its not the first time I’ve seen a live Armadillo – its the first time I’ve seen them in pairs, and so huge. They proceeded to climb all over my patio furniture, and up to my firepit. I watched as the littler one – which its sort of worth mentioning – neither were really “little” – help the larger one to get up on the ottoman, from which the rest of the porch was pretty easily circumventable.

I did capture a couple of photos before P decided “Enough of that” and went to scurry them off the porch with a broom.

It occured to me — both in my elation, that another spirit animal with a pretty clear message to me – that these are the “true” texans… They were here, likely long before people arrived. = We were the tourists as far as the dillo were concerned.

In looking up these animals it was pretty interesting to learn a bit about them from “Wiki”

As the initial excitement of the dillo invasion passed, and they went back to aerating my lawn – as they have been doing for months with P claiming it was them…. and me just well, it’s hard to care about this right now, with so many other things going on. As they haven’t done any damage other than creating little soil pockets every few feet, neither P nor I had considered it too much of a nuisance.

We have been pretty certain that they have a nest in my rosemary in the front – having eaten thru one of the bushes completely and taken another down to its roots. We were never ever to “see” or “find” them with our casual attempts – I mean lets face it – I’m not really animal hunter – I leave that to cats…. and “finding” would have meant “determining what I was going to do about it” and that would have been another contemplative project probably fraught with sadness – best to just let Nature be Nature.

One thing I did notice, I don’t know whether its because of the isolation or the not having trips – and bluntly, I noticed it much more profoundly shortly after the dillo visit…. when I suddenly realized really good. Somewhat like coming out of a fog or haze. Like suddenly all was right with the universe….. Really a dillo invasion fixed my world? Yep.

Trying to sort out how I felt/feel about this, or what it means is still something I’m allowing the recesses of my mind do…. and ofcourse I’ll get help from the Paid professional today…. but overall, I laughed about it, because it felt pretty incredible.

Still don’t know if I should be letting “nature” be “nature” … but its probably what’s going to occur… until I figure/find/hear of some reason this is “bad” — I mean I don’t want these guys wandering into the street and getting themselves squashed – but I also don’t really want to have some animal control guys hauling them off to get Excommunicated either. — a thought for another time.

Got P to take me to juiceland yesterday – have been craving it a bit for the past few days. We drove to the location in Georgetown, only to find …. rather abruptly that its closed. To be fair, I think R told me it closed, or somewhere in the corner of my mind it “seems” like something he would have told me…. but it also didn’t seem super vital, I’m certain at the time. So after a negotiation with P and getting him to take me all the way up to this place … to find it was closed, it was not a happy camper moment… but good news we found, “there was another”….. so we drove to the “other” which was a little further in an entirely different direction…. but was satisfying.

Got my juice, and it helped my body get some of the nutrients its been craving. Got labs done yesterday – so so much taken so many tests. Happy to find out alot of the numbers are looking good. … Oddly they didn’t do a CBC – so many labs drawn – 5 vials in total. but no CBC? very very curious. Rather makes me super curious what else she took. I will get a full report on Friday when I go in, so curiosity will only be a bit longer.

It was a rather interesting conversation to overhear in the waiting room about two folks from Taylor talking about how that town has evolved in the past few years – not being or living in Taylor I didn’t have much of a say to join the discussion, Many of the places they talked about are areas I’ve “seen” driving thru…. or heard my friends who call this home, talk about. It was just another case of small small world.

Suffice to say, its rather surprising to me how happy I can be about being invaded – I mean these were rather interesting looking invaders, and as realistically, I guess I’m more the invader to them … I hope they found me Texan enough for the time being. *busts out a little hum for – The stars at night, are big and bright…. Deep in the heart of Texas…*

Right now, I’m working to reduce my intake of caffeine and also reduce the amount of steroid I’m getting in weekly doses. These two things at once have made a powerful poppy impact on my body. Sleep is just one of things that is coming more and more natural to me right now. While I know that doing these is the right thing, the being so so tired is a bit hard.

Also know its time to get back on the low carb wagon very soon. Trying to moderate the other things first, so as to have a bit more energy to move thru that phase. Have heard from a few friends that its not as miserable the second time, but “not as miserable” does not at all mean its a pleasant experience. The end result will be “good” as it has always been.

Small moves forward, that concept of just keep swimming. On the plus side, my bed and I have taken our relationship to the next level. We are having frequent “sleep overs” now…. I washed the sheets this weekend, and it felt glorious. Something about clean sheets will just always be such an amazing feeling to me. Its like fresh rain, atleast somewhat in a sense.

We did a driving adventure again this weekend – to lake granger. Got to take D with us – it was as always – such an amazing time. The weather here has been so “fall” lately – with the leaves on the trees just beginning to contemplate whether or not its best to stay on the trees…. that contemplation can be felt most acutely by my sinuses.

The trees got a hair cut this weekend also – P took care of this; which is an ideal thing, since he is very critical about who will cut the trees, and what they will do — I always just look for the best price…. He found someone, they agreed on it – and our trees now look quite spiffy with their newly cleared limbs. They seem happier – and our grass is also happier at the new sun its able to get now. The guy was pretty good and also mulched our other trees and my rosemary and roses in the front. The whole yard – both front and back now look all spiffy and ready for “fall” to “fall”

The weather has been just amazing, with the highs in the low 80s and the lows in the 50s – it makes the day just wonderful – and we have had blustery days – the sort where the chimes in the back go off throughout the day, and the wind just keeps everything in flux. Its great for opening windows and airing things out too.

I tried another recipe from my hunts of late for a “breakfast thingie” that doesn’t include eggs – well or atleast doesn’t have them as the main ingredient. This recipe was Oat Bars. At first, they seemed to come out too soft – as they were designed to be more like “granola” style bars. They were tasty, but soft. However, that all changed when I froze them and tried them the next day! Amazing how the freezer can bring out the best in some things…. Freezing slowing things down, and moving it backwards to move it forwards.

May all things move backwards to move forwards as long as it keeps the progress forwards…. may rest be achieved, and gratitude for all the loving people and times in my life.

Apparently the 45 and his wife have tested positive for the fiend. While my brain is creative, I’d like to think that any of the possible reasons someone could say they tested positive while not actually being positive – well … life is about suffering. Learning about oneself and become stronger. It is against my nature, and the energy of the universe to hope anything other than safety, health and happiness for every other human being. Lying however, comes with its own karmic repercussions of which, I am not the judge and jury. So just moving my creative mind on to other thoughts.

Unicorns.

There is this really cool place magic unicorn advertisement off 79 that I’ve noticed a couple times now, but we always go past it so fast I’m not exactly certain what it is or what its for – I also have been unable to locate it using the oracle — goggle. It too is a mythical creature it seems – not just the unicorn it advertises. Maybe I’ll figure it out someday.

The past week has been sort of a rollercoaster transition time from up and down…. both of emotions, and physical things. Sorta makes me think of an old gif I used to have of pooh bear doing morning exercises – “up, down, touch the ground – for a healthy happy pooh” –

It is possible to love someone and not agree with anything that they believe, say or do. I somehow feel that is the true meaning of love, and its unique ability. Love transcends our boxes of individuality, and sorta is all encompassing based upon a pure energy existence having nothing to do with things that make us unique, but more to do with things that make us the same.

I have found lately, that sometimes doubt creeps in – but by relying on that five year old inside of me – the one with infinite believe, hope and faith – I am able to circumvent the doubt for a bit, and live in the bliss. Unfortunately the five year old IS NOT allowed to drive, because she just loves eating… bad for me things… all the time. All though, I did find a very funny thing that she loves – I love – that is super easy to satisfy her, and also while not particularly “good” for me, its alot less bad and it staves off many of other bad avenues…. its a silly thing… its Licorice Gum. … specifically “Black Jack” – I don’t recall where I first got introduced to this – it was eons ago – or maybe just many years 🙂 — its oddly satisfying.

Talked to friends a long while ago about the fact that part of my emotional eating has to do with oral fixations – my husband says it’s the only time I’m quiet 🙂 and he might be right – keeping my mouth full. I do very much enjoy chewing gum. Its a small little comfort, and calorically and health wise its not really bad for me.

Some folks have been sending me these beautiful cards in the mail. I love them. They are small little sparks of joy when the mail arrives. Something I can “wonder” and “hope” for that isn’t about my physical health. I’ve been debating about turning these cards into art. Some sort of wreath or hanger that will allow me to see them all and have them as a beacon for those times when I’m feeling … well when I need some bolstering. Little things all over the place equal big things in the heart.

By somewhat stopping the world, its been an interesting thing to watch the people around me and enjoy the pace at which they learn, they thrive, they evolve as humans. This is something I’ve “noticed” in the past, but not with the enormity that it is thrust on me these days. People are incredible things. My friends, family – my pack/pride – are the most amazing of things.

Watching people individually and as a whole, the interactions — the ebb and flow – like breath or tides…. its a very awe inspiring thing. Its also humbling and awe inspiring to watch the babies – the babies whose lives I’ve lived thru – grown into adults. Also to realize they are some of the crazy drivers on the roads now 🙂 — a whole new generation of crazy drivers to scare/shock/and make me shake my head…. when they bob and weave thru traffic like an art form rather than a safety dance.

Its good sometimes to have things to shake my head at…. its a wonderful thing to be able to shake my head. Chiropractic adjustment was good day – more headshaking in my future.