First, some neat August Full Moon tidbits if you are inclined to enjoy that sort of thing, I know I am :) Second, wow. I just could not sleep last night. At all. I have always had issues sleeping the 3 nights of a full moon but usually I ground myself well and at least get a bit of sleep. Last night, for whatever reason, I just didn't do that. So, now I have all this spazzy lunar energy running around in me and cannot for the life of me focus it LOL I did a great tarot spread for the full moon and it totally showed where I need to focus and how, which is good. A roadmap in fuzzy times is always a great help. You can see my Ouija: Oracle of the Dead spread here. It's a great spread for getting into what you need to see and how to focus yourself. And that is kind of it. My brain needs to digest the energy and information and that is going to take some effort right now LOL Currently Watching: Ghost Adventures Currently Reading: Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince (again and again and again re-read) Also Currently Reading: The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (also a re-re-re-read) Currently also loving the slightly cooler temps - I am waiting for you Fall!
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The Rose sisters are finally making a comeback! After being infested with nasty bugs, they were snipped to their stems. Now they are making a green and leafy come back with buds! Let's hope they can stay healthy for awhile. My neighbors are currently drilling and or chain sawing and or leaf blowing and or digging a hole hole in gravel. Maybe all of the above. Most interesting is that their mariachi music is louder than all of the above. It's.... interesting... It is finally cooling off - FINALLY - sort of. I actually used a blanket last night for the first time in months. And there is a slightly cool breeze wafting in the window right now, instead of that manky humidity that has been hovering for a few weeks. I miss that cool and refreshing breeze. I tend to hibernate in the summer and come alive around September 21st or so. Also of note: grocery shopping at 9:45 AM on a Sunday will result in minimal lines for check out. I will withhold leaving a negative yelp review for another week. Things I am attempting - embroidery and needlepointy things. I have ideas and need to figure out how to get them onto the hoop!
Oh good, the neighbors are now yelling at each other. My cue to find my Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones and start shopping for a quiet cave elsewhere in the Universe. Happy Sunday! I thought it was the whole "everything is in retrograde so nothing is working," situation that was making me feel so un-inclined to do anything. But that ended on the 19th and I am still in one of those "meh," moods. I have things I want to do: Learning more about embroidery and doing arty stuff in general. As well as learning my new tarot deck, but when I sit down to do those things, I just... sit. I wondered what the cards would say and then decided I wasn't inclined to use those either which is really weird for me. When I did try to pull some cards they were all discordant and not making a lot of sense... kind of like my brain currently. But then I remembered that is has happened before. I hit this pocket of slow time where I need to stop struggling and thinking I should do this or that, and just sit in that pocket of time and let it be. It feels counter productive and almost like I am wasting time but I have learned that it's like pulling the Hermit card, it is a very much needed time where I let everything settle. Kind of like letting a computer run a virus check. Everything falls into place when I am floating there. So here I float. I know this will end. I will wake up one morning and feel energized and ready to tackle anything that comes my way because I took this time to let myself float. But not "down here." That's Pennywise's realm and I am so not going there. I tried. I can just tell when I have that resting bitch face happening though. Sometimes I just don't have the energy to resist it. Especially during the now traumatizing visit to the grocery store. They have 13 check out lanes and only ever have TWO open. And this is prime time shopping apparently as there is always at least 9 people waiting in each line while the checkers just chat away with each other and my face is now really showing my annoyance. I wonder if a negative Yelp review might help. Mercury's latest retrograde kicked my butt. Combined with my usual monthly brain fog, I was not coping well with it and I am so glad it is over. I hate not having my brain work properly, it makes me very edgy. And I completely forgot where I was going with this - see, Brain Fog. I need a better coping mechanism because all my usual tricks are not working today. LOL Long Beach Museum of Art Matisse Drawings and Vitality and Verve III Transforming the Urban Landscape. I, of course, paid attention to the rules and didn't even sneak a photo. So I am grabbing these off the interwebs from people who totally didn't listen to the rules. I loved the ginormous Alice in Wonderland mural and all the air grates had hands and weirdness coming out of them. One was chicken feets LOL The wire sculptures were fantastic - there were lights angled on them so that they reflected the shadows on the walls behind.
It was really lovely seeing Matisse's sketches and I really only paid much attention to his shapes which I love to create myself. I can see some of the shapes in those sketches too. This show is only at the Long Beach Museum of Art until September 2, 2018, so go now. It is really nice. And if you are really lucky you will get to see many half naked sweaty old men riding many bikes around the beach front. (snort) On today's episode of The Affogato Diaries we are using:
Tillamook Vanilla Bean ice cream Cafe La Llave Espresso French Press Ice cold glass tumblers WeeCubeMan went all out on this episode - he brought in a french press and glass tumblers as well as some hard core espresso. Ooh La La The Affogato Diaries are going fancy! Glasses were put into the freezer for a few hours and he made sure the freezer was cranked up as cold as it could get to make sure the ice cream was solid. (That was totally key) I am pretty sure anything else in that freezer will stay solid for years now. Heh Heh. This was a great ice cream too. It has the little frozen bits of ice in it that make it smooth yet crunchy and added a great texture to the affogato! I liked it better than the gelato. Once the espresso was done, we got out the glasses and loaded in the ice cream. Slowly pour a few tablespoons of espresso over the ice cream. We actually used a bit more but to each their own! Because the ice cream was so solid, the espresso hardly melted it, which was a problem before. It was too soupy. This time, it stayed ice cream shaped and the espresso blended with it to make a very awesome affogato! It thought it looked like a root beer float but with a higher kick and a really good taste. I really don't think I could drink espresso on it's own, but this was just refreshing and tasty! High fives were had and then about 20 minutes later - the caffeine hit and bouncy bouncy! Affogato scale of awesomeness a 10 being the best First affogato: 4 Second affogato 7 Third affogato: 9.5 - there is always room for improvement but this was a solid awesome treat! Fourth affogato: TBD Life has been... odd lately. I am mostly a creature of habit, which is not exactly a great thing but it is a comforting one. When you know what is what and when and all that. Stasis. But it is realllllly hard to get moving from a fixed position. Unless you have a catalyst to shove you rudely into movement. Most times I see that catalyst coming but there are times when it hits like a nasty bolt out of the blue. I had to laugh when I said, "Ok there's the Tower at least it isn't the stabby card... only to get the stabby card the next day, after the fact. *blink blink* Now I feel, adrift. Slightly off sides and wanting to find some fixed position to align myself with. But maybe I also just need to accept these feelings and let them flow. As in all things from the past, in the present, everything will coalesce in its own time. Good thing I have been doing the whole mindfulness study or I would really be a mess. Dreams Dreams - This morning I was dreaming that I lost a tiny key. I had put it in one purse and neglected to put it in the purse I was going to use. It was like the tiny key you get with a diary when you are 8. All the efforts I put into finding and retrieving this key failed and I was very upset. To dream that you lose your keys signify fears of losing control of yourself or losing your position or status in life. It may also indicate unexpected changes, frustrations, and unpleasant adventures. The dream could be analogous to lost or missed opportunities. Well. There's that word again. Control. I hate not being in control. It is the biggest thing I struggle with and as much as I am trying, I really hate losing my control over stuff. Struggles that I shouldn't struggle with - But I am trying. Right now I am trying to find a focus point. Something to anchor myself too. To be present, right here and now and dealing with things as they arise. Trying not to struggle against things I cannot control. So not me LOL ...... So, on Thursday, I decided to see what the Tarot had to say about life and I pulled the Tower card. On the plus side, it wasn't the stabby card (10 of swords).... but still... not something anyone looks forward to drawing.
Then on Friday the Tower card made itself very clear and I was ..... flattened. Most times I have an idea of what is about to occur and I can plan accordingly. Not so this time. This was a true bolt of lightning to the head and left me speechless and a little, ok a lot, pissed off. Now it's Saturday. I had some interesting dreams of which I was working with a lot of women in a pretty chill environment doing creative things - and well, it gave me some direction and calm. This morning I wanted to see what La Tarot had to say about that and I drew the Ace of Wands.... I cannot think of a better card to illuminate a new beginning. There is this teeeeeny tiny part of me that has this annoying inner voice that says, "the cards dont know dont believe that sort of thing." It's an pesky voice and I think it comes from upbringing. Because I am always totally floored by how the cards are always spot on. Subconscious? Synchronicity? Magic? All of the above. All I know, is that it works, pesky voice aside. I guess I am going to regroup after that tower blast - take a bit of time to clear my head and see what the ace of wands has in store. I have ideas and I am liking that a lot. Things build. You don't think they are, you think that you are doing quite well and dealing with daily life and doing what you have to do and then all of a sudden you find yourself in the middle of a traffic jam, screaming at idiot drivers who are texting and not driving and wanting to ram your car into theirs. That was totally me awhile ago. I couldn't quite pinpoint my frustration, only that it was there and making me miserable. I would try to minimize it all by repeating I have a good job, I have a place to live and a car to drive and I am not lacking anything vital.... but it wasn't really helping because it wasn't showing me what was bugging me. Then one day, stuck in traffic as usual, I realized that I have no control over the traffic. The traffic is going to be there. I have to be in it and there it was..... bolt of lightning to the head. Control.... or lack thereof. I realized right then that I have so little control over things in my life right now and that is just the way it is, right now. I couldn't change those things and it drove me nuts - still does, to be honest but on that day I had to change something. I had to find what little control I had. I had to find my groove again. There are so many quotes and sayings about this topic. Changing the way you look at things and stop wishing for something and making it happen. Being happy with what you have right now. You can't just wish for something - you have to make a plan and follow it. Being miserable is no way to live. Passive wishing isn't going to help either, it will just make it worse. Find what you do have control over and start from there. Even if the only thing you have control over is your mind and how you see things. Find a way to give yourself even just one moment a day to find your center and do something nice for yourself. I needed attainable goals to get through the day by day. I chose to try and be happy. Seems easy enough but I am telling you it can be hard work. And it is helping. But it is also a daily thing. I have to remind myself of the things I have control over and to be thankful for all the little things that add up to big things. I will probably always be a control freak, probably because my circumstances tend to lead me into situations where I have so little control and it makes me edgy and nervous. But by forcing myself to change my thinking I am getting better at letting things go and focusing on what I have right in front of me. And if it is an idiot driver texting while veering into my lane? I am thankful I can move over and turn up the music because I can control how many times I listen to Stayin' Alive and Groove is in the Heart. (and that is many many times) The sky is full of some serious smoke clouds. The last photo was taken just now, the others, yesterday. I woke up this morning thinking it was stormy, the skies looked so yellow. Then I remembered the Holy Fire, still burning out of control and still only 5% contained.
Arson did that. I have much anger and sadness at this. *no words* |
Not vicious or malicious
Just de-lovely and delicious Archives
January 2023
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