my day so far .... a short rant without any actual ranting .....

I have been working with cork all day which is kind of like working with paper.

It leaves my hands dry and flaky and with that awful sensitivity like I just soaked in a tub for 2 hours, but without my Nook and the wine and ... well the soak in a hot tub that makes those puckered fingers all worth it.

While I have been working I am watching one of the Kill Bills - the good one where Uma punches her way out of that coffin, claws her way out of the ground and kicks a one-eyed Darryl Hannah's ass.

This is kind of how I have been feeling lately - sometimes like I am covered in dirt and sometimes like I have just clawed my way out and am ready to take on the world

(I wouldn't take on Darryl Hannah though - she gets arrested every couple years for some eco-'terrorism' plus she was that squeaky voiced mermaid, so I kind of like her).

I am working on a new ... well, I'll just call it a 'project' for now

because 1. I like to think of my work as top secret, like industry spies have infiltrated New Jersey and I may need some Wonka-type maneuvering to outwit them

and 2. I get to call myself a project manager.

I have been doing this for the last couple weeks and I really like the sound of it. I even got to write it on a patient information form for a new doctor, then I got to be particularly vague when she asked me about the type of projects I manage. I may have left her with the impression there is some kind of secret government agency involved ... which might be true, who knows, Olive has been acting a little suspicious lately.

Also today I had a couple people from our local historical society stop by and ask to include our old house on an old house tour - but it turns out our old house isn't old enough .. it just looks old enough. This is probably not a good thing.

You might think I'd be fun to talk to, but I'm not. I think the people from the historical society thought I would be fun to talk to - probably because I was smiling very big when I opened the door (yes, gums and everything I'm not sure why). They quickly realized I am not so good at unstructured conversation, but I am always friendly to historical (I think because I confuse them with hysterical) people.

Anyhoo, that's about all I've got - Uma is about to kill Bill, so I have to get up and turn off the telly, I much prefer happily ever afters .... and how was your day? xo all

another note from the universe ...

No more "supposed tos", ok Cat?

You're not supposed to - work harder, sleep less, sell more, talk slower, run faster, look younger, try harder, do more, stay longer, leave earlier, cook, clean, negotiate, settle, start, stop, move, win, shake, rattle or roll

(well, maybe you are supposed to shake, rattle and roll)

Other people made all that up.

I love you the way you are.

The Universe :)

New Moon in Leo .... Uranus in Aries - time for some passionate making makers!

lions and tigers oh my - my bracelet with cuddly rigor mortis

I am not quite done with the project I am working on (more on this later) but wanted to pop back in for today's new moon.

Today's new moon is in the fiery sign of Leo.

Today was also my mother's birthday. My mother was a Leo. All - "I am the solar queen of the universe. Let me perform."; married to another fire sign, an Aries, you can only imagine the romance and craziness and creativity and damage that could produce! Damn we miss them!

We can't see a new moon, but we can definitely feel it and it affects the energies here. This new moon is an excellent time to set intentions for stuff connected to the lionhearted, wonderful sign of Leo.

Stuff like romance - intense romance - let's just say passion, creativity, loyalty, generosity, playfulness, recognition, leadership, follow through, stamina, pride, health areas ruled by Leo - heart, energy, inflammations

What are we passionate about? What is our heart desiring now?

So, for example some intentions I am setting today:

1. I easily express my creativity for its own sake
2. I will create a clear path to journey upon to fulfill my heart's desire
3. I easily take the right actions with my business that cause me to be recognized in a positive way
4. I easily complete the tasks I set before myself
5. I easily take action that result in perfect heart and energy health

AFFIRMATION TIPS: get into a happy frame of mind - always make affirmations from a  positive place - write your affirmations down by hand, speak them out loud - I always write my affirmations on strips of paper and put them into a bowl of rice so I can mix them around every now and then with my fingers if things get stagnant - then release your attention from them knowing that your intention is known. Know these things are already yours.

We have some interesting stuff coming along next month - so, right now is a great time to breathe.

Breathe in light (there is lots of it right now) and exhale compassion and gratitude.

Next month is the end of this cosmic nine month birth cycle we have been in since the winter solstice. We are being asked to maintain our center and stay calm no matter what occurs in the world around us. Things will probably start happening quicker next month or maybe all at once in order to awaken as many people on this planet as possible in a cosmic push to our tipping point.

Awakening usually occurs when something is revealed that was not known before that rocks the foundation people base their lives on ... it might be something big because anyone who is still asleep after these last few years probably needs a big shove - the rest of us will feel it, too, though .... we just stay centered, know that we create our reality, all is as it should be ..... go within, go outdoors, stay grounded. And for now - let's enjoy our days and our nights and this wonderful, lion-hug of a moon by doing whatever it is we are doing right now with passion!

what else is possible .....

kristen tercek locket - this cat is ready to roar

I am taking a blog break this week -

to do some new things and they will take all my focus.

(me and multi-tasking go together pretty much like peanut butter and mayo - yup, that good)

I usually choose to look inward - my mantra from the Course has always been - "look around less, imagine more" and this has worked for me - but it seems some things on the outside need my attention.

(and my courage - I am channeling Kristen's tiger this week).

 Of course, I'll be checking in with myself (maybe you will be, too):

“What else is possible?”
“What’s right about this that I’m not seeing?”
“What can I learn about myself from this?"
"How do I feel when I take this step?"

 

when we think we want something and we don't really want it ....

cuddly rigor mortis locket (my new lunch buddy)

Ever since India Arie said on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday a few weeks ago,

"If you think you want it and you don't really want it, it makes you weaker."

it has been gnawing at me.

She was talking about a certain level of success, about the kind of "showing up" that is necessary to have that and about the spaces in us that sabotage the other spaces.

(well, I don't really know if that is what she was saying, what with my lack of focus and total disappearance of short-term memory situation, but that was what I was hearing)

I have always known there is a little resistant part of me that wants to stay put, that doesn't want to stand out, that thinks this blog is a little too know-it-ally now - a space in me that was much more comfortable when I was just whining on Wednesdays, that gets a little tense when a big thinker tells me how much more I could be doing.

The space that pretends we don't know what we want or that what we have is what we want because really wanting what we want would be pretty freakin' painful (and yes, I'll say it, embarrassing) if we didn't get it.

Especially since we live in a world where we can see other people getting it - am I the only person with Facebook friends who are always doing the most amazing things - was everybody else always doing all this awesomeness while I sat on my porch watching ants - I think I might have been happier not knowing this ...  

Or the space that pretends we do want it, because what are we a slacker, shouldn't we want that!

I've held this space for decades. I've nurtured it.

I've never thought about it the way she said it though - I think it was the word weaker that stopped me in my tracks.

I had an Etsy shop owner a few months ago ask me for some selling advice and she told me immediately she wanted to net $50,000 a year selling her jewelry which was priced at about $30 a piece. A quick estimate told me (assuming her raw goods and expense costs were about 30%, which I just totally made up) she would need to sell about 2500 pcs of jewelry a year retail or about double that number wholesale to make $50,000.

She was currently selling about 10 pcs a week.

Going from 10 pcs a week to 50 - 100 pcs a week would be a pretty big change for her - I asked her how much time she thought that would take (for me, and you may need more time than this you don't have Olive after all, I calculate 3 hours of total work for every 1 hour of production), if she could even source her raw materials for these kind of numbers, is she had the funds to support that kind of growth (it actually does cost money to make money), 

how she would double her retail sales and maybe pick up 3 wholesale orders a week?

People might think - "well, I'd still like to have such problems" when actually these are exactly the kind of problems that put a lot of good businesses out of business.

(whether we go out of business because of too few customers or too many, we are still out of business) 

They are also the kind of problems that some space in us sees even before we do and says "I'm not sure I want that."

I'm sure she thought I was being negative and we never spoke again. I was trying to get her positive (the definition of positive that means certain) with her intention and looking at what this would actually mean - to see what kind of stuff this brought up in her - because it was exactly the stuff that came up that would create her roadblocks.

She was very certain she didn't want to hire any employees or do any outdoor shows and immediately looking at her numbers and looking at what she made - she wasn't putting a made-in-China pendant on a made-in-China chain like at least half the jewelry makers on Etsy are now - my immediate reaction was that it would be a lot of work and I wondered if some part of her was realizing this and blocking the process.

Some space in her that really didn't want to step into that life; some space that found it easier to say "this just isn't working" than to make the changes so that it can work or really look at whether or not she even wanted it to.

If we think we want something - maybe because we think we should want it - or maybe because part of us really does want it but other spaces in us are holding resistance to it, and we don't really want it (making and selling 2500-5000 pieces of anything a year all by ourselves is a whole lot of work, folks), it weakens us.

It's this polarity (and not the amazing locket - warning shameless plug ahead - have you seen this) that creates the self-sabotage or the unhappiness; the negative emotions from the resistance not what we actually do. Of course, the actions come from the emotions so it all goes full circle, but even a circle probably has a space where we can just jump in (or jump off) - think of that spinning ride at the playground.

I am still not sure where I am going with this thinking. I know we can tell what it is we are really wanting by the way it makes us feel - 

the problem is that so many things that could be really good things, can bring up fear in us. It seems like things can initially feel bad (as in scary, mostly) so we don't think we can always trust our feelings to go with what feels good. 

We have seen the bad stuff work out and the good stuff go all to hell.

We think we should feel the fear and do it anyway. But then life becomes one challenge after another and I'm not so sure things should be that hard. Maybe changing the emotion from fear to excitement (joy would be even better) before taking action helps eliminate the resistance that creates the sabotage; it will be a lot easier to change the emotion than to rewrite our personal history.

I have to keep thinking about this. Or I have to stop thinking about this. I think I have to stop thinking about this - whatever it is I am intended to get out of it will show up in an easier way for me to grasp.

(hopefully covered in something kind of grippy, I have dropped 2 test tubes in the last 24 hours). 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone - it's summer, so relax and let's enjoy it - actually don't even read this post - it is way too much to think about in late July ...

but you knew that ..... a note from the Universe

Dreams come true, Cat , that's what they do.

For the slow approach:

Resist. Attach. Insist. Deny. Stop. Second guess. Whine. Argue. Defend. Protest. Cry. Struggle. Ask others, when you know the answer yourself.

For the quick approach:

Visualize. Pretend. Prepare. Dodge. Roll. Do not waiver over intentions, but only methods. Show up, even when nothing happens. Give thanks in advance.

But you knew that,
    The Universe