Natural Faces

I think the Ent Wives live in my back yard. What do you think?

Manifestation Happens

If you have been reading this blog for very long, you know that I have been studying the Law Of Attraction for the past few months and trying to consciously implement its principles into my life. Basically, you have to get clear on what you want and allow yourself to have it. It sounds simple but it takes practice. If I create my world then I have to take responsibility for everything in my life, even those pesky back-up beeps. I'm still working on that one.

For quite some time now, I have wanted a kayak. Women who paddle a lot have fabulous upper bodies. I can always use more upper body strength for what I do for a living and I don't particularly like working out. When we moved into this house, I knew I had a good place to store a kayak so I started looking for one on craigslist. I did not really want to buy one, I wanted to barter for one. I had a couple of 'nearly got one' experiences. Yesterday it happened. I manifested a kayak!!!! I am very excited and can't wait to take it out on Town, I mean, Ladybird Lake.

The thing I like most about the kayak is how it came to me. I am serious when I say I manifested it. I also say that about the house we live in, which is a mansion compared to the place we moved into when we first moved back to Austin five years ago. We have moved three times since then, each time to a better place than the one before. This house is a quantum leap from the first one. It took five years to get this house but only a few months to get the kayak. Both times, I was very clear about what I wanted and just waited for it to come to me in the way that it came. The rent on our house is a couple of hundred dollars a month less than what we thought we would have to pay for a house with a lot less yard for Lani. I got exactly the car I wanted in the same way for a little less that what I thought I'd have to pay as well. That took less time than the kayak. I think that was because I was more focused on it.

When I started working with the Law Of Attraction, it was all about my financial situation and things that I wanted. It is becoming more a way of life with me because it works on all levels. I am becoming much more aware of my thoughts and the thought patterns that govern my life. Once I become aware of a thought pattern, I can usually figure out how it is affecting me and make an effort to transform it into a pattern with which I am more comfortable. I look forward to attracting more wonderful people, things and feelings into my life.

Soundtrack for this post: Creedence Clearwater Revival's Proud Mary 'cause I'm gonna be rollin' on the river real soon. Feel free to substitute Tina Turner's version if you like.

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Reasons To Stop Complaining

1. It just calls attention to things you don't like.

2. It can make people think you are a negative person.

3. It can make you feel that you are a negative person.

4. Focusing on negative aspects of a situation attracts more negativity to the situation.

5. Focusing on the negative aspects of a situation may very well attract more negative situations.

6. It's a waste of energy and you often feel guilty about it later.

7. Complaining about what you don't have just emphasizes to your self that you don't have it.

8. People get sick of listening to you complain.

9. You get sick of listening to yourself complain.

10. Getting sick of listening to yourself can cause you to actually get sick.

11. Most of the time, things are not as bad as we make them sound like they are.

12. Focusing on the negative makes it easy to overlook the positive.

13. It really is not very much fun. It does not make you feel good and
nothing is more important than feeling good.

21 Days

Christine Kane writes one of my favorite blogs (as well as some of my favorite music). I got this idea from her. She says there is a book about it but I think I will give it a try without the book.

The challenge is to go twenty-one days without complaining. That is right, twenty-one days. That is until November 14. However, if I slip and complain, the twenty-one day period starts over.

I have tried for the most part to keep this blog from becoming a running rant, in fact, I have made a conscious effort not to write bitchy, whiny, complaining blogs. Feel free to bust my chops if you feel that I have done otherwise. Now I will try to bring that over into my every day life. The main point of this exercise for me is to break a habit. I realize that this is likely to cause a mental shift and I will find fewer and fewer reasons to complain by the end of it.

Who is with me?

Soundtrack for this post: What a Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong

Much, Much Too Early

Going downtown yesterday morning, I took a different route than my usual one. I usually take a 'surface' street and avoid I35 which is just as likely to be a parking lot as a freeway. However, on weekend mornings, it is usually not crowded and I can get downtown in fifteen minutes rather than thirty.

Entering downtown from the interstate means that I hit the east end of 6th Street and drive it toward Brazos hoping to find parking in the block just east of Brazos and avoid valeting my car.

As I turned on to 6th yesterday, I thought I might be hallucinating. Could that really be Christmas decorations hanging over the street? It is not even Halloween yet! I know that retailers have had some Christmas stuff up since August but why on Earth has the city decided to hang green tinsel and guitars over the street so early? There is a big Halloween party down on 6th every year. The street is closed off to vehicular traffic and the crown gets so thick that all one can do is make a circle up one way and back the other. It is going to look bizarre with Christmas overhead.

In the past, the city has hung the decorations the Sunday after of before Thanksgiving. I think someone has lost his/her mind.

It is sooo trashy the only soundtrack for this post has to be: Robert Earl Keen, Merry Christmas from the Family and its sequel, Happy Holiday, Ya'll.

Blame It on the Stars...or Planets

Is anyone else experiencing weirdness the past couple of weeks? Things have been pretty weird around here and I found out a few days ago that Mercury may be the problem. It seems that the combined movement of Earth and Mercury around the sun make it appear that Mercury is moving backwards. This is known as retrograde and, according to astrologists, it can have a negative effect on communication, mechanical things and new projects.

I have experienced no shows, clients forgetting appointments, concierges thinking I said yes to a session when I had emphatically said no. I have also sent emails to several people from whom I have not received a reply. This is a little unusual, to say the least.

Mercury goes into retrograde about three times each year and stays there for three weeks. This time it began on October 12 and will not go direct until November 1.

Until then, we can blame all our screw ups on the Red Planet. After that, we are on our own.

Soundtrack for this post: The Age of Aquarius by the Fifth Dimension.

Photo from http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,85571,00.html

This site also has lots of info on Mercury in Retrograde.

Thirteen Odd or Little Known Things about Austin

1. Austin sits on a fault line knows as the Balcones Fault. We have actually had earthquakes but the most recent ones have been in the panhandle and did not seem to be related to the Balcones Fault.



2. A lot of the city sits over caves. That is right, caves. We don't think about it very much until someone gets lost in one.



3. The 3oth Parallel skirts the southern most part of town. (Some maps make it look as though it runs right through my house.) It also runs through the Great Pyramid.



4. The downtown hotel where I work is haunted.



5. Although Austin is known far and wide for its live music scene, it is also the breakfast taco capital of the world. You can get both at the same time if you know where to go.When people move away from here, breakfast tacos are usually high on the list of things they miss most. It seems that in South Austin, there is a taco trailer on every other corner. We is damn serious 'bout our breakfast tacos.



6. South Austin is hippy central. We call anything north of where Loop 1 and 183 meet "North Dallas."



7. Loop 1 is referred to by locals as 'Mopac.' This is because it runs along the Missouri Pacific railroad tracks.



8. Manchaca is pronounced "Manchack".



9. Pecos is pronounced "Paycus".



10. I can't phonetically spell the way Pedernales is pronounced.



11. Our mayor's name is Will Wynn. Can you imagine running for office against someone with that name?



12. Austin is now the 16th largest city in the nation after having at least doubled in size in the past ten years.



13. Real estate here is no longer all that much cheaper than California.