May 27, 2004

Hello!  My goodness, it's been such a long time!  When I'm not able to journal for a while, my thoughts get all cluttered and disjointed.  You guys keep me honest.  :)

It has been a busy week so far, but that has made it go fast.  Eric was home Monday and Tuesday and I spent yesterday cleaning house.  It was meant to be an hour or so, but it turned into a day long adventure.  When we moved into this house, the previous owners had taken great care to make sure it was absolutely spotless.  The stove was brand new.  The bathrooms were perfectly spotless.  There was not one iota of dirt anywhere in the house.

Having our previous rental house on the market put me in a situation where I had to keep the house at showroom quality a lot of the time.  We could have 24 hours' notice, so I would clean like mad during that 24 hours.  I've always hated housework with a passion, so I wasn't exactly doing it with love.  It was obligation and a giant frickin imposition on my day. 

Regardless, it wasn't hard to understand why I'd been put in that situation with that lesson.  It was time for me to stop being a baby and start doing my job and keeping my house clean, whether I did it or delegated it out.  It also helps that I really do love this house and want to live in it for the rest of my life.  Every other home I've ever had has been known to be temporary, so it was hard to invest in it much.  Here, I feel like I've been given a clean slate to start over again.  It's so much harder to get a house clean and keep it that way when it's been in bad shape for a long time.  I was lucky that I had this opportunity to hit the restart button. 

So after the house was finally unpacked and set up (which took almost a month), I started working on keeping it clean.  I do 2-3 major cleans on it a week, to include mopping, the bathrooms, cleaning the carpets if needed and a good clean on the kids' rooms.  The rest of the time, I just do general wipe downs and pick ups.  It's not been as hard as I expected, but it has been time consuming.  It's worth it though to feel something that I've never felt before.  Every night when I go to bed, I have a feeling of completion because I know my work is done.  Before, I always felt like I was a day late and a load of dishes short.

As I knew was inevitable, spending more time working on the house has edged out some of the things I enjoy doing, like writing in my journal.  Like with any lifestyle change that is for the positive, but you were resisting, there are sacrifices, at least in the beginning, for a greater good.

Speaking of which, I'm actually making some progress on the weight loss situation.  I'm still at 14 pounds lost since we moved in her two months ago, but I changed the way I work out.  Before, it was just the bike, but now I've started using the exercise ball and I'm up to 50 pushups and 100 crunches a day.  What's interesting is that I sweat a LOT more doing that than when I'm working hard on the bike.  Nathan skewered my exercise ball with a bamboo shish-kabob stick.  I've got it taped, but I still have to re-inflated it each time.  I'm also starting to think about walking out here on these beautiful roads and getting exercise that way.  Since my feet are doing so much better, I think I'm about ready to give them a test run.  There's nothing going on that anyone would really notice. It's more about feelings and subtle changes than anything else.

I've also been thinking about a lot of different things lately; about ways to "be" in this world.  It was all touched off by a terrible experience (online) that I had with a person who was very much a bully and a reckless, rampaging person. I misjudged this person in a very big way and as a result, I subjected a lot of very dear people to a great deal of bullshit.  I've been exceptionally lucky with my online experiences and in seven years of computer life, six of which have been as a soap columnist, I've had an extremely wonderful and disproportionately positive time of it. I hear what other webmasters and columnists have to deal with and I'm amazed.  Our EOS readers have always seemed to be such a pleasant, intelligent lot.  They definitely are the very best of the best in the internet world.  This one got in under my radar when I was distracted by moving into the new house and going through the challenges that came up with the purchase.  I just wasn't paying close enough attention to the warning signs and I wasn't the only one who had to pay for it, a lot of people did.

I get so lulled into comfort by the huge majority of fantastic people that I deal with online that I forgot there is that unstable, volatile segment out there. 

This was one of the times when being a Witch, specifically, really helped me because I was able to deal and process the situation on a lot of different levels at the same time.  In the physical world, I was able to work on how to handle things on a practical level.  I was able to think about why this situation had been presented to me in a grander scheme of things and what lessons it presented.  One of my biggest challenges in life has always been to accept and release a situation where I'm being accused of something that is simply not true.  In this case, it was many things;  a whole book of things that quite simply, were elaborate and hysterical fabrications.   It has always seemed to me that the truth should ultimately prevail in any situation and will, as the saying says, "set you free."  Nothing else is "fair."  Instead, I felt imprisoned in a cage of lies.  No matter what I said, there were just more accusations and lies.  It was hard to just let go, stop challenging, stop explaining and move on with my life.  As it turned out, I put the 100% truth out there, it was rejected and I had to accept that and realize that I had done my part.  If it was not accepted as truth, then there was nothing more that I could do. 

Another thing that being a Witch has taught me is the wisdom of the phrase, "What goes around, comes around."  It has been proven to me over and over again that while the physical world is not always fair immediately, the other levels of life are inevitably busy humming away, making sure that each individual gets back whatever they put out on the world.  Ultimately, they will be treated exactly as they have treated others.  The contribution they have made to the world, positive or negative, will be rewarded back to them with absolute precision and the most creative of means.

That situation showed me that my resistance to letting go of situations where I was being misrepresented after I told the truth was all about control issues.  As long as I kept talking and presenting the facts, there was always a chance the other person would have a light bulb moment and "get it," seeing the truth in my words.  Recognizing the point where we crossed over into futility was one step.  The next step was realizing that if I told the truth to someone one time, that was enough.  The rest is up to them and if they are more interested in the excitement and high drama of their own version rather than the truth, I can't be responsible for it..  Speak your truth once and from your heart, then let it go and let the Universe take care of the rest.  Some people are just intent on being victims and being miserable and living in a world of hate, intrigue and heavy white trash drama.  I'm not.  This was an incremental process and I think the lesson has finally set in.  Since I'm a communicator by nature, it's tough for me to acknowledge when it's time to stop communicating and let the world work on its own.  It's all about trusting the Universe's ability to do what it needs to do without my input.  :)

When Eric and I were getting ready to move up here, we began to do a lot of path working to find out what this place would be for us and why we were being drawn specifically to it.  The numerology for the address, 9981, 9+9+8+1 adds up to 27, which becomes 2+7, which adds up to 9.  Nine means completion, the ideal, the attainment of spiritual enlightenment, refining to perfection, reaching a state of inner awareness that brings true happiness.  Under #9 in my numerology book, it actually says, "retreat to a quiet country place in order to recharge one's spiritual batteries."  (This info comes from Numerology, by Sybil Leek.  Evidently, it's out of print, because I'm not finding it in amazon.com or half.com, but I'm holding it in my hand)  I hadn't researched it in detail until now and only knew 9 as "completion" and "the ideal."  Interesting how far it went. 

My other house, 5425, comes down to 7, (5+4+2+5 = 16 and 1+6 = 7), which means striving toward integrity, using your efforts to benefit mankind, being cautious.  Building from the sum of your experiences, bearing burdens in order to develop courage, success after tremendous efforts.  The quote for 7 is "a person who is literally forced to live up to the highest implications, provided they survive the first desperate years of pain and hardship."  Wow.  Heavy.

I like the terms of the new house better. 

I think I'm now a believer in Numerology.

I'm formulating more ideas, many of which I have been discussing with Eric and together we have been implementing.  I've been rambling on here for long enough, so I'll go into that more tomorrow while your eyes still function.

Why all the butterflies on this page?  My yard is aswarm with them.  They are of all different colors and sizes and colors and they are just marvelous.  I didn't expect to see many since we don't really have many flowers.  The mountain misery is still blooming a bit and I'm trying hard to nurture my Mexican Sage back into bloom and my poor calla lilies are struggling to hang in there (with lots and lots of watering).  Still, these little guys are just everywhere.  It's a wonderful metaphor for the evolution I feel going on in my life and in my spirit.  It's so amazing that from catapillar to butterfly, every spring we get to see true evolution in condensed form.  It just shows how beautiful we can be if we just pull our cocoon around us for a while and be willing to let the changes happen. 

I'm so grateful my cocoon smells like Christmas trees! 

Meanwhile, here are some funnies:

Due to inherit a fortune when his sickly, widower father died, Charles decided he needed a woman to enjoy it with. Going to a singles' bar, he spotted a woman whose beauty took his breath away.

"I'm just an ordinary man," he said, walking up to her, "but in just a week or two, my father will die and I'll inherit 20 million dollars."

The woman went home with Charles and married his father. 

 Can you say "revenge"? 

After 17 years of marriage, a man dumped his wife for his young secretary.

His new girlfriend demanded that she wanted to live in the couple's multimillion dollar home, and since the man's lawyers were a little better, he prevailed. He gave his now ex-wife just 3 days to move out.

She spent the first day packing her belongings into boxes, crates and suitcases. On the second day, she had the movers come and collect her things. On the third day, she sat down for the last time at their beautiful dining room table by candlelight, put on some soft background music, and feasted on a pound of shrimp, a jar of caviar, and a bottle of Chardonnay. When she had finished, she went into each and every room and deposited a few half-eaten shrimp shells, dipped in caviar, into the hollow of the curtain rods. She then cleaned up the kitchen and left.

When the husband returned with his new girlfriend, all was bliss for the first few days. Then slowly, the house began to smell. They tried everything; cleaning &mopping and airing the place out. Vents were checked for dead rodents, and carpets were steam cleaned. Air fresheners were hung everywhere. Exterminators were brought in to set off gas canisters, during which they had to move out for a few days, and in the end they even paid to replace the expensive wool carpeting.

Nothing worked. People stopped coming over to visit... Repairmen refused to work in the house...The maid quit... Finally, they could not take the stench any longer and decided to move. A month later, even though they had cut their price in half, they could not find a buyer for their stinky house. Word got out, and eventually, even the local Realtors refused to return their calls. Finally, they had to borrow a huge sum of money from the bank to purchase a new place.

The ex-wife called the man, and asked how things were going. He told her the saga of the rotting house. She listened politely, and said that she missed her old home terribly, and would be willing to reduce her divorce settlement in exchange for getting the house back... Knowing his ex-wife had no idea how bad the smell was, he agreed on price that was about 1/10th of what the house had been worth... But only if she were to sign the papers that very day. She agreed, and within the hour, his lawyers delivered the paperwork.

A week later, the man and his new girlfriend stood smirking as they watched the moving company pack everything to take to their new home...including the curtain rods.

I'll be here tomorrow!  Have a blissful Thursday.

Love,
Katrina