Category: love

Ten of Pentacles (Reversed)

Gilded Tarot–Ten of Pentacles (Drawn Reversed)

Keywords / Impressions:  Loss of assets, lost of stability

Book:  Holding on to things you have no use for, disenfranchised and outside the system, unconventional
Guidance:  Norms be damned, be unconventional
Journaling
I’m reading this card as closing myself off to receiving blessings.  My intuition tells me at a deep soul level that a relationship with someone loving would be amazing, but I’m closing myself off and shutting that door because I’m afraid.  I’m terrified of meeting someone and getting close to them, then having them reject me.  This would be even more devastating if it was someone I was already friends with and I lost their friendship as well as their love.  I need to let go of these fears and open my heart and that is the hardest flipping thing I’ve ever done.
Update 11/07/17
After a year of receiving messages from the cards and my guides that I need to open my heart and be willing to take a risk, I think I’m finally ready to do that.  I’m embarking on a year of love to focus on opening myself up to love.  More about this in another post.

King of Swords

King of Swords
Hanson Roberts

First Impressions:  I love how his sword is personalized with a purple embellishment.  He looks so resolute and ready to defend his land.  I also like the eagle on the standard behind him, which is echoed by the clasp of his cloak.  He looks to be middle aged, old enough to have wisdom but young enough to still do battle.  The king of swords is decisive and clear-headed.

Book:  Intellectual, decisive, discriminating, inability to be swayed by emotions, tendency to be too rigid.

Guidance:  Make decisions by facing the facts

Journaling:

Odd that I pulled this card today as more than anything I was called to be kind and compassionate and not all about the facts.  April opened up to me about her life growing up and what’s going on in her life now.  It opened my eyes to what it must have been like to be my mother.

When I take a step back and take out the emotion of how I feel about her and about how she treated me, I am amazed that she turned out as normal as she was.  It doesn’t mean I like everything she did or that everything she did was okay, but maybe if I dig down I can find a little more compassion for her.

December 23, 2017

Over a year later and there are still days when I am conflicted by my relationship with my mother.  I know that I made the right choice for myself and my kids because I have peace and self esteem in a way that I never did before.  I like myself and I have learned to value myself and do the right things for me.  There was no way that I could do that when I was still talking to her on a regular basis.

In my heart of hearts, I want for her the peace that I have found in valuing myself and taking care of myself.  However, I also know that that is not something that I can give her.  That’s something she has to want and to work for herself.  However, I can pray for her to find peace in her life.

Counting My Blissings

This weekend started out great because John had a good doctor’s appointment and was cleared to go back to work, however it turned crappy pretty quick as as something that we thought had been taken care of a long time ago has reared it’s ugly little head and threatened our financial future. We both felt as if we’d taken a big kick to the gut especially because when we called to try to resolve it and get information, we were lied to and told it was all taken care of and there were no issues.
The bad news put a damper on our entire weekend and it was hard to enjoy our good news and the time off because we have no clue how we’re going to resolve this issue. We’ve tried multiple times to resolve it ourselves in the past and apparently have failed, so we’ve pretty much decided it’s time to bring in professionals, but who? I spent most of the weekend online researching firms who might be able to help us and getting more and more confused. It’s Sunday evening and I’m still not sure who we’re going to go with, but the one thing that became more and more clear to me as the weekend wore on was that I could not let this area of my life define who I am as a person. Because I was stressed out and angry over this, I snapped at my daughter and made her feel bad about myself, I didn’t enjoy the time that Sean was home over the weekend, and I sat and moped instead of being productive. I spun these big spider webs of horror about all the things that could go wrong. All of them are legit, but they will only happen if I choose to be a victim and not address this head on.
The other thing I realized that I was doing the one thing that I said I wouldn’t do and that was to focus on the negative instead of all the wonderful things going on in my life. I don’t often take time to sit down and make a list of all the things that are right with my life and that I should be grateful for. So here goes:
  1. We have a roof over our heads, food to eat, a car to get us to work, and the essentials of life. Reading the newspaper and looking around, this is a huge blessing that we all to often take for granted.
  2. John survived his heart attack and is well on the road to recovery. He got the green light to go back to work on Monday.
  3. I have two healthy and smart kids who are kind, responsible, and for the most part respectful.
  4. John and I both have jobs that pay the bills and where we are appreciated and respected for what we bring to the table.
  5. I have people at work who believe in me, support me, and will go to bat for me. That means a whole lot.
  6. Not to brag, but I’m intelligent, hard working, and I bring a lot to whatever organization I work for.
  7. I am a kind person who tries to do her best every day and make people’s lives a little easier. I’m certainly not always perfect and there are a lot of times where I’m thoughtless, but I keep trying to do my best.
  8. I have my health. Although I’m not in perfect health, I’m working on it and getting better every day. Trying is half the battle and eventually I will get in good shape.

  9. I’m loved by my family and friends.

  10. My incredibly awesome dog Luke who loves me and believes in me no matter what.

So no matter what is going wrong with my life, there is a wonderful bliss in knowing that there are things going right.

Bliss Queens

Julie Powell got bad press by Julia Child as the cooking queen proclaimed she thought Julie’s blog, which chronicled her efforts to cook her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking a stunt. I have to admit that Julia’s comments and my own jealously over her getting a book deal while I struggle to get readers tainted my view of her blog and made me reluctant to get sucked into all the hype over Julia and Julie. Add to that the reviews that said Julia’s portions of the movie were amazing while Julie’s portions weren’t up to par had me convinced that the movie wasn’t worth a trip to the video store.

I broke down and rented the movie when I found it in a RedBox for $1 and my opinion completely changed once I watched the movie as I realized that Julie didn’t start out intending to get rich from her blog, she started it for the same reason a lot of us start blogs: as a way to share our lives and to write about what we want to write about instead of what corporate slugs want us to waste our words on. At the time, her life was extra stressful as she was working for an agency that handled calls from 9/11 victims. Cooking and blogging let her escape from the pressure cooker every evening, gave her something to look forward to, and gave her a way to stay on track. Did she harbor dreams of striking it rich with her blog? I can’t say, but if she did she wouldn’t be alone as deep down all of us want our blogs to be recognized for the amazing works of literature they are.

Having read Julia’s memoir, My Life in France, just a few weeks ago, I was expectedly nervous about how the big screen version would compare to the printed page and, surprisingly enough, I wasn’t disappointed. Meryl Street’s portrayal was as true to the book as you can get in a 2 hour movie. I felt her humanity and her passion jump off the screen and into my heart and left the theater feeling ready to go search for some grainy television footage of Julia’s famous cooking shows.

I haven’t read Julie’s book so I don’t have anything to compare it to, but I found myself rooting for her as I watched the show. She came across as someone who started the grand adventure to cook all of Julia’s recipes in a year as a way to prove to herself that she could start and finish something. It’s funny because at the start of the movie, her mom calls her and tells her that she’s in over her head and that she should just quit. Mom chimes in again toward the middle of the movie and tells her that she should finish what she started. It’s moments like this that ground the movie in real life and make Julie seem like the girl next door.

Other moments hit home for me too especially the honesty in her husband’s voice as he told her that he regretted suggesting the blog and that since she started it she’d been self absorbed and it was all about “me, me, me.” Unfortunately, my hubby has also told me that I’m somewhat self absorbed in my blog and that it was all about “me, me, me.” Hmm..maybe that’s a theme with bloggers we write about the things that are closest to our hearts. Our blogs are a way of communicating and sharing who we are.

After watching the movie, I searched out Julie’s blog and in its pages, I found the same honesty that pervaded the movie. Her blog was a way for her to share herself and her life with the world. Did she get excited about having followers and having the New York Times come calling? Of course she did, every writer in the world gets excited about the thought that someone out there is reading what they wrote and cares enough about it to comment on it. My deepest dream is that someday I’ll write a script about finding my bliss and people will watch it and something will resonate deep within them. That’s the bliss of writing, it’s about touching other people’s lives with your words and, hopefully, helping them understand you and themselves just a little bit better.

Now as to the self absorbed comments, I am going to try to include some posts this year about things you can to do find your bliss.

Until next time, Bon Appetit (okay, I couldn’t resist).

French Bliss

I picked up a copy of My Life in France yesterday at Barbara’s Bookstore at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. I had some time to kill while waiting for John’s surgery to be done and after all the hype I’d heard about Julia and Julie, I was curious to read about the real Julia Child. At the time, all that I knew about Julia Child was that she cooked French food, had been in the OSS, and had a TV cooking show.

My earliest impressions of Julia Child came from coming across her TV show on PBS when I was a child and, sad to say, from the Saturday Night Live skits. I hate to admit it, but somehow I gathered that she was rather opinionated and snobbish and not someone I’d like to know. I’m not exactly sure how I drew that conclusion, but suffice to say she wasn’t someone who interested me until the whole Julia and Julie thing came about.

Picking up the book, with the picture of Meryl Street as Julia on the cover and thumbing through it, I was impressed by the humlity and humanity I saw reflected on the pages. I started reading it when I got back to John’s room and I found myself getting drawn into Julia’s foodie adventures. My mouth watered as she described the butter laden treats she learned to cook in France, I felt saddened to read about her having to leave her beloved France, and I cheered for her as she found a publisher who actually got what she was trying to say.

I recognized my own opinionated nature and love of travel in her stories and I was charmed as she described shopping in markets and learning to cook from scratch. I empathized with her in her search for herself in Paris. For although, I was the one with the career while John stayed home, I know how difficult it was for him on Okinawa. It’s hard to be the one following your spouse around to the far corners of the earth. I especially empathized with how hard it must have been for her to go from having a career of her own with the OSS (the precursor to the CIA) to being a dependent spouse.

Some of the recipes Julia cooked, such as the beef bourguignon look as if they would taste incredible, but some of the others like the aspics I’m not sure I could ever bring myself to try. I know that someday soon, I’ll be getting a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and expiremienting with some of the recipes she cooked. Even if I never become an international celebrity or public foodie, I’ll at least have the bliss of creating and eating wonderful food.

Remembering Dad

My daddy would have been 74 today and I spent a lot of time today thinking about who he was, some of the adventures we shared, and giving thanks that I had a dad for the first 42 years of my life. I’m sure that some people think that I think my dad’s a saint based on some of my blog entries, but I know that he wasn’t a saint, just a good man trying to live the best life he could. Some of my favorite memories of dad:

The Arch–My grandma lived in Popular Bluff, MO and we would go to visit her at least three or four times every year and we usually drove straight down 55 from Chicago to St. Louis and the first one who saw the St. Louis Arch got ice cream. Of course, the reality was that we all got ice cream, but my brother and I always competed to see who would see the glistening aluminum arch first. The Arch was special to my parents because it was completed the October after they were married so there first few trips to St. Louis together they saw it being built.
The Zoo–My dad was the ultimate animal lover and no matter what town we were in we had to go to the zoo. We visited zoos in Alabama, Florida, Texas, and every state in between. However, no matter how many zoos we visited, the St. Louis zoo was always our favorite because it was the one we visited most often. We would go to the zoo several times a year and my dad always loved the bears. The tradition of visiting the zoo continued after my kids were born and we visited Lincoln Park Zoo together and my parents took them visit the zoo.
Family Vacations–We went on a family vacation almost every year I was growing up. We visited Gettysburg, Galveston, Iowa, and a host of other states. One of the most memorable trips was to the south when I was a kid. We visited the U.S.S. Mobile and visited the ocean. On our way home, we were camping when a tremendous storm came up and my brother got thrown off the bed and cut his head on the table. We rushed him to the hospital where we found out that we were actually camping out in a hurricane. Another great memory was visiting St. Augustine, FL and looking out at the ocean with my dad. We also visited Sea World on one trip and I remember it was the first time I realized that there was a whole other world out there under the sea. My parents really believed that vacations should be educational so they tried to make sure that at least a little learning was thrown in on each vacation.
Stuck in the snow–One trip to Poplar Bluff, MO we ended up stuck on the highway because it was shut down. The snow had already stopped, but traffic for miles came to a grinding halt and everyone got up and out of their cars and were walking around. Oddly enough, my father ran into a couple of his friends from his hometown and chatted with them until traffic started moving again.
Donuts with Dad–Until I discovered Krispy Kremes, I thought the absolute best glazed donuts in the world were made in this little donut shop in Poplar Bluff, MO. Every morning while we were in Poplar Bluff, we’d go to the donut store and get donuts for the extended family. Not only did my grandmother live in Poplar Bluff, my dad had several aunts and a brother living in town so there was always someone to visit.

Locks and Eagles–Once my dad retired, he loved going to the river to watch the boats go through the locks and dams and to see the eagles soaring along the Mississippi. Most of the time when we went out to visit, we either drive out to the river to watch the boats or to see the eagles. My parents always took the kids out to the river when they were younger and some of there most treasured memories are of going to the river with their grandfather.

Daddy’s Motorcycle–My dad wasn’t the type of person you’d think would end up with a motorcycle, but he had several while I was growing up that he used to commute to work and to take trips with my mom and dad. My dad’s motorcyling days came to an abrupt end on the day he had a serious wreck on his bike and his outline was scorched into the earth. He wasn’t seriously injured, but he took it as a sign that he should give up the bike.

Have a happy birthday Daddy, wherever you are.

Traditional Bliss

Traditions give us a foundation for the future, but they shouldn’t be so rigid that they keep us mired in the past. Our families traditions have evolved over the past twenty-one Christmases that John and I have been together. From a family of two, to a family of three, to a family of four, our traditions have expanded or contracted as the years and money permitted, but they’ve always revolved around our core values of love of family, love of food, and hope for the future. Although our traditions are not all unique, they do bring us much joy, laughter, and bliss.
Our Yule Ritual–We welcome the sun back every year and it is a sacred tradition that we follow even today with the kids almost grown.
Santa’s Letter–Every Christmas Santa writes the kids a special letter detailing how they’ve been good over the past year, where they could hope to improve, and explaining why he’s chosen to buy the present he has. It’s been interesting over the course of the years because in the years when we were so broke we weren’t sure we’d be able to afford much for Christmas, Santa always came through with the gift the kids hadn’t dared to hope for. This year, two letters from Santa showed up and we all believe that Santa made a special stop just to remind us how lucky we are to still have John with us.
The bears of Christmas–We spent the Christmas of 1992 on the tropical island of Okinawa. It was the first year Caitlin was born and John and I knew that our family was complete. While shopping at the base exchange, I found these incredibly gaudy tinsel covered bears. The gold bears are for the “boys” and the silver bears are for the “girls.” John’s immediate reaction was that they were gawd awful ugly and he groaned the first few years when I brought them out for Christmas. He still thinks they’re gaudy, but they’ve become such and ingrained part of the holidays that he’s evolved into just shaking his head when I bring them out.
Milk and Cookies–One year when the kids were early, I found this beautiful plate and cup said that said “Santa’s Magical Cookies” and every holiday since it has been filled with cookies and milk for Santa. This year the cookies were butter cookies from Arlington Cake Box and they were so yummy that Santa had four of them.
Stockings filled with care–Although the big gifts are always nice to get, the stockings that “Santa Mom” fills so carefully are always fun to open. Caitlin always seems to get lip balm in hers (she had 13 tubes this year) and Sean’s was filled with useful things like a hammer and small tool kit for when he moves into his own apartment. John’s had puzzles and sugar free cookies and mine was filled with body lotions.
Batman and Beatles–Sean’s been a Batman fan since before he could speak and every year either Santa or mom and dad make sure that he has a Batman present under the tree. This year Sean’s was a Joker set that he could take back to his dorm room and play with his friends. Cat discovered the Beatles in eighth grade and every year since we’ve had to make sure that the Fab Four paid her a visit every year.
Ornaments–We have a number of traditions around ornaments. The kids always get a new ornament reflecting where they are in their lives: school buses for the first year of school, a French Cat for the year Caitlin started French lessons, etc. We also always pick up ornaments from everywhere we go so our tree is adorned with trinkets from London, Atlanta, Alaska, and other places far and near. One of these years, I’m hoping we’ll get organized enough to have multiple trees and then we can do themed trees: a travel tree, a kid tree, and a glittery tree.

Presents–Presents are always a part of Christmas mornings and when the kids were younger, we’d roll out of bed at 5 am or so when Sean came in to wake us up. The good thing since the kids are older is that now Christmas morning doesn’t start so early as they usually don’t roll out of bed until 8:30 or later. Although most mornings I welcome the opportunity to sleep in, sometimes I miss the childish bliss of running into the living room to see what Santa’s brought.

Our Christmas this year was a live with family, presents, food, and an overwhelming sense of blissfulness that we are all here to celebrate together.

Remembering Bliss

My daddy died a year ago today and the past year has been filled with sadness, growth, and remembrance. We were going to drive down to Alton, IL to visit my father’s grave, but after reflection and growth we decided to drive out and spend the day with my mother instead. Although my dad was important to me, my mother is still here and I know that my dad would rather I spend time enjoying my mother and being there for her instead of visiting his grave.

We spent the day remembering my dad by spending time doing things he enjoyed. We drove out to the Savanna Army Depot and enjoyed the view out along the Mississippi. My father loved the Mississippi and being there reminded me so much of my dad. My mom told us that the Savanna Army Depot was one of the last places she visited with my dad before he went into the hospital for the last time.
After our drive along the Mississippi, we headed to Bellevue, IA to look for eagles along the Mississippi. Bald eagles winter along the river and normally you can see at least a few of them diving and soaring in the rivers. My parents spent many happy days visiting the river to look for eagles and, during the summer, having picnics along the river and watching the boats go through the Lock and Dam. This was a favored summertime activity when Sean and Caitlin visited their grandparents and I am so glad that they have many happy memories of days spent visiting the river with their grandparents.
After eating dinner in a small diner along the river, we drove back to my mom’s house and she told us how happy we were that we’d come out to spend the day with her and how it made what was a difficult day a little bit easier. She also shared with me that she’d had several dreams over the past year where she had dreamed that my father had come to visit her. She’d seen him standing at the foot of her bed a few times and once she’d seen him sitting in a chair in the living room. It made me feel good that my father’s love had endured and that he was still watching over my mother.
I will always miss my father, but it hurts a little bit less to share memories of him with those I love and to know that he will always be a part of my life.

Welcoming Bliss

I’ve been traveling the last two weeks and arriving in Chattanooga this week, I was fortunate enough to witness a father’s homecoming. I had no idea how long he’d been traveling or where he’d been, but I did know that he was loved and honored because after he cleared security, two little girls screamed Daddy and launched themselves into his open arms. Homecomings are played out hundreds of times a day at airports, train stations, and homes across the country and despite their similarities, each one is special and unique.

Witnessing these two little girls welcome their daddy home, got me to thinking about how wonderful it was to come home and be welcomed with open arms. To know that someone loves you unconditionally and is really glad to be reunited with you. Reflecting, I realize that I take homecomings for granted and don’t acknowledge how fortunate I am when my loved ones come home to me or when I come home to them. My daughter flew home from DC several weeks ago and I didn’t take the opportunity to tell her how glad I was that she’d gotten to have the experience of going to JEA and how glad I was that she came home.

As the days tick down until the holiday season, thoughts of family fill the air and I realize how lucky I am to have a husband and two kids who love me and who are glad I’m home. I might not get the cliched homecoming, but I know I have folks who love me and are glad I’m home and in the end that’s really all that matters.