tea for the spirit

good evening friends! isn't it amazing what tea & chat time with friends can do for a spirit? i was feeling a little hormonally blue today (i don't like shopping, particularly during the holiday time...yuck); and though i was somewhat uplifted by the fact that i totally scored something i needed to complete a holiday project, i was still quite a bit testy.

enter sweet friend #1, tea at a bookstore. chatting, laughing, affirmations. mucho love. how i cherish this ray of sunshine. he often does and did once again, make me feel terribly blessed and proud to be a part of his world.

shortly after numero uno left i received a call from sweet friend #2! off i went to a local coffee shop to have tea (and receive amazing coconut macaroons...that totally look like boobs, which we giggled about). there we chatted, and laughed and were girly. she is another blessing in my life. she sneaked up a bit on me too! we've known each other for years and suddenly *kapow* i have another ray of sunshine in my life.

how lovely! i came home this afternoon to the sweetest card for me and the mister, heartfelt and handmade by miss tennessee. it meant a lot. it was our first christmas card at that!

now i get to spend the evening with a handful more rays. the pup, mississippi, and family dinner at the folks' house. i'm a lucky girl. a very grateful one too.

skinny love

good morning friends, we're on day two! do you know how hard it is to practice being a vegetarian while at the cracker barrel? pretty darn challenging to tell you the truth. but i ate my black eyed peas (and applesauce, steak fries, and green beans) like a good girl.

today i am feeling a little funny. well-rested on the verge of over-rested. i slept hard, partially because i didn't get a lot of sleep the night before, and partially because i did my meditation before bed; and by the last breath of it my body had almost gone completely limp. ha! meditation lightweight.

today i am drinking coffee and listening to bon iver. most likely another reason why my mood is sooooo lowkey today. i am hoping to get some things crossed off of the ole to-do list today (i cannot believe it is saturday already), plus make some time for a date with a delightful friend. i have put off so many things over the course of this breakcation but i was hoping to actually DO some stuff today. basic, practical things have fallen to the wayside in favour of making memories and being a little antagonistic to my body. but i wasn't cruel to it yesterday and i won't be today either. yay me!

one of the things i wanted to work on this year is reading all the books in my house. so i'm going to attempt to read at least two books a month every month this year. my first book of the year is called 29 Gifts (How A Month Of Giving Can Change Your Life) by Cami Walker. it is book detailing a plan that opens yourself up for positive things to happen to you by focusing your energies on helping other people. it's pretty cool and i wanted to start the year off on a positive, open, and more giving note. in fact one of my other resolutions (i think i'm up to 8 or 9 at this point) is to give more in kindness to others. it can be so hard for me to step outside of myself. i can almost always give encouraging words but feel like i just kind of fall short after that. however accurate that statement is in reality, it's just how i feel sometimes.

well, that is where i am at today...thanks for stopping by my little corner of the universe for a skinny minute. i hope your day is incredibly rad (and practical if need be) too!

adieu for now, friends! i'm off to make my bed!

lu

*top image is my backyard view this beautiful morning. i love the way the sun moves around there.

*here's me and the buddy enjoying our morning together. he was whimpering because i was keeping him from his tennis ball. love that nutty buddy.

ask and to thine own self be lu

i'm getting some alone time this week. at work, at home. thank goodness. not that i don't love having my wonderful friends and family around. i just need alone time sometimes. a lot actually. more than i ever needed but hey, it's where i am right now. bah. enough of that.

onto how happy i am with myself today.

*i'm drinking more water. in fact, due to the plague i suffered last week and still have a lasting cough from, i haven't had coffee in 7 days! which is insane because i usually drink coffee like there'll never be another cup offered to me ever again.

*i wrote for 7 minutes yesterday, but i wrote for about 24 minutes today to make up for it.

*as you know, i bought the typewriter yesterday. it's already shipped and i'm like a kid at a birthday party, hopped up on brownies and waiting to tear into my present.

*and though i didn't clean or do laundry yesterday, i practiced patience with someone that has a tendency to push every single one of my buttons. i can't said i entirely succeeded. but it meant something to me to practice the aforementioned virtue.



on an unrelated note, i'm a little butt-hurt about some things a couple of people said to me recently. now, usually i'm used to this kind of under-the-breath comment by one and intense frankness by the other. but i'm getting to the point in my life where i may just explode if i hear these things one more time.

note to the world: just because i am a gregarious person and like to be silly and loud sometimes does not mean that the things people tell me about myself which are, to them, major character flaws as a human being don't hurt a little. they hurt a lot actually. a fault of mine is vulnerability. i'm too open with myself and sometimes i question why the friends in my life that are so uncomfortable about it that they come out with these comments on my person and what is "wrong" about me that they feel so compelled to tell me so. like always, i act like i don't care. but i do.

i try to be accepting of people's quirks. each one of my friends has a weirdness quotient that cannot be denied but i don't say things under my breath to them to make them feel bad about it. dear god, i hope i don't! i try to tell them how it makes them more lovable to me. because almost always, it does.

i don't know. today i have that on the back burner of my mind. perhaps i will belly up to the table and have the gumption to put someone in their place the way they always try with me (and have yet to fully succeed- adds the stubborn side of me). i'm usually so afraid to say anything to anyone about how they hurt me. i'd rather ask everyone else i know if i'm crazy to be hurt by that. but that, i have decided, is not the way to do things anymore. comes across as too immature or gossipy (which i despise!). perhaps because i love these people, it's the least i could do to say something honest.

so says the band cake and so say i: "perhaps, perhaps, perhaps".


til next time
xoxo
lu

it's not ennui, it's off-ui.

i'm not sure how accurate it is that we are transitioning from the age of aquarius to the age of pisces or not. i did, however, hear it on npr; therefore i believe it to be true. but i can't say that i'm not shocked every day now that everything around me is swirling, changing, growing, falling away. evolving, so to speak, into a new beast.

i think i'm coming into it a much better place. a year ago, i wouldn't have recognized the me i would hypothetically meet on the street if i were a time traveler.

i have been struggling to attain not only chemical stability, keeping my head above water in regard to the depression that seeps so steathily into my life at times; but also my personal issues.

i talk things out. i hash. and it comes off, in my opinion, as catty or inappropriate. i never know if this is normal or not. i'm an only child and find that i stumble across "appropriate human behaviour" from people that don't seem to actually perform the aforementioned appropriate human behaviour themselves.

anyway, i'm trying rather hard to be a solid, great friend to my friends, family, loved ones. not letting my odd neuroses kick me in the pants. learning new things, creating things, teaching myself to open my heart in actual joy for people's successes when i fall short of my own type of success in the meantime.

senor mas is an inspiration in regard to this phenomenon. he is reading books by osho, learning how to read music (which he has always wanted to do) and is being a very loving and attentive boyfriend. there is a peace about him that did not exist when we met last september. very cool. very very cool.

meanwhile i have friends that i have conflicting opinions on about this. like it's my place to have any opinion on it at all.

some are repeatedly kicking their own asses in regard to life choices and the cycle of: make mistake, dread mistake, kick own ass, make bigger mistake, beat the shit out of self, make original mistake again because its not as bad as bigger mistake.

now, i've been there. i am in no way saying that i have not. in fact, i have co-authored the book How to Screw Up Repeatedly & Have People Pity &/or Despise You. but it hurts to watch amazing, dynamic people, my chosen family, as it were, do this to themselves.

i guess i am frustrated because i want to help and the only way i got through the worst of my was with their help and the knowledge that i am human and humans make lots of mistakes but are capable of great change.

on that note, i wish to send out the most positive energy into the world today for all of us struggling with life's complicated niches.

me, my family, my friends, and my loved ones are strong, wise, and capable of great things. we will achieve. let us not destroy ourselves in our lack of perfection.

i'm metaphorically sending that up on a silver piece of paper tucked into a red balloon and off into the atmosphere it goes. *

happy friday all.
xoxo

lu

*silver and grey are significant colours for following through with things in the helpful people/travel gua of feng shui. red is a colour of protection.