Five Ways to Manifest GOOD STUFF

Since I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about making good things happen and hoping that in some small metaphorical way I can influence the universal powers that make us all be, I’ve come up with some…practices…for helping the tide flow my way.

(my husband keeps asking me if i’m wiccan.)

Five Ways to Manifest Happy Things:

1. Write a mantra that covers all you want…or a limerick (it can even be a dirty limerick if that’s what you’re trying to manifest).
2. Give a bouquet to yourself with a note inscribed to send out your wishes to the world. (so instead of happy anniversary, it could read, happy house closing maybe…)
3. Make a mixtape of songs to honor whomever or whatever you’re going after (and by mixtape, i mean play list that you can download to your phone and sing on your way to work.)
4. Write a love letter…or maybe a dear john letter, but make it sugary sweet and filled with your most authentic feelings of compassion, (Dear house, i love you so much. you’ve given me shelter for so many years. i’ve done my best to make you beautiful, but now it’s time for you to give to someone else. please don’t cry, it’s not you, it’s me. i promise you’ll find love again and soon. i’m not who you need anymore. we’ve just outgrown each other. i’ll always have a special place in my heart for you and maybe one day we can be friends again.)
5. Sit very still, clear your head, plant your bottom to the ground and imagine the sunshine busting through the top of your head and coming out every orifice making you a human light and stay put saying only the mantra that you came up with in way #1.

Good luck manifesting your very own destiny. May want you want and want the universe thinks is best for you collide somewhere along your metaphorically highway.

Day Two of ABSOLUTELY NO BLUES

and what a lovely day it is. maybe a little wet…a few thunderstorms, but that is just fine. i’m going to stop on my way to work and buy a bouqet of flowers to remind myself that it takes rain to get flowers. If I had your address I would send you some too, but I don’t so maybe you should get yourself some daisies or lilies or roses or whatever and put them somewhere that you see them all day through.

my bouquet will have a special note of compassion to manifest happy endings for all (he he…while meaning it metaphorically at first the happy ending entendre works well too. it’s getting kind of cheesy in here so nothing like a oriental massage reference to cut back on the sugar-coated manifestations-twilling positivity that i’m pushing out. i hope you got to enjoy it both ways.)

pretty spring flowers to all. don’t mind the rain, it’s just water.

Positively the most Postive Week EVER

Starting today, I’m doing nothing but positive, outright blissful, good-vibe-living all week long. I’m going to be oozing positivity. I’m going to be the love child of Tony Robbins and Richard Simmons (should they ever hook up).

I want nothing more than for everybody to get along. I mean along along. I want friends to find time to laugh together and enemies to make peace and come together for the good of it all. This is it. I’m manifesting a week-long era of happiness and peace that I hope reaches the far corners of our town and beyond.

So join if you want…happiness like Swine flu is contagious . Smile at someone you don’t even know. Give the person across the intersection from you the right away. Tip more than 20 percent just for this week. Consider forgiving one person who did something awful to you even if they don’t deserve it and won’t even be thankful for it anyway.

Beware of Preaching

Watch out…if you tend to preach a lot, the universe is going to make you practice it. Practice it  real good like. Make you wonder what you were ever preaching about in the first place.

The other night, we got news that the closing on selling our house is going to be pushed back a little bit further than previously planned which also means that the closing of the house we hope to purchase is also getting pushed back. Ugh! I thought, What? When? Why? I wanted answers, I wanted “clarifications”, I wanted someone to tell me that the closing was going to happen as scheduled next week.

What I didn’t want was to remember that everything happens the way it’s supposed to happen and that however this works out, it’s going to work out in our best interest. That is a horse-sized pill that’s hard to swallow when you are in the throes of being miffed.

It turns out that not only does my husband listen to me when I stand up on my pulpit (I had one installed in my living room awhile back) and spew my, “everything is groovy when you’re aligned with the universe” sermons; but he’s actually better at practicing than I am. He’s calm cool and collected like that Luke-guy with the cold hands. “It’s going to be okay,” he tells me. “What do we have to worry about?” he asks. “There’s nothing we can do to change or control this situation, so all we do is go forward.” Such a zen master this man is.

Besides, it’s not like we got the worst news ever. So what–our closing may not happen until sometime in May. We have our health…we have our family…we have our work…and we have a roof over our head, which is an ironic thing to be thankful for since it’s the roof and all that’s holding it up that we want to give (okay, sell) to someone else.

So I’m trying to be yoga-serene like my man. It’s happening but more like at a snail’s pace where as he’s been at one with his yoga-self since we first got the news. All this time and I thought I was the one when it turns out that I’m just the one who likes to write about it. He’s the real deal.

And in case I haven’t gone total hypocrite…here’s my column for the week that is all about going with the flow. IN FACT, GOING WITH THE FLOW IS THE FREAKING TITLE. I wrote it a couple days before I knew I was about to be tested.

Going with the Flow — Published in the April 21, 2009 issue of The Tribune.

I just read the article again, and this is literally my famous last words:

“That’s what the rain was for this weekend and what Mercury may be pushing us to realize next month, to serve as a reminder that it’s in our best interest sometimes to stop thinking of all that needs to be done and just go with the flow. Align yourself with the universe even if the universe — or Mercury for that matter — appears to be going in reverse.”

Not to give away the ending, but could I have been any more psychic on what I needed to practice this week; and then anymore of a complete doof by not following my own advice?

The Mourner and the Dell

If you don’t mind, do a quick sign of the cross for my dear Dell Laptop that passed at approximately 8:30 a.m. this morning. She was a sturdy friend who let me type away on her daily for nearly four years. Her passing is noted with great sadness and much hope that she will find eternal bliss in whatever world laptops go when they go no more here. I’ve been in mourning all day for her, but am now ready to move on.

…maybe i’ll get a mac now.

The Last Sunday

Okay, not really the last, but it’s the second to last Sunday in our house. Since the last Sunday will be three days before we plan to be totally out, then I’m pretty sure this is the last Sunday we’ll get to lounge around. And what a perfect day for lounging.

The rain has been steady, steady all day. I tried to walk this morning but the rain started to come down too heavy and we turned back around to drink coffee and have a fresh doughnut in the comfy of my pal’s kitchen. I’ve let that be my leading metaphor for the day…trying to be productive will only work against me.

Besides, it really is the most perfect lounge day ever. Bad TV. Easter candy nestle crunch mini-chocolate eggs. Coffee. Playing on the laptop. It’s about as lazy as you can get. All I’m missing is a velour-one-piece suit that zips up the front.

I have no intention of getting motivated. The way I see it, this will be the last Sunday we get to hang out on the couch for awhile. Next Sunday will be spent making sure everything is in order and then all my new Sundays will be in our new house unpacking and settling in.

Hello 47122, Goodbye 47119

Moving to a new zip code

Published in the April 15, 2009 issue of The Tribune

In the next few weeks, I will be moving three zip codes over from Floyds Knobs to Georgetown. For outsiders this may not seem like a big deal, what’s one more exit west on I-64 when you are on the sunny side of the river? But for me, it’s going to be a shift in my collective Southern Indiana consciousness.

First, I’ll have to make an allegiance to a new ice cream shop. In Floyds Knobs, I’ve always been partial to the Berry Twist vanilla and sherbet twist. My new ice cream stop will be Polly’s Freeze. I’m not sure how I feel about this now, but am confident the transition will become easier as the weather gets warmer. Hopefully by mid-summer I will be fully acclimated.

My Jazzercise location will change too. I wonder what my new excuse for not going will be after I move?

Anybody want a free couch?

…and matching chair

…and matching ottoman (The Ottoman Empire, an empire of foot resters, with love from Seinfeld).

We are packing packing packing. And cleaning things out as we go along. It’s very…refreshing? It’s good to go through and rid yourself of all the clutter.

I was doing great until I came to our desk-cubby area in the kitchen. It’s like a collection of junk drawers. Half-empty battery packs, dice, a pack of cards, a pocket knife, electrical outlet protectors, rewritable CDs that I have no idea what’s on them, and a few other odds and ends that I couldn’t bring myself to throw away.

My plan is to get a shoe box and only take what I can fit in it for our new junk drawer. In a perfect world, I’d should just rid us of all junk drawer stuff and start anew, but it doesn’t feel right.

We are getting rid of the living room furniture though, so if you’re interested let me know. It’s yours if you want to pick it up.

So it’s going to be that kind of party

About four years ago, my boss (a.k.a. the CEO) sent a company-wide email to all employees inviting them for a cook-out. His unfortunate typing skills resulted in a slight typo and he ended up inviting everybody to a cock-out party instead of the intended cook-out party.

Many inappropriate, but funny email responses were had by reply-all and the tone was set for what was okay to include in our employee email content.

I hadn’t thought about that story in awhile until this weekend when I was watching the food channel. The guy who will eat absolutely ANYTHING visited a restaurant in China that only served penis-dishes. Deer, ox, goat…if it has a you-know-what, then they very well may be cooking it.

Vacations Over

It’s been a week since I last posted.

A whole week…that’s like a year in writer-time.

My original plan to write once-a-day again until the first draft of my novel is finished has went the way of short lived good intentions. I’m still working on the novel, and I’m still here, just not in either place as consistently as I hoped. Good intentions gone sour…or maybe just a bit bitter.

We will be moving in EIGHTEEN days. EIGHTEEN DAYS. (do my caps accurately convey my excitement?) Maybe it’s the weight of packing boxes that has me crawling along with writing tasks.

For now, here’s a link to my regular column that ran last week:

Dental Discontent