Life and Other Happenings

I've been taking it easy this week. I think I overdid it last week with the running, swimming and weight training crammed in with all the family activities because I have felt more tired than usual. Despite this, I went for a run early Tuesday morning and the humidity almost did me in. Plus, I hate running in the morning! I do better mid-day or evening. Unfortunately, morning runs are better right now with temps in the upper 90's well into the evening hours.

Yesterday I went to the lake with my family to try swimming in open water. I started out to the buoy with my husband and began to panic when it got real deep. Sigh. I ended up swimming along the shoreline for almost 700 meters. I need to build up my endurance, swimming more than 100 meter segments, then I can try the open water swim. I still have childish fears of monsters lurking in the deep. Plus it doesn't help that the lake is overflowing with hydrilla, an invasive species of water plant that likes to grab onto your arms and feet while you swim. Kinda freaked me out.

This morning I went on a short bike ride with my daughter. My SIL is letting me borrow her Trek 7.0 FX hybrid bike so I am getting use to it by riding around our neighborhood with my daughter. So far I am enjoying it. It is a lot less work than running and I love the feel of the wind in my face especially with the heat here lately.

My husband signed up for the intermediate triathlon next weekend. He hasn't really trained for it, but then he rarely "trains" for anything. He runs the marathon every year and never trains, just does a few long runs a couple of weeks beforehand. He swam out to the buoy three times yesterday to see if he could swim 1000 meters without stopping. He did well though he needs to work on swimming in a straight line. lol We will be going to the lake this afternoon to try again. I plan to stick to the shoreline and avoid the hydrilla.

Other News

My SIL revealed her pregnancy to the family yesterday. She is in the second trimester of her first pregnancy and she is 40 years old. I have known for weeks. When I was told I immediately said, "It's a boy." When they did the testing for birth defects they found out it is a boy. :) Funny thing is, I have predicted the gender of every baby born into my immediate family (including my own) accurately. Call me the baby psychic I guess. LOL I was even able to tell my other BIL and SIL the genders of future babies in order and I was spot on.

My sister, the older one, discovered recently that her only child has a birth defect typical of children with Down's Syndrome or with mothers of advanced maternal age. It is a lymphatic malformation located on his neck and it has been slowly getting larger and larger over time. He has to get an MRI and then have surgery to remove it. My sister says her son is perfectly normal but I suspect there will be future "issues" that just have not manifested yet. What I've noticed so far is that his speech is delayed. He still speaks a lot of gibberish while my son, three months younger than him, is speaking very clearly and in full sentences. He is also very hyper-active compared to my son. I've watched him and his attention span is little to nothing. Maybe all of it is normal. I only have my own children to compare him to and so far he is very different.

The drama at my mom's house continues to unfold. Thankfully I am not there to be pulled into it. My sister and her family are still living there but when I visited they had set up a tent in the back yard to give my mom and step-father "space". Basically they are driving them crazy. My mom talked to me about how she feels they are always being "conned" by the both of them and how she feels she cannot trust them. They also can't get them to move out (duh) and are trying to bribe them to move away by giving them a piece of land and then buying it back. Yet at the same time they are going to let them live on the land and have ownership. The last I heard my sister was looking at a camper trailer to put behind my mom's house (ahhh!). Who will buy it? My mom, of course. It's a big mess and doesn't help that my mom changed her stance on the whole situation by the end of my visit saying, "I like having family here. Plus, they have been a lot of help. We can't do the things we use to do and they are helping with the yard." Etc, etc. My poor mom is obviously at odds with herself on this.

Honestly, I don't care what happens. If my sister ends up with a piece of land it is very likely they will lose it to the county for back taxes. I warned my mom of this and she said, "I know. I know." I asked her what she would think of having a stranger living in her back yard and she brought up how I sold my land and tried to make me wrong for it. I could tell she knew it was weak argument. In the end it was obvious my mom is struggling to confront the whole thing. I cannot wait (sarcasm here) to see what happens when my mom passes away and the estate is being distributed between me and my siblings. I am the designated executor of the will and I am cringing just thinking of it. I am happy to give it all to my siblings and be done with it. I am certain my sister will screw herself of whatever she acquires and end up knocking on my door at a later date. It is just sad. All of it.

Oh, and the TLC "cousin couples" thing that I brought up a while back seems to have fizzled. No news, no contact, nothing.

Spiritually Speaking

The dreams continue but my guidance is silent. The longer I focus on my own inner Truth, the more I can see how I misinterpreted most of my experiences over the last few years. I can't blame myself. I so badly want to be "happy" and for my "dreams to come true". I want to be "special" and for life to be "exciting". I got all those things. Sure did but then reality is reality. You can't fit a square peg into a round hole, thus you can force "dreamland" into reality. The two are just not compatible.

The main thing I misinterpreted was the walk-in message I got in 2015. I am certain now that it was merely a warning of the week-long walk-along experience I had soon after. Sure, I experienced something profound during that time, but it was temporary. There was a definite "other" presence accompanying me throughout my days and nights. He (I sensed he was male) was riding along with me and only took the driver's seat when I was doing something spiritual. Otherwise, it was me in the driver's seat. When he left I wanted him to come back, to take over, and let me go Home. I wanted it so badly that I think I convinced myself it would happen via the later messages I received. What ultimately happened was that the time frame predicted came and went and all that happened was that I became aware of how naive I had been throughout it all. Too many losses and disappointments left me feeling disillusioned and DONE.

But hey, it all happened right on time, as predicted. The only thing is the exchange was an exchange back to the old me; smack dab right into exactly what I wanted to run away from. Like I said before, the joke is on me! Ha! In hindsight I can see why what happened happened. The only way out is through. You can't jump over a deep, black sink hole to get to the light at the end. You have jump into that hole and hope you come out the other side.

A part of me is still sad and angry about the whole thing but if I contact her there is nothing but sympathy and understanding now. Oh and acceptance. Total acceptance. This is the surrender part that just seems to be there now when before there was a constant internal fight. If my Higher Self says be mundane, live life, play your part, I say "Okay" rather than, "How long? Why? This sucks and I don't wanna...." The fight is just not in me anymore. I guess that is what happens when you've been through what I have. I died inside and out, pummeled by expectation and attachment. Right now I am on a kind of auto-pilot, recovering and recuperating from the extremes of 2015-2016.

A message coming through in my dreams is that I have been under a "spell", a Kundalini spell. The effects of the Kundalini energy were so intense that I was unable to resist the idiot reactions that resulted. I was reminded of the message I got a while ago of being a "fool in love". Just part of the spell I was under and one I need to be wary of because it is still in effect even if it seems inactive at the moment.

I received a message the other night as I was drifting off to sleep. I heard, "You will fall hard." This could be literal, as in I might fall off a bike. Or it could be about falling in some other sense. It is just these kinds of messages that I am trying to avoid/ignore! Not sure how to stop them, though. Guess all I can do is ignore them.

The protection message continues to come through in my dreams and in life, too. For example, an armadillo came to visit the other night. We've never seen one at this home but in my old one they were commonplace. Armadillos are about protection as well as recovering and resting. So two messages in one: protect yourself and rest/recover.

Dream: Homeless

I was in a grocery store shopping. The cart was full and I went to a check-out line near the meat isle. The woman scanned everything and gave me a slip and told me to go to the front of the store. Somehow, though, I ended up talking to a very tall, slender blonde woman. She had on her ankles handcuffs (something is holding me back) that had wires attached to them the led to her waist. I knew they were electrified. She told me to take them, so I took them off of her. Then I put a dress (feminine outlook) on over my clothes. It seemed like I was trying to disguise myself.

Then I was traveling with a group of homeless (powerless and insecure) people. We went to a house that seemed quite small. It had just been renovated and we were joining up with friends for a Thanksgiving (connections in life) meal. The inside of the house was odd, though. Everywhere I looked it was a kitchen (need for warmth, spiritual nourishment and emotional healing). The living area was a kitchen and then there were three kitchens side by side. Food was being put out, like a potluck, and I had a small bowl with ham (emotional difficulties) in it. I remember eating a few bites (need to preserve my energy) before putting it down on the table.

There was discussion with my friends and I learned that many of them went without food for long periods of time (emotional lack). A woman came in with her kids and they all began to eat. She told me, "This is one of the few times we all get to eat." Two friends of mine from online were sitting and eating bagels (something missing/not whole) and I went to get some wheat bread for toast. I remember stopping and thinking that I did not want to stay with the group. I told my friend, "I think I want to go home now. Do you think someone will give me a ride?" Then I was asking an older woman if she would give me a ride back to Tennessee. I told her I would pay for the gas. I had parked my car there and needed to retrieve it but it also felt like home.

I woke up hearing a part of a song, "All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray. California dreamin' on such a winter's day." Odd song to have on my mind when I woke. I suspect it has to do with me longing for a spiritual connection and feeling like my life right now is drab.