soup

today i signed separation papers, a severance letter, and an independent contractor contract. i packed up all my things in my car, hugged a few people bye, and drove away from my corporate job. officially self-employed.

some time last year i heard a story of a man who progressed through his career and rather than asking for pay raises, he asked to work fewer hours for the same pay. i don't know the details but i imagine he'd reached a comfortable salary and decided he'd rather have freedom over dollar signs. when i heard that snippet, i loved it. i wasn't at a place where i made enough money to say, 'oh sure, keep your raise and let me work less.' but i could relate to where the man was coming from. it's been in the back of my head since then.

and now, i've manifested that situation for myself. without even really being very deliberate about it. i set myself up to manifest a better job. more freedom. more money. more this and more that. and when it all came out in the wash, i'll be working half as many hours and making the same amount of money. add to that i'm getting lots of other things on my list and i feel like the cat who got the canary.

so, i sit now and wonder about the things that i'm cooking on back burners. i want to be very deliberate about those pots i'm simmering there. while i'm focusing my manifesting energy on the hot, hot grill there are things cooking that i've set in place and let go.

this is where i give my fantastic nature credit again though. while there are plenty of negative things that cross my path and plenty of things i could worry and fear; i give them no energy. i dismiss and release immediately as though they are either impossible or fantastic themselves.

and instead, i let my mind wander leisurely through pastures of fantasy.. across sand dunes of discovery.. and millions of lives i have yet to live. and when fantastic ideas such as working less and making the same or more money are offered up, i latch on to that like a dog with a bone. burying it in the yard and hoping it will grow a bone-tree.

i had a favorite book when i was a child called Stone Soup. it was about three soldiers who come through a town and ask the townspeople for something to eat.. and they are given nothing. so they say, 'oh well, we'll have to make stone soup..' and they ask for a pot, some stones, and water. and they start boiling it up. as it cooks they keep asking for additional ingredients and by the end they have a huge pot of hearty soup. (the selfish villagers are also apparently idiots because they say something like, 'oh and all that from stones!')

today one of my back burners served up a big pot of stone soup.. more than i'd ever hoped for. and for that, i am grateful.

d: stone soup from the other back burner.
b: i had a healthy, delicious stone in that pot.
g: my fantastic nature keeps the dirty, stinky stones out of my soup.

thursdate

today haley and i planned to spend the day together.. we had a million things we wanted to do and of course not enough time to do them all. she'll be out of town this weekend, leaving in the morning and returning monday evening. the boys are with their father, so it's going to be me and mega painting the town red.

she's sleeping under my left arm in eager anticipation. i'm cleaning the house in preparation.

it's been a long time since i've had a weekend home alone. home without the boys and without haley. and my home needs me here. my flower beds are begging for my attention. (or my neighbors are begging for my attention on them, is what i meant to say.) the boys' closets need refreshing for fall.

(oh and it's tax free weekend! shopping! there's shopping to be done!)

yes, i'm nesting in preparation for a weekend with myself and my mega-puppy; and decompressing after a very rushed day. in our attempt to do all the things we love to do together, and the couple things we 'needed' to do, we didn't leave ourselves enough time to breathe. and by the time i walked into the boys' day camp to pick them up, five minutes before the closing bell, i felt like i'd run a marathon. (yet without the elation you must feel when you cross that finish line.)

but a day together is still a wonder to me. even what would be an ordinary thursday to most people feels like a date with her... though we spend most days together, at least a part of every day, each one is different and distinct. and i marvel at the diversity in our time together. and the passion in even the smallest exchanges.

and now it is night.. a storm is thundering outside and i'm readying for a weekend here and she's reading for a weekend away. and yet i know, our thursdate isn't over.

she'll be here soon. i can't wait.

d: let the storm rage on.
b: i'll have a clean house for the weekend.
g: tax-free weekend and flower beds to plant.

miracles

there's no room in my life for skeptics, and this is why...

it's a yarn ball of manifesting miracles, truly. i started manifesting my very own cavalier puppy back in january when i first spotted one at park tavern, having brunch with amy. that was before haley and i met and though i decided on that day that one day i'd have a cav, i didn't believe at that time it would happen in the near future. i just didn't see a way to have a dog.. not in my home, not in my job, not in my lifestyle. and so on. but my heart was sold.

set that aside.

enter stage right: haley.

our story unfolds.. it's been well told here, story and verse.. and over the course of our love story we recognized our tremendous luck. and manifesting energy.

and so a couple of months ago we decided that we're going to manifest the mega million lottery jackpot. we started buying a couple of tickets a week. and the occasional scratch off. i'd never played the lottery before. but we were on to something because more often than not, we would win. on the scratch offs at least. definitely - we're up.

set that aside.

circle back to the cavalier i was manifesting. first, haley had two small dogs.. and a schedule that was inconveniently opposite mine. inconvenient in most ways, except convenient in the way that she could help with puppy daycare when needed and loves dogs. and i mean, really loves them. (so much in fact, i'm afraid at times she may smother mega with her kisses, but i digress...) and suddenly things were becoming possible.

and then in the divine way that things usually happen when you're manifesting and trusting... i kept 'running into' cavaliers and cavalier people. and then i met god. or rather, zeus. and his owner. who had gotten zeus from betsy, a cavalier breeder that i hit it off with immediately.

we started talking.. still no definite plan to get a puppy. still had a 9-5 job, still didn't know how i'd afford it, still needed to win the megamillion to make it feasible.

she had a litter that was practically newborn. after we talked a while she sent me pictures. on the pictures, she'd written the baby-names she was using. one was "milla" and the other "nori". hmm, quite nearly "millionaire" when they were side by side on the photo. at least to my manifesting eyes. i thought maybe, just maybe, this was a god-wink that she was the right puppy for me.

everything fell into place perfectly.. and my sweet baby cav came home a week and a half ago now. we named her Megaball Milla, formally, but she's going by Mega.

tonight, we played the mega millions lottery and matched on the megaball for the first time.

and three other numbers.

we're up big now.

yes, you can manifest anything you want.

d: megaball + 5.
b: i believed.
g: i received.

basically

wow, now i'm in overdrive on creativity. i have been introduced to the best thing since sliced bread online. it's so good that i don't want to share it though. a little gold mine i'm holding out on.. for a little longer. (muahahaha!)

at any rate, it's stolen my creative focus and i've been so productive with a project there that i'm trying to complete on deadline that i haven't been back here since last night's burst of mad blogging.

yeah, uh huh. this is what i would call an excuse if one of my boys offered it up.

yeah, mom.. there's this great thing i'm doing.. and it's really neat and very important! umm, no, i can't tell you what it is. umm, no, i haven't done my homework yet. but i will. and then i'll show you this other neat thing. next week. yeah, next week.

so today, my head was clear and my heart was full of joy.. and i went out to hit some tennis balls with haley. i hit balls with her yesterday too, when my head was mud and my heart was not full of joy. and i actually hit them pretty well. so today, i expected to do even better.

i was grossly mistaken. perhaps it was because yesterday i was so keenly focused on bounce-hit to keep at bay the lurking fears or perhaps it was because today i was so distracted by the other happy ideas and conversations i wanted to have, or perhaps it was both. regardless; today was much more difficult on the court.

either i was too close or too far. many balls i cleanly missed as though my racket were unstringed altogether. and then others there was no real explanation for. i just was off. a couple of baskets in, things turned around a bit. refocusing on the strings, chanting the bounce-hit mantra; the basics of course.

maybe this is a case where the most obvious lesson is the one i need to hear. maybe the thing i need to take away is a simple refocusing on the basics when either fearfully stuck in the mud or deliriously happy and distracted will improve my game.

and so tonight.. i cooked dinner. and did laundry. and that is all, basically.

d: simplify rather than diversify.
b: i found the coolest thing on the internet. i really did. i just can't tell you yet. (stay tuned. i promise it's worth the wait.)
g: another lesson on the tennis court.

nightmares

i've had two or three consecutive nights of dreams about cats. sick cats. one night i dreamed that a redneck in a pick-up truck pulled up in front of my house and said, 'i've got your cat. she's ok.' he was talking about tessie. i looked in the back of his truck, horrified at what might be there, and it was tessie. but she wasn't ok. she was deformed and very ill. she had somehow fought her way out of the earth, buried alive, but barely.

then another night, i dreamed i had adopted a young stray cat. a grey cat, different than any i have had in many years. he seemed healthy but i felt an urgency to get him to the vet for an exam and shots. i was carrying him around and 'about to' take him to the vet and he started to have a seizure and convulse.

that same night, i think, i had a different, separate, dream where i was having a conversation with some vets about their opinion on some medical issue and i did not trust these particular physicians. that one is fuzzy.

i generally hold to the principle that nobody wants to hear about anyone else's dream unless it concerns them, and even then, it has to be a very limited sort of 'concerns'. and very concise. so, i'm breaking my own rule, i admit. go ahead and skip this blog if it behooves you.

i'm living my days falling in love with the most precious little puppy face and i'm spending my nights tortured over the loss of my kitty face. it's heart breaking.

jasper just walked into my bedroom, as if on cue. he and mega are making some inroads to a friendship, i'd like to believe. he's not hissing on sight and she's not barking on sight. i know that tessie would have loved mega.

maybe jasper and mega will bond.. maybe my nightmares will stop. maybe.

d: deep, dreamless, sleep in my crate and mega's.
b: crate training is going superbly!
g: jasper is laying at my feet and mega at my right arm.

sidenote

i can honestly say that i haven't ever fallen as far behind on my blog as i am right now. three entries are necessary in order to be caught up and i know you're thinking this one is cheating, right? (just hold on a second.)

i'm not sure if i'm at a creative lull or a productivity lull or just stuck in a puppy lullaby, but whatever it is, i haven't made time to write a priority. tonight, i want to break out of the lull. i want to catch up. i want to tell the stories that are swirling around in my head.

so, tonight i am doing that. this is not a dbg blog. this is a sidenote. it's a promise. it's an IOU. it's me giving you my word that i have ideas. i have emails sitting in my inbox with blog starters (my repository for random thoughts), i have scraps of paper in my purse with scrawled sentence fragments, i have photo inspired words on the tip of my tongue.

and i will catch up. (and yes, i'll backdate the missing blogs. sorry. i can't stand a broken pattern.)

open

so today i was packing up my desk and i'm happy to report that seven odd years of stuff neatly fit into one paper box and another two small boxes - none of which are full. and countless trashcans, of course. someone walked up after lunch and said, 'oh wow, have you been working on this for a while?' and i replied, 'no, i just started about 15 minutes ago.'

i was nearly done.

then i went and led the weekly cross functional meeting i birthed into the organization a year and a half ago. it started as a small group of people who actually had to get things done. those of us with the shovels and wheelbarrows for the proverbial shit coming down the proverbial hill. there were 7 of us. we met at a table in my office. now there are upwards of 20 people on the weekly meeting invite and we generate more shit than we shovel. so, when i adjourned the meeting for the last time today, i happily brushed my hands of it and went home.

and an hour later i felt sort of invisible. and nervous.

for all the times i've wanted to be invisible and all the times i've wanted to disappear into the carpet squares; today i left feeling a medley of emotions just under the surface.

relief. freedom. glee. apprehension. anonymity. uncertainty. insecurity. fear.

i haven't ever been quite in this position and while i'm looking very much forward to the next phase, the ambiguity is a little nerve-wracking. i found myself asking haley for a schedule to time we don't ever schedule. i found myself wanting routine around that which is by nature spontaneous. i found myself wanting pattern in places i usually free-style.

because i'm terrified of all this open space and time.

d: keep it open.
b: i am open to what i want.
g: no more shoveling at the bottom of that hill.