Slipping Through My Fingers

Well, my daughter turned 24 on Friday. I can hardly believe it! I still remember that fuzzy-headed little girl with the lisp. Now she’s a grown woman with a job and a husband! Where did the time go?

I think it really hit me when she got married last August – that my major-playing role in her life was over. IT was time for her to move on and have her own life. The ABBA song, “Slipping Through My Fingers” says it so well (and came out in the movie right before her wedding):

I feel like there were so many things I wanted to do with her and say to her and I have no idea where the time flew away to! It’s tough adjusting to this new role – more on the outside looking in and feeling just a little bit unnecessary.

I’m sure we will adjust and I will enjoy my new role – it’s all about the journey, right?

Friday Favorite – Ballard Designs

Happy Friday, everyone!!!

Today’s Friday favorite is Ballard Designs (click here for link). They are a furniture and household items store. They have locations in Florida, Georgia and Ohio. However, I have always just ordered from their catalog. I love their eclectic style and everything I have purchased from them is of excellent quality. The items arrive in a timley fashion and their customer service department is extremely helpful and friendly.

I have purchased the large kitchen island with teak top. It is beautiful and I always get comments on it when people come over. Unfortunately that particular one is no longer available, but they have many similar designs.

I also purchased the mosular desk and matching file cabinets for my home office.

The picture shows them in white. However, I purchased them in black. I am really happy with the quality and the price was fair for what I got. I wouldn’t call it Wal-mart pricing, but it’s not totally out of reach either. You definitely get the quality that you pay for.

So, check them out and watch for the sales as well!

Spring is in the Air

Ah, yes! Spring is in the air!

My eyes and nose are in a perpetual state of runniness (is that a word?) along with periodic bouts of itchiness. It is so frustrating to be feeling the most miserable during the time of year when the weather is gorgeous and all I would like to do is be outdoors. This happens to me twice a year – in the fall and in the spring. In the spring it’s all the trees and flowers blooming and in the fall its the ragweed. So in I go when the weather is 70 – 80 degrees and sunny with low humidity and back out I go when it’s cold in the winter and sweltering in the summer – yuck!

It’s worse in the morning when it seems like all I do is blow my nose. Then somehow everything dries up until I go out to take Isis for a walk. I have to bring tissues with me in case my nose decides to start running! I do keep my office door open during the day just because it’s so pretty and I like to hear the birds singing.

Oh well, soon enough it will be too hot to open the door and all the pollen will be gone – so I’ll feel better, but then be cooped up inside to avoid the heat! I’ll just enjoy it while I can – through the runny eyes and nose!

Spinning Out of Control

I have been away for a while because it has been really crazy. I realize I didn’t even do a Friday Favorite last week! I have been out of town for most of the past week. At the beginning of the week, I went to Seattle for my job. A team of us flew in to meet with the customer and to meet our counterparts there. We spent all of Wednesday afternoon in meetings. Then on Tuesday, it was once again, back-to-back meetings. These were followed by a quick dinner and more meetings withing our own team in the hotel lobby. Wednesday morning was spent in…you guessed it….more meetings until we flew out around noon. I got in late Wednesday night and then aside from work, began getting ready for a conference this past weekend.

Friday afternoon, I drove to Chapel Hill, Texas for the Texas Astrology Retreat. It was AWESOME! We learned a lot of new (for me) techniques based on the the ancient Hellenistic style of astrology which dates back to the Babylonians. These techniques really work and are much more”systemized” and structured. I am definitely employing more of these in my readings. I had been using the Vedic (Indian) system which is very similar to the Hellenistic, but this just gives me even more tools to work with.

This week, I really need to get my “Coaching With the Stars” website up. I am planning on using the wordpress.org version of WP to do this as I want total control of my own website! This is where I will have all my astrology/coaching stuff. Of course, I have the Blissful Soul website which is purely Life coaching. Actually right now all it is is a way to get on my email list if you want to keep up with what I’m doing, but soon that will change to a more robust website as well. I’m just taking it a step at a time right now.

I also have to write to papers by the end of the week for my seminary homework and one other one on Frida Kahlo for my Vedic Astrology homework which will demonstrate Vedic timing techniques and how these indicators have played out in her life.

I can’t believe March is already here and I still have so much personal paper work to do! Last year I swore that I would not wait until the last minute to submit insurance claims and FlexTime claims like I had the previous years, but lo and behold…guess what I still have to do and the deadline is the end of March. I also still have to do my taxes, but I haven’t been really organized this past year and I need to find all my receipts and things like that! AAUUGGGHHH! I feel like I’m drowning in paperwork!

So, needless to say, I have been running and running, but feel like I’m going nowhere fast!!! I think I”m not alone either – it seems like many people I speak to are feeling the same kind of time crunch. Could it be that time really is speeding up?

Well, I better get back to work and get at least some of these things done. I have a few hours I can squeeze stuff in before my next meeting. Then after two more meetings, I will go to my T-Tapp class and then a meditation class! Whew! I’ll need some meditation after a day like today!

Friday Favorite – Moleskine

Today I’m trying to get away from the geeky toys and the food! So, I’ve chosen Moleskin notebooks as my Friday Favorite. These were also a favorite of Hemingway! According to their website: www.moleskin.com:

Moleskine is the heir of the legendary notebook used for the past two centuries by great artists and thinkers, including Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Bruce Chatwin.

I love to keep them around for those moments when I have a flash of inspiration. I have a large unlined one that I keep in my briefcase, and a small lined one that stays in my purse. I also keep a large one by my bed.

Of course, flaky as I am, I don’t always remember to write my “flashes of inspiration” down. I guess that’s a habit that you just need to develop. Since I lost my Franklin Planner last week – what a nightmare! – I have found myself reaching more and more for the Moleskine. I guess it was confusing when I had both, because many times I would write stuff in the planner.

I have since replaced the planner with a smaller spiral-bound one, and therefore, there’s not as much space for random notes. So, I think the Moleskine will start proving itself invaluable.

Besides, I’m such a nerd. I love the feel of fresh paper and new pens and pencils. I always loved the start of the school year when I got new school supplies. That was so EXCITING to me!

Update on Isis, the Mighty Mouse Huntress

This afternoon I took Isis back to the vet for a follow-up on the infamous rat poison incident. (Click here for previous post). The good news is that her blood clot time is down to 3.5 minutes or 5 minutes (depending on the method used) which is down from 7! So, she is pretty much in the clear – however, she does need to take the Vitamin K for another month.

Everyone just be sure if your pet comes in contact with rat poison, take them immediately to the vet! I was very fortunate that I caught it when I did. And many thanks to everyone who prayed!

WeightWatchers DropOut

I have officially deemed myself a Weight Watchers dropout. Not that I don’t like the program or think that it works. I do believe that it is one of the best systems for losing weight for many people – I’m just not one of them.

As you may know, you get a certain amount of points allowed per day based on your current weight. Every food is worth so many points. The points values are calculated based on calories, fat and fiber. So, two items with the same amount of calories, the one with less fiber would have more points. So, theoretically if you eat “good” foods such as fruits and vegetables, you will have plenty of points to make it through the day. So, while it’s true that you can eat what you want when you want it, it isn’t entirely true because sometimes you are out of points when the thing you really want will cost you a lot of points.

My problem is that I am an emotional eater. I eat when I’m bored, anxious, sad, nervous, angry, pretty much anything except hungry…oh, yeah and when I’m hungry too! The other issue for me is that the minute something is deemed off-limits, then it’s all I can think about. I have dreams of it and want it with every fiber of my being. So, while technically WW allows you to have whatever you want (you just count the points), if you are out of points – YOU CAN’T HAVE IT!!!

Many years ago, I lost quite a bit of weight and the way I did it was to be VERY permissive with myself. I was actually working for a psychotherapist who specialized in eating disorders and this was a method she employed with her compulsive eaters, AKA emotional eaters. I told myself I could have whatever I wanted. The deal was that there were a few ground rules…

1) Eat only when hungry – that’s physically hungry. For some of us it takes a while to figure this one out – we’ve never allowed ourselves to actually experience it

2) Stop when satisfied – NOT gorged to the max, just satisfied. A friend and weight loss coach once told me that she finds this point is when in the middle of a meal she sighs – that is her body’s indication that she is satisfied. I have used this one as well – simply because sometimes there is no other indication.

3) Eat with no distractions – thoroughly enjoy and focus on what you are eating. This means no TV, no eating in the car, no stressful conversations while eating, no reading while eating. Focus totally and completely on your food – on the taste and smell of it, the texture. Enjoy it to the fullest. This also makes it easier to determine when you are satisfied.

4) Eat only what you really want to eat. If you eat what you think you should eat, you will never really feel satisfied and then you will reach for it later and probably consume way more than you would have if you had just allowed yourself to have it to begin with.

Geneen Roth, in her book – When Food Is Love”, describes her first few weeks of eating only what she wanted. She ate chocolate chip cookies both baked and the raw dough and variations of each at every meal for about two weeks until she got to a point that she never thought she’d want to see a chocolate chip cookie again. Some of us have deprived ourselves for so long, that we want those things fearing we will never get to see them again. These first few weeks can be scary as our minds adjust to believing that we aren’t going to be deprived anymore.

Now, when we stop using food to cover up our emotions, we are still left with the emotions we have to deal with. There are many methods for doing this including therapy, journaling, meditating, screaming. The most interesting one is the one used by Paul McKenna in his book and TV show of the same name, “I Can Make You Thin”. It is EFT or the Emotional Freedom Technique which consists of a series of tapping motions that you make on various meridian points on your body in conjunction with stating appropriate affirmations. This actually works surprisingly well IF you can remember to do this when you’re in the middle of a binge.

Well, for what it’s worth, I’ve canceled my WW membership and re-read Geneen Roth’s books and am now starting down my path of dealing with the emotional eating rather than the weight. It probably means I’ll be blogging more so I can vent my emotions through my writing. Stay tuned!

Long Week…

It’s been such a busy week this week! I was made the project manager of a completely disorganized project at the beginning of this year. I’m not actually a Project manager, but they were borrowing me from my group so as not to have to hire someone else, and to give me something to do until the big project I was supposed to be a consultant on came through.

Well, this current project is a bit messed up because it happened so fast. We didn’t think we’d get it and then we were chosen all of a sudden and the customer wanted us to start immediately. So, there was no kickoff meeting, there was no internal meeting to go over the objectives of the project, there was basically a lot of catch-up that had to be done at the beginning – then throw me into the mix – still trying to figure out who was who and what I was expected to be doing…it was a mess.

Also, this week I got put on another project doing part of the consulting – my core expertise. I also had four clients to meet with for my side business (combining life coaching with astrology) – needless to say, it’s been crazy! I wish I could spend time just doing my business, but hopefully, I will get to a point where that is what I’m doing!

Well, today I am out of town visiting my honey. We’re going to see the new Pink Panther movie tonight – I’ll let you know how it goes! It will be nice to relax a little bit and laugh – nothing beats a good laugh and if anyone can creat that, Steve Martin can!

Friday Favorite – iPhone

I LOVE my iPhone!!

Everything I need is at my fingertips – literally! The cool thing is that the calendar and the contacts synch automatically with those on my computer. I have a place to take notes on it, I can add contacts or appointments and they show up on my computer, I can access the internet whenever necessary, and it’s all so easy to use!

I’m not even mentioning some of the cool applications you can download. I’ve downloaded some games and the Target store which you can use to shop online at Target, but I’m definitely not the expert in applications.

The only problem is that the touchscreen is so sensitive that sometimes I accidentally hang up on people because my check brushes against it or I put them on hold, or I think I’m on mute and then I un-mute myself.

I spend a LOT of time on my phone because of conference calls and client calls for my business, so this is really my lifeline. If you are someone who spends a lot of time on the phone, I highly recommend you make the jump to an iPhone. One thing I haven’t found is a good bluetooth headset – if you know of one, please let me know!

Sacred Space

Last weekend night I was staying at the home of one of my seminary classmates in Brooklyn. She lives in a wonderful Brownstone in a very cute neighborhood. – the kind where the pharmacist knows the name of everyone enters and the neighbors all hang out at the corner cafe.

On Friday night she held her monthly women’s circle and invited me to attend as a guest. I was so tired that day since I had just flown in and hadn’t slept much the night before thanks to work and packing for the weekend. I had intended to go into Manhattan for another function, but was so tired, I decided to stay in and take her up on her offer. I am so glad I did! It was one of the most wonderful evenings I had had in a long time.

It was such a respite from the hecticness of daily life. Here was a space where women could come once a month and forget the demands of husbands, children, jobs and any other concerns. They were left at the door and you could see their shoulders visibly drop in relaxation as they came through the door. Friends greeted each other and slowly settled into seats and cushions that were formed in a circle on the floor.

The theme for the evening was Women in Nature. We started with a beautiful song to relax to and then my friend read an excerpt from the book, “Women And Nature“. Then the women slowly began sharing stories of nature and how it had an effect on their lives – stories from childhood and stories from that morning.

Afterward, we chatted and got to know each other. The whole experience was so calming and uplifting. It reminded me that years ago I had wanted to start a Women’s Circle and didn’t really know where to start. My friend has totally inspired me to get going with it. I’m really excited about starting this and will probably have my first one next month. I think it’ll be fun to design the format and come up with different themes each month.

I think we all need a bit of a “time out” from time to time. I think it’s time for some Sacred Space and I can’t wait to help create it.