Off the grid..

Lately it may seem that I have gone off the grid. I have disappeared from all the social sites, disappeared from my email, and some even think I have disappeared from my phone. But seriously, I am just being a little bit scarce. The weather and small turns in my life account for the rest.

We have had a marvelous couple of wind storms the last few weeks. I used to joke that every time the wind blew we lost our cell phone and our internet. Last week when the ISP sent people out to repair our lines, we realized that was actually true. The wind would blow the line, and the signal wouldn't go through it. Hmm.. who would have guessed. Well, they did something to the line, and replaced part of it, and we now have the faster speeds we were promised were here when we moved in. Right up until the wind storm this week.

Again we started losing our signal, and when it got really bad and I couldn't stand it anymore, I called the ISP. This time it turns out that the whole area is having problems though.. our area and the other major center an hour away from us. Thankfully, it seems to have gotten fixed this evening already.

As for the small turns in the rest of my life.. my divorce has been finalized and I am finally healing from the abuse my x-husband put me through. Thankfully, so are the kids, although I think it may take them a little longer. In a weird turn of events, my youngest has actually gotten scared over how emotionally strong I am becoming as I heal. I have never stood up for my rights, even to my children before.. Strange I had never noticed that while it was happening.

Other news from outside my children and I have brought us news of my step father's company shutting down his department.. Can we say no more job? And the ramifications of the ongoing medical bills for my mother's breast cancer treatments in the light on no insurance... We followed that one up with a phone call telling us that my grandmother was in the hospital and they had planned open heart surgery to replace two leaky valves. Have I ever mentioned how close I am to my mother and grandmother?

The continuing news for both of those is that my step father has gotten another job offer already that is equal to what he had, so we are all breathing a sigh of relief there. And the surgery seems to have been a success and my grandmother has been moved to the rehabilitation center. She seems to be doing quite well, and is quite happy with the medical facility she is in and the staff. We are looking forward to the awesome recovery the doctors predicted and within six months she should be better than before.. I know when I spoke to her on the phone the other day, she was full of the usual fire, it was just burning a little bit lower than we are used to. But I had an awesome conversation with her, and her brain was a s sharp as a whip. I think I would fall apart completely if she ever lost that.

And for the final small turn of my life, my computer has once again died. So I have multiple computers int he house that are each having problems of some sort, and none of their parts can be combined to rebuild something that runs. Ahhh.. I love my life!

Through all of this, I have decided to just keep pushing through. I guess you could say I am fighting out of my old life, and trying to climb into my new one. One thing that has really kept me from wallowing in all that has been going wrong is a book that we have been reading. Yes, I said we.

I never consider my kids to young to learn, and I think that principles of achieving success and law of attraction, among others, are ones that do best being learned at a young age. To this end, I enjoy reading books like this out loud to whoever is in the room. More often then not, I have an audience to discuss the ideas with when we finish a section.

The book we are currently reading is 'You Were Born To Be Rich' by Bob Proctor.

The Howl of the Wind

The howling sounds of the darkness have given way to the light of a new day rising up, and I am happy to say that we are still here. There is nothing that quite compares to living in a high valley in terms of the weather. We live in the southern part of the Mojave Desert, so you would expect it to be warm and dry. But living in between two mountain peaks brings quite a bit you would not expect.

For one thing it is totally awesome to see snow on the mountain tops to either side, and yet have none on the ground where you are. It is quite an adventure to go to the store at those times since the stores are over the mountain in either direction. Nothing like leaving your house at 50F/10C only to drive up the mountain and into the snow! After being careful on the slick freshly fallen snow going over the pass, we head down the other side of the mountain and back into 50F/10C weather.

Another unexpected weather pattern is the rain. We get a tremendous amount of rain. We live in the middle of a very dry desert, and yet we seem to get rain at least once a week and often times for more then one day at a time. A bit strange for the average number of days of sunlight for the state of Arizona being over 300. Of course I have also never seen anything like the way a storm can roll in one hour and be rained out or blown out the next hour.. amazing!

The one thing about living between two mountain tops that I may never get used to is the wind. There appears to be a constant wind, but when it kicks up, the valley acts like a funnel for it. The wind seems to be funneled in along the mountain walls, and it feels like the entire valley becomes a wind tunnel. You can sit and watch the trees bending low as if to kiss the earth. You hear the wind find every crack in your house and whistle its' way in. Open the window about half an inch and you can recreate the sound of an old freight train whistle. If you ever hear that haunting whistle at night, when everything is dark, it is enough to make you think of a lonely train streaming across a deserted space, just crying its' loneliness out to the world. The sound cuts straight through you.

That is the wind we have had the last couple of days. The wind has been strong enough to just blow the cell signal away from the cell phone, strong enough to blow the phone lines right off the telephone poles.. Just last night it kicked up even stronger and created such a ruckus of vents flapping howling noises that it sounded like wild animals desperate to get in. Those are the nights when we double check the locks on the doors, fasten the locks on the windows, and curl up under blankets hoping the electricity stays on.

And now as the light of day is slowly growing stronger, the wind's howling doesn't seem quite as scary. But the wind carries in it a chill that cuts straight through to the bone.. makes me wonder how the tops of the mountains fared overnight. Now as I glance out my window, and see that all of our outdoor toys are still securely tucked in around the house, I give thanks for making it through the night. I am grateful to still be here with all of my belongings still intact.

Being Grateful For Empty Space

Does it seem weird to be grateful for empty space? When was the last time you were able to sit in a clear area and just take in the room to breathe? When was the  last time you could do that in any random point in your house?
This morning we endeavored a great clean up. I decided to move the boxes and piles of "stuff" in the living room out of the way to sweep behind them.. Wow! The amount of dust balls I was able to gather was amazing! I used to be ashamed to admit that any part of my house had gotten that bad. Now I have decided to be proud of what I have accomplished instead. And I believe that ferreting out dust balls is quite an accomplishment!
In doing so, I managed to shift all the clutter from its' normal place to a new place in the living room. I did a good thorough sweep and we washed the floor. Then we all sat down to rest. As we sat there, I realized that I was admiring the clean empty space. I pointed it out to the kids and asked them to consider which they liked better.. the empty space or the pile of clutter. Which did they want to live in? Breathing great sighs of relief, they all pointed to the empty space. To which I breathed a sigh of relief!
I reminded them that we had to get rid of toys, clothes, junk.. lots of stuff to be able to have that empty space. This afternoon, we are still working on our great project, and I am being grateful for the emptiness.

What do Organic and Natural Labels Mean on Food?

Finally.. a short clarification on what those organic and natural tags on your food actually mean.. depending on HOW you say it that organic may mean 70%, 95%, or 100%. Do you know which is which? And what does the All Natural label actually mean? Do you know which foods are not regulated for the organic standard? This 4 minute video gives you all the basic answers of what those labels actually mean.



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