Back on track

Easter and the following week seemed to vacuum my time from any outside activities! Between Joey's rehearsals and performances and our granddaughter's first birthday party, we spent hours on the road. I love driving my little car, it's a 93 Subaru Loyale sedan. In my favorite teal color and the seat and wheel fits my body perfectly. While all my friends driving SUV's are having to do serious readjustments of their budgets to afford gas, I have had to give up one cup of coffee a week and since I decided to switch to tea and water, it has had no impact on my budget! We drove through beautiful farm and forest land with a view of Mt. St. Helen's and then went to the coast of Oregon. I became aware of how rich I am. I have views that people budget their entire vacation funds to come and see. I daily walk through green spaces rather than cement and asphalt paths. I have neighbors who even though they may not like my farming in the backyard of a city lot, still stop and visit and smell my lilacs.

I am investigating ways of working from home. Not through the online scams but with spending more time working on my books and self publishing them as well as some other friends works. We are looking at mainly ebook production. I am also preparing to totally redo my web site and everything concerning the Holiday Grand Plan. I am studying at the feet of the masters. Napolean Hill, Jack Canfield, Bob Proctor, Wayne Dyer and God. I am finding the greatest words of wisdom in the Bible and writing by people who have found a deep relationship with our Eternal Father, Creator and Redeemer.

I am also looking at how to improve my health and body. After investigating my body type I have decided to use the Apple Patch Diet, not as much for the weight loss properties as for the constant reminder that the patch will give me to think about my food choices. It will remind me that I can have any food I desire as long as I eat in moderation. I have started walking on my breaks. I can get half an hour of relaxing exercise, get my heart rate up and avoid negative conversations without taking away any of the rest of my day.

At home I have restarted my home clear out. 5 boxes of papers down 8 more to go. Why did I have to chose paper to be my first clear out?!!! I am also getting rid of clothes, anything that makes me feel dumpy or drab. I am pulling out my good dress suits and realizing that I am within an inch of fitting in to several of them again. I barely believed that just thinking of being trim, healthy and energetic creates this, but it does. It doesn't need a gigantic belief system. Just that still calm thought that God will provide if I will just ask and allow the universe to act.

Katie
http://thesgrprogram.com/special.php?a_id=12653
www.leckeys.com

Easter Eve and the Great Vigil

I have just returned from watching eight beautiful children become members of Christ's family. The symbolism of the Easter Vigil as we listen to the stories of the history of our faith and celebration around the first fire. If you half close your eyes as you sing and listen, you can be taken back two to three thousand years and feel that you are around the camp fires of the nomadic tribes of Israel as they told their stories and sang the songs of praise. You feel the awe of the news that the tomb is empty as you enter the church that has magically changed from the dark dreary empty place of grief to a glowing, flower filled sanctuary filled with the excitement that the Lord has returned to life and is among us again. It is still that guarded excitement, as we sing The Strife is O'er, The Battle Done. Tomorrow is the full excitement, with He is Risen and Bells and Incense. But tonight it is about New Life.

I feel it is so appropriate that we made the decision to return to our Simpler Lifestyle this past week. I could experience the week in a whole new way as we started to process to get rid of the burden of Affluenza with its clutter and overwhelming emptiness. Joy is filling the house where emptiness ruled.

Alleluia, The Lord is Risen!!! The Lord is Risen Indeed, Alleluia!!

Good Friday

After growing up in an area where Good Friday and Passover were taken very seriously, it amazes me how many people don't have a clue about their importance, not just in the religious sense but in the history of the world. So much of what happens in the middle east is tied back to those two events and the people involved. But more than that is the understanding of true abundance in the stories. Traveling for years with always enough to eat, but no more as long as you followed some basic rules. Don't take more than you and your family will eat in one day, remember to thank the provider, and stay true to your God. Then several centuries later, someone saying that there is an abundance of love available to us, we just need to accept the invitation to be truly forgiven and loved. It just boggles my mind that God feels that way about us. As I sat listening to the Crucifixion story again tonight I did it from a feeling of gratitude and heard an entirely different message than usual. I didn't hear about our sin, but about GOD Love. I didn't hear how we daily put Christ. to death, but about how we daily change for the better when we keep a conversation going with GOD.

After leaving Church, I had another abundance event. I stopped at the store for toilet paper and walked past the meat counter. They had the nearly $3.00 ground meat marked down to $.99 a pound. So the money I had budgeted for 3 pounds of meat, bought 9! This means that the food budget for next week will be available to pay down medical bills. As I tally this, it means that in the past two days I have received the equivalent of nearly $200 just by doing the daily things I normally do, but thinking about each activity with Thanksgiving and positive thoughts.

Maunday Thursday

This has to be the church service that pulls at my heart strings the most. I am an Episcopalian so we have traditions that go back to the time of Christ. We gather and sing, then wash each other's feet, then continue with the Last Supper. At the end of the service those of us in the choir quietly leave and the priest, deacon and acolytes with the help of the Altar guild strip and wash the altar, blow out the candle that signals that the Sacrament is there and in this parish, literally pushes the altar to the side as they set up a place to sit and pray through the night. Tomorrow we go through Good Friday with it's stark images of Christ giving the ultimate sacrifice for my eternal soul. I have to remember that He thinks I am worth it, even when I have trouble with that concept. This is the perfect time to reflect and learn the difference between happiness and Joy. I am finding that Joy is not dependent on my job, my family, or anything except my learning to forgive others and myself, to let go of the past and embrace the now. Happiness comes from reaching goals, helping others, playing with my children and grandchildren. Joy comes from letting go of those things that separate us from God.

We had manifestation of abundance this evening. As I got home from church, my eldest son, his wife and children were in front of our house unloading 5 boxes of food. I have spent the week knowing that we had less than $10 in our bank accounts and almost every cent from my paycheck has to go to standard bills and medical bills that have accumulated. Every time I would feel the panic start to rise, I say: "I have money in the bank and my supplies are overflowing with abundance so we can share with our neighbors." So we now have 20 pounds of avocados and another 15 pounds of tomatoes! We also have rice and potatoes enough to share. Other than milk and our Easter Ham, I do not need to purchase any food for at least two weeks!

Praise be to God!

Day 2 Attack of the Negatives

Day 2 of my journey. Someone once told me that if you start a new path or journey and immediately get attacked by the negative, that you are probably on exactly the right path. I woke up this morning and was immediately hit with sharp pain. Arthritis, sinus, and my husband suddenly having nerve inflamation at the site of his back surgery, which meant I missed a day of work and by work standards lost a vacation day. I could spend hours and days complaining about this morning, but I glanced at my bedside table and saw my lists. My gratitude list and my Goal list. I knew I would spend part of the day dealing with doctors and medical tests for my husband, so I grabbed my planning notebook, my ipod and pencils and worked on a few pages of my books. Affluenza, Barrier to living the True Abundant Life is moving along; Whole Year GrandPlan is a bit slower as I get stuck on summer months; and my unnamed book about my personal dream, helping develop urban homesteads as a "cool" way of life for the future is starting to get an outline developed. The more I research, the more I become convinced that these books need to start as ebooks and possibly never go to full printing. How can I write about decreasing my impact on the environment and then kill 20 trees to print it out for sales!

When we got home, I put the energy to work on our front and side yards. Because of our schedules and illnesses the yard had become little more than a trash heap. My husband did what he could by sorting things that had gathered in the space. I lifted and pushed, raked and shoveled. After four hours of working, I could see the vision of parties on the patio much more clearly. I can hardly wait to get home from work tomorrow to finish planting the garden pots. The flow of the day reminded me that I must put my energies towards this as at work I am a hexagon in a round hole. I fit, but it sure isn't where I am supposed to be!

Day One

I have decided to document my journey as I change my life view. After more years than I can count as the victim, then survivor it is time to be fully alive and happy. I have been studying The Secret, Napolean Hill's writings, Biblical references and the lives of intelligent, happy and at times wealthy people. Each day I am going to chose a habit to work on, a goal to work towards and a thought to add to my list of alternate things to think about when I start to worry, stew or think negative thoughts.

My habit to start today is journalizing my journey.
My goal is to have 10 things listed on either ebay or Craigs list by Saturday.

Thought One: I am so thankful to have a husband who loves me, four wonderfully intelligent and funny children, two, nearly three children in-law, and 3 grandchildren.