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314

Mar14

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“‘It’s going to happen in three minutes.’ Mark Tapper sat on the edge of his son’s bed and tried to comfort the eight-year-old. He considered calling an ambulance, but he didn’t know if what Jeremy was suffering from qualified as an emergency. He decided to wait for his wife to get home, since she’d be there in just a few minutes anyhow. She’d left work early when the school called, but Mark was able to get to Widowsfield Elementary to pick Jeremy up first. 

‘What’s going to happen in three minutes?’ Mark glanced at the clock on the nightstand that displayed 3:11 on the stomach of a Batman figurine. ‘I told you,’ said Jeremy. The desperation in his voice terrified Mark.

 ‘The Skeleton Man’s coming.’ 

‘I don’t know what that means, kiddo. Help me out here.’ Mark tried to wipe sweat from his boy’s brow, but Jeremy jerked away as if frightened by contact. ‘Who’s this Skeleton Man you keep talking about?’ 

‘He’s coming, and then everyone’s going to go crazy. Dad, I don’t want to kill you again.’

 The statement was more than a little disconcerting. Mark stood up and put his hands on his head in exasperation as he stared down at his quivering child. He’d tried to stay calm through all of his son’s outbursts, but he couldn’t take it anymore.

 ‘That does it. Mom can meet us at the hospital. Do you think you can walk, or do you want me to call an ambulance?’ This manic episode confounded the school nurse, and it was getting worse the longer it went on. When Mark picked his son up from school, Jeremy had simply been crying, but now his mania had gone from concerning to disturbing. 

‘There’s no time. I can already hear his teeth.’ Jeremy looked at his father and chattered his teeth, as if he was freezing cold. Then he looked at the clock and they both saw the time change. 3:12 
Jeremy put his hands under his pillow and bunched it up so the sides covered his ears. He clenched his eyes shut and continued to weep. 

‘You should just kill yourself. Make it easy. Just shoot yourself in the head and get it over with. You can’t handle what’s coming. No one can.'”

(The beginning of book 1 in the trilogy.) 

Wth?! Lol This scene is what got me hooked (a little bit obsessed!) with this trilogy a few years ago. 

I wasn’t sure if I was going to read it if it doesn’t have an ending until reading all three but that scene pulled me in and I decided to read it anyway even if I had to wait for the other two books to come out. 

Today is a special, special day! (so is every other day but today is especially special! Lol ;-)) 

It’s 314!

There’s a fiction book trilogy, called 314 (see the scene above!) , It’s one of the best things I ever encountered in this life. 

Lol

It’s an incredibly bizarre story, involving what seems like other dimensions. We cannot read books 2 or 3 without first reading book 1 or we won’t make an ounce of sense of it. Book 1
Itself is very difficult to comprehend in some ways. And books 2 and 3 only get weirder.

I wrote about it here 

 https://inspirationalgem.wordpress.com/2013/12/06/some-comforting-words-about-moving-forward-and-book-review-314/

a couple years ago.

If I remember correctly, there’s a lot of errors in my post that I don’t think are corrected, like spelling and grammar errors and stuff. I don’t know why. Usually, I don’t mess up like that. I remember reading my post a while after  publishing it and thinking “like wth?!”
Lol

I was going to correct the errors but never got around to it. Who cares, right?! You get the message. I’m no grammar phanatic (i’m a philadelphia girl, it’s how we spell fanatic lol) so yeah.

Anyway, today is 314! So in honor of this lovely, lovely (and wonderfully rainy!) day, I’m going to promote this wonderful author and his trilogy! And again share some deep wisdom in this story!  

I must warn you. These books are nassstaaayy!

Lol Full of gore and stuff, which I usually don’t care for! But at least the violence can’t occur for real because it’s like dead human-canine kids who kill people. They come out of some green fog and just tear everyone to shreds.

I can’t even begin to explain. 

Book 1 doesn’t have a complete ending, it doesn’t even touch on the conclusion of the story but I was satisfied at the end before reading books 2 and 3.
I felt as if I had some somewhat sensible, if vague, answers.

One thing I love about the books is, the story involves friends, both new and old, unconditional love, wisdom, and is just wildly entertaining and freaky.

You won’t read anything more bizarre as long as you live. I can almost guarantee it! 

Each year on March 14th, at 3:14pm, incredibly bizarre and terrifying things begin to happen to a town called Widowsfield.

And the people kind of know something is about to happen but they don’t really know, at least not consciously. Some remember some of the events better than others. They know they are going to die….again….then again…in the most horrific, agonizing ways.

It’s just freaky! 

Here are some interesting scenes:

“Jaime looked down at her scrawling. 3.141592653”
‘Is that pi?’
 ‘Yeah. We were supposed to memorize ten digits of it for Mr. Trager for pi day.’

 Anna settled back in her chair and snickered. ‘Sure, for the test this morning. Why are you still writing it?’
 Jaime paused for just a moment. ‘I don’t know. There’s something calming about it. Is that crazy?’
 ‘A little bit, yeah.’
 Anna watched Jaime write the sequence over and over, oddly transfixed.
Then Jaime wrote the final digit as a 4 instead of a 3 in one line. 
‘You got that one wrong.’ Jaime didn’t stop writing and didn’t look up. 
‘There’s no such thing as a perfect circle. There’s chaos in all of it.’
Jaime looked up at the ceiling and then at the window before she asked, ‘Do you hear that?’

“Anna watched the shapes in the fog advance. The silhouettes of children ran across the field from their school, and the barking of dogs grew louder. Soon, the soccer players were attacked and chaos erupted in the library. Teachers and students rushed to the window and time returned to normal as everyone panicked. Jaime moved closer to Anna and ignored the massacre outside. “Why are we doing it again? Why do I know what’s going to happen? I’ve never felt this way before.”

“Jaime and Anna ignored the bloody scene; they’d seen it countless times before. Jaime pulled Anna between two book shelves, away from the screaming mass, to speak in private.”

“…’I don’t know, I can’t explain how I know. I’m not sure what’s going on. I just, for a minute, I could hear him in my head. I knew his thoughts. He’s looking for a girl he lost. She was an innocent, and he needs her to help him stop this from happening again.’ ‘I don’t understand any of that,’ said Jaime.
‘I don’t either, but I know he’s going to keep doing this over and over until he finds her.”Then what?’ asked Jaime. ‘I don’t know.'”

“Jaime and Anna embraced as they waited for their inevitable death. Then it would begin anew, slightly different from the times before, and they would forget the prying mind of The Skeleton Man as he continued to try to complete the circle.”

And here is a scene out of one of the trilogy books that I shared in the post above. This scene is full of wisdom & hope. 

This is what I wrote in the other post:
The girl, Alma, whose brother disappeared in 1996 meets a little girl but the little girl isn’t real. She’s kind of ghost -like or a figment of someone’s imaginings. She was sent to Alma to help protect Alma.  She is a very wise little girl. And she has some comforting words for Alma. Alma’s life has been painful. She’s a young teacher. Her dad was abusive to her and her brother and he still comes after her as an adult. He is addicted to the meth drug. Her mom went insane after her son (Alma’s brother) disappeared and she became sick with severe depression.  And she died by suicide because she couldn’t handle her son being missing.

Then Alma watches her friends dying over and over all day everyday and she is so confused and worn out and knows her own life is in danger.  All the characters think they’re going crazy.  Alma just wants to give up. Just when she collapses outside thinking she can’t go on anymore, a little girl about ten years old comes to Alma. She reminds Alma of herself when she was a little girl.

This little girl takes Alma’s hand and says:

“It’s not a bad thing to remember our worst days but it’s important that we learn to move on. “

Alma responds saying

“I’ve had a lot of bad days.”. 

The little girl puts her head against Alma’s arm and says

“I know you have. But you can’t let those bad days ruin the ones you’ve got left to live.”. 

Isn’t this beautiful?! So much wisdom and light. We don’t have to allow painful memories and things that happened before to hold us back and ruin our present days.

I hope you’re having a lovely 314 full of love & laughter and not full of gore, green fog, canine kids, and the Skeleton Man! 😉

❤ 😀

Much love to you,

Xoxo Kim 

Beautiful.

Mar11

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(the sunset today – the moon is out too, a thin sliver, how beautiful!)

“It was early morning. Smoke hung in the air. There was sunlight passing through the smoke. It was beautiful.

‘It is beautiful!’ the Tao said.

And so it was.”

This is out of a Kindle book I have called “Tao Sutra: Opening the Door to the Senses,” a book full of short stories like this laced with wisdom, love, life lessons, and beauty.
It’s written by Amit Basu.

This perfect lil story reminds us to acknowledge the beauty all around us at any given moment and also that attitude is just about everything. If we believe it’s beautiful then it is.
There is always something to see beauty in. ❤

Thank You for the recent comments to me! I always appreciate each & every one of them and all of my readers!
I will respond soon! ❤ 😀

xoxo Kim

Bloom. <3

Mar10

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“A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it….it just blooms.”

We all have a unique combination of things, gifts, experiences, abilities, goals, ways of doing things, loves, likes, dislikes, physical attributes, personality traits, mistakes, flaws, perfections, accomplishments, beauty, ugliness, wonder, brain/body chemistry, dna, memories….

It doesn’t make sense to try to have competitions with others and compare ourselves in negative ways. 

We all have our own histories, our own pace, our own ways…

Let’s bloom where we’re planted, work with and appreciate what we have and where we are, focus on our own life and context.

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Forget what others are doing and wanting and what everyone else has and focus on our own aspirations and desires. There’s always going to be someone with more and with less, with more developed abilities, more accomplishments, more money, and those with less.

There’s always going to be someone who seems to have it all or seems to have accomplished things more quickly. 

But we each have our own pace and situations.

“If one is a greyhound, why try to look like a Pekingese?”

This is a beautiful reminder to blossom as our own self, just the way we are. The one next to us may have much more but it doesn’t make us inferior. We all are very similar in some ways and different in other ways. 

But no one can take the place of another. ❤

So let's just be us and bloom where we are while loving each other and encouraging others to do the same.

Much love & light, always! ❤

😀

Xoxo Kim 

Strawberry <3

Mar8

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Strawberry is one of my favorite flavors. Not even for the taste itself, though it is delicious! 

😀

Cherry is my favorite and grape and I also love blueberry poptarts more than I love strawberry. For ice cream, mint chip is my favorite. 
Strawberry laffey taffeys are good, though, not nearly as good as cherry!  

But there’s something about strawberry I don’t understand. 

It brings life back into me. Life & hope.

Strawberry was Diane’s favorite ice cream.
Diane is my friend & coworker who we lost unexpectedly to a heart attack last year, which is one of the most difficult experiences of this life of mine. I feel my heart now, like it’s physically breaking. Sometimes I’m overcome in grief like it’s almost paralyzing. 

She would eat strawberry ice cream a lot at work.
She absolutely loved it. 
I always loved the pink color more than the flavor and I love the frozen strawberry pieces, how they feel against my tongue.

When she would eat her strawberry ice cream, the pink color always made me want to eat some too. Even when I was depressed and couldn’t really taste anything else, the strawberry almost always tasted like a sliver of Heaven on Earth, to me. Even flavors I like better do not usually do that for me.

Even when nothing else tempted me to eat it, strawberry would (still does!) and I would always forget what strawberry ice cream would do for me until Diane would come over and eat it.

I always felt so thankful. ❤ ❤

I remember often thinking "Thank You, Diane!!" when I would be depressed and she would be eating strawberry ice cream back in her room at work. And I would be eating it now too feeling a spark of hope instilled in me because something actually tasted like something in the midst of my deep, dark despair. That little glimpse of what still is, what can be, often kept me going. 

As I mentioned, I was recently depressed and nothing had any flavor. Even my soda does not feel as fizzy when I'm like this. It's like flat even though it's not. 

Depression can do some weird shit. Lol

It's like being in a separate world than everyone else.

Like I mentioned here before about the movie, The Langoliers, when they slip into something like another dimension but not quite, more like a time rip or lapse or something, and everything is bland, not just the taste of food, but the feel of everything. Nothing has rhythm, color, flavor, feeling. Everything is like a cheap imitation of the real thing. The air is dead. It’s disgusting.

But I recently bought strawberry sugar wafers because PINK! (lol can’t go wrong with pink!) and wasn’t expecting to really taste them but I was restless and wanted something to do. I had no desire for food or drink but I ate the wafers anyway and the strawberry struck me and just was/is amazing. Still not the same as if I wasn’t depressed but still, nothing else can touch me like that usually, in a state like this. But strawberry does! 

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I thought instantly of Diane (she’s always on my mind but this brought my conscious awareness to her at that moment) and I came to love strawberry even more, remembering how she loved it and always brought so much love to me even with my depression, I always felt so happy to see and talk to her.

She was so understanding of people with depression and substance addiction and other problems that not everyone understands or cares to understand. 

Oh, sweet Diane! ❤ </3 ❤

I don't know just how I came to find myself propelled into a world without her here with me but I'm so thankful I got to know her in this life.
And so thankful for the memories of strawberry ice cream and her love.

We were friends and worked together for almost ten years but I would have loved her just as much and grieve just as hard if I just met her. Time isn't what matters, the depth of love and connection is what does. But it's a blessing to have known her for nearly a decade. 

She loved Rod Stewart and whenever I hear the song "Rhythm of My Heart," I think of her and it plays so frequently on random shuffle 
when I write about her and it just start playing now! Lol ❤ ❤

Anyway, I just want to write about my experience with Strawberry. 

It's one of the beautiful things and my word this year is Beauty!! 

I hope you, whoever you are, are full of happiness & love & light & joy & inner peace.

If you have what I have (depression) or any problem or condition whether it's just as bad as mine, worse, or not as bad, I hope you have or soon find something that can almost always bring you a sense of joy or comfort or hope, when nothing else seems to. Maybe a song, or a memory, a book, or movie, or quote, or activity, or maybe a certain color or flavor….

I don't just write "much love & light…" often just to end my posts. I truly wish with everything I have that everyone can be happy and feel love for others and feel loved themselves. When I write that, I actually feel it. I don't know who is reading but I know everyone is someone, like me, with hopes and joy and happiness and pain and fears, losses, and the potential for suffering and the potential to evolve and the capacity to love…

And I love you because I know you are someone.

❤

So, much love & light to you, always. ❤

Xoxo Kim 

Grateful <3

Mar7

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“I’m thankful for a pair of shoes that feel really good on my feet; I like my shoes.
I’m thankful for the birds; I feel like they’re singing just for me when I get up in the morning… Saying, ‘Good morning, John. You made it, John.’
I’m thankful for the sea breeze that feels so good right now, and the scent of jasmine when the sun starts going down.
I’m thankful…” ~Johnny Cash

Today I woke up in a state of deep gratitude. I often live in gratitude but I’m not always as conscious of the depth of it as I was this morning. I woke up early to the sound of cars outside and construction work off in the distance, which I love to hear!

It was so beautiful to hear. And my little pomchi was all curled up sleeping on me. My adorable baby! I was flooded with gratitude for the personalities of my sweet furbabies!
I love cuddly dogs who love to snuggle with me under the blankies!

And I was (still am) very thankful that I was exhausted all day yesterday, with my exhaustion increasing then decreasing off and on. It was hard to work at some points. And today I’m also incredibly exhausted and fatigued. 

I am depressed and have been very depressed for a week now. Last week my depression was severe emotional pain and suicidal inclination. This week I’m not suicidal and it’s not so much emotional pain but lack of energy, food and everything tasting bland, music doesn’t sound as good, my whole body feels heavy…

The reason I am so thankful for this struggle is I used to live like this almost constantly for years, this horrible exhaustion and fatigue and depression. Day after day, year after year.
It would lift occasionally, sometimes even lift for a few months then go back to severe depression.

The fatigue was horrible. I had trouble staying awake at work and in school. I had to take naps all day.

I stuffed myself with junk food, which I’m sure made my fatigue worse and even brought it on sometimes. 

Fatigue and depression was just how I lived. 

But in May 2010, I began to truly get myself better and through the years better and better and now I still have depressive episodes and symptoms sometimes, sometimes even frequently, but they are not as often and they are usually easier for me to handle.  

Like I mention sometimes, depression that I speak of is not a mere mood, attitude, or grim outlook on like. It’s like a Sickness. I can even often, now, separate my attitude and the depression. Just because I’m depressed doesn’t mean I can’t be positive about it or even have a sense of happiness with it. Not always, but sometimes. 

And depression isn’t always a low mood even if it usually is. Like now, it’s more physical and other symptoms but I’m not miserable.

Right now, I’m not the happiest girl on Earth like I usually am! Lol But I’m not on the brink of killing myself either like last week!

😀

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Anyway, my couple of days of exhaustion and fatigue, really stood out and because of this I am reminded that  I no longer live this way. It’s so rare now that when it hits, it’s startling.

This is a good thing! I love thinking about how much better I am now.

Even when I’m severely depressed, I’m usually not that fatigued anymore. I appreciate this reminder and it also reminds me to be thankful for unusual things we may often overlook. 

Even though I’m depressed, I’m still overflowing with gratitude, some points it’s so deep. It IS possible to be both depressed and grateful. It’s not always going to happen and the gratitude likely won’t be as deep as when we aren’t depressed but we can still be thankful. 

Here is a truly beautiful song about being grateful for everything, looking on the bright side of life no matter what. ❤

"I've got a heart that can hold love
I've got a mind that can think
There may be times when I lose the light
And let my spirits sink
But I can't stay depressed
When I remember how I'm blessed" ~John Bucchino

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Grateful – Sung by John Bucchino -mobile

“Grateful, grateful
Truly grateful I am
Grateful, grateful
Truly blessed
And duly grateful”

😀

Much love & light to you, now & for always. ❤

xoxo Kim  

Mala

Mar4

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Recently, I got a new Mala!
Isn’t it lovely! 
I really love this one! 

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I don’t really care for the fact that it doesn’t have divider beads though! 😦

Oh well, I still love it!

The kind of red coloring is so pretty!

Malas are Buddhist prayer beads.

They are used for Mantra recitation, to generate positive energy and discipline the mind.

There are various mantras associated with different Buddhas.

It’s believed that when we touch the beads and say/think the mantra, the energy goes onto the Mala. 

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The way I practice Mala recitation is in a secular way, I don’t pray to a Buddha to actually answer me. It’s just a peaceful meditative activity that gets our mind in the habit or more in the habit of positive thinking or a positive, peaceful state.  Even if we are already positive and peaceful, it can help us to be calm even more frequently, even in very stressful, depressing, situations later, even when we are not engaging in recitation.

We don’t have to be Buddhists or religious or any specific kind of spiritual to practice Mala recitation and benefit.

The mantra can be recited once a day or all throughout the day, even walking up a street, at a restaurant, in line at a store…whenever we want, wherever we want(as long as it’s safe/appropriate to be concentrating on it, I don’t know about while driving or performing surgery, in a talk therapy session with a patient…). The point is to truly experience it though, not to absent-mindedly engage in it.

The mantra I chose for this Mala is the

Manjushri Mantra,
Om A Ra Pa Ca Na Dhih

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“This mantra is believed to enhance wisdom and improve one’s skills in debating, memory, writing, and other literary abilities. “Dhīḥ” is the seed syllable of the mantra and is chanted with greater emphasis and also repeated a number of times as a Decrescendo.”

“A leads to the insight that the essence of all things is unproduced.
RA leads to the insight that all things are pure and free of defilements.
PA leads to the insight that all dharmas have been “expounded in the ultimate sense.”
CA leads to the insight that the arising and ceasing of things cannot be apprehended because in reality there is no arising or ceasing.
NA leads to the insight that although the names for things change the nature of things behind their names cannot be gained or lost.”

Source: http://www.wildmind.org/mantras/figures/manjushri

Manjushri is a bodhisattva, depicted as a beautiful young prince of transcendent wisdom.

You can hear the mantra said over and over here (mobile) or here (desktop)... It’s so soothing.

Malas typically are strung with 108 beads and divider beads. A mantra session can be performed for all 108 beads at once or less. It’s believed by Buddhists that the energy for the mantra goes on the beads and each recitation session adds more energy. If a different mantra is used for the same Mala, the energy for the previous mantra clears and the new energy goes on. 

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I have five Malas.
I’m not yet in the habit of practicing everyday though like some who are very dedicated.
It can be overwhelming until we truly ingrain the habit.

People who have practiced for many years with the same Mala, often take great care not to have their Mala lost or damaged because there goes all that positive energy, years worth, down the drain! 

But Buddhism/Mala recitation  is all about inner  peace, and all those years of Mala recitation, hopefully, provides them with the strength to handle such misfortune. 

If you want to see about various mantras, check this out!
http://www.thebuddhacenter.org/buddhism/mantras/ 

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If you aren’t into Mala recitation and mantras, this is probably a boring post for you. 

And I love to mostly share things that can be appealing to people in general. 

Unlike what many people say about themselves and their blogs, I don’t mostly post for myself. I do post things for me but my main intention is to help uplift & inspire  others who may come across my content now or later. It will always be here (hopefully!)!
Of course everything I post is something I want to share so in that way it is for me. 

Even if I wanted to post something I thought no one else would care for, I still would post it. I already have but most of it got “likes” anyway! I’m so honored when people like my content.

But I always want to include something that may be more interesting to others.  

So if you opened this post and couldn’t care less, you’re in luck! Lol

Because I will share some fantastic quotes here as well! 

“My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?” ~
Charles M. Schulz

Lol I feel this way often, like I have no specific purpose, but not in a bad way, no need for a purpose, my purpose is just to be. It’s beautiful to feel that way. When I’m depressed sometimes I feel the opposite about it, like I have no purpose and it sucks! Lol It’s all about the attitude! 

“The universe was a vast machine yesterday, it is a hologram today. Who knows that intellectual rattle we’ll be shaking tomorrow. ” ~ R.D. Laing

“A rose is a rose is a rose.” ~ Gertrude Stein

Whaaattt??? Lol 😉

“The present moment is a powerful goddess.” ~ Goethe

“Life is a child playing around your feet, a tool you hold firmly in your grip, a bench you sit down upon in the evening, in your garden.” ~ Jean Anouilh

“The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman  of sorts. The day was green.
They said, ‘You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are.’
The man replied, ‘Things as they are 
Are changed upon a blue guitar…'” ~ Wallace Stevens 

Such deep wisdom here. 

“Wind moving through grass so that the grass quivers. This moves me with an emotion I don’t even understand.” ~ Katherine Mansfield

This is one of the most beautiful experiences in the world! To witness something so mundane and so simple and be so inspired, filled with immense emotion that can’t even be described, like gratitude, love, beauty, happiness, joy, awe…I feel this often! ❤

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"No snowflake falls in an inappropriate place." ~ Zen saying 

"There is nothing useless in nature; not even uselessness itself." ~ Montaigne

"To the dull mind nature is leaden. To the illuminated mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light." ~ Emerson

Oh yes, it burns and sparkles with passion, light, love….

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought." ~ Basho

Allow their wisdom to guide us but follow our own way.

"If we achieve satori and the satori shows, like a bit of dogshit stuck on the tip of our nose, that is not so good." ~ Taisen Deshimaru

Lol Don't flaunt that shit! Be humble. Just be.
;-D

So reading this post wasn't a total waste, right?…right?! 

😉

Much love & light to you! 

Xoxo Kim 

My gratitude List!! <3

Mar3

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I have been slacking with my gratitude lists! Not in my head, I’m always thinking of how thankful I am, but it’s great to write out lists, which I do for a while then stop. Then begin again. On & on..

So here are a few things I’m thankful for today!

1.) The little girl who was outside my house when I was coming home, with her mamma, she’s only like a year old or a little bit older and she was so happy because five of my dogs were in the window looking out! Lol The sweet baby girl can’t really talk much but she was smiling and pointing to show her mom. It was the cutest!  

2.) my coworker – I saw her today when I was out shopping. I did not see her at first but she saw me and said hello. It always brightens my day to see her! ❤

3.) the weather! It's like Winter again! It was just like Spring yesterday! I told you yesterday about March and its mood swings! Lol 😉

4.) the ghost stories I have on my Kindle! And so many more I can't wait to buy! 😀

5.) today 

6.) my dogs! I have a dog, Prince Oscar, who cannot or will not walk up or down steps. We have to carry him. We don't know why. He was like that when we got him. He mostly stays downstairs. But sometimes he wants to come up to my room and get in bed. One night a while ago he wanted water so I took him in the bathroom and let him drink out of a plastic cup I got at the shore in the summer. My other dog, Emmy, saw him getting water that night then Emmy started begging for water upstairs when he can walk downstairs to get it! Spoiled boy! He wakes me in the middle of the night to give him a cup of water when there's a large bowl downstairs. Now my other dog, Woody, started doing the same, begging for water upstairs all night instead of just going down to get it. Lol It's annoyingly cute! 
Or adorably annoying! Lol 

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This is them drinking out of their lemonade cup!
😀

And here is sweet Prince Oscar. 

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He’s a shih tzu. ❤

7.) the color red and my ability to see it. ❤

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8.) Buddhist Malas

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9.) all of my readers/followers here & on facebook. ❤

10.) meeee ❤

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And so much more! What are you thankful for right now? You can let me know or just think about it or maybe create your own list and post it? Don’t forget to include your own beautiful self! 😀

Much love & light to you now & forever. ❤

xoxo Kim

Hello, March

Mar2

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(this picture is not mine)

Yes, hello there, March! I love you & thank you for existing! ❤ 😀

I LOVE the Month of March! I'm so inspired every year in March. I'm inspired every month (though I'm least inspired in August and other Summer months) but in March, my inspiration usually runs deeper than other months.

Here is why. March. It's a sweet medley of
 all four seasons. It like has madd mood swings. One day it's all Summery and hot then the very next day there's a snow blizzard and it's below freezing, other days it's sunny & warm or cool and Spring is in the air. Some days, it doesn't know what season it is and all throughout the day the weather changes hot then cold, cool and warm. 

There's something so beautiful about this last Winter month and knowing Spring is about to bloom.

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The trees are still bare but there are some signs of the coming Spring, some green growth blossoming.

The days are often warmer then the nights are still cold. March brings with it rain, snow, sun, wind, moonlight…just lovely!  

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(cute or creepy? To me it’s cute! :-D)

I can strongly relate to this wonderful, beautiful month and all its chaotic beauty. 

I’m like this myself sometimes. 
I recently have been depressed and dangerously suicidal off and on with joy and happiness in the middle. This happens now & again. Sometimes triggered by something specific (like recently), sometimes not triggered by anything. 

(I will share my recent struggle in a later post)

It’s beautiful to be so full of life.

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March inspires me to create even more than other months. It inspires me to take out my arts & crafts journal and to take lots of pictures and to tap into my most creative parts!

Every March, this deeper inspiration just comes flooding into me and it’s just beautiful.

Last night and early morning was perfect! I was laying in bed reading a ghost story and the night couldn’t have been more perfect for a ghost story! It was dark and cold and raining hard and extremely windy! The windows were rattling and the bare tree branches were shaking! 
Just perfect!  

I’m reading a novel called “The Haunting of Blackwood House.” My first impression of the main character, Mara, wasn’t a real good one.

She seems kind of rude at first. And she kind of mocks her realtor who has a breathing condition and talks in a breathless way and calls people “honey” very frequently. I don’t mind being called “honey!” lol 😀

Something about this young woman just rubbed me the wrong way. She acts out of anger and lashes out somewhat frequently it seems. Not like real frequently but she gets all worked up and claims she can’t help it. But she’s sorry later, which is good, because she tries to make up for it. She doesn’t really want to hurt anyone. I prefer reading books where the main character is lovable/likable. It’s not her anger that I have the biggest problem with. I don’t not like people because they have anger problems. 

It’s hard to suck it up and read a book where the main character is super annoying. But it’s a great book and I’m only on page 73 out of 344. It’s a Kindle book.

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I learned later that the young woman was abused as a child. Her family wasn’t trying to be abusive probably, but they are extremely religious and brought her up in a way that damaged her psychologically. She lived on her own for four years now and still has terrible nightmares. Not all extremely religious people are abusive, in fact, I think most aren’t. But it is possible to unintentionally use religion in a very detrimental way against others. These people made her go to people claiming to be psychics and they made her attend frequent séances and told her horrifying ghost stories they claimed were real. They used ouija boards and killed her pet rabbit claiming someone on the other side told them too. 

After learning this, my compassion for her deepened. 

But even when I viewed her in a somewhat negative light, I also have found things in her that are very respectable and inspiring. 
She’s only 22 years old and has been on her own since 18 years old. She doesn’t have much money but she has a job and her own apartment, a loving boyfriend, and she gets by on her own. She’s extremely independent minded and wary of accepting the help of her boyfriend. She’s kind of on the poor side (financially) and he’s upper middle class and lives with his mom. 

He offers to let her have or borrow money which she refuses because she is proud to be independent. I think that is very respectable. There’s nothing wrong with letting her man help her out but it’s great to choose to be an independent woman. And if she wanted, she can take advantage of his money but she never does. She just loves him for him and doesn’t need him. It’s great to be wanted, not needed. She’s with him because she wants to be. 

But she does allow him to help her in some ways. It’s great to find the balance of being independent but also accepting help when needed. 

Him and his mom offer to let her live with them but they are Christians and very into their religion and she is so repelled by religion because of the way she grew up. Just the thought of it sickens her. This is another thing I love about her, she’s not just an atheist, she’s totally put off by religion, outright loathes it, it seems, but she still accepts the views of others and will even have a serious romantic relationship with a very religious man. This shows open-mindedness. Some people in her situation would reject him. But she loves him just the way he is. She just won’t live with him and his mom and their religious ways. His mom is more religious and he lives with her to take care of her but the girl wouldn’t mind living with just him if he doesn’t go overboard with the religion.

They have been together for six months and deeply in love! I love it! ❤ They have an extremely loving relationship. I love watching it unfold. They are so cute together! I'm a sap! Lol ;-D He is big and strong but very gentle and loving and loves to help people. 

Anyway, she has some money she has been saving for a house but it can't be too expensive.
The apartment she currently lives in is trashy. Lol

Recently a house was brought to Mara’s attention. It's like a mansion in the middle of nowhere. She falls in love with it even though it needs serious repairs. The structure is good though and it's safe to live in.

It's way less money than it would have been because in the early 1900's (I think), a serial killer lived there and like seven people died in the house. He took his victims back to his house and murdered them and then he hanged himself in there. (eww)

No one wants to live there now and the house has been on the market for 20 years. It has a reputation for being haunted. But the girl isn't even fazed. To her, there's no such thing as ghosts and so what if people died there, it's just a house.

So she buys the house and still has money left.

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Another thing I love about Mara is she is very intelligent, educated, and informed. I don’t know if she has a college education, probably not, it only mentions her work, but she is clearly just as educated as anyone who does.

She stands up for herself and is assertive and bold and makes decisions based on facts and logic and what she wants. She doesn’t just accept nonsense because most do.

I agree with her atheistic views but I do practice Buddhist techniques but in a secular way. She probably wouldn’t like that. Lol

I don’t think I would want to buy a house seven people died in though, or even one person, especially if they were murdered. Nothing to do with hauntings and superstitions. It’s just the thought of the whole thing! Like eww! :-O

But it’s a great book up until now! And I am reminded of a life lesson to look for the good in others even if we don’t like other things about them and that it’s not always wise to go by first impressions.

I love the feeling I get reading about this young woman starting her life how she always dreamed after struggling so much, buying a new house and getting a new job and becoming who she always dreamed of being. It inspires and thrills me. 

I’m nearly 30 years old and still don’t have a place of my own, work only at a store, the same job I had as a 20 year old college girl, which I love but sometimes I think I should be more accomplished by now. It can seem kind of pathetic, sometimes, how I turned out. Oh well though, it is what it is, and it inspires me to hear about/read about others who are successful whether they are real or characters in a fiction book.

Right now the only ghost-like thing that happens is the old rocking chair started rocking on its own! But Mara brushes it off as a draft of an unknown source. 

The whole kitchen table was set with 20 year old, rancid food, all the old furniture is still in there and it seems as if the last family who lived there (20 years ago, years after the serial killer incident…) all left in a hurry, in the middle of eating their food! The table is all set and all like they were prepared to eat then had to bolt and fast. 

Interesting! I can’t wait to read more! I love reading it in the dark at night! 😀

Something must have been seriously wrong for an entire family to run out, just leaving everything in the middle of eating, and never coming back. I heard something for real like that in the news. A whole family just left in the middle of eating and disappeared and were later found dead, murdered I think. This one is just sad, not thrilling because it really happened. 

❤

I hope you are having a beautiful day/night wherever in the world you are!  😀

Hugs & love to you now & always,

Xoxo Kim 

Your Power

Mar1

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This isn’t my picture; I’m just sharing it here. It’s a great message! There are people who have more than us and less, better skills and less developed skills, more beautiful and less beautiful, more experience and less, very different and very similar to us…but no one else is you or me! We are all a unique combination of things that no one else can be. We each have a space no one else can fill. Let’s remember to cherish our own self & each other.

Isn’t it amazing to think of all the people who ever existed and will ever exist and no two are the same?!
There’s infinite potential that just never runs out. ❤

😀

An inspiring thought for the day!

Hugs to you!

xoxo Kim

February Sunrise

Feb29

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“It’s been a long dark night
And I’ve been a waitin’ for the morning
It’s been a long hard fight
But I see a brand new day a dawning
I’ve been looking for the sunshine
‘Cause I ain’t seen it in so long
But everything’s gonna work out just fine
Everything’s gonna be all right
That’s been all wrong”

Last night I remembered my goal to get at least one picture of the sun rising each month this year! I was startled because today is the last day in February and I was thinking if I blow it now, it will be too late!  

But I was determined! So I looked it up to see when the sun would be rising today. It’s 6:35AM so I got myself up at 6:12AM to wait! I went out into the backyard and listened to the birds chirping and watched them as they flew by. It is so magical just to sit outside and truly listen and watch the beauty of nature all around. 

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I took pictures but some moments I put my phone down and allowed my whole self to be engulfed in the beauty. Then I watched as the sun began to rise. It wasn’t a dramatic sunrise. Sometimes it’s really pink or orange and very noticeable. Today it was just a hint of orange that I was able to see but still beautiful and at least I accomplished my goal this month!

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And I got to see so much morning beauty! I’m usually not up this early. I also am delighted to see that the moon was still out! I saw it through the almost bare tree branches. 

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(this one has an effect on it)

When you see it you will shit bricks. lol 😉

The tree reminds me of an impending Spring! It has little things growing on it!

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This morning it feels like it’s about to be Spring!  

I was and still am in awe of the stunning beauty everywhere I look. I am plunged into the depths of it and feel it in my whole being. So much love! ❤

So much wonder!

“‘Cause I can see the light of a clear blue morning
I can see the light of a brand new day
I can see the light of a clear blue morning
And everything’s gonna be all right
It’s gonna be okay”

Light of a Clear Blue Morning – Dolly Parton – mobile

Light of a Clear Blue Morning – desktop

It’s just a mountain; I can move it. ❤

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(This one is not mine!)

😀

~Hugs~ ❤

Much love & light to you, now & forever!

Xoxo Kim