Meditation practice

Over the years, I have had an on-again, off-again relationship with meditation.

I like the idea of it, but I don’t always like to make time to do it.

There are just so many other things that I have to do every day … although I do feel calmer if I start my day by sitting for a while without my phone or other distractions clamoring for my attention every minute.

My meditation practice was definitely languishing recently …

and then I found this cool hour glass at a thrift shop!

See the cool hourglass with pink sand is on the right!

I also came upon some new crystals (one was given to me by a friend, and one I had already and rediscovered). I found this great Solar Plexus/Purpose candle at my favorite place to get crystals, Zen and Company. And, of course, Owl. Keep reading

Totem animals

I was watching a presentation in a Facebook Group recently and the speaker briefly mentioned totem animals.

This got me thinking that Owl might be a totem animal for me. I looked it up in Animal-Speak Pocket Guide by Ted Andrews. Here is what I read: “Spirits are strong around you. Attend to dreams and to heightened senses. It is up to you to act on that guidance.”

And then suddenly, Owl seemed to be popping up everywhere! It was happening so often that I decided to take some photos of them all (See slideshow below).

The best Owl appearance of all was one I couldn’t get a photo of because it happened too fast. As my husband and I were driving home from the harbor (water!), a large owl flew across the street in front of us and then swooped up into the trees. It was an amazing sight! Keep reading

Evaluating my coffee consumption

I recently realized that I was drinking up to six cups of coffee a day and decided (for reasons that I won’t go into right now) that it was excessive and perhaps could bear some, um, reduction.

I have my favorite kinds of coffee, and one of them was Green Mountain’s Spicy Eggnog, which was discontinued years ago. I still had 2 of the k-cups left that I saved for a special occasion (one of which I used last week when I was feeling sorry for myself and needed some cheering up).

Periodically I would look online to see if they might magically appear again but sadly, they have not. Keep reading

Staying warm at camp

After much research, we bought a Vermont Castings Alpine C3 Wood Stove. It was the perfect stove for our situation (on paper, at least), but in real life, not so much. You see, most of the time, the smoke emptied out into the camp via the door, bottom of the stove, or stove pipe.

Not good.

The installers came out to look at it a couple of times. The first time, they noted that the heat blanket in the stove had melted, so they replaced that. The next time they noted that the stove was cracked. They replaced it, and it did work for a short time after that. Keep reading

Chocolate chock full of heavy metals

“I’d like a side of lead and cadmium with my dark chocolate”–

said nobody, ever.

I was paging through the February 2023 issue of Consumer Reports and discovered that these heavy metals are apparently exactly what I have been unknowingly getting. You know, in dark chocolate? The kind that is supposed to be “better for you” (p. 34)?

I think of the couple of bars of Green & Black’s that I have sitting in my desk drawer that are now going into the trash instead of my body. Before throwing them out, I looked at the Nutrition Facts label. Shockingly, lead and cadmium are missing from the list! I looked at the list of ingredients and once again, lead and cadmium are omitted. I wonder what other foods and products contain toxic ingredients that somehow never made it on the packages ingredients list. Keep reading

My One Word 2023

I’ve been writing about the practice of choosing one word to focus on for the entire year for over a decade now. I write about and I do it.

The book My One Word by Mike Ashcraft and Rachel Olsen describes the practice. Check it out if you are interested in finding out more about it.

Alternatively, you could visit the My One Word website and learn more that way. I have shared these resources before and I still refer to them from time to time.

My past words have been:

2010: Breathe

2011: Edit Keep reading