The Sandbox Writing Challenge #4 — Relaxation & Pleasure

Still going back in time to complete Calen’s challenge based on Roberta Allen’s The Playful Way to Knowing Yourself

Tell us a little bit about:

a) what relaxes you, and

b) what brings you pleasure.

What relaxes me:

• listening to music – sometimes classical, sometimes heavy metal
• my white noise machine
• meditation
• reiki
• reading a good book
• smoking a cigarette (yes yes yes, I know)
• a long hot shower
• veggin’ out in front of the laptop, watching Netflix
• listening to it rain
• a glass of red wine
• a hot cup of tea
• sitting on the front porch in the rocker just listening to nature (when the traffic has died down)

What brings me pleasure:

• Chocolate
• a few White Russians (the drink, not the body)
• listening to raven’s cawing (I have an affinity for ravens and their cawing is pure poetry to me)
• comfort food – biscuits & gravy, mac-n-cheese, spaghetti, cabbage & meatballs, meatloaf (all the things that are bad for me)
• coffee
• Pepsi Max
• writing
• reading a good book
• watching a documentary on Netflix
• Seeing my nieces
• wearing bracelets
• painting my fingernails
• buying books on Amazon or entering contests on Goodreads (I am a book whore)
• spending time with my dad
• listening to Prince or Simply Red
• doing research

 

#WeekendCoffeeShare – 12/17/16

If we were having coffee, I’d invite you into my warm living room where I’ve set up a table filled with bagels, cream cheese, raspberry cream cheese danishes, tea and yes, coffee. I have French Silk, Espresso or if you’d prefer, a nice morning blend. It is very cold today and icy on the roads, so I hope you’ve traveled safely here.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you about a great meeting of minds that I watched on YouTube this morning. Noam Chomsky and Harry Belafonte Jr on the same stage (@25.31 on the video) with Amy Goodman from Democracy Now!. Noam gave an eloquent speech beforehand on Donald Trump and the decline of America as a Superpower. It is worth listen to as well. You can watch it here:

If we were having coffee, I would tell you about a great show I watched last night on Netflix called The OA. If you have Netflix, I would encourage you to watch it. It had many elements that I love. A bit on the spooky/eerie side, a wonderful protagonist, a detestable antagonist and an overall sense of hope in the bleakest of times. It’s also some amazing storytelling! You can read about it here. A note of caution, there may be spoilers in that review that you may want to ignore (the author tells you when to stop if you don’t want spoilers).

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that my muse, Catharine, woke me up yesterday morning with a question, “Where’s home?” That question has led me to begin a new serial titled Andromeda Dreaming. I’d just finished a serial and had no plans to begin another one. This one is in the YA Science Fiction genre. A 9 year old mourns the loss of her parents and her homeworld. She is stuck on a foreign planet, having been ejected from the space exploration ship her parents’ had worked on when it came under attack. She comes to realize that she will never fit in with her adopted family and planet. It’s a bit of a coming of age story. If you like Science Fiction and YA stories, I hope you will join me each Tuesday and Friday as I write this story. Bring coffee along!

If we were having coffee, I’d have to let you go now. I have a HUGE list of books I need to read and review and really should get to that now. I’ve enjoyed the visit and hope you will join me again soon. Take some danishes on your way out and please travel safely.

If we were having coffee, dear readers, what would you like to share with me? Leave me a comment.

 

 

 

The Daily Me (Journal) Missing – 12/17/16

Today’s prompt comes from 100 Inspirational Journal Prompts by Melissa Bolton @ The Mogul Mom

Something you have always felt was missing in your life.

That’s easy… Love. Not just receiving it, but also giving it. I don’t tell many people this because I am still not convinced it’s true, but it would explain some things about my life. I was diagnosed on the low scale of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), what the doctor called a mild form of Asperger’s. The reasons I got this diagnosis are because I don’t always make eye contact with people, I tend to get uber-focused on one task at a time and I don’t always show my emotions. The reason I don’t believe it is accurate though is that my symptoms arise when I am extremely stressed, and when this doctor made that diagnosis, I was extremely stressed. However, it may also explain why people have accused me of being cold and unloving in the past.

It goes deeper than that. Love has always been a conditional thing in my life. My mother certainly put conditions on any love she showed me, which was rare. My friendships have been the same in the past. If you love me, you will… And even my sexual relationships have been filled with conditional love. It is almost as though any love that I am to receive, I have to work to get it. And so, I stopped giving out my own love openly. I am super cautious about who I let in and if I see any hints of conditioning, I cut ties with the person.

This is the point I was at when that doctor diagnosed me – marriage falling apart, mental breaks, stressed, and guarding my emotions. So is it really a mild form of Asperger’s or have I just been conditioned since childhood to be so jaded, guarded and indifferent? Not sure I have the answer.

My Daily Tarot – Four of Swords

12/17/16 – Four of Swords

You need time to regroup. Although your situation is problematic, you will not resolve it until you can take some time out. Remove yourself from the situation, meditate, and find your center. By recharging your spiritual strength, you will bring your best efforts to solve the problem. 

Be aware of ignoring the problem by distracting yourself. This is not a card of escapism, but of utilizing your spiritual foundation for renewal.

Oh bloody hell, tarot! You’ve done it again. Gotten inside my mind. No, I haven’t called my friend and told her I’ve decided not to move in with her. She did call me last night, but I was watching The OA on Netflix and didn’t answer the phone. Yes, I was avoiding her, but I was also really into that show and didn’t want to be interrupted. So yes, I was also distracting myself. I also know that cards like this are going to continue to appear until I deal with this situation. Now I am being instructed to do it from a spiritual level. I will take this weekend to meditate about it, try to find my center and then call her on Monday. Okay, tarot? The message has finally sunk into my thick skull.