CARPE DIEM! OUR TIME IS NOW!
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Category Archives: A Time of Hope
Meet Our Newest Family Member! Apollo!!!
Though written several seasons ago, this was never published. Today seems like a perfect time to do so. Ten months in, Apollo has been the best addition to our family during this crazy time to be alive!! He brings us CONSTANT HAPPINESS!! And already has created many beautiful memories with us.
Meet Apollo!!! The one new constant in my world that I find changing rapidly more and more each day.
Apollo was one of a litter of seven. Two females and 5 males. (Never dawned on me until just now that minus one of the females, that would be my children. Our combined family, mine, yours, and ours…. Five sons, one daughter.)
His mother, Zoey, belonging to my son and his girlfriend that live in Wisconsin. His girlfriend, and her identical twin, both veterinarians. Both own and breed Golden Retreivers. We knew puppies were expected around Thanksgiving, but we never imagined we were going to own one.
After the excitement of the delivery, Ryan, my son text if we wanted one. My immediate response was “No” because being a dog owner never seemed like it fit our schedule. The responsibility and their extra needs, compared to our 3 cats, or our 2 geckos, and even our 21 chickens. But…. after giving it a bit of thought … it seemed that actually, this would be the perfect time to have a puppy.
So, post-Mexico trip, we had the excitement of knowing we would have a family of puppies in our home for the Christmas holidays, and Sis would get to have first pick on the males for her Christmas present. Her best Christmas present ever!!
But, everyday Apollo is there to love us and bring excitement and joy. So, I thought it would be perfect to share that love with everyone in my blogging community. Because love and joy are where the answers will be found moving forward.
He officially became part of the family January 22nd when we brought him home from Madison, WI with us.
Excitement in our house every day now. New trips to part of the area we have never explored before and new things to be learning from our new friend everyday! the dynamics in our home changed forever.
I haven’t felt like blogging as my being feels in a kaleidoscope of energy. Mixing and remixing with new pictures being made everyday, but the image not necessarily staying for any longer than that. Transformation through the paradigm shift certainly underway.
Some of his first steps were in the backyard in the snow, so he loved it when a few days in we got a decent snow in Missouri.
Apollo had his own vacation in June when Sis & I took a cross country tour across the western US after saying goodbye to my son and his wife moving to London, England.
Wishing all good health and much wisdom to maneuver through the darkest times this country has seen since her birth in 1776. Spoiler alert! God’s side wins, but MUCH TO ENDURE before then!!
Much love and peace. The Revolution Begins With Me.
The Light at the End of the Tunnel
One of the numerous things I love about my Mid-Missouri home is the incredible beauty Mother Earth surrounds us with. A favorite spot for many locals is the Katy Trail, an old railway turned into a walk/bike trail that runs the expanse of the state.
A benefit of more free time currently, has been to frequent it. Instead of two or three times a season, I am getting out there two or three times a week. The Rocheporte Trailhead being the closest and perhaps one of the most scenic. This time of year especially gorgeous as the colors along the riverfront and bluffs are turning.
The Big Tree in nearby McBaine is usually an end destination for a longer ride. It wasn’t until last Monday that my 14 year old daughter suggested we go the other direction. I thought, “Huh! What a novel idea!” Have we really been going out there for so many years, and I had never had the thought? The obvious beauty heading east along the Missouri River, what sort of terrain would we discover going west? We had even spent significant time down on the riverfront years ago, how could we really have never thought to bike westward?
Just a short distance in, we discovered this intriguing tunnel, looking somewhat ominous, as sunset neared. There was mystery and intrigue surrounding it. A sense of adventure as we entered.
We were to discover incredible beauty lay on both sides of the trail.
I got to thinking about it after the fact, looking at the pictures. How many analogies to life our trip and my photos of the tunnel reminded me of.
How often do we take the path we know? The routine? The obvious? Thinking that’s the only way. Closing our minds to the endless possibilities, options, and ideas that exist in unknown territory. Then, we get so locked into our perceptions, we eventually come to think its the only way.
Having become such a divisive country over the last 20 years. How refreshing it would be to go back to a time when minds once again were open. Opinions from one another valued and examined, rather than shut down and slandered because they’re not similar to our own.
Another thought I had was the experience of traveling through the tunnel, moving through the unknown. It’s dark, a bit daunting. The mindset one is in, certain to effect what emotions are elicited upon entering and traveling. Certain to effect the experience. Some people claustrophobic, afraid of the dark or enclosed spaces, it might be uncomfortable.
When I stopped on my return trip back through, heading to our car, looking at the tunnel walls, the texture, the color, the rock it was formed out of, the echo heard within, the actual atmosphere and temperature. So much strength and power held within. So much history. It became a miniature expedition.
A final thought as I looked at my pictures, a thought that inspired new possibility. The potential for the “Light at the end of the tunnel”. The thought, so analogous of where we are now as a nation. Incredible uncertainty in every direction.
Fear, the overwhelming emotion invoked in so many as our lives have been so drastically altered. Demanded to where masks everywhere we go. Large portions of our cities closed down including schools and churches. Watching and reading stories, some of us living with it outside our front doors, of our cities filled with rioting, buildings being burned to the ground. National monuments being toppled over.
The picture of the Rocheporte tunnel, in my mind, inspires a future filled with Hope. One of a brand new beginning. Not the new beginning being pushed on us though. A new beginning that is centered in love. Not hatred and fear. This era’s spiritual awakening.
That ray of Light shining bright and getting brighter, I hang onto the image of the “Light at the end of the tunnel,” for in my world this country has only one direction to go, and that’s a place filled with peace. And, I am certain to do my part to see that it occurs, for I know … the Revolution Begins With Me.
Thursday’s Roar of A “Tiger”
(Back before Joe Schreibvogel got REALLY weird!)
I woke up early this Thursday morning ready to rant. Perhaps it has to do with this enormous knot I have in my left shoulder, impinging on the nerve in my left arm, but I’m feeling a bit like the “tiger” in me (2 time Tiger alum) and I’m wanting to roar.
I’ve kept to myself since the Corona outbreak in March. Watching the shut down first of our city and then of our country.
Subbing as the attendance secretary at one of the local middle schools two weeks leading up the our school district’s closing. The Universe had placed me frontline as the panic began to hit our city, being the one that fielded the phone calls from hysterical parents as speculation of what was to come began to infiltrate our area.
Spring break only a few days away, my daughter and I with plans to visit my son who is in the Navy in Florida, the pandemic not to interrupt. My background in nursing, going into that field only after becoming severely ill while finishing my last year of my microbiology degree before I was to start medical school (years later finding out I had SEVERE mercury poisoning). I had done significant study in microbiology and immunology and much of the storyline mainstream media was feeding us did not make sense.
Chastised by many for taking our trip when the rest of the country was shut down, I had learned years ago, fear was not going to stop me from living my life. Within weeks, the animosity and negativity of “friends” on Facebook made me completely unplug from the world.
The only energy I wanted penetrating my body, mind, and soul was positive energy. Glorious and uplifting energy from family and friends, but perhaps most importantly, the power of the energy I cultivate from the earth.
Living on several acres with different parts of our property sectioned off; “country life” where my large garden and our chickens live, our “backyard beach” our pool area, (this Minnesota girl’s necessary water source) and down our sloped hill leading to the creek and woods is our “Mystical Forest”.
Intuitively, the Universe had led us to this area, completely unexpected. We/I have spent the last 6 years perhaps prepping it for the dawning of this year and what was to come. We had created a mostly self-sufficient environment out of our passion for nature and the outdoors. Suddenly, I excitedly watched the masses starting to do all the things I love doing. Gardening, raising chickens, and returning to the old ways of living; becoming self-sustaining.
I started to hear from people or read articles that which I have known all my life, that there’s an energy, a vibration, that allows the spirit to calm, that relieves stress and anxiety, that brings peace to the soul when out in nature, when you have your hands in soil, and when you walk barefoot on the earth.
Anyone that truly knows me, knows there’s no better place for me to be than barefoot with my hands in the dirt. Well, not exactly true, my favorite place to be in is some body of water. Which, was the other place we were to frequently find ourselves, at the lake with my dad’s boat I had inherited.
Having left my career as a critical care nurse almost 2 decades ago, (not a difficult choice after watching people die needlessly almost daily, but that’s a whole different topic) there was much material sacrifice choosing to make my children and my own personal well being top priority. For me, the most significant, the use of my boat that sat broken and unusable in our garage for 13 years, the expanse of my daughter’s life.
The Universe being so amazing! Last fall, I was finally able to get it fixed. When spring hit, we found ourselves on the water. This began a season of unprecedented lake time. Memories to be made that will last a lifetime, not only for us, but many friends we invited to join us, giving them a break from their sequestered life in the city.
My point…is that in returning to what is REAL, in returning to Mother Earth, we will begin to rediscover ourselves. The last several decades have seen people pulling further and further inside, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and to me most importantly, spiritually. As a nation, we’ve grown bitter and afraid. Hostile. Complacent. Numbed up. Dumbed down.
It’s time we all take a step outside. Unplug from the technology that now surrounds us and controls our lives. We’ve allowed ourselves to be enslaved. In doing so, we have given away many of our God given freedoms and liberties. We’ve forgotten how to think for ourselves, and instead allow the talking heads to control our thoughts and our minds by continually feeding us nothing but lies, creating what we see now, a country greatly divided, that is literally at war with each other.
I check the news daily. Not mainstream media, for it all has an agenda, but real news, and I don’t recognize the world that exists out there. This didn’t happen over night. And change won’t happen over night. But it has begun. The swing in the other direction, to first take back our own lives, but then to take back our country.
It starts with each and everyone of us as individuals. The biggest thing I believe that needs to happen is for people to reopen their minds. Tune back into themselves. The voice within. Try to cut away from the socialization and indoctrination that has been intentionally implemented, for yes, that is exactly what has happened. We have been fed decades of lies while our once great country is being stolen away from us. Once very insidiously, now so blatantly out in the open.
We need to start asking questions. The storylines we’ve been fed do not make sense and its abundantly obvious once you lay down your political biases. We are one election away from losing this country forever. The last four years, nothing but hatred and hostility being pushed with an agenda. An agenda to take down the one president who truly has a belief in the American dream, for he has lived it. The one president who is not bought and owned by the elitists and globalists.
The clock is ticking and I truly do believe I know the ultimate outcome. I don’t know how ugly its going to get, as it’s already gotten uglier than I could ever have imagined. But, I refuse to allow myself to be a part of it. There is a huge silent majority who are waking up, finally, to REALITY. Not the reality they try to sell us on the nightly news, but the TRUTH, for there can only be one TRUTH and we have not been living in it.
I like the rest of the country, and honestly the world, wait with bated breath as each day unfolds leading to what is certain to be the most ruthless and savage election of all times, for it already has been.
For my part, I will get out and vote. Vote with an awareness of the how our once strong country is being destroyed, knowing the one man who has fought to save it has had four years of nothing but struggle with every action he has taken to return our country to greatness. The radical left doing nothing but slandering, and trying to destroy, dismantle, and remove him from office. But, bottom line, God is going to let his warriors win and win we will.
Until that day, I will keep peace in my heart and love in my soul. I will send positive energy out to all I encounter. I will be the best version of me I can possibly be … for the Revolution Begins With Me.
revolutionbeginswithme 