Wow, did this year go fast!  After doing year-end statistics, our business actually grew...even if we didn't seem to profit as much.  Insurance compensation took a dive and we actually made less per person...but we have grown and spread the word about health and wellness.  We had elected an African American president, and are at the precipice of a new paradigm!  I still believe in my mantra that all will be well and all manner of things will be well, we have to be willing to expand in our minds what exactly "being well" means.  I hope to be doing something new work-wise in the coming year, so pray for me that the perfect job comes to me in the next year.  It is just too limiting for me at our clinic.  I plan to write more, in fact, I've started a new piece of fiction that I'm pretty fired up about.  Who knows, maybe this is the year to be published. 

 

The weather is bitter cold and can't be expected to rise above 0 today at all.  I spent the better part of my day off yesterday with a pick ax chopping the ice off our driveway so our automobiles wouldn't keep going in the ditch.  It was pretty humorous, especially since I kept slipping everytime I swung the damn thing.  I wish I could have taken pictures, but the snowfall was so heavy you couldn't see anything anyway.  Needless to say my boys were impressed with mama's guns, which I can barely lift today.  Every time I lift my arms is a new way to experience pain.  My husband was busy directing friends on removing his car from the ditch...

 

Today marks our fifteenth wedding aniversary.  Doesn't feel much like a milestone, enough said.  We plan on bringing the year in quietly...it's too cold for anything else.

Yeah the dream about the shy man has begun to fester, so much so that, well, I'm pretty pissed off.  Here's the thing shyboy, from what I can garner from my dream world you're punishing me for shit I never did, said or advised you to do.  So, friggin knock it off.  The symbolic world is hard enough to deal with without pointing the finger of blame to gifts freely given.  In this particular dream, the gauntlet was thrown and a challenge made...I am the architect AND the builder.  What can I say? Some people just can't or won't follow direction.

Here's wishing you a joyous holiday, enjoy the season from it's simpler aspects: peace, goodwill and joy that light has come into the world.  It is during these dark times where struggle abounds that we need a constant reminder of this fact.

 

Another note, dreamland is very ominous this week.  I am riding a bicycle down a long and beautiful wooded road when suddenly the weather changes drastically and I am in fear that I will be swept up by a tornado.  Immediately I move off the road to the right and find myself inside a lovely home, with this angelic type of woman to welcome me with a bit of a "ooh this is bad timing" face.  Immediately I'm lead to a back room but before I am hidden away, a little girl who is in the back room with me starts to complain really loudly.  Whomever they were hiding me from, comes in to investigate...it's the shy man who sees me and starts threatening me with restraining orders and all sorts of crap.  I don't even get the chance to explain that I didn't even know he was there and was just trying to escape a tornado.  I can't help but look down and hide because I am totally freaked out why he hates me so much, especially since I've never met, talked with, or had any kind of contact with him whatsoever.  I actually run out of the house crying, totally bewildered because noone tried to explain how I was a victim of a mistaken identity.  The weather was now clear and I ended up in a garden, and calmed myself down by planting these bizarre looking plants.  The dream shifts to entering a bathroom that I have to clean...I don't think it belongs to me and I am totally grossed out by how disgusting it is...especially since there are bugs, big ones, crawling everywhere.  I woke up sad and have been ever since.  Hopefully there isn't a shy man filled with hate toward me out there and disgusting things to clean up in the new year.  Becoming a contempletive is sounding more and more appealing....

After the snow storm yesterday and braving the mall with the men in my house, I am glad the plan for today is a quiet Sunday.  Right now, I'm sitting in bed watching "In the Good Old Summertime"  with Judy Garland and Van Johnson.  The air is frigid outside and the fireplace is crackling...and I have a hot steamy cup of coffee, with creme de menthe flavoring.  As singular moments go, this is perfect.  In between my domestic chores, I plan on starting a new book: "2666" that I picked up at Barnes and Noble during our shopping spree as a personal gift to myself.  It was an editor's choice, so I'm excited to read it.  Most of my family has arrived in the Twin Cities for the Holidays which is the usual indicator that the craziness has begun.  The mixture of personalities is a fun break from the craziness of my own life.  The days will be full of snow-related activites for my warm weather siblings, and plenty of food and lively conversation.  I'm trying to take a more zen attitude this year and be in the moment wherever it takes me.  I'm tired of being disappointed at Christmas.  My boys may be overly materialistic and my husband a bit too focused on his own Christmas wish list, but I've decided to let go of that and attend a midnight service by myself and enjoy the spiritual aspects of the season of light on my own instead of trying to make my family focus on what I think is important.  I need to quit trying to force it, because then I'm the only one disappointed. 

 

My dreams seem to agree with me on this point, last night I dreamt of walking on a pure white sidewalk that bordered a beautiful white sandy beach on, I think, one of the Keys in Florida.  A beautiful blue ocean was on one side and mansions on the other.  The sidewalk led me back near my starting point to a retirement community where there was discussion of lost investments and a young woman tried to give me a free ticket to a concert.  I think I had somewhere to be so I declined...the destination was room 253 in a different hotel, of course I don't know who or what was in the room, but the blindingly sunny day made me feel confident about it. 

Last night I was having a conversation with my eldest son about my keen ability to figure stuff out.  According to Connor, it is quite amazing that I can figure out the plots of most of the television show we watch together before anybody else does.  Of course I would have liked to admit that it is my acute observation skills and broad logical and analytical ability that allow me to figure out "who done it"....except it really isn't.  If you have any history at all of reading literature, most of the plot lines have already been written.  I told my son, it's more because I have an uncanny memory for stories I've read than because I'm a sleuth.  Then I got to thinking.  More and more, our culture is hooked on shows that figure out riddles, from crime to lost treasure.  I also have to admit, I love characters who are smarter than I am.  I love to be fooled, in a way, with story lines that take me in a direction I couldn't have imagined.  Of course the direction can't be stupid either.  They have to be clever and yet plausible at the same time.  The truth can't come from aliens or oops I forgot I had the answer in my pocket all along.  I appreciate learning to see something differently, from another vantage point or perspective, than the same old you do something bad, you will pay in the classical sense of the word.  I think the benefit of that is that it broadens our personal ability to figuire stuff out in our everyday lives....

Some photos of our holiday party...good times, good times...

I woke up longing for...and that is the crapper, I couldn't remember.  This from a dreamer who usually remembers every detail.  I am having a frustrating day to say the least.  I am not myself, and cleaning caramel out of our dryer at 5:30 this morning didn't help.  It is just haunting to wake with a vivid emotion and have total amnesia as to why.  Of course we all long for a better life, but it wasn't that kind...it was deep, and disturbing.  For now I'll tuck it away in the recesses of my brain and allow whatever it is to unfold on its own.

 

Otherwise, we're hunkerin' down for a big snowstorm...which means food, and drink...alot of it.  We're having a holiday party on Saturday at our house..the boys are going to stay at their aunties house...and celebrate a bit, okay more than a bit, and hopefully that will help me shake my dream.

Ok, so  a patient told me a stupid joke and it hit me just right that I laughed until I snorted..."What does an elephant use for a tampon?    A sheep"

Someone actually infered that I had a beguiling way about me.  I didn't ask why, because I thought they were kidding and by the time I realized they weren't...I'm not always quick...I was truly shocked!  I am not, nor will I ever be a beguiler.  I pride myself in the most sincerest of ways, in being truthful often at great cost to my personal sanity because alot of times people don't like it when I'm truthful.  Also, note the distinction between being truthful and righteous...I am definitely not the latter.  I think because righteousness demands a certaintly that I lack.  Perhaps then, it is lack of certaintly that comes along with my truthfulness that is mistaken as beguiling.  It just sounds sneaky, only a less intelligent kind of sneaky because one has to resort to feminine whiles to get what they want.  I am generally direct about asking for what I want...how that is interpreted is beyond my control.  Is being nice and friendly beguiling?  I certainly hope not.

Last night I had a vivid dream of being chastised by a very shy man.  The look of derision on his face was beyond alarming.  I have never felt so misunderstood in my life.  I said, "I know I can come across as a bit bombastic at times...yes I do talk like that even while I'm dreaming...but some of my best friends are shy people, and they have no trouble with me, they know exactly what I think"  I can't tell you how completely shocked I was at his reaction.  I must say beyond being surprised at my reaction, he didn't end up any less hostile, just angry...I felt a bit beat up, but vindicated none the less.  Perhaps I don't really understand shy people, I never really know what they're thinking but I certainly don't judge them for not being like me.  I certainly don't have any illusions about the largess of my personality, and I would also like to say beyond the occasional irritation of the volume that comes along with my personality I am genuinely a nice person.  Being extroverted and publically confident doesn't mean that I'm bullet proof.  I have alot of the same insecurities as anyone else, they just affect me in other ways.  I must say that my noctural bitch slapping has affected me deeply.  I can't help but approach my shy friends and clients a bit more delicately...I fear I am trying too hard to be nice to them, almost to the point of being disingenuous.  It feels icky, so I'll have to slap myself out of it.

Hey, friends...I was cleaning up contacts on my primary email list and accidentally bumped a bunch of people off my friends list, sorry about that!

There is almost nothing more attractive to me than a great sense of humor.  I know I can always rely on a great belly laugh from Boston Legal.  It seems that these days I don't find as much to laugh about in life...nothing much is funny, but I can always rely on the smart humor of a few TV shows.  I've also discovered an Australian show on HBO called "Summer Heights High" that is hilarious.  I'm not talking about base, or slapstick humor, but the really, really clever kind.  Being able to laugh hard at least once everyday is so important, and although it may be pathetic to find it on TV, I find it to be one of the major responsibilities of modern story tellers to help us pull the humor out of life...if they can't do that then they are failing the public trust and our futures.  Humor may be one of the most important elements of surviving this paradigm shift.  I know I rely on it as much as anything. 

 

I haven't mentioned dream land for awhile because they have been SO complicated and weird...their meaning is unclear except to say that big changes are coming...even for me.