Decisions Decisions

Ever since I was very small, I never quite fit in with the crowd. As a child I was extremely shy and found it difficult to make friends or connect with people my own age. I liked to hang around the adults, who didn't really want me there. My mother would have to lock me outside to get me to go play with kids my own age. (No she didn't really lock me outside.) I remember as a child I used to really feel like I belonged somewhere else.

Fast forward to adulthood. Still a feeling of not belonging, but not quite so pronounced. As I got older, I changed a lot and forgot those old feelings. Recently, however, I was out with a group of people and wham! Memories of feeling like I was on a completely different planet from everyone around me. That night I went home and dreamed I went out to eat with a group of friends and when I got there the table was full and I had to sit at a table all by myself. None of my friends joined me at the table and I ended up sitting there alone. The feelings of not belonging were so intense that I cried out that I did not want to be in this earth experience anymore. I was ready to leave. The dream was so intense that when I woke I wasn't sure whether I had dreamed the part of requesting to leave the planet or not.

Upon awakening from this dream, I felt I needed to decide whether or not to let the Higher Powers know if I was taking back the request to leave the planet. I remembered that in my childhood and early adulthood this was a frequent prayer of mine, although unanswered, but I had completely forgotten those familiar feelings from my past. Now a very happy and contented adult (most of the time), I may occasionally have feelings of discontent but the dream was so intense I really thought I had requested to leave.

I asked my Angels why I had dreamed this dream and I feel that they told me that recently I had been feeling out of sorts and they just wanted me to remember how far I had come. They wanted me to weigh what I still wanted to accomplish in my life and decide if I really wanted to accomplish what I feel I am here for or if I truly wanted to hang it up and move on to the next adventure. I truly believe we decide deep down in our souls the path that our soul travels and it was a decision my soul was contemplating.

Later that evening I was sitting on the couch watching some stupid show on TV with my husband and I looked over at him with a complete rush of contentment. I realized how truly blessed and happy I am and that the dream was there to remind me of that. Then today I went to lunch with some friends. I was the last one there just like in my dream only this time my friends had saved me a seat right in the middle of a long table. I realized that my soul had made its decision.

Lessons

It had been awhile since I had written down any messages from my Angels, due to a busy schedule, and just not taking the time to write things down. I talk to my Angels and Guides every day, sometimes several times a day, but most of the guidance I get seems to be on a personal level. So this morning while on the treadmill I wanted a message I could share, and I asked the Angels for something to write down and put in my blog. My main Angel, I call her Gabriella, because the Angel Gabriel is the Angel of communication and since she appears to me to be female, although I know that the Angels are not one way or the other, but that is how she appears to me, I decided to call her Gabriella. Now I know that the Angels don't really care what we call them, and names are for our own benefit, not theirs, but it helps me to identify her. She kind of surprised me with her answer. She said that she was not giving me anything else until I shared the things she had already told me. I asked her to be more specific, since nothing came to mind that I felt comfortable sharing. And she put into my mind two incidents that had happened to me. I will share both of them, but maybe not in the same blog.

One day last week I was at work, and I was mad. Something had not gone the way I would have preferred for it to go, and I had been mad most of the day. I was sitting at a desk doing some work and I was thinking about how mad I was that this situation had not gone the way I would have preferred for it to go. I don't get mad very often, but lately at work it seems to have occurred more frequently in the past few weeks. Now I know that our emotions and thoughts create our reality, and that by being mad I was only escalating the problem, but in that moment I just wanted to be mad. I was in the office alone, and I almost audibly heard Gabriella say to me, "You need to let this go!" I took a few deep breaths and attempted to release my feelings of anger. One of my coworkers walked by and I had one of those "aha" moments. This particular coworker has two children with a blood disorder and every so often he has to take them to get blood transfusions. I heard Gabriella say, "you have no problems! If someone has a right to be mad, it is him! What about the people who have no jobs? What about the people who are disabled in some way? This is nothing for you to get so mad about!! Let it go!!!" Immediately I was able to put my situation in perspective. I sent out vibrations of love and light into the atmosphere there at the Post Office and to the people who I had been angry with and came up with a compromise which I later proposed to my supervisor, who happily accepted my idea. I also sent out a vibration of love to that coworker and his children. He had said nothing to me. All he did was walk by and I got a spanking from my Angel.

I guess the message that Gabriella wanted to get across is that no solutions can come about from an atmosphere of anger. When we are mad the energy around us is dense and we are sending out an unseen but very real signal. That ancient law of giving and receiving comes into play here. Even if we don't say anything out loud, our energy that we are putting out comes back to us. It is very important to send out the energy vibrations of love. I have had many opportunities to remember and put this lesson into practice in the past few days since I got this message. It is like the Angels just put situations in our laps and see how we are going to react. One day I will react the way I am supposed to right away and They will clap and say... " Finally Joy, you got it right this time!!

The Law of Attraction at Work

I am a big believer in the law of attraction, in other words, what you think about or have a strong belief about is what you attract into your life. This can be good or bad. If there are things in your life you seem to attract over and over, it could be a sign of the law of attraction at work. For example, I am a lifelong dieter. My weight has been known to fluctuate a great deal, and I seem to notice that when I notice in the mirror that I am gaining a few pounds, those pounds seem very hard to get rid of, and alternately, when I notice myself trimming down, it seems to be that much easier to get down to my target weight. When I became aware of the law of attraction, I became aware that my eating and exercise habits were only partially responsible for the ups and downs of my weight. More importantly, what I was thinking concerning my body image was causing a greater result than anything I ate or how much I exercised. When I incorporate visualization into my workout routine, my results are much more noticeable. Now when my jeans start feeling a little tight, yes, I try to watch what I eat and exercise, but I also include some visualization of myself easily fitting into my smallest pair of jeans. In recent years my weight has fluctuated far less than in the past.

My reason for sharing this is that many times we go through life just blaming our genetics or our circumstances for things in our lives that we do not like, but in reality we ourselves are the only ones responsible for the things that happen to us in our lives. In my previous belief system, we used to like to blame the Devil for all our troubles. We would spend a great deal of time fighting the Devil, taking authority over the Devil, casting out the Devil, etc. My life was constantly in turmoil. I seemed to always be fighting some physical ailment, or some relationship catastrophy, and depression was my normal emotion. I remember going to the doctor once for some ailment, and when he suggested that I might be depressed, I got mad at him! I had been depressed for so long I thought that sadness was normal. Now that I realize the power of the law of attraction, I realize that I was focused on fighting some imaginary enemy all the time and I ended up attracting all kinds of situations I could blame on him. When I turned my focus on thinking about what I wanted instead of what I did not want, it seemed like the Devil disappeared. All those things that all those years I blamed on the Devil, hmmmm, it seems that I was my own worst enemy the whole time.

It took some time for my long held beliefs to be uprooted. It seems to me that I just woke up one day and realized that my belief system was flawed, but I am sure that it did not occur overnight. But several years ago I realized that if there was something I didn't like about my life, I was the only one who was going to change it. I had gotten tired of waiting for God to come and rescue me. I was tired of fighting the devil. I am not saying one way or another whether there is a devil, although at this point in my life I doubt it. I notice that when I focus on love, all my doubts and fears seem to disappear, and fighting the devil or any negative entities disappear.

I am sure every day we all have opportunities to choose whether to think positive thoughts or negative ones. I have to remind myself every day that I am constantly creating the life I am living and that if I want something to be different, it is up to me to change it. It is easy to let life happen to me, with no thought of what I can do to create what I want. Today I resolve to think in terms of the things I love about life and visualize how I want things to be as if they are already that way. No I am not putting my head in the sand, I am choosing what to focus on. Yes there are still things I do not prefer. I am choosing to think about the things I prefer. I am choosing to see the sun through the clouds. One day I will get so good at it that I will not even see the clouds.

Three Blind Men

I don't often get two blogs in one day, but this afternoon I wrote about a friend and myself who had similar dreams and about asking the Angels to give me some guidance on the significance of the dreams. After I wrote the blog, I was wondering to myself, but I guess out loud enough for the Angels to hear my wondering, what if someone else read the answer to my question and got a completely different answer? I started questioning what I was hearing. I have a couple of mentors who hear from the Higher Realms and what if they saw something that I didn't see?

I could almost hear my Angels laughing at me. I don't think they get offended at all if we start questioning them. Immediately I was reminded of a story I had heard years ago about three blind men that were taken to an elephant to give a description of the animal based on what their hands felt, since they were blind. One blind man felt the elephant's trunk and described the elephant as a tree. One of them felt the elephant's tail and said, no, the elephant feels to me like a rope. And the other blind man felt the elephant's side and disagreed with the other two blind men and said, no, the elephant feels to me like a great wall. None of the blind men were wrong. They were basing their evaluation on the information that they were provided with.

The Angels assured me that we are all walking around on this earth like blind men. The only information we can receive is the information that They can get through to us based on our life experience. They could not give information two thousand years ago to men about airplanes or automobiles because the men at that time had nothing to compare the information with. How would you describe an airplane to someone who had never seen one? It is the same with the information we receive now. Each of us receives information from the Higher Realms in a different way based on our own perceptions. Over time our perceptions may change, but in the mean time They continue to guide us based on the perceptions we have at the time. It is up to us to trust the information that is provided to us and relay that information as accurately as we can. Yes, someone else may receive information that may seem contradictory, but it is okay. We all walk through our lives on earth with different colored glasses on. We all interpret our life experience based on the glasses that we are wearing. Over time our glasses may change. We may get better eyesight or worse depending on how we react to our life experiences. Our hearing may get better tuned in as we practice listening to the Higher Realms.

The most important thing is to trust the information that we receive. The more we listen to the Angels and Higher Realms the more we will hear what they are saying and the more we hear and trust what we are hearing the more They will speak.

Thank you Angels for answering my questions before I even ask.

In a previous blog I wrote how one way to communicate with the Angels is to write out a question and then start writing out the answer. The key is to meditate first and when you feel a connection, ask for the highest Angels available to answer your question. This rules out the possibility that you might receive an answer from an entity that may not have your best interests at heart. The key is to listen to your intuitive feelings. If you are meditating on connecting with the Angels or your Guides, wait until you have a feeling inside of love and joy. If you feel uneasy, that is a good sign you have connected with a lower level entity. Politely ask them to leave and then wait for that connection with the Higher Realms, where you will always feel love and joy when They are Present.

Today I wanted to ask a question relating to a dream I had a while back but had forgotten until I was talking to a friend and she was relating a dream she had had recently that reminded me of my dream. When she started relating the dream I had the feeling that we were in the same house in our dreams and our dreams were very similar in nature. In both dreams we were in a house where there were unfriendly entities around. In her dream she was inside and the spirits were tossing things around, like tables and so forth, and she felt the necessity to try to protect some of the beautiful and intricate pieces of furniture that were being thrown around. In my dream, a large group of people were all out on the patio outside having dinner. As we sat around a long table, I noticed on the edge of the patio there were many spirits standing around the edge looking in on us. My husband and my friend's husband went down the hill and into a group of trees to gather some equipment up to see if they could detect any paranormal activity. In the mean time, I felt it necessary to protect the group of people from the spirits, who appeared to me to be menacing and possibly dangerous. I did a ritual of protection in the dream and forbid the spirits from crossing the line from their dimension into ours.

My question to the Angels is this: was this a real place with a physical address here in this dimension and were our dreams happening at the same location?

This is the answer I feel I have gotten from the Angels: the reason you felt a connection when your friend started relating her dream is because, yes, they are connected. The dreams did actually occur at the same location and it is no coincidence that the two of you have connected. What you were doing in your dreams is actually protecting a real household from some angry spirits. The reason you were doing battle in your dreams is because you have not been to this location yet in the physical realm but one day you will visit the actual location and at that time you will remember your dreams and realize that your spirits went beforehand and cleared the space before your physical bodies ever touched the grounds. In your dreams your soul travels ahead of you and prepares the way for journeys that you will eventually take in the natural realm. Sometimes you are able to finish the job in the spirit realm and then visiting the place in the natural is not necessary. In your dreams you visit many lands and many different realms of reality. And yes, sometimes you do protect your loved ones from harm. Many times when you awake you don't remember the lives you live in the dream world because there is no benefit in the remembering. And then sometimes when you visit a place in the physical realm you feel like you have been there before and it is because you have!! You have visited it beforehand in your dreams!

Today is Valentine's Day, a day for giving and receiving and recognizing the love in our lives. Most of the time we limit ourselves to the romantic love in our lives, but today while I was on the elliptical machine, I decided to send out vibrations of love up into the atmosphere and join with the vibration that was already out there as people think about love today and the vibration seems to be one of love and harmony. Even as we focus on that one true love that makes our heart skip a beat when he walks into the room, the vibrations that we send out join with all the other thoughts and feelings of love that others are sending out and it raises the vibrations on the planet even if just a notch. In my meditation, I imagined my vibration of love going out from the top of my head into the atmosphere above and joining a grid of sorts from others that were also sending out vibrations of love, and this grid of love and light forming an atmosphere just above the earth that encircled our planet. From this grid of love and light, I saw droplets of love, like raindrops or even snow flakes falling down from the atmosphere just above our clouds. These raindrops of love fell onto our Mother Earth, soaking into her soil and healing the desecration that has wounded her in recent years from the self centered attitudes of many of us who wound her every day from our thoughtless actions, such as littering and polluting of the airs and waters due to our every day lives. As the droplets of love fell on our Mother Earth, I also saw droplets of love floating upward into our atmosphere above the earth and encircling us with the energy of love and acceptance. I am one who believes that our thoughts are like prayers that reach out into the atmosphere and creates the lives we live. What if we spent just a moment every day focusing our thoughts upon love? What if we imagined a world full of love and peace, where war was a thing of the past and we all lived in peaceful acceptance of one another, instead of fearful anticipation of what might or could happen? What if we imagined our Mother Earth with all of her resources abundantly supplying us without us desecrating her or pillaging her? What if we asked her permission before drilling for oil? Sounds a little silly but I believe our Mother Earth has abundant resources that she would love to share with us if we would only ask. I am sure that there is a better way. I am sure our Mother Earth and Father Sun would love to share their secrets with us if we would only ask.

Spend a moment now sending a message or vibration out of love and thankfulness for all those Unseen Forces that love us and provide for us every day. Thank the Angels for watching out for us and guiding us and thank Mother Earth for allowing us to live our lives and use her resources every day. The more we focus on love the more love will abound in our lives. If we are feeling a lack of love, maybe it is a message that we need to give more love.

I am reminded of that Beatles song... "You may think I am a dreamer. But I am not the only one. Perhaps one day you will join us. And the world will live as one."

Message from the Angels

In my last blog I wrote how I had read that one way to hear messages from the Angels more clearly is to write a question and then listen for the answer. Writing seems to be the key. I related how sometimes I don't get an answer until I actually start writing.

Today my question to my Angels was relating to a couple of dreams I have had in the past couple of weeks relating to going to job interviews. The dreams were different but in both of the dreams I was going to a job interview and in both of the dreams I noticed things about the job that needed change. In the one dream I was interviewing for a job in a hotel of all things. I couldn't imagine even in the dream why I was there. I had stayed in the motel previously and was impressed with our maid and sent a letter to the owners praising her. But when I went into the motel for the job interview, I walked by an indoor pool where there was a room full of people sitting around the pool in lounge chairs and socializing but the pool itself was filthy dirty and full of green algae. In the second dream I was at Merrifield Post Office interviewing for a position there and the person in charge had given me a form to fill out but it was the wrong form. I wondered why I was there since I had no intention of commuting all the way to Merrifield every day when I was relatively happy at my position in Winchester.

My answer from the Angels seems to be that I had requested of the Universe to be of service and my "applications" were being considered. I had dabbled in several different things and I constantly see things that need to be dealt with but so far I do not feel that I am officially "employed" by the Universe. The Angels wanted me to know that even though sometimes I feel like I am waiting for that "call" to come to officially welcome me to the employment of the Higher Realms, that they know that I am available and even when I sleep my abilities are being used. ( I often have dreams of people I do not know and I am usually sending them some sort of healing energy or assisting them in some way.)

Also I believe the Angels want me to extend the invitation to questions from others. I am often at a loss of questions to ask the Angels and I am open to asking them questions that someone else comes up with. I am not sure I will get an answer but I am quite sure the Angels have been bugging me to put out the invitation. They will decide whether the questions are something they want to answer but at this time I am open to questions that others come up with. This is very new to me and I am learning that if I don't listen and do what it is suggested to me then I don't hear anything for awhile.

I am happily waiting for the next message from the Angels but they don't just talk if I don't initiate the conversation. Sometimes I think it is like a Divine dance of sorts. I ask a question, but it is usually one that I have been inspired to ask. Hopefully the answers help others with their path as we all journey together.

Message about Change

Recently I was reading an article by a woman who gives messages from the Angels. She said we all are able to receive messages, all we have to do is ask. The more we ask, the more messages we will receive. She suggested that every day we write down a question and then write down the answer. She also suggested that if we would like to be of service to mankind, that we send out a request to the Angels to get the word out that we are ready to be of service.

I was so inspired that I said the little prayer she suggested and within five minutes I received a phone call from a friend who requested I help her with a fear that she was having. Wow! Those Angels really are listening when we call upon them!!

The particular problem I guess I have initially with asking questions of the Angels is that I can't think of any questions to ask!! So I would like to relate the first question I asked of the Angels and as I write I am hoping they are going to respond. This is the way I have found that it often works. I have no idea of the answer until I start writing. That is what happened when I responded to my friend's request. I had decided to email her back to tell her that I suggested some positive affirmations to say until I got an answer, and then immediately as I started writing, I was given an insight into the particular fear she was experiencing. I am not going to relate the story of course until I talk to her, but I am relating how I have found the answers sometimes come.

So this particular question I am thinking of has to do with change. I have been seeing signs lately related to change. I am wondering if this is a personal message of change or if the message regarding change is a universal one. This week I received so many signs that change was approaching that I actually began to have a panic attack because I was afraid the change would not be to my liking!!

The Angels have seemed to respond to me that there is a change universally but also a personal change on the horizon. Both the universal and the personal changes could be responded to in a number of ways. It is our response to the changes that make the changes either good or bad, but the Higher Realms always have our ultimate good as the end results of the changes. Just like when we repot plants, they sometimes go into a shock initially, but it is for their ultimate good because they have outgrown their pots. The plants may wonder what it is they are going through when their roots are dug out and they find themselves in a new pot with new dirt and possibly even a new window to look out of, but eventually they have the choice to acclimate to their surroundings or they will eventually wither and die. It is the same with the changes on the horizon. It is our choice to acclimate ourselves to the changes or we will find ourselves withering due to our refusal to get used to our new pot, so to speak.

The good news is that the changes are for our good and if we look at the changes with excitement and not with fear then we will ultimately find the changes have helped us to evolve to the next level of our journey.

Snow Storms and Other Stuff

The past week I have been fortunate enough to have taken some time off from work to paint, meditate, listen to my Angels, and just enjoy being alive. My husband and I had intended to go away for the weekend for our anniversary but Mother Nature had other plans for us. I have noticed a big change in myself from the me of a couple of years ago. A couple of years ago I would have gotten all upset that our plans were ruined, stressed about the snow, complained about living in a state that occasionally has big snow storms, whined about the cold and the snow, and generally would have made myself miserable over the whole event. This year I was content to stay home, go outside and occasionally shovel some snow, and even found shoveling snow enjoyable!! My husband noticed the change and remarked more than once that I was supposed to be the one who hates cold, winter and snow. And I really can't explain the change, except that I am learning to be content no matter if my original plans had to be changed or not. I am finding myself going with the flow more often.

Now I am not claiming to have attained enlightenment by any means. Just earlier in the week I worked myself into a frenzy over some silly little nothings and it took me most of the next day to get back to my peaceful place. But I have learned something about myself. When I find myself upset, trying to talk myself out of it does not work. Learning to flow with the upset feelings is just as important as flowing with the feelings of peace and contentment. All of these feelings are what makes life an adventure. What if life was just one day after another of sunshine and warm days? What if we never faced any challenges? What if there was never any snow to shovel? Life would probably get a little boring. I have read that one of the reasons we choose to incarnate into life on earth in the first place is because on the other side, life is all light and love and peace. There are no challenges, there are no snowstorms, no earthquakes, no unloving people at all. Maybe we choose to incarnate into life on earth because of the challenges, the contrast, so we can appreciate the good things in life. A person who exercises knows that our bodies get used to any particular kind of exercise and after awhile we stop seeing results. It is beneficial to our bodies to continually change our workouts so our bodies continue to be challenged. It is the same with our souls. We need contrast, we need challenges so that our souls become stronger. When we overcome in a challenging situation the next time we face a similar situation we know how to deal with it.

One thing I know. There are things I can change and things I cannot. The things I can change are the things that happen within me: my thoughts, my attitudes, my reactions to events. The events themselves most of the time I have no control over. I can't control the weather, I can't control the actions of other people, but I can control how I react to the weather, how I react to the actions of others. Once I find my peaceful place, then the things I can't control cease to cause me to lose my peace.

More Changes

In my previous blog I shared how I have taken a week of vacation to paint several rooms in my house. I am the type of person who cannot stand an unfinished project. My original plan was to paint a little each day and then spend some time meditating and grounding myself after having exhausted myself through having too many pots on the fire. But, true to myself, I just couldn't stand having paint cans lying around and two rooms in disarray. I worked myself into a frenzy, painting and obsessing about getting the house back in order. I completely exhausted myself, lost my cool, and repeated the same pattern I had been engaging in before I took off from work.

What I learned is this. When I try to get a project done with the intent of "trying" to get it done, I am creating an unfinished product just by the very intention of trying. The trying is the problem. When I see something that I don't like or that I think needs to be done, I immediately "try" to fix it. I am striving for perfection instead of realizing that everything already is perfect and all I have to do is line up with that!

This morning I took a different approach. I got up late, made myself some tea, read, meditated, and that is when it hit me. Perfection already exists. I just need to line up with it. I need to see the finished project and then the rest is easy. I truly enjoyed painting today, while yesterday it was excruciatingly painful. All I could see yesterday was how many miles of trim that lay unpainted. Today I saw a finished room and just did what needed to be done to make the room line up with my vision.

How many times do we see our problems and work on trying to fix them? How many times do we see the faults in others instead of their perfection? We obsess over all the things we don't like instead of seeing our problems or the people in our lives as the perfection that they are. Or our jobs. How many times do we only see the problems, the bad decisions, the mean customers, the difficult coworkers? Instead what if we tried seeing our job as perfect already? See what we want to see instead of what is!! What about our bodies? I got the revelation long ago that all my hours of exercise did no good if I saw myself as fat. Every time I go to the gym or get on the treadmill or run outside, I try to remember to visualize my body the way I want it to be.

I will be the first to admit that I have to be reminded. I forget!! I already knew this!! I don't have to try to do anything. I will never get it done. The most important thing I can do is sit for a minute and see my project completed. See my job as perfect and fulfilling all my needs. See myself as a person who delivers messages from the Angels!! See all my relationships as perfect.

It took a disastrous day of obsessive painting to learn that doing less is doing more. Today I almost completed my painting projects and it is only Wednesday. Tomorrow I spend the entire day just visualizing the perfection that already exists within me. It is hard to tell what I will manifest next........

Changes

Recently in my home I have decided to do a little painting in some of the rooms. I found myself with a few days off from work and I heard the walls calling to me that they needed a change. It is amazing how a little paint can completely change the energy of a room or a house. A little moving of favorite objects, pictures on the wall, furniture, completely change the way you feel when you walk into a room or into the front door of your house. The way you feel changes the energy of the room itself and those who are present in the room. I believe that everything has consciousness whether it is considered to be alive or not. When the walls become dirty or dingy, the energy of the wall drops down a notch or two. Dust collecting in the corners or plants that have passed their peak and are on the downward slide, they all connect with one another and give a room a particular collective energy that can be felt on a level of our consciousness. Objects in our homes which we don't particularly like, but Aunt Bettie gave them to us so we feel obligated to display them, they also contribute to the energy in a room.

On another level, the energy of the house reflects the energy of its inhabitants. If in our souls we are feeling tired or out of sorts, our home picks up that energy and reflects it. I remember one time in another house, we had a plumbing problem which we couldn't seem to figure out. It turns out that also in my body at the time I had a particular health issue that was alluding me. When I figured out my health issue and dealt with it, the very next day it seems we were able to easily figure out the plumbing problem and fix it.

Our homes represent on a spiritual level how are souls are inhabiting our bodies. If our homes are in disarray, it is very likely that our lives are also out of sorts. Recently I was feeling the need to clean out my closets, and so I also did an inner inventory, to see if there were issues that were hidden away in the closet of my mind, out of sight, out of mind, so to speak. My present issue has to do with the fact that my closets are full, but only for a lack of anywhere else to put the stuff that fills them. Even after throwing numerous unused objects away, it still seems that the closets are full. Also in my life I sometimes feel like the closets are full. There is no room to add anything new due to the fullness of my schedule. My husband says it is only my perspective that makes me think that my schedule is too full. I am still working on that one.

Sometimes we are led to spruce up our homes and immediately find that our lives become more enjoyable as well. All of life is a metaphor. As I am busy painting this week I am also doing an inner inventory. What in my life has become dull, outdated, and in need of a change? Can it be as simple as paint is to a wall? I think the inner paint would be my thoughts. What can I change about the way I am thinking that will completely change how I am viewing my life? Out with those old, outdated thoughts and in with new, improved, life affirming thoughts!!

If you find yourself with thoughts of changing something in your outer world, don't forget to do an inner inventory as well, and see if it corresponds to something in your inner world. You may be surprised at what a little paint can do!