This is a No Blog Blog

 

No blog today.

It is time for an artist’s holiday. That is to do something different to recharge your batteries.

Julia Cameron takes herself to the pet store to hold (whatever his name is. Fred, let’s say.) the giant bunny.

“Can I hold Fred?” she asks the proprietor.

“I don’t know; you’ll have to ask Fred.”

Well, she held him, so he must have said yes.

We lived in San Diego when my two girls were little, and there was an aquatic store down the hill not far from where we lived. When we wanted an outing, we would go there and look at the fish in the glass aquariums, and outside behind the shop, we would peruse the cement block ponds where they raised fish, large and small.

My youngest daughter remained quite attached to aquatic animals into her adult life, getting a job at PetSmart right out of college and working with the fish. Later she had a mail-order saltwater animal shipping service. Then, she became the store director at a PetSmart store in California.

You never know the ramifications of a fun holiday.

What Are We Doing?

You know what? We came here to have a grand vacation, but it doesn’t feel like going to Disneyland.

I hear the word STRESS all over the place.

Form this ancient person, listen to this: I never heard the word “stress” when I was growing up. And we lived through wars and depressions, political turmoil, prices up, prices down. I think the first time I heard the word stress, it referred to metal being stretched to the point of breaking. Is that what we’re feeling these days?

We laughed and yep, grumbled about world conditions, but there was a fun interspersed.

I want life to be fun again.

 

 If you are a writer you might find something of interest on my other blog:

https://www.bestdamnwritersblog.com/

 

I love this: To Celebrate Earth Day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHRGYLutYAY

 

Meryl Streep, Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, Olivia Newton John, and other women singing It’s a Wonderful World

Find Something Fun

I used to tease my friend Betty for saying that chickens were her favorite animal. 

I've heard of chicken on the Barbie, but this is ridiculous.

Now I understand where she was coming from.

I’m not saying chickens are my favorites. I’m not choosing. You know I have been crazy over a horse, a dog, I have loved our cats, and goats are more fun than a barrel of monkeys—most people wouldn’t know this without experiencing one or two.

Who wouldn't love that face?

I don’t know why I am talking about this. A blog is meant to inform. 

I inform you here in this lock-down depressing times, when people are plain worn-out with worry, receiving conflicting data, knowing there is an information war, and that our minds and bodies are being dinked with...

Find something you enjoy. 

I’ve recently taken a couple of trail walks, recording both the trail and my voice, and I enjoyed both. Can you believe it? I talk about the Law of Attraction and whatever else pops into my head. 

Why would I be so arrogant as to do such a thing? 

I’m not a big talker. Neither am I a big walker these days. Sorry. Justin Perry suggested I do a YouTube. If you get 1,000 “likes,” you can monetarize it, meaning have ads, but still be free for the watcher/listener. ( My internal knowingness said, “Jump in. See what happens. Be brave.”

People are interested in The Law of Attraction. I can say a few things about it, not to teach or to give any processes you ought to do, goals you ought to set, or meditations you ought to do. No ought's. Just plain talk. At least you can get a green forested trail walk out of it. And I was yearning for the trees. 

This videoing and putting the recording into the computer has been a learning curve for me. And I used to download pictures with ease. But not on my new computer., It kept locking me out until daughter dear turned off the S mode. Apparently, Microsoft wanted me to use only their software. I think I can get it now. This YouTube will be the unabridged version of walking and talking and hearing my breathing. Jewells Happy Trails #1. (No link yet.)

The first walk had no audio, so I redid it. No wonder I was puffing. I got lost on the mountain after the second walk as I was returning home. The road was clear going away from town, but coming back, there were logging roads, Y’s in the road, I didn’t see on the way down. I took the wrong Y and scraped the sides of my truck on blackberry bushes. 

Oh, back to chickens. They have given me a reprieve from the depression we had over losing my daughter’s lady. 

I bought three baby chicks on March 19, then three days old. They lived in a box under a heat lamp in the laundry room until recently when I moved the box outside. Next came a little movable yard on our green lawn. A freed animal is such fun; they run (It’s only a 4 x 4 sq. foot enclosure) and could fly over the three-foot-high fence if I didn’t cover it. Now part of their diet is mowing the lawn. 

Husband Dear and I had spent a week off and on flipping a tiny chicken house that I bought when we lived at an earlier home. Amazing that it survived the weather, and only the roof was rotted. My son-in-law and grandson carried it from where it had been stored including lifting it over the fence as it couldn't get through the gate, I freshly stained the sides, and repainted the trim. Home Depot cut the roof plywood for me, and I found asphalt shingles at Habitat for Humanity. Husband dear screwed the plywood in place and we shingled the roof.  It’s cute enough to live in the backyard. 

This property already had a chicken house and a coop attached to the backside of the Wayback (Our auxiliary building.) We had a secure (we thought) dog kennel attached to the coop for the two chickens who survived an earlier massacre. Sadly, about four nights ago, something got Red, one of the two hens. She must have been lying next to the fence, and something (a raccoon ??) killed her right through the fence.

Well, Blackie became free-range. The neat thing is, this somewhat standoffish street-smart chicken (she adopted us) has come into our back yard, visits the young chickens through their fence, lets me pet her, and has become the elegant lady she was meant to be. 

The picture above is of Blackie.

Although we had the house in our workspace for replacing the roof, Blackie climbed inside and laid two eggs. She is a resourceful chicken. Now I see why Betty was so attached to chickens. 

Here’s a quick change of subject:

Want a FREE blank book?

It won’t be completely blank. It has lined pages and quotes scattered throughout like seeds.

The quotes are not meant to stop your creative flow, but to give you a moment to pause and reflect or argue with, I don’t care.  

I like little booklets for my computer data, for I change passwords more often than Katy Perry changes clothes. The booklets with pretty covers are more fun than the simple spiral notebooks where I put junk stuff. 

Of course, you can write the great American novel there on those pages if you want.

I ordered two booklets about a week ago, for I wanted to know how they looked and make sure every page was lined. They have a matt finish cover. Glossy might be better. 

Here is a bird with an attitude.

Quote on the back cover:

"Once upon a time,

when women were birds,

there was the simple understanding

that to sing at dawn, and to sing at dusk

was to heal the world through joy.

The birds still remember what we have forgotten,

that the world is meant to be celebrated."

--Terry Tempest William

One person can have my extra booklet if they are willing to give me their email address and/or name and physical address so I can UPSP the book. If you win, I will need it for mailing.  

The young chicks will choose the winner. The first address pecked will be it.

The Judges

This is Saturday. I will do the drawing next Saturday, May 22, 2021

Contact: jewellshappytrails@gmail.com

A Glorious Celebration

 I bumped into this picture yesterday and wondered what the heck?

And then I found out what it was…

It’s Holi, a Hindu Festival that celebrates the triumph of good over evil.

Far out!

It also marks the end of winter and the coming of spring. beginning on the last day of the full moon in March, and lasts for a day and a night. (28 to 29th) Night bonfires remind me of Burning Man.

It’s a time of unity, a time of play, laughter, music and dance, a time to repair broken relationships.

Imagine.

As a youth, Lord Krishna, a reincarnation of Lord Vishnu, liked to play pranks on the village girls by drenching them in water and colors.

Here is a chance to throw colored powders, to pelt each other with water balloons, and to squirt with water pistols.

It is a time to forgive and forget, a to drink bhang, a drink made with cannabis. It is a time the gods turn a blind eye.

After sobering up, people dress up and visit friends and family.

Live Joyously!

Pie in the Sky, or Crab in the Bucket?

I know, I used this picture earlier on, but I thought it was pertinent.

Good morning dear readers,

You know how much it tickles me when you sign up, comment, or follow?

Enough to make me roll on the floor in a fit that makes the dog think it’s playtime.

 

Last night I opened a couple cans of clam chowder, turned on a Netflix cooking channel and told my husband that at least he got a visual feast. 

 

Don’t they say that part of our pleasure in eating is visual? 

 

How are you doing with feeding the family? Now that my husband is home all the time, I feel more pressure to fix meals, and I’m running out of ideas, and inclination to prepare them.  I’m happy to have food, but its ongoingness is daunting. My attitude is, “Just go to the refrigerator and get something to eat, what’s with silverware, salt, and pepper, napkins?” (Although I do like being civilized once in a while.)

 

Speaking of food, one of my favorite foods is crab meat. A weekend ago, my niece, husband, and two little children rented a beautiful house on Oregon’s coast, and invited us.

 

The house had windows the full length of the house and within a stone’s throw to the beach where an expanse of coastline ran the length of our vision, right and left. The surf did what surfs do, rolled in and out, a continual sloshing and white capping. And when the wind caught the top of a wave, it sent a skiff water off in a mist to evaporate. There were a few rocks offshore and we watched the waves slap them, then throw themselves into the air, to laugh and do it again.

 

The second day there, my daughter, son, husband, and I sat with my niece in the sand on the beach and talked about life. We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day.

 

And at lunchtime, there beside the windows, what did we have on the table? Freshly cooked crab, butter, lemon, pliers, picks, Caesar salad. There was enough crab to fill six adults, two kids, and have some leftover.

 

El Yumo.

 

This has been a week of miracles with some trauma thrown in so I wouldn’t become too spoiled. The trauma was me trying to sell on Amazon. I was so tickled when I sold some items until I discovered that the Amazon fees, drop shipping fees, mailing fees, ate up my profits—and then some.  It’s been a learning curve, so don’t buy the hype that you can sit on the beach and rake in the dough. It takes a particular strategy.

 

Daughter dear and I are ever investigating life’s persistent questions and attempting to figure out this manifesting thing. How is it that some folks work their butts off with little to show for it, while others do rake in the dough?

 

I decided to test manifesting (start small, they say), so I said I would manifest a red rose. “Not the orange-red one such as we have growing outside our window,” I said, “but a crimson- red one.” Well, I asked for it, then left it alone without giving it much thought. The following day, I heard a “Bing” on my phone, and when I opened it, it was an Instagram picture of a red rose.

 

“Is this my rose?" I screamed over the messaging system to my daughter.

 

She assured me that it was.

 

We put out the order, but do not know what form it will take in answering. If you decide to try this, let me know your results.

 

I’ve spoken before about the Conscious Mind and the Subconscious Mind, how the Conscious Mind is the censor, the logical one. It’s into survival. The Subconscious Mind is the creator, and it doesn’t know the difference between real and imagined. The reason imagining works is that you have given the Subconscious the look, feel, and smell of your heart’s desire, and it goes okay; “If that’s what you want, I’ll, find a way to give it to you.” And she will if the Conscious Mind doesn’t thwart the process by convincing her that it’s crazy to think that way. “You can’t create out of thin air. Besides, that’s not the way the world works.’

 

“Haha. We’ll show you otherwise. You’ve been reading the wrong science books.”

 

Neville Goddard says the Conscious Mind is like the male energy, the Subconscious is the female. And they speak different languages.

 

Given that idea, the universal trick is learning to communicate.

 

Okay, here’s some fun:

 

“Have you heard about a new restaurant named Karma?

 

There’s no menu; you get what you deserve.”

 

 

My two hottest blogs so far are “How to Blog When You’re Broke and Clueless,” and “Hello Beautiful, Check Your Eyeballs.” 

 

Regarding the ladder, I’m expanding that information into an ebook that will be coming soon. I hope it can help people who have asked for more on that subject.

 

If you're a writer or blogger, you might check my other blog, “The Best Damn Writer Blogger on the Block” (Hee hee, I’m the only one.)

 https://www.bestdamnwritersblog.com

 

Carry on,

I am happy to visit with you. Let me know what you think. I welcome input.

Jo