Hello Hello to all My Dears

Hello and Good Happy Halloween Mornin' to Ya! It sure has been a while. I'm going to try to address some of the comments I've been neglecting and give a general update here while I have a rare moment of peace and quiet. I miss my blogging world despite have a new real world which is taking up all of my time. I feel often that my blogger friends understand me better than some of the friends and/or family who actually see me in person daily. And I don't want to lose the connection I have to you guys - those in particular, who I would miss the most, probably know who you are. And then there are some new folks been stopping by and I feel so psyched about that because they seem cool. I'm glad to be hearing from you Verity Vaudeville cuz I think we have a lot in common and it's good to bounce thoughts off other interesting folks cuz they understand the origin of the pain or happiness better than someone who does not think in the same intense way as you or I or those who are in the realm of the functioning crazies. And I say that with as much love as possible. I really appreciate you all. And I love when Boston Joe stops by on his way about his own super busy life. Much Love to you all!!!!

So what's new? Oh, there's just so much I don't know where to begin. I'll have to check in with Jeannie and see how her illness has played out cuz mine's still hanging on with a lot of might. I feel a bit better for a day or two and then here it comes, rolling back at me with full force. I'd probably have more luck beating this thing if I had a few days off to recuperate. I hadn't been working at all (well, not a real job anyhow. And work for my Mom is more forgiving than the real thing) and now I'm working non-stop. I think, since I started my first day at the choco store at the very end of September, until now at the very end of October I've had only three days off. And we all know I spent those days doing my laundry, cleaning my space, cooking so I'd have lunches for the week, and generally preparing to continue the daily grind with as few snafus as possible. One afternoon I did just take to bed and refused to acknowledge anyone or anything so I could sleep a bit. And that helped a lot. If I could do that for just, like, two days I think I could beat this faster. But I've been taking plenty of the traditional Day/NightQuil, the Theraflu icky hot medicine drinks, and the Mucinex which just seems to make gooey shit come dripping out of every orifice - shouldn't I be dried up already? For crying out loud!? It's begun to dry my skin out to the point it's itching and I have to slather myself in moisturizer - but my lungs and sinus areas are still slogging in mucus. So I've added some alternative remedies and have been drinking much Gypsy Cold Tea and echinacea with garlic and ginger. And although I am not well yet, there should be something to be said for not collapsing entirely. I don't feel a hundred percent but I'm still getting high praise at both my new jobs so imagine how much they'll love me when they see how hard I work when I'm not sick. Whoo hoo, they better watch out, can they handle my greatness as an employee?

No, really, in all seriousness I am enjoying both jobs for the most part. I love, love, love the chocolate shop because I'm learning so much I really feel as if I'm an apprentice to this amazing trade. I feel very blessed to have found something which makes me happy and advances my culinary knowledge. Because any regular reader must know how much I love food, and cooking and baking and now I'll be adding confections to my repertoire - and that is awesome. More details on that later because I do have to work today for only four hours but it takes time to get ready too. And I still need to walk dogs and do some yoga for my own salvation in this life.

And this is mostly in response to SB because she brought up that working at Starbucks must be cool cuz free drinks and stuff. I actually am beginning to like it more and more as I'm learning all the crazy variations and coffee police guidelines - but there is one thing that puts a damper on it. Well, more than one but let's just focus for now on the fact the Starbucks I work at is not a "real" Starbucks. It appears so to the eye of every customer walking in the door, you are greeted with the traditional green and black color pattern, and all the typical products appear to be present but it is owned by Stop and Shop. And this is apparently an extremely rare arrangement, but of course I managed to find it. So although we serve the same drinks and follow ninety-nine percent of the same rules, certain little things don't apply. For one, us employees don't get free drinks like at a real Starbucks. We don't get a bag of coffee every month to take home and we don't get trained as well. Our paychecks are actually signed by Stop and Shop. How weird is that? We also have slightly different prices and we don't offer all of the same promotions to the customers. It can make things a little confusing, for sure.

Okay, dammit, I have to end this now so I have enough time to get ready and do some yoga, just a little, enough to keep my as pain free as possible. If people know how much yoga could help them they would just have to do it. I wish I had started years ago, I wish I had learned as a child. If I do it regularly, and I admit I have been slacking because I've been feeling sick and tired (the very reasons I should force myself TO DO it even more), it really help me in so many ways but mostly it helps keep the pain out of my shoulder. Without yoga, I can't even lay on my left side to sleep at night because it's too uncomfortable.

Well, for the third time, I think, I am off. I'm working downstairs in the shop part of the chocolate factory today. I prefer the kitchen, obviously, but the shop is wonderful too. Being decorated for the holidays makes it so magical feeling. I feel like an elf working at Santa's chocolate shop. Have a good day everyone.

Love,
Nellie

Inherent Good?

I was reading 'Yoga Journal' the other day which is a monthly yoga magazine my mom gets delivered to our house. She doesn't do yoga, at all, but she got some deal where she had to order a bunch of magazines, so she gets it for me pretty much. I really like it because it has a lot of good articles every month which are good at making it clear how much yoga can affect you in so many aspects of life. And it always has a section where a full sequence of postures is laid out with clear pictures and descriptions of how to carry out each pose. I feel like I learn many new things each month. Of course, I am a beginner so I have a lot to learn.
Another feature is the monthly interview. It's just a short interview on the back page, usually with someone who teaches yoga somewhere in the United States. This month it was with some guy named John Friend. Apparently he developed this type of yoga called Anusara Yoga. According to his website, Anusara Yoga is "a life affirming Tantric philosophy of inherent goodness" combined with Universal Principles of Alignment. Basically, there is good in everything and everyone and all differences are accepted. I tried to add the link to his website at the bottom of this post in case anyone wants to learn more about this type of yoga practice (sorry if it's not right, I'm not so great at that type of thing, yet). It seems like a good place for beginners because it's non-judgmental and he works mostly with alignment and it seems more practical rather than super spiritual. Not to say that the spiritual aspects of yoga aren't as important, they are. I just think that some people are turned off by the religious/spiritual aspects of yoga. They think they have to change their religion to practice; this of course is not true, but I can understand where the misconception comes from.
Anyhow, clearly this guy, John Friend, believes in the inherent goodness of all things on earth and beyond. So in this interview they ask him about his views regarding all the evil shit that happens on this planet. If everything is inherently good, what gives?

YJ: With your positivity, how do you reconcile the problems of suffering and evil in the world?

John Friend: "Everything in it's essence is benevolent, good, and auspicious. But we do actions that aren't skillful. Everyone wants to be happy, but we misbehave or misspeak and cause pain for ourselves and for others. There's karma and interconnectedness, cause and effect, reasons for everything. Sometimes things seem random and unfair. The interweavings of the tapestry of destiny and karma are beyond my view. Some mysteries we don't have to figure out. We just flow with them and respond in the best ways to connect with our spiritual essence."


So, even though he's a little whoopdy di doopty or whatever, he does have a point. I think everyone, even those who seem like they don't, have the intention of doing something good. Whether it's good for just themselves, or good for the whole, is another matter completely. But everyone DOES want to be happy. And I believe we all are connected. Because everything is just energy in different forms. So we are everything because everything is energy, right? And us as individuals are too small to see the greater picture. We can't see the whole web of human and earth energy from above. If we could, if we could see the bigger picture, I think it wouldn't seem so random and mean. I think there would be some patterns and understanding. And there is a lot to be said for the actions of humans. We often DO misspeak, or misbehave, even with the best of intentions. And that does cause pain. So to eradicate pain, as much as possible, we just need to become more aware of our actions. Right?

Sorry if this whole post is a little whoopdy di doopty. But I think it is a question we all ask ourselves all the time: Why do bad, evil things happen if there is a God? And I think people like this John Friend begin to answer that question for us. Of course, it will never definitively be answered in our lifetime. Maybe not even once we die. But we can try to understand as much as possible.

http://www.anusara.com/index.php?option=content&view=frontpage&Itemid=73

So lately I've been doing a lot of yoga. Well, a lot for me. Certainly that is not as much as many yogis out there are doing. But it's a start. I can understand now how yoga can be responsible for weight loss and muscle strengthening. It's definitely more than just sitting around doing stretches. A lot more. Sometimes, depending on how the routine or the circumstance, I break out into a pretty heavy sweat. And although I'm not breathing heavily in the same exact way as I would doing some sort of cardio exercise, I'm definitely exerting my breath and strengthening my lungs. I'm actually surprised and amazed. I mean, I always conceptually understood that yoga had benefits. How could something endure with such high praise for so long if there were not benefits galore? But I've always had a hard time in the past finding time to fit a yoga practice into my life. I thought I had to take a class and that would be expensive, and I was working so much and making so little, it just some impossible. But finally having the peace in my life to find myself and what I really need and love has done wonders for me already. My Mom has cable so I can follow the yoga practices on the On Demand feature. And eventually, because of the help of my mother, I will have my license and a car and a job, and school, and hopefully then I can take a real class and get certified to teach. Hopefully doing it as much as I can now will give me a foundation for when I want to take it to the next level.

What I really wanted to write about though is how much yoga has helped my shoulder. it still hurts, but not nearly as much as it did before. I think the pain has been causing me to readjust the rest of my body to try to avoid moving my arm at all. So I was getting twisted and off balance. After a couple weeks of doing stuff to open my chest, shoulders, back and hips, I feel like a different body. It's like I want to do yoga right now because I feel so good afterward. It's really helping me build muscle to because you have to hold these fricken poses in, like, a lunge position. So you're lunging one way, holding your arms out and circling them about your head, all the while breathing deeply and controlled. It's damn hard. Harder than a good curves workout for sure. I'm looking forward to taking this activity further.

Wagon Hill Farm

Wagon Hill Farm, Durham, New Hampshire. Otherwise known as my Heaven on Earth. I've recently discovered this little piece of paradise. I found it a little over a month ago as I was searching for an out of the way hiking area to take my dogs. Since they are still little demons, despite my trying desperately to retrain them and myself to be more calm and thoughtful. We all have a long, long way to go. But things are getting easier. In part, because of this place. It happens to be right around the corner from my new clinic. So it has become part of my routine to take the dogs with me every morning now, and go for a walk with them before heading home. I think the whole shebang, the walk, but even just being in the car, has been very therapeutic for them. And me. Because I'm learning that I don't need to be so tense over the dogs, and in turn, that makes them less tense too.
We have to go through a toll booth every day to get onto I-95. And at first it was terribly embarrassing because the dogs would freak at the attendant. They would start barking as soon as they saw that there was a person there. But now we can roll right through. Happy and silent. I consider that a major milestone. Whoo-hoo.

So these first two pics are what you see at the very beginning of the walk. Clearly it's an old farm that was turned into some sort of reserve. I guess I should read their info next time I visit. That will be tomorrow, I guess. So anyway, there is a big white farmhouse next to the two, upper and lower, parking areas. Then mostly fields just like this until you hit a small rim of wooded area, a buffer before the marsh, and ultimately, the bay.

You can see here the water snaking it's way into the forest.

And my incredibly spoiled dogs lounging in the marsh, soaking up the sun.









I like to sit on this driftwood log and read a book or a magazine. It's the perfect little perch.


Most of the paths are like this one. Mowed through the fields so most days I go barefoot. It's perfect. And there is a peak at my little beach. I think I could swim here once it's a bit warmer.
The picture of the tree hanging over the water reminds me of someplace tropical. I have pictures of a trip to Jamaica that look just like this. I think if I were to slip this picture in with those no one would know the difference. It's just such a peaceful place. I feel so lucky I found it. I never see anyone else there. Besides the fishermen on their lobster boats out in the bay.


And then, of course, more dog pictures. Because I'm one of those annoying, crazy people who takes their dogs everywhere, leaves the A/C on for them, puts them in little outfits and gives them hot dogs for treats.

Well, that's it for now folks. Good vibes to you all.