Finding POSITIVES in the NEGATIVES.

Maybe I was mumbling this week because
The Universe was not getting my messages correctly.
Maybe I lost focus and somehow concentrated on the wrong things but
this week kinda sucked.

There I go again. I just focused on the negative!
I need to shake that off and look at the positives!
I tell ya, this is a real learning process.
I have to keep catching myself and adjusting my attitude.

OK, where should I start?
Here's a positive!
I had received several emails (FOUR) from VIDA about them liking my Art
and asking me to submit some artwork.
I looked over their website and it appeared to very nice high-end clothing
and I REALLY liked how they helped their workers to become literate.
They set the prices and handle all the production and shipping
and then I get 10% of the sells.
You can read about that HERE.

So I made an account with them and submitted some of my photos for silk scarves
and they were "pending" and then they evidently liked them and posted them.
Only problem was, they weren't a high enough resolution.
They asked me to correct that and I just don't think it's possible to get them to the pixels and dpi that they need.
Truthfully, I don't know much about that kind of thing and they suggest Photoshop, which I don't have.
I tried to change them in my "Paint" program but then it wouldn't let me open it up and do any other editing.
So I went to my account and took the images off.
I don't want someone to order one and for it not to be available.
I took some quick photos to show what it DID look like before I took it down-

So the Positive of this Negative is, they liked my work.
To be honest, I'm not that majorly bummed.
I mean I thought it was cool but it wasn't the direction that I dream of going towards.
I have THAT worked out in my head and will share for another day.

Kinda tied to that because it is computer related is the Negative that my older PC is done.
It started out with the cat puking on the keyboard and then another day he jumped on me while I was drinking coffee and it spilled everywhere.
Of course the fact that  he was always walking on it probably didn't help.
Then finally it just came on in the middle of the night and the screen was glowing and making weird sounds.
When it happened I woke up to this eerie light in the hallway and I walked out and down a couple of steps and peered through the banister at the computer screen and I immediately thought of Poltergeist and quickly ran down and shut it off.

My laptop has been on the fritz for a while too.
It was refurbished to begin with and it runs very hot and sometimes just blacks out and shuts down when it's not plugged in.
The Positive! - I can do a lot on my iPhone. It's hard for me to comment on other blogs sometimes but I can do partial posts on it and upload photos and sometimes I can use my work computer on my lunch hour to finish up stuff.
Another Positive is that I think by keeping it plugged and if I get a laptop cooling pad it will solve that problem.
So I'm optimist about that!

OK, here's another Negative -  this Shingles thing I have, maybe.
It's called Zoster vine Herpete and it's basically shingles without the rash.
I have all the symptoms, the burning feeling on the skin
not a deep pain like somethings wrong in my tummy or in my side.
But I got to thinking, maybe it's a pulled muscle.
I did try to move/lift some thing a few weeks ago that weighed A LOT.
(Probably 200 lbs at least)
and I did lift a couple of bigger dogs this week to bathe...

Anyway I'm really done with it.
I want it over and I'm sick of it hurting but
on the POSITIVE, if it's the Shingles thing, it could be the one with the rash and
it could be somewhere visible so I'm lucky it's not that and
if it's a pulled muscle, it will eventually heal
so I need to shut up about it and count my lucky stars.

Then... I hesitate to post this but I share everything here so....
GULP.
I have (had) a HUGE vet bill.
Doc is aware of it but has been tolerant of it because every dog bath I do,
the money goes directly onto my account.
Sadly I only make between $5.00 to $7.50 a bath so realistically I'd probably be dead before it got paid off
(if I just paid it down that way.)
So I've also made monthly payments to it too.
OK, so this is what happened -
#1 Mean Girl jumped my niece about her bill and made a HUGE deal about it at work
and then dragged my name and the amount of my bill into it too and then Doc walked into the room and she started ranting to him about it.
It kinda put him on the spot, as others do not have such a high balance.
In the past I've gotten my bill pretty low but then someone has gotten sick and...

Anyway. I didn't want Captain Mean Girl to make it into something REALLY BIG
and gossip to everyone about it so I went and took all my emergency money that I had (per advice of Tammy and Sharon) and
applied it all to my bill and put the rest on a super low interest deal that my credit card company was offering.
BUT the positive is THAT bill is gone and next time when they ask me to bathe a huge rowdy out of control dog who's sure to throw my back out or pull a muscle, I can politely decline.
In the past I felt obligated to do it because of my bill.
Another Positive is the fact that I have GOOD friends who had told me to accumulate a emergency fund and therefore I had it to use!
Another Positive is that I'm not worried about it.
I will make more Art and more cash will come my way and my bills will disappear!

Finally, my last Negative is... I realized this week that my Blue isn't young.
I mean, I knew that but this week it hit me hard and I'll tell you what happened to make me realize it but first I will share how the same thing happened to me with my Dad.
My Dad always looked MUCH younger than his actual age but we all do age.
It just happens, but sometimes it does it so slow and that it creeps up and you don't realize it.
Yep, that and a big heaping lump of denial stirred into all.
Anyway I had gone into a restaurant to pick up an order many years ago and a man walked in who I thought at first glance was my Dad.
Just as I was about to call out to him, I realized it wasn't him at all.
It was just an elderly man that looked like him.
I was depressed for days.

So...with Blue.
He hates nail trims.
He curls his lip and runs and hides under the kitchen table (or tries to but he's too big to get all the way under there) but he hides when he sees the nail clippers.
So I've always just taken him to work and they have him step on a "bale" that Doc uses for "big" chiropractic patients. (Huge dogs and horses).
When he was young it took a vet tech on each side of him and one behind him and me scratching his forehead and keeping him focused on me while a 5th person cut his nails.
Over the years, the number of people it takes to do the job keeps going down.
Now it's only two people.
So when I took him in this week to have them trim them, I took photos of him.
Later at home I looked at the photos and it hit me,
My Blue is an old man.

Then the night before last, he wouldn't eat his food.
If someone asked me about their own dog skipping a meal, I would say not to worry.
I'd say - Give it 24 hours and see if he just had an upset tummy, To let it settle.
Not to worry as long as his belly wasn't hard.
A hard belly can mean bloat and in that case you must rush your dog to the emergency vet immediately.
Anyway.
I felt his belly, it wasn't hard.
Then I called my sister and told her he wouldn't eat and then I burst out crying.
Finally she calmed me down and asked me what was wrong and I told her that Blue was old.
God, I'm tearing up writing that!
Jeez.
The Positive - The other morning I gave him special canned food and he ate it.
and last night he ate his regular food like no one's business.
The Positive - Blue is fine.

Yep, It's been quite a week.
I've struggled, I'll be honest.
I've gotten upset over the fact that I've only made a small dent in my clutter
and my vacation isn't very far away and I was feeling myself slipping.
I would forget to put it out to The Universe and to believe it.

But Hey! It will all work out because I'm focused again
and I'm SCREAMING it out to The Universe.
Things might take a while to come around but come around it will!

and then I read Tammy's latest post, about all those people losing everything in those horrible fires in Canada.

Whoa. What a reality check.
I'm so fortunate!
and I could hear my Dad's voice in my head.
His words he would always say to me when I would start to complain about anything.
Yep, I can hear my Dad telling me to "Quit your belly-aching!"

So I'm quitting my belly-aching.
I'm putting it out to The Universe.
I know everything will be fine and turn out as I dream.
But I just wanted to share all my Negatives
in case someone else is having a week that sucks.
There are Positives.
We just have to remember to look for them
and to THINK Positive
and count our BLESSINGS!
XOXOXOXOXO

MY BIG NEWS

OK, You might want to grab a beverage, and get comfortable because this is one of my longer post! LOL!
So, here is my BIG news.
Actually it's two things, but they are sort of tied together.
At least in my mind.
The first thing is, I am no longer going to feel like this:

I've been feeling like this for a very long long time.
Much too long and I'm finally going to do something about it.
No, I'm not quitting my job.
Well, not quite yet.
But I shall see what manifests and then be OPEN to it.
I'm talking about practicing the 
LAW of ATTRACTION.
If you aren't familiar with it, I found some definitions and clarifications by Remez Sasson
and you can find more HERE

1. This law is a manifestation of the creative power of the Universe.
2. It is through this law that everything is created: galaxies, planets, metals, rocks and even plants, animals and people.
3. Like attracts like.
4. Thoughts attract corresponding situations and circumstances.
5. You get what you think about.
6. You attract into your life whatever you focus on.
7. Positive thoughts attract positive events. Negative thoughts attract negative events.
8. If you entertain feelings and thoughts about hardships and obstacles, then this is what you get.
9. If you keep thinking and expecting success, and don't allow doubts enter your mind, you will eventually achieve success.
10. It is not enough just to wish for something, you need strong desire and faith to manifest what you want.
11. In order for your thoughts to manifest, you have to repeat them often, and add feelings, desire and interest.
12. The mind acts like a magnet.
13. Similar energy attracts similar energy.
14. Your thoughts determine the way you live.
15. This law is used by everyone, though mostly unconsciously.
16. Filling the mind with worries and anxieties brings stress and unhappiness.

17. Filling the mind with happy thoughts will attract happiness into your life. 

So, you might be asking what made me decide this and the answer is...
I'm tired of petty people sucking the joy out of my life and causing me stress and unhappiness. 

I had ANOTHER incident happen (I won't go into it here but) and I had to defend myself and straighten out what had actually transpired and... I'm done.
Done with the politics, cliques and general meanness.

Life is too short.

I'm focusing on what I want in my life and kicking the negativity behind me. I'm going to visualize myself into a better happier life!

Now, for the second part of BIG NEWS.

I've used visualization before but not a huge grand scale.
I've done it without actually even thinking about it.
I thought about my little Poppy when she was someone else's dog and boarded with me often. I was actually driving home and the thought of her popped in my head and I found myself thinking about her when my cell phone started to ring and I pulled over and it was the receptionist from work calling to tell me that Poppy's owners wanted to know if I would adopt her.
Another time I was at work and saying that I won't mind some day having a little dachshund, I was very specific. I said I wanted a smaller one, a female, a dapple and her temperament had to sweet and loving. Not even 10 minutes later, a woman walked into the clinic with a dog that was exactly as I described. The co-worker I had been talking to got wide eyed and then we were both shocked when the client told me I could have her if I wanted her.
So I guess I visualized them into my life.
A few posts back I was saying that I wish I had a energetic playmate, a poodle for my toy poodle Ping.
Pretty much all my other dogs are elderly and just don't want to play with her.
So when my friend who works at the Humane Society, asked me to paint her little dachshund (the painting I just posted a few days ago) I told her that I'd give her a discounted price if she'd keep her eyes open for a Toy Poodle with LOTS of energy and it had to be female. She laughed and said "Of Course!"
Now I want to point out that I am almost daily turning down dogs. 
You would not believe how many people offer to give me their dogs and I say No!
Recently I helped find homes for 2 Labs and now I'm trying to find a home for a Doberman.
(The Labs were victims of divorce and the Dobie, the owner is moving out of the country.)
Then the other day, four little tiny Shih-tzu mix puppies came in to be fixed from the Humane Society. One of the little females didn't have a home yet and one of the techs held her up to the window to me and I mouthed the words back to her
"She's not a Toy Poodle" and shook my head No.
I telling you this so that you know I don't drag home EVERYONE, although it might seem so.
Well, my friend text me again that she loved her painting and she had a little dog for me to meet but it wasn't a poodle. I told her I'd stop by on my way home but I highly doubted it because I wanted someone like Ping.
When I got there, she took me to a room and brought the dog in. I was told she was just over a year old and they thought she was maybe a  Shih-tzu mix?
After meeting her I think she's likely a Yorkie and maybe Affenpinscher mix.
The little dog walked in on a leash as my friend slipped it off and she just zoomed around the room! She was so happy! She jumped up and down and all around and when I called to her she flew into my lap. I couldn't help but laugh at her.
Apparently she had been fostered while she had her puppies!

Those puppies were HER babies.
Then she was adopted for 2 weeks, only to be returned because she had an ear infection and the people didn't want to deal with it.
So my friend had been caring for her at the shelter, treating her ears and she had just been given the OK to go to the Adoption Floor by their Doctor that very day.
My friend was in love with her and wanted her to go to the right home after all the little dog had been through in her short life.
The Director of the Shelter came in and laughed at me. She is a very good friend of mine too and she said
"I thought you wanted a Poodle!". I told her yes but most importantly I wanted high energy and a SWEET dog.
She knows me very well and she said she thought the little dog would be a perfect playmate for Ping. 
So here's the funny cosmic part. Or at least I believe it to be so.
Her name is Toodles! I told them that I had been thinking and saying POODLE but apparently the Universe heard Toodles!
Everyone laughed and I took her home last Thursday.
She walked in and greeted everyone right on the spot..
She was a bit of a mess from all the ear meds and being in the shelter.

She immediately started playing 

and then a miracle happened, she wore out Jimmy Chew.
When he gave up, she and Ping played

until I grabbed Toodles and gave her a good bath which she loved. Then I set her down and she was back to playing.

Every day since, all she does is play with Ping. they are even sleeping together.
The best of buddies.
Blue just watches her from his sofa and sometimes she will grab Nora's ball and RUN and Nora will chase her around to get it back and finally she will drop it and go back to Ping or Jimmy and play.
In fact as I type this, all three of them are tumbling and bouncy around the room.

It's amazing how this just clicked and worked.
I do plan on changing her name. I've tried out several.
I thought about ZIGZAG but she doesn't answer to it.
I've called her Tallulah but that's kind of a long name to say.
I tried calling her Tammy, because she's so sweet but she didn't come to that either.
I like the name Swoosie but I find it hard to say repeatedly.
Today I've been calling her Evie. So that might be her name.

So, maybe it's a stretch in some peoples mind but I clearly see this as a product of positive thinking and the power of visualizing the perfect dog to fit in the final puzzle piece of my fur family.
I think it was so easy because I believed it could be so in my heart.
Now, I must work on the rest of my life.
To remain positive, to have faith in knowing it WILL be so!
That HAPPINESS is in my power!
So, to me...that's BIG NEWS.

TORNADO, FIRE, a CAT and a DOG and STUFF.

I need to write a post......

I have so many things swirling in my head

and don't know where to start.

I've just been thinking about so many things.

About... life.

About how I spend my time.

About my level of Happiness.

How I have such a list of what I want to do

and NEED to do.

And I always feel guilty if I don't do all that I need to do.

Spring was arrived.

source

In little bursts of warmth

but the nights are still cold.

But soon I can start building my fence!

I'm not sure where to place it... but that's for a different post.

So anyway,

I had breakfast with a friend

The one that accomplishes so much in a day

and she shocked me when she said she was tired.

Tired of doing it all.

That she just wanted her life to be simplified.

How she wouldn't mind moving from her home to a smaller house or

possibly even a condo with no yard.

Her house is so pretty and her yard landscaped perfectly!

I was so surprised.

She said she was tired of spending so much time on it.

I told her how I too thought that I resented working out in the yard

because it took time away from all the other things I needed to be doing and creating.

But I said that I also found it incredibly calming.

Like meditation.

source

But even if I was working hard outside, I felt stressed that I should be doing something else.

She understood but said that she didn't enjoy it at all.

So I could see why she would want to move.

We got to talking about how we used to shake our heads at people who hired others

to do their cleaning and yard work and home improvements

and how we never understood why someone would spend money when they could do it themselves.

Both of us have always scraped together our pennies for everything but

suddenly we understood why others did it...

The other day a tornado touched down, not here

but not far from here either.

source

We have warnings every Spring but we are almost always lucky.

They kept showing photos of the destruction that the high winds had done locally.

There was a storage place where units were knocked over and blown about.

I couldn't help notice the one that was mostly just knocked off of its footings.

You could see the contents still inside.  

It was packed to the ceiling.

Not in some orderly boxed fashion but stuff just jammed in a huge pile.

I thought about how someone was paying for all that STUFF to just sit piled up in there.

Why?

And why do I have STUFF in my basement? Still!

Furniture, wood, things I'm going to USE someday.

Things I'm going to paint and improve and make BIG money on... someday.

And things in Rubbermaid containers that someone will want to buy... someday,

in a shop online that I have never opened

or in a garage sale that I would dread having.

I'm no better, not really.

I mean, OK I haven't rented space for my STUFF and it's more organized but....

Then they showed where the tornado had hit.

source

People devastated over their destroyed homes and lost belongings.

I can't even imagine how horrible and tragic that would be. 

My house means the world to me

and my home has so many things that have deep meaning to me.

Things my nieces have made me and a few cherished items from my past.

They talked to a man who said at least everyone got out alive in his family and how

that was the important thing

and he's right.

Two people in the town lost their lives and many were injured.

If a tornado were to ever hit my home, my animals would be my only concern

I would not be worried about anything else inside of it.

Then they talked to a woman who looked to be about my age.

She was saying how devastating it was and how thankful she was that no one had been hurt.

Then she hesitated and said that it was kinda "cleansing".

To be rid of everything.

I'm sure that many people would be very critical of her words, but I got what she was trying to say.

A while back I was watching "The Talk" and Marie Osmund was a guest.

Somehow they got onto the topic of having a lot of STUFF.

She said that when her parents had passed, she had put everything of theirs into a garage to save.

One day the garage caught fire and she lost everything they had left behind.

The ladies of The Talk started to offer her sympathy and she shook her head.

She stated that the fire had done something that she was unable to do herself 

and therefore it wasn't necessarily a bad thing...except for the photos.

The other day I was standing in my kitchen trying to FINALLY decide whether to paint my red china hutch white or black.

A long time ago my kitchen had a lot of red but not any longer.

I decided that black would probably be the right choice.

It would balance with the black shelf above the sink

and the black framed photos resting on it

and the dark clock above it.

I stood back and stared at the shelf and other things.

I was in deep thought about it.

My house is a 100 years old and the walls are plaster and lath.

When you drive a screw or nail into them, you can hear the plaster fall behind the wall.

The shelf has always be a precarious thing.

So I stood there and suddenly for no reason,

Ghost leaping onto the edge of the sink and knocked the shelf off the wall.

(Ghost on my red china hutch)

The little ceramic leaf that also sat on the shelf and held some jewelry fell and broke.

I gathered up everything quickly and turned and looked at the space.

Suddenly it seemed clear and clean and more spacious.

I looked over at the china hutch, maybe I could paint it white!

So... I don't need a a horrific event like a tornado, a fire or 

even my sweet cat to change things in my life.

Maybe I need to stop looking at everything in my life as what it COULD be

and just BE.

And stop focusing on the money I spent in the hopes of bringing in more.

Or creating/ painting with an eye always on how to make some cash.

I know that the Law of Attraction is that if you focus on something it will happen.

If you think it, it will be so.

They say if you keep thinking "I won't be late, I won't be late"

The Universe will just focus on the "being late" part, and you will be late.

If you instead think, I will be on time, then you will be on time.

It's the focus on the good positive and not the negative.

Which I think is the answer whether you believe in The Universe and Law of Attraction or not.

Sigh, I don't know.

I'm just thinking out loud or rather blogging out loud.
I've talked about this STUFF so many times
and I'll probably change my mind again tomorrow.
I frustrate myself.

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks,

but we all know that's not true.

It's just finding the energy to do it all.

(Blue is exhausted too.)