Thursday, December 31, 2009
Old El Paso goodies
The nice people at MyBlogSpark and Old El Paso have sent me a "Tackle the Taste" gift pack that includes two free cans of Green Chiles, a football-shaped ceramic serving platter, two sets of football-themed plates, football-themed cocktail napkins, and a table runner that looks like a football field; VERY cute stuff, and sure to be a big hit on Superbowl Sunday... except for the chiles, which have of course already been consumed. They're especially good with eggs, for some reason; I don't eat eggs without chiles anymore.
They're letting me give away a gift pack, so if you want it send me your best recipe with chiles; the winner gets the goods!!
In the meantime, if you go here
http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?tqnm=ql5oery70328375&bt=xs&o=60559&ci=1&c=GM&p=TFWYe75d
you can print out a coupon to save $0.55 on one can of Old El Paso Green Chiles.
They're letting me give away a gift pack, so if you want it send me your best recipe with chiles; the winner gets the goods!!
In the meantime, if you go here
http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?tqnm=ql5oery70328375&bt=xs&o=60559&ci=1&c=GM&p=TFWYe75d
you can print out a coupon to save $0.55 on one can of Old El Paso Green Chiles.
Friday, December 25, 2009
The new spiritual blog has been created
As described in my post of 12/10/09, I either had a psychotic incident, or God asked me to start a spiritual blog. I promised Him I'd do it around Christmas, thinking only of the day off and not of the significance of the date (the jury is still totally out on the Jesus issue as far as I'm concerned-HE hasn't spoken to me yet).
The blog is done.
The blog is done.
Edit: and has been deleted because I stupidly gave the one person I'd told about it a good keyword and she found it.
One other bit of news: I mentioned in my post of 11/25/09 that there's a famous man I met last year, and made a little bit of a connection with, that I'll be seeing again early next year because I've found out where he'll be on that day. He's very good about taking time to talk to people after he's done whatever work he's doing at a given place, so I'm confident of that much, but naturally have been hoping to make a little more progress with him. Well, I just found out that a band that he's been a big fan of for literally over 20 years is going to be playing in a little club right near where he's going to be on that day... and because they're only playing a few dates, and he's got a set-in-stone schedule during that time period, this would be the ONLY date he could see them on this tour. Is it just me, or do you hear the massive clank of the karmic gears turning? Or, alternatively, see the hand of God at work? If this is a coincidence, it's one so gigantic that you couldn't put it in a book or a movie, because it'd be too ridiculous to believe... but it's REAL. Can I do it? Can I really get Famous Guy to go with my husband and I to see this band? Is this a crushing disappointment in the making or am I being given an astonishing chance to spend a little exciting social time with what I consider to be one of the world's most interesting men?
Do you share my amazement that such an "obvious" spiritually-related URL was available? "O Come All Ye Faithful" started playing as I was trying to come up with a URL, and the phrase "xxxxxx" has always been a powerful one for me, as those feelings typically elude me... this just doesn't feel like a coincidence.
Also not a coincidence was the blog skin I found; I'd planned to have the spiritual blog be karma colored and with some sort of imagery that suggested spirituality, and when I did a Google search for a skin, the first site in the results had the EXACT thing I was looking for right on the first page... even in a tiny thumbnail I could tell instantly that that was the one.
When things fall eerily into place like that, it's typically a sign of being on the right path; this makes a pretty good karmic case for my belief that it WAS God that dropped the words "spiritual blog" into my head, as opposed to it being some random psychotic thing.
The blog itself is pretty simple, and will stay that way; I don't have time to learn how to customize the funky template, just getting a few basics in there was ridiculously time-consuming... I literally used up ALL the precious spare time Christmas had afforded me with this project. Still, I feel reasonably confident that this was, and I can't believe I'm saying this, in accordance with God's will, and thus that further insights will be forthcoming... why would He want me to go through all that trouble just to take up more space on Blogger's servers?
Also not a coincidence was the blog skin I found; I'd planned to have the spiritual blog be karma colored and with some sort of imagery that suggested spirituality, and when I did a Google search for a skin, the first site in the results had the EXACT thing I was looking for right on the first page... even in a tiny thumbnail I could tell instantly that that was the one.
When things fall eerily into place like that, it's typically a sign of being on the right path; this makes a pretty good karmic case for my belief that it WAS God that dropped the words "spiritual blog" into my head, as opposed to it being some random psychotic thing.
The blog itself is pretty simple, and will stay that way; I don't have time to learn how to customize the funky template, just getting a few basics in there was ridiculously time-consuming... I literally used up ALL the precious spare time Christmas had afforded me with this project. Still, I feel reasonably confident that this was, and I can't believe I'm saying this, in accordance with God's will, and thus that further insights will be forthcoming... why would He want me to go through all that trouble just to take up more space on Blogger's servers?
(Edit 12-26-09: My limited html skills ended up being tested anyways; during my 5 hours of sack time, the bandwidth of the creator of the template ran out, and suddenly the new blog was awash in "bandwidth exceeded" notices. I KNEW when I saw in their commentary that prospective users didn't need to "worry" about hosting the images because they were already hosted that this would be a problem eventually... although I didn't expect it to be IMMEDIATELY!! Luckily, I'm anal enough that I tried to download the Karma Forest image last night, and, when it became clear that this was blocked, screen capped it; if I hadn't done that, I would've been out of luck until January 1 when the Photobucket account the template was using would presumably have unlocked.
Sadly, the outlining around the posting area was ALSO generated from Photobucket images... and the Twisted Sister video for "O Come All Ye Faithful" just came on, ok, ok, I'll round up the griping that's detracting from the purpose of the spiritual blog, lol. Suffice it to say that an hours-long comedy of errors ensued as I tried to delete the outline code, tried (unsuccessfully) to get Blogger to accept reinsertion of same when its removal de-formatted the entire blog, reloaded the template, reloaded all my *&^%$#@! widgets, created a tiny chunk of white as a jpg, inserted it in the outline code, and was finally finished... both with the blog layout and all my free time for the day.)
One other bit of news: I mentioned in my post of 11/25/09 that there's a famous man I met last year, and made a little bit of a connection with, that I'll be seeing again early next year because I've found out where he'll be on that day. He's very good about taking time to talk to people after he's done whatever work he's doing at a given place, so I'm confident of that much, but naturally have been hoping to make a little more progress with him. Well, I just found out that a band that he's been a big fan of for literally over 20 years is going to be playing in a little club right near where he's going to be on that day... and because they're only playing a few dates, and he's got a set-in-stone schedule during that time period, this would be the ONLY date he could see them on this tour. Is it just me, or do you hear the massive clank of the karmic gears turning? Or, alternatively, see the hand of God at work? If this is a coincidence, it's one so gigantic that you couldn't put it in a book or a movie, because it'd be too ridiculous to believe... but it's REAL. Can I do it? Can I really get Famous Guy to go with my husband and I to see this band? Is this a crushing disappointment in the making or am I being given an astonishing chance to spend a little exciting social time with what I consider to be one of the world's most interesting men?
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
General Mills is reducing the sugar in kids' cereals
The fine folks at MyBlogSpark and General Mills sent me the following info:
"We're excited to share some great news for cereal lovers. This week General Mills announced a commitment to further reduce sugar in cereals advertised to kids under 12 to single digit grams of sugar per serving. The company has already been reducing sugar in cereals while increasing key nutrients, such as calcium and vitamin D, and providing whole grain.
Did you know that ready-to-eat cereal eaters consume less fat, less cholesterol and more fiber than non-cereal eaters? Cereals also deliver important vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients, making cereal a top source of key nutrients in children's diets.
Other cereal benefits:
Ready-to-eat cereals, including presweetened cereals, account for only 5% of sugar in children's diets.
Ready-to-eat cereal is the No. 1 source of whole grains in a child's diet today.
More frequent cereal eaters tend to have healthier body weights and lower Body Mass Index measures.
Studies also demonstrate the benefits of eating breakfast. A 1998 study showed that children who eat breakfast tend to perform better at school. Compared to children who skip breakfast, children who eat breakfast score higher on tests, are less likely to miss class or be tardy, have fewer reported discipline problems, and make fewer trips to the office.
For more information about kids and cereals, please visit Cereal Health and Wellness.
http://www.generalmills.com/corporate/health_wellness/cereal_health.aspx
Right now if you visit here you will find a $1 off coupon for one of four General Mills cereals
http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?tqnm=qljheit24889505&bt=wi&o=60627&ci=1&c=GM&p=NY8LmWB2
"
They also sent me 4 coupons for free cereal; yours truly will be eating a TON of Cinnamon Toast Crunch in 2010. Less sugar means less of a spike and crash, so it works for me; less sugar for the kiddies is always a plus, too, although if YOUR kids are getting most of their whole grains from cereal you need to work on their diets. If you start out the day with a decent breakfast, you're less likely to grab donuts at mid-morning... and isn't one of your New Year's resolutions going to be to eat less junk food? :-)
"We're excited to share some great news for cereal lovers. This week General Mills announced a commitment to further reduce sugar in cereals advertised to kids under 12 to single digit grams of sugar per serving. The company has already been reducing sugar in cereals while increasing key nutrients, such as calcium and vitamin D, and providing whole grain.
Did you know that ready-to-eat cereal eaters consume less fat, less cholesterol and more fiber than non-cereal eaters? Cereals also deliver important vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients, making cereal a top source of key nutrients in children's diets.
Other cereal benefits:
Ready-to-eat cereals, including presweetened cereals, account for only 5% of sugar in children's diets.
Ready-to-eat cereal is the No. 1 source of whole grains in a child's diet today.
More frequent cereal eaters tend to have healthier body weights and lower Body Mass Index measures.
Studies also demonstrate the benefits of eating breakfast. A 1998 study showed that children who eat breakfast tend to perform better at school. Compared to children who skip breakfast, children who eat breakfast score higher on tests, are less likely to miss class or be tardy, have fewer reported discipline problems, and make fewer trips to the office.
For more information about kids and cereals, please visit Cereal Health and Wellness.
http://www.generalmills.com/corporate/health_wellness/cereal_health.aspx
Right now if you visit here you will find a $1 off coupon for one of four General Mills cereals
http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?tqnm=qljheit24889505&bt=wi&o=60627&ci=1&c=GM&p=NY8LmWB2
"
They also sent me 4 coupons for free cereal; yours truly will be eating a TON of Cinnamon Toast Crunch in 2010. Less sugar means less of a spike and crash, so it works for me; less sugar for the kiddies is always a plus, too, although if YOUR kids are getting most of their whole grains from cereal you need to work on their diets. If you start out the day with a decent breakfast, you're less likely to grab donuts at mid-morning... and isn't one of your New Year's resolutions going to be to eat less junk food? :-)
Saturday, December 19, 2009
And the winner is...
Deborah C!! She'll be getting the Progresso High Fiber Minestrone gift pack courtesy of Progresso and MyBlogSpark.
Stay tuned; there'll be a new giveaway in a few weeks.
Stay tuned; there'll be a new giveaway in a few weeks.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Win the new Progresso High Fiber Minestrone
The fine folks at Progresso and MyBlogSpark sent me the following news:
"We think you will be excited to hear that in addition to the 75 great flavors of Progresso Soup, there are four new, great tasting Progresso soups that have 28% of your daily fiber intake per serving (7 grams) and have no added MSG or artificial flavors. The new varieties include Chicken Tuscany, Creamy Tomato Basil, Hearty Vegetable and Noodles and Homestyle Minestrone."
I WAS kind of excited, because I make a real effort to consume enough fiber, and we consume a ton of Progresso already. They sent me a can of the Homestyle Minestrone to try, as part of a prize pack that included two branded soup mugs and two branded spoons. We tried the soup, and both agreed that it was very tasty, with nothing to indicate that the fiber was in there; it seemed just like regular soup. You know you should eat more fiber, so give this a try... it's also a painless way to eat more veggies, which is always a +.
If you'd like to try it for free, Progresso and MyBlogSpark are letting me give away a prize pack like the one they sent me; tell me me why you love Minestrone, and the most creative entry gets the goodies. I'll post the winner in a couple of days.
"We think you will be excited to hear that in addition to the 75 great flavors of Progresso Soup, there are four new, great tasting Progresso soups that have 28% of your daily fiber intake per serving (7 grams) and have no added MSG or artificial flavors. The new varieties include Chicken Tuscany, Creamy Tomato Basil, Hearty Vegetable and Noodles and Homestyle Minestrone."
I WAS kind of excited, because I make a real effort to consume enough fiber, and we consume a ton of Progresso already. They sent me a can of the Homestyle Minestrone to try, as part of a prize pack that included two branded soup mugs and two branded spoons. We tried the soup, and both agreed that it was very tasty, with nothing to indicate that the fiber was in there; it seemed just like regular soup. You know you should eat more fiber, so give this a try... it's also a painless way to eat more veggies, which is always a +.
If you'd like to try it for free, Progresso and MyBlogSpark are letting me give away a prize pack like the one they sent me; tell me me why you love Minestrone, and the most creative entry gets the goodies. I'll post the winner in a couple of days.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Yes, there's more
You know what your subconscious mind does, right? It controls literally thousands of different things all over your body, from your heartbeat to your hormones, in addition to handling your memories and dreams, processing the raw data from your senses into a form your conscious mind can handle, and on and on. It's like an incredibly complex machine, running according to consistent rules and requiring no direct input from the conscious mind. Keep that in mind, you'll need it later.
I had a dream last night that I received an email from the perpetrators of The Bad Thing. The unusual name of the one person involved who tried to be a little bit helpful was in the subject line along with a key word for this issue. The From field contained the last name of a friend of my mother's, and I instantly associated the name with that woman; she is remarkable in that she's the only person outside of my family who EVER managed to thwart my mother when she was trying to screw me over. Is this a sign that the latest person I've contacted about TBT will do the same with the person in their office who seems to have taken a similar personal glee in using their little bit of power to screw me over... or is it just something my brain cooked up as wishful thinking? Only time will tell.
On the Divine front: I asked again today for the joy I should be feeling, that a normal person would be feeling, when suddenly confronted with God, and I got it; although physically and mentally exhausted, I got that joyful exhilaration again, so much so that I actually laughed out loud... the feeling was so amazing that quite frankly if this IS insanity rather than divine intervention I can totally see now why people sink into madness. (Just fyi, no mania, no rapid-fire talking, no frenzied activity, no urges to do impulsive things, have accompanied these feelings of joy; I haven't suddenly become bipolar, and I haven't felt or acted "high.")
I'd asked God over the last couple of days if Jesus was real too, and if so were they part of the same being, separate, did they "work together," etc. Today, my husband, who knows NOTHING about all this, was going to pick up a calendar for me...:
Him: I'll get you one with Jesus or NASCAR on it.
Me: WHAT? Why would you say that?
Him: You normally get puppies or kittens, so I was suggesting something you wouldn't want.
Me: Why would you think of JESUS? {NASCAR makes sense because I laugh at him for watching it}
Him: I don't know. He'll watch you.
Me: WHAT?
Him: In the shower
Me: !!!!!!!!!! Are you remembering my dream about God being in the shower? {which I recently posted about}
Him: Huh? No.
Eerie, but not conclusive. A couple of hours later, I was in fact in the shower, talking out loud to God. I told him I wanted to know Him, know His nature. I asked him what His connection was to karma, "Are YOU karma? Did you create it?". I paused to put my head under the shower head, and
(karma is God's unconscious mind)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S IT!! It makes perfect sense!! Karma behaves exactly like our unconscious minds do!! And God is supposed to have made us in His image!! That doesn't mean the old man in a bathrobe type image, there's no humanoid body somewhere that contains God's essence, it means that among other things he gave us a double-layered mind like He has!! The feeling of joy came back even stronger than before, and some of the sense of wonder I'd asked for came as well. It was so powerful that I was literally gasping for breath.
Was this a further escalation of insanity, or did God send me an answer and also the ability to FEEL, to feel what a normal person would if they had this sort of experience?
The joy and exhilaration didn't fade, they kept going on; it was far beyond anything I've ever experienced. I admitted out loud that it was a little overwhelming, felt a little odd, almost uncomfortable in its foreignness, but I begged Him to not take it away, because I gladly accepted a little discomfort to be able to FEEL. I couldn't help analyzing the feeling, because my nature hasn't changed, and I noticed that, while such happiness and excitement as I'm capable of always feels somewhat like anxiety, with a jittery edge to it, this feeling of joy was PURE, jitter- and anxiety-free.
Have I REALLY learned a part of the nature of God, over-simplified of course and distorted by the need to use human words and ideas for something superhuman and beyond human ability to understand more than a little bit of, but... HAVE I?
Do I sound crazy? I'll reiterate that no one in my life has noticed anything amiss with me. I'm still doing my work and the other myriad tasks of life with nothing to suggest an impaired mind. I self-examine constantly, searching for anything OTHER than the spiritual stuff that looks even remotely out of whack, and can't find anything. I'm not on meds of any kind, and I don't so much as drink a glass of wine with dinner much less consume anything hallucinatory. This is either a very focused, selective and intense psychosis... or it's HAPPENING.
I had a dream last night that I received an email from the perpetrators of The Bad Thing. The unusual name of the one person involved who tried to be a little bit helpful was in the subject line along with a key word for this issue. The From field contained the last name of a friend of my mother's, and I instantly associated the name with that woman; she is remarkable in that she's the only person outside of my family who EVER managed to thwart my mother when she was trying to screw me over. Is this a sign that the latest person I've contacted about TBT will do the same with the person in their office who seems to have taken a similar personal glee in using their little bit of power to screw me over... or is it just something my brain cooked up as wishful thinking? Only time will tell.
On the Divine front: I asked again today for the joy I should be feeling, that a normal person would be feeling, when suddenly confronted with God, and I got it; although physically and mentally exhausted, I got that joyful exhilaration again, so much so that I actually laughed out loud... the feeling was so amazing that quite frankly if this IS insanity rather than divine intervention I can totally see now why people sink into madness. (Just fyi, no mania, no rapid-fire talking, no frenzied activity, no urges to do impulsive things, have accompanied these feelings of joy; I haven't suddenly become bipolar, and I haven't felt or acted "high.")
I'd asked God over the last couple of days if Jesus was real too, and if so were they part of the same being, separate, did they "work together," etc. Today, my husband, who knows NOTHING about all this, was going to pick up a calendar for me...:
Him: I'll get you one with Jesus or NASCAR on it.
Me: WHAT? Why would you say that?
Him: You normally get puppies or kittens, so I was suggesting something you wouldn't want.
Me: Why would you think of JESUS? {NASCAR makes sense because I laugh at him for watching it}
Him: I don't know. He'll watch you.
Me: WHAT?
Him: In the shower
Me: !!!!!!!!!! Are you remembering my dream about God being in the shower? {which I recently posted about}
Him: Huh? No.
Eerie, but not conclusive. A couple of hours later, I was in fact in the shower, talking out loud to God. I told him I wanted to know Him, know His nature. I asked him what His connection was to karma, "Are YOU karma? Did you create it?". I paused to put my head under the shower head, and
(karma is God's unconscious mind)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S IT!! It makes perfect sense!! Karma behaves exactly like our unconscious minds do!! And God is supposed to have made us in His image!! That doesn't mean the old man in a bathrobe type image, there's no humanoid body somewhere that contains God's essence, it means that among other things he gave us a double-layered mind like He has!! The feeling of joy came back even stronger than before, and some of the sense of wonder I'd asked for came as well. It was so powerful that I was literally gasping for breath.
Was this a further escalation of insanity, or did God send me an answer and also the ability to FEEL, to feel what a normal person would if they had this sort of experience?
The joy and exhilaration didn't fade, they kept going on; it was far beyond anything I've ever experienced. I admitted out loud that it was a little overwhelming, felt a little odd, almost uncomfortable in its foreignness, but I begged Him to not take it away, because I gladly accepted a little discomfort to be able to FEEL. I couldn't help analyzing the feeling, because my nature hasn't changed, and I noticed that, while such happiness and excitement as I'm capable of always feels somewhat like anxiety, with a jittery edge to it, this feeling of joy was PURE, jitter- and anxiety-free.
Have I REALLY learned a part of the nature of God, over-simplified of course and distorted by the need to use human words and ideas for something superhuman and beyond human ability to understand more than a little bit of, but... HAVE I?
Do I sound crazy? I'll reiterate that no one in my life has noticed anything amiss with me. I'm still doing my work and the other myriad tasks of life with nothing to suggest an impaired mind. I self-examine constantly, searching for anything OTHER than the spiritual stuff that looks even remotely out of whack, and can't find anything. I'm not on meds of any kind, and I don't so much as drink a glass of wine with dinner much less consume anything hallucinatory. This is either a very focused, selective and intense psychosis... or it's HAPPENING.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
A message, and more help, from God
Oh yes, there's more. After yesterday's events, when I went to bed last night I talked to God about it all, reiterating my gratitude, my need for help with The Bad Thing, and, finally, my absolute willingness to do whatever He wants of me in return. I assumed I was done, and was turning my weary mind towards sleep, when
(spiritual blog)
there it was, just those 2 quiet words out of the blue and into my head. I've never considered such a thing, or any other secondary blog, so it sure doesn't feel like something my mind made up. Does that constitute proof that this WASN'T some random nonsense from my own brain? No. Combined with all this other stuff, though, the pattern is unmistakable. I gave my word to Him to create that blog and put in it whatever He sends my way... probably later in the month when business is slowest and I've had time to catch my breath and open myself fully to Divine messages. I'll keep you posted. WHY would God want me to make this new blog? I have no idea, unless there's someone out there who needs to read whatever will be posted there, or maybe even several someones, or... it doesn't matter, I'll do it, and then see what happens.
And there's even more: In my rambling discourse to God after my too-few hours of sleep, I asked for help again to be calm this day, and also for the ability to feel some of the joy I should be feeling under the current circumstances. He DID keep me surprisingly calm, not perfectly so throughout a long and stressful day but darned close... and when I noticed an anxious edge forming I'd ask to be calm and it would ebb away again. After I'd been up a few hours, I noticed something odd; a new emotional state was upon me. I'm so emotionally retarded that I literally have to analyze what my emotional state must be, because even positive emotions like excitement feel very much like agitation or even anxiety; I felt energized, I felt upbeat, I felt... cheerful... HAPPY, and you have no idea how RARE that is for me, and trust me that there was nothing in particular to be happy ABOUT today, it's not like something great happened and it MADE me happy, I wasn't even thinking about receiving help from God and getting a belated reaction to that when the happiness came, I was just working away and a high level of happiness stole over me apropos of nothing... and this buoyant happiness is the Omni version of joy, the closest I've ever gotten to it. Amazing!!
Again, could I have some psychosis that's turning off my anxiety at will and creating joy out of nothing? A psychosis that doesn't prevent me from working with my usual efficiency, and hasn't made any changes in my behavior that anyone has noticed? That'd be an awfully intense, but very selective, psychosis... and I ain't buyin' it.
I can't wait to see what's next...
(spiritual blog)
there it was, just those 2 quiet words out of the blue and into my head. I've never considered such a thing, or any other secondary blog, so it sure doesn't feel like something my mind made up. Does that constitute proof that this WASN'T some random nonsense from my own brain? No. Combined with all this other stuff, though, the pattern is unmistakable. I gave my word to Him to create that blog and put in it whatever He sends my way... probably later in the month when business is slowest and I've had time to catch my breath and open myself fully to Divine messages. I'll keep you posted. WHY would God want me to make this new blog? I have no idea, unless there's someone out there who needs to read whatever will be posted there, or maybe even several someones, or... it doesn't matter, I'll do it, and then see what happens.
And there's even more: In my rambling discourse to God after my too-few hours of sleep, I asked for help again to be calm this day, and also for the ability to feel some of the joy I should be feeling under the current circumstances. He DID keep me surprisingly calm, not perfectly so throughout a long and stressful day but darned close... and when I noticed an anxious edge forming I'd ask to be calm and it would ebb away again. After I'd been up a few hours, I noticed something odd; a new emotional state was upon me. I'm so emotionally retarded that I literally have to analyze what my emotional state must be, because even positive emotions like excitement feel very much like agitation or even anxiety; I felt energized, I felt upbeat, I felt... cheerful... HAPPY, and you have no idea how RARE that is for me, and trust me that there was nothing in particular to be happy ABOUT today, it's not like something great happened and it MADE me happy, I wasn't even thinking about receiving help from God and getting a belated reaction to that when the happiness came, I was just working away and a high level of happiness stole over me apropos of nothing... and this buoyant happiness is the Omni version of joy, the closest I've ever gotten to it. Amazing!!
Again, could I have some psychosis that's turning off my anxiety at will and creating joy out of nothing? A psychosis that doesn't prevent me from working with my usual efficiency, and hasn't made any changes in my behavior that anyone has noticed? That'd be an awfully intense, but very selective, psychosis... and I ain't buyin' it.
I can't wait to see what's next...
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
More evidence of God... or insanity
Yesterday, I was reading, and I got... an awareness that I might be being watched. NOT a feeling of BEING watched, just that awareness. I've never had that sort of awareness before... and there's only one choice as to who might be watching me.
Today, I was in the car with my husband, and saw an "In God We Trust" bumper sticker. It occurred to me to wonder; since trust is based on the belief that someone will always do the right thing, and no one's life is so charmed that everything that happens to them is "right" by whatever their definition of that is, meaning that God isn't always doing the right thing and therefore shouldn't actually BE trusted... and I felt the words catch in my throat. I went ahead and blurted it all out anyways, along with some other ideas concerning what exactly God is even "able" to intervene in given things like free will and how Mother Nature seems to have been set in motion and left to run blindly, smiting the good and the evil equally, and that maybe what we're supposed to trust Him for is the strength, courage and insight to do what's best for us. I said it because, assuming that there IS a God and He IS paying special attention to me currently, there's no reason to think He wants me to suddenly eliminate a basic aspect of my personality and stop analyzing how He might operate. In other words, I don't think God tried to keep me from analyzing, but that some under-layer of my brain that... suspects that I AM being monitored... and is still primed after all these years to signal me to potential trouble with an authority was trying to protest the questioning thereof.
Could those things merely be symptoms of my mind becoming unhinged? Absolutely; I've never for a moment lost sight of that. Still, these are totally new experiences, and the more that happen to me the less likely it seems that I've just gone quietly crazy, because if I was having this much psychosis wouldn't someone have noticed something WRONG with me by now?
Here's the big one: I had a high level of anxiety today, due to a higher than usual level of extreme busyness, a trip to the dentist, and The Bad Thing, which had had an additional bump in the road. I wasn't even able to eat a real dinner, I just had soup. Finally, I said out loud, "Please make me calm." And the anxiety immediately started damping down, reaching a level low enough that I WAS calm, and have remained so in the hours since then.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nothing remotely like that has EVER happened in my long history of anxiety. Is it possible that my mind created this miraculous assistance as part of a psychosis? I honestly don't know. I've never heard of anything like that happening, but that doesn't mean it couldn't. But... to ask for help and to get it instantly like that... even withOUT all the other stuff, that's awfully powerful evidence in my mind of divine intervention.
I'd been having a new thought recently, that, contrary to what I've always believed, maybe there's something that's sentient to some degree and with some amount of power to affect events that's part of karma, and maybe that could account for what I've been experiencing, that I've somehow become tied more tightly to it and thus been able to get more powerful effects... but that idea, although intriguing, could obviously no longer explain all that I've experienced.
At this point I'm either literally crazy, losing touch with reality so completely that I'm imagining that my anxiety can and did vanish with a wish, or, for some reason beyond my understanding, God is making major attempts to help me... towards what end I can't imagine.
Today, I was in the car with my husband, and saw an "In God We Trust" bumper sticker. It occurred to me to wonder; since trust is based on the belief that someone will always do the right thing, and no one's life is so charmed that everything that happens to them is "right" by whatever their definition of that is, meaning that God isn't always doing the right thing and therefore shouldn't actually BE trusted... and I felt the words catch in my throat. I went ahead and blurted it all out anyways, along with some other ideas concerning what exactly God is even "able" to intervene in given things like free will and how Mother Nature seems to have been set in motion and left to run blindly, smiting the good and the evil equally, and that maybe what we're supposed to trust Him for is the strength, courage and insight to do what's best for us. I said it because, assuming that there IS a God and He IS paying special attention to me currently, there's no reason to think He wants me to suddenly eliminate a basic aspect of my personality and stop analyzing how He might operate. In other words, I don't think God tried to keep me from analyzing, but that some under-layer of my brain that... suspects that I AM being monitored... and is still primed after all these years to signal me to potential trouble with an authority was trying to protest the questioning thereof.
Could those things merely be symptoms of my mind becoming unhinged? Absolutely; I've never for a moment lost sight of that. Still, these are totally new experiences, and the more that happen to me the less likely it seems that I've just gone quietly crazy, because if I was having this much psychosis wouldn't someone have noticed something WRONG with me by now?
Here's the big one: I had a high level of anxiety today, due to a higher than usual level of extreme busyness, a trip to the dentist, and The Bad Thing, which had had an additional bump in the road. I wasn't even able to eat a real dinner, I just had soup. Finally, I said out loud, "Please make me calm." And the anxiety immediately started damping down, reaching a level low enough that I WAS calm, and have remained so in the hours since then.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nothing remotely like that has EVER happened in my long history of anxiety. Is it possible that my mind created this miraculous assistance as part of a psychosis? I honestly don't know. I've never heard of anything like that happening, but that doesn't mean it couldn't. But... to ask for help and to get it instantly like that... even withOUT all the other stuff, that's awfully powerful evidence in my mind of divine intervention.
I'd been having a new thought recently, that, contrary to what I've always believed, maybe there's something that's sentient to some degree and with some amount of power to affect events that's part of karma, and maybe that could account for what I've been experiencing, that I've somehow become tied more tightly to it and thus been able to get more powerful effects... but that idea, although intriguing, could obviously no longer explain all that I've experienced.
At this point I'm either literally crazy, losing touch with reality so completely that I'm imagining that my anxiety can and did vanish with a wish, or, for some reason beyond my understanding, God is making major attempts to help me... towards what end I can't imagine.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Another hair-raising "coincidence"
Before I forget: I wrote a post yesterday and saved it as a draft. It'll make sense why I've done this when I post it, but I don't know when that will be yet. Soon, though, I think.
Today's "coincidence": I saw a StumbleUpon URL in my referral log today:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/refer.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fomniverse.blogspot.com%2F2006_09_01_archive.html
I don't get much traffic from them, but some reader(s) added a handful of my archive pages on there years ago and I get the occasional hit. The odd thing today was that the page it led to
http://omniverse.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html
is NOT one of those old familiar ones, which means that either someone added a new one, for a 3 year old page, after all this time, or that this is the first time anyone used one that was posted long ago... pretty odd either way. The message on the StumbleUpon page is:
"Your page is on StumbleUpon
One of our members added your page to the Anarchism topic on StumbleUpon.
Each time our members who are interested in Anarchism "stumble upon" your page using our toolbar, it will record an entry on your referral logs."
Anarchism is NOT one of my topics, in fact that word has NEVER been used on my blog, not even in its root form "anarchy" (I checked), so I wanted to see what had inspired the URL-adder to choose that term... and for the record, I think it's a HUGE stretch to connect it to anything on that page, but maybe it was the best of bad choices amongst topic categories. Anyways, so I'm scanning through the posts on that page, one of which is:
"Wednesday, September 20, 2006
God was in the shower"
Under other circumstances I'd have skipped past it as not being a possible source of the "Anarchism" label, but with the possibility of religious conversion hanging in the air I read it... including the part AFTER the discussion of the dream described in the title:
"My aforementioned religious friend tells me that I'm special to God, in that He has endowed me with the ability to figure out how He's set things up (aka karma, which she sees as having been created by God as a tool to carry out His will), and that He's attempting to guide me via my spiritual quest to the point where I can perceive and embrace Him; because of the free will deal, He can't "force himself on me" to make me believe (does that tie into Him being naked and alone with me in the dream with no hint of sex in the air? hmmmmmmmmmmm), but if I can analyze my way into believing in Him then He'll have won a great victory... yeah, it sounds ridiculous to ME, too, but she's one of those folks who claims to have a close personal relationship with God, and I accept that she's got a grip on SOMETHING powerful after all the years I've observed her, although there's no evidence that it's a deity rather than an instinctive ability to manipulate the forces of karma... Anyways, she and my other Christian friends assure me that these "religious" dreams, which most BELIEVERS don't even have much less "heathens," are indicative of either God trying to persuade me or my subconscious mind signaling me about the truth that I know deep down; naturally, I resist these ideas, but have no logical explanation for why I periodically dream about a deity I don't believe in and generally don't give much thought to.
What's the change God was going to make to the universe? What kind of change could possibly affect everyone EXCEPT me? I can't think of anything... BUT, my PERCEPTION could change radically and cause me to SEE everything in a different way-is this another "spiritual makeover" symbol?
And, ending up in the museum gift shop... where you go AFTER you went through the museum and saw and learned stuff... ANOTHER symbol of some sort of spiritual breakthrough?
Ok, sure, great... so where's my big epiphany? Or even a small one? Well, I guess if I discovered that there really is a God it'd have to be a BIG epiphany... and it'd mess me up some, but at least I'd KNOW, and it'd save me a great deal of time and effort. If He's out there, can't He give me a better sign than these weird dreams?"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have 47 Archive pages (it'll be 48 once this gets posted), so that makes the chance that a random StumbleUpon URL, assuming that there might be one for any page, would be to the page with the post that's quoted above, is... about 2%. And the chance that said URL would be a first-timer after all these years, AND occur right in the middle of what might be that "spiritual makeover" in progress, is... what? One in a thousand? One in a million? Even if I believed in coincidences, which I DON'T, this would rock me back on my heels...
ANARCHISM!! I can't believe I'm just now seeing it!! That word is a MAJOR tie-in with... the subject of many of the other huge "coincidences" I've had in recent history, which is where I started getting the feeling of being "helped," and in fact there was a BIG, direct connection with that word in my life YESTERDAY, how fuzzy-headed have I gotten that the word didn't EXPLODE off the screen the moment I saw it?!! If God IS watching me, He's probably slapped His forehead (metaphorically speaking) and groaned loudly several times as He waited for the rusty gears in my weary brain to turn until I made the VERY OBVIOUS connection. How can I possibly make any spiritual progress, with God or in general, if I'm going to be this DENSE? How many other connections have I missed? AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!
Ok, ok, it doesn't matter, if God is involved He'll send as many messages as necessary to achieve His goal of... whatever it is, as He'll know He needs to send more if... that's assuming that paying attention and understanding the messages isn't part of being WORTHY of receiving... {sigh}
The "coincidences" are getting thick on the ground. I wish that I wasn't so stressed and exhausted that I'm not feeling the sense of wonder that I undoubtedly SHOULD be feeling at this point...
Today's "coincidence": I saw a StumbleUpon URL in my referral log today:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/refer.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fomniverse.blogspot.com%2F2006_09_01_archive.html
I don't get much traffic from them, but some reader(s) added a handful of my archive pages on there years ago and I get the occasional hit. The odd thing today was that the page it led to
http://omniverse.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html
is NOT one of those old familiar ones, which means that either someone added a new one, for a 3 year old page, after all this time, or that this is the first time anyone used one that was posted long ago... pretty odd either way. The message on the StumbleUpon page is:
"Your page is on StumbleUpon
One of our members added your page to the Anarchism topic on StumbleUpon.
Each time our members who are interested in Anarchism "stumble upon" your page using our toolbar, it will record an entry on your referral logs."
Anarchism is NOT one of my topics, in fact that word has NEVER been used on my blog, not even in its root form "anarchy" (I checked), so I wanted to see what had inspired the URL-adder to choose that term... and for the record, I think it's a HUGE stretch to connect it to anything on that page, but maybe it was the best of bad choices amongst topic categories. Anyways, so I'm scanning through the posts on that page, one of which is:
"Wednesday, September 20, 2006
God was in the shower"
Under other circumstances I'd have skipped past it as not being a possible source of the "Anarchism" label, but with the possibility of religious conversion hanging in the air I read it... including the part AFTER the discussion of the dream described in the title:
"My aforementioned religious friend tells me that I'm special to God, in that He has endowed me with the ability to figure out how He's set things up (aka karma, which she sees as having been created by God as a tool to carry out His will), and that He's attempting to guide me via my spiritual quest to the point where I can perceive and embrace Him; because of the free will deal, He can't "force himself on me" to make me believe (does that tie into Him being naked and alone with me in the dream with no hint of sex in the air? hmmmmmmmmmmm), but if I can analyze my way into believing in Him then He'll have won a great victory... yeah, it sounds ridiculous to ME, too, but she's one of those folks who claims to have a close personal relationship with God, and I accept that she's got a grip on SOMETHING powerful after all the years I've observed her, although there's no evidence that it's a deity rather than an instinctive ability to manipulate the forces of karma... Anyways, she and my other Christian friends assure me that these "religious" dreams, which most BELIEVERS don't even have much less "heathens," are indicative of either God trying to persuade me or my subconscious mind signaling me about the truth that I know deep down; naturally, I resist these ideas, but have no logical explanation for why I periodically dream about a deity I don't believe in and generally don't give much thought to.
What's the change God was going to make to the universe? What kind of change could possibly affect everyone EXCEPT me? I can't think of anything... BUT, my PERCEPTION could change radically and cause me to SEE everything in a different way-is this another "spiritual makeover" symbol?
And, ending up in the museum gift shop... where you go AFTER you went through the museum and saw and learned stuff... ANOTHER symbol of some sort of spiritual breakthrough?
Ok, sure, great... so where's my big epiphany? Or even a small one? Well, I guess if I discovered that there really is a God it'd have to be a BIG epiphany... and it'd mess me up some, but at least I'd KNOW, and it'd save me a great deal of time and effort. If He's out there, can't He give me a better sign than these weird dreams?"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have 47 Archive pages (it'll be 48 once this gets posted), so that makes the chance that a random StumbleUpon URL, assuming that there might be one for any page, would be to the page with the post that's quoted above, is... about 2%. And the chance that said URL would be a first-timer after all these years, AND occur right in the middle of what might be that "spiritual makeover" in progress, is... what? One in a thousand? One in a million? Even if I believed in coincidences, which I DON'T, this would rock me back on my heels...
ANARCHISM!! I can't believe I'm just now seeing it!! That word is a MAJOR tie-in with... the subject of many of the other huge "coincidences" I've had in recent history, which is where I started getting the feeling of being "helped," and in fact there was a BIG, direct connection with that word in my life YESTERDAY, how fuzzy-headed have I gotten that the word didn't EXPLODE off the screen the moment I saw it?!! If God IS watching me, He's probably slapped His forehead (metaphorically speaking) and groaned loudly several times as He waited for the rusty gears in my weary brain to turn until I made the VERY OBVIOUS connection. How can I possibly make any spiritual progress, with God or in general, if I'm going to be this DENSE? How many other connections have I missed? AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!
Ok, ok, it doesn't matter, if God is involved He'll send as many messages as necessary to achieve His goal of... whatever it is, as He'll know He needs to send more if... that's assuming that paying attention and understanding the messages isn't part of being WORTHY of receiving... {sigh}
The "coincidences" are getting thick on the ground. I wish that I wasn't so stressed and exhausted that I'm not feeling the sense of wonder that I undoubtedly SHOULD be feeling at this point...
