Today ...

Today ... can only get better.
Surely.

My Life

I've been pretty busy lately ... again.

For the first time, I attended Art Night Austin, which was really cool. It was sort of like a gallery hop, with food and wine at each gallery and a limo bus to take you from one place to the next. I had a lot of fun and got to dress up, which is a plus for me! (Occasionally, of course. The flip flops would get lonely.)

I played harps at an angel therapy (meditation) class! The music was beautiful, and it was easy to create wonderful music. You just have to strum your fingers - on a harp, there aren't any bad notes! I absolutely loved it! It felt like home! They pretty much had to pull my hands off the harp and say, "It's time to go!" I could have stayed all night!

I went to a friend's bridal shower at Fado, an Irish pub. Cute location. And the reason for it is they are getting married on St. Patrick's Day! Fun, Fun! But, unfortunately, I don't have a green dress for it ... ;)

I really enjoyed a performance by singer and songwriter Erin Ivey - "Austin's urban folk sweetheart" - at a fundraiser for a good friend. Listen to "Chocolate."

I also went to a speech by a psychic writer. I was curious to see how she blended the psychism and the writing. I was impressed by how open people were to what she had to say. Almost everyone had some experience they wanted to share about themselves, a loved one, or a pet. I just let them talk; I sat quietly and listened. ;)

Perfect Austin Weekend

What I had this weekend is what many would consider the perfect Austin weekend ... or at least one version of it!

Friday night, I went to an art opening at the Blanton Museum. It was of 50's cool and had a lot of neat exhibits, like the original Barbie doll, Dobie Gillis playing on tv, and great jazz music. And since I got to dress up (a little bit,) it was an even bigger treat!

Saturday, my sister-in-law came into town with my niece and nephew. We started the day at the Farmer's Market, which is so much fun for a foodie like me! The produce, the products, the atmosphere! For lunch, we headed over to Casa de Luz, which is my favorite restaurant because everything is organic. (It also happens to be vegan and macrobiotic, but those aren't as big a deal to me.) I feel great eating here, and the food is always particularly tasty since it's made with super fresh ingredients. After lunch, and playing on the playground for a while, we went to Nature's Treasures, which is a store that sells stones and jewelry. I get into the meaning behind certain stones so it's always a lot of fun seeing what I'm drawn to and what its meaning is. Afterwards, we headed back to my casa and cooked dinner and played with the kids. Later, I made some homemade popcorn that we ate on the couch.

Sunday came with an early start (kids and all) so we drove around downtown looking at the Capitol and other well-known land markers. We did the "sampling tour" at Whole Foods and then finished lunch with their stone-fired pizza. Sunday afternoon, the family left, and I hit Lady Bird Lake for a little sun and exercise. I rounded all this off with an evening of movie-watching.

It was a GREAT weekend!

Love, Love, Love! Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Day of Love, Dia del Amor, Valentine's Day!

How does one define love? I was curious.
I searched for the actual definition, wondering what words could possibly be used to encapsulate such a strong and powerful and uncontrollable emotion. Here is some of what I found, courtesy of Heritage Dictionary:

love (lŭv) n.
A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.
Sexual passion.
Sexual intercourse.
A strong predilection or enthusiasm.
The object of such an enthusiasm.
An intense emotional attachment.
A person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction; beloved. Often used as a term of endearment.
An expression of one's affection.
Love Mythology Eros or Cupid.

v. loved, lov·ing, loves
To have a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person.
To have a feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person.
To have an intense emotional attachment to an object.
To embrace or caress.
To have sexual intercourse with.
To like or desire enthusiastically.
To thrive on; need.
To experience deep affection or intense desire for another.

They certainly tried to define every contingency, but defining love in concrete terms feels lacking. I'm not sure love can be quantified. And maybe that's ok.
Happy Valentine's Day! May it be filled with love!

What a Beautiful Day!

Today has been absolutely beautiful! Bright and sunny, with warm temperatures and a cool breeze! Perfect! I love days like this and am so happy we are reaching the time of year when they start to pop up more frequently!
I took advantage of the weather by opening up all the windows this morning and then walking around Town Lake this afternoon. I hope I got a little bit of sun. Three separate people were like, "Girl, you are pale!" so I know it's time I get my behind outdoors. I tan really easily, but I'm such a wimp in cold weather that I tend to hibernate and then fade about 40 skin shades. ;)
When the temperatures start hitting the mid-eighties, I'm hitting the coast!

House Party

I had a lot of fun this past weekend, including a party at my house. It wasn't a game night this time, but I set up Twister, on principle. :P Usually I'm pretty good at it and am many times the winner (long legs and a lot of flexibility will do that) but, this time, dirty tricks knocked me out! :D

It's always great to have people over; I love all that feel-good energy! I wish I had more pictures to post - I like to get at least one of every person - but we seem to have not taken very many. And of the ones we did - lots of closed eyes!

A Fun Pic

A fun pic to start off the week. :)

My Nephew's Baptism

My nephew Jackson Everett was baptised this weekend. He was so great! even though he had double ear infections and a respiratory virus. :(

My cousin Jacob and sister Mary Anne are his godparents. You can see Jackson playing with the baptism water!

It was good to see the family again. We got to do more hanging out, which is nice. :)

Book Update

You're probably wondering about my book!
Well, after setting it down for a week a while back, I picked it back up to think, "Hmm, this isn't really where I want it." It wasn't bad or anything; I just decided I wanted to develop some things further. Then - the holidays happened. I'm not sure if you could tell from the blog, but I had five different out of town events. Add to the normal busy-ness that comes with the holidays, and I didn't write much, plain and simple. But - that seems to have been good for me. I am back, recharged, and ready to go! I've gotten a couple of solid days in already and am doing so again this week. I'm happy with it. The changes I am making are creating an even better story so it's all good! :)
Btw, my Homework Hassles piece was published in Cleveland Family.

Captivating

Captivating ... isn't that an amazing, mysterious, sensual, enthralling, romantic, enticing word?
She shouts: I want to be captivating! I want others to believe I'm captivating! I want to epitomize the word!
She thinks: If thoughts are our reality, and if I lure just one person into thinking I'm captivating, then I would be so! If I could imagine myself as captivating it must be true ...
(Caroline is entering her beautiful, imaginary world now.)

Happy 2009!

Happy New Year everyone!!
I feel W-O-N-D-E-R-F-U-L! Everything is happening exactly how it should, and I am so happy it's simply awesome! I can't even describe how great it is to achieve this inner peace/inner bliss thing. I feel extremely grateful for my life!!
New Year's Eve was tons of fun! One of my activities was First Night, an arts festival held downtown. I loved being around so much creativity. There was a parade and tons of performances. They also burned a huge wooden clock with people's resolutions and wishes on it. It was quite the spectacle, with fireworks and such, and it was kind of funny how everyone got all excited about the fire and destruction, with everyone cheering, "Burn! Burn!" ;)
In the parade, they had fire jugglers, bagpipe players, dancers, all sorts of earth-friendly participants, and much more. The Austin Public Library had a cute performance: Carpe Librum, Seize the Book, with librarians dancing with their book push carts. I really liked watching the aerial dancers. They were about 30 feet in the air, hanging on big ribbons and performing myriad fluid moves. My favorite part of the whole event was the wind chimes. In a big gazebo on Lady Bird Lake, they had about 20 different wind chimes set up, with the biggest one about ten feet tall! It was absolutely beautiful to walk in and listen to the music they made. I didn't want to leave it gave me such a blissful feeling!
I know this year is going to be wonderful! I wish you all this optimism and many events to prove it worthwhile!

Post-Christmas Wishes!

I hope everyone had a very, Merry Christmas!
I sure have had a nice Christmas season so far. My family got together up in the big C.S. and after church we held our traditional Christmas Eve party with lots of presents and food. The party is always at my parents' house with the extended family coming to us so it's nice to celebrate in my own home. This year, we had a lot of kids around so that was particularly fun and certainly kept things busy! I'm going to need to detox this next week from all the rich food, though! :P
Over Thanksgiving, we saw "The Four Christmases" together, which was a cute movie. One of its trailers was for "Marley & Me," and we decided right away that we would see it over Christmas since we have a yellow lab named Lucy. "Marley & Me" proved to be a really good movie, but definitely be forewarned it's not just the funny movie the trailer makes it out to be!
I'm back in Austin now and sort of done unpacking, etc. I'm really hoping to get down to business soon on my writing, but, at the same time, when life slows us down, I feel like there is always an important reason. I'm sure it will all make sense someday. ;)
Continued Merry Christmas wishes!

Family Time

Wow, what a busy month it has been so far! Now I know why I always look so worn out in December pictures! :P
My immediate family and some extended family travelled earlier this month to Texas Tech in Lubbock for my sister's graduation. I'm really proud of her and have always said that she will become super successful at whatever she decides to do so I'm curious to see where life takes her next. She has so many possibilities! :)
The night before my sister's graduation they had John McCain as the speaker, in his first talk since the presidential election. We missed that, but the graduation ceremony we attended actually was really interesting, with a speaker who communicated in a meaningful way. I'd never been to Lubbock before this trip, and I found the people to be nice and down to earth so I can see why my sister likes the area so much.
The weekend after the graduation, we had a family wedding for my cousin. The wedding was down near Lake Jackson, Texas. The couple seemed like a genuinely good match, which, of course, is a very good thing, and the reception was a lot of fun. It's not often the family gets up and dances together, and I love to dance so I enjoyed that a lot. I liked watching and dancing with the little kids, too. Oh, and my niece and nephew were so cute in dress-up clothes! Adorable, actually!
I've also had multiple birthdays this month for friends, some Christmas get-togethers, and had to take off some time from writing to do some other work so my schedule has been packed!

Glad it's Monday Morning

It sure has been a whirlwind this past week!
I started by having my two-year-old niece stay with me for a couple of days. We didn't do anything special, but we had a lot of fun living life! Having a child around makes everything else in the world just disappear! And, sometimes, that is just what we need! :)
Saturday, I wrapped gifts at Brown Santa with the Leadership kids. I was pretty impressed by what goes into it. For example, my group had a family of five kids. Each of those kids will receive a puzzle, a book, and a stuffed animal, and then three other miscellaneous toys - for six, wrapped "from Santa" gifts total. That, in my opinion, is a very nice amount. Each family also will receive two family games so there will be plenty to occupy everyone on Christmas morning!
Saturday night, I attended the annual Wine, Cheese, and Chocolate party. Lots and lots of cheeses, two chocolate fountains ... need I say more?
There also have been a billion other things keeping me busy. I'm actually ready for the week and ready to get back to working on my book!

Post-Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a very nice Thanksgiving!
I was able to spend time with the family and extended family, and that always is enjoyable. We don't really do a whole lot, but somehow I always like it!
Right before Thanksgiving, I served food at a community dinner. I did this last year, and something about it really draws me. I like to get in there, hands-on, and be with the people. A smile and a kind word can go a long way, I've learned. I spent about fifteen minutes with a self-described "high class homeless" man, who was talking about his life. It was obvious he had a mental illness, compounded by alcoholism, but we're all still just people, doing our best. Something about getting to experience that firsthand I like and also appreciate. I felt great the whole time I was there and the rest of the evening. We served a lot of people, too - we ran out of plates after 500!

A Day for Everything

It was cute. My dad, knowing I am into this stuff, called to tell me he heard on the radio that it was International Aura Awareness Day. "You're kidding!" or something to that effect was my response. I did an online search and, indeed, there is such a day.
I have always been able to sense or "feel" auras, and I can see them, also, but I have to be in the right frame of mind to do that. Here's the post where I talk about my most recent aura photo and reading. I was violet, a mix of ultra violet, light violet, and regular violet. This site has a spot-on description.

Just Another Morning

There's not much to report. I am here, as usual, sitting in front of my computer. Looking at the screen. Reading, writing, etc. I just finished the last of my yerba mate tea (this stuff rocks,) and now I'll probably go saute some veggies for lunch. Wow. I bet you are really glad I let you know all that. Made your morning, I'd guess. :P

I did find a funny typo as I was going through my book. The main character was talking about dating and was describing how, when she realizes she's not going to be marrying a particular someone, she'd learned to go ahead and call it quits. Well, instead of "marrying," I had "marring." That's - hopefully - not a Freudian slip on my part!

Ack!

I just sent out my first query letter to find a literary agent! Kind of exciting!
I'm still tweaking the book, but it's pretty much done, thanks to keeping my head in the sand this past week! Over the next couple of days, I'll wrap that up and continue with more querying.

Regarding

Regarding the presidential election, everything remains the same as I said in my previous post. I have nothing new to add.

Regarding the funeral of my grandfather, it was really great, actually. First of all, it was nice to see my family, all of them, at once (aside from my cousin/godson who is stationed in Korea and was not able to attend.) Secondly, since I am a grandchild, it was neat to hear my aunts and uncles speak about my grandfather from a child's perspective. By the time I was born, he'd already had his ten kids so there are a lot of things I didn't know about him as a father and husband. It was also cute - and I felt, a good reason to celebrate what we have - that the kids kept running around and then up to my grandpa during the viewing. My three-year-old cousin Benjamin kept going right up to him, inches away from his face, and singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" -- because he thought it would make him wake up. Then, he would shout out, "But he won't wake up," and the five-year-old twin girls would say, "That's because he died," very matter of factly. I really enjoyed all of that.
Also, I didn't realize they were doing a military burial, and I'd never been to one. It was quite moving. They had about a dozen American Legion guys, and they had a very formal, compelling way of doing things. They played Taps and did the 21 gun salute, and it was quite powerful to watch them fold the flag that had been draped over my grandfather's casket, kneel down in front of my grandmother, and give it to her, saying, "By the power of the president of the United States ..."
All in all, I have to say the experience was good. It was a little insane how much food and how many flowers and plants we received, though. Good insane, but still insane. :)

Presidential Election - Supporting McCain

* I guess I should add that my angels were very supportive of me writing this piece so, to me, that says that the core message is important. And, to clarify, since I kind of rambled: The core message involved what I saw around Obama and the very specific word I received.
I try to stay out of politics on here - and in general - but I feel it is important for me to express myself in this situation. Many people are greatly concerned that someone who should not be president could become so. I look at things from a broader perspective and understand that what is best will happen, even if that does mean there will be hurt and disillusionment in the short term. Let me explain:
You have probably caught drifts of this here and there on my blog - I am a very spiritual person. And even before I developed this (ever-evolving) spirituality, I have always had a "connection" and have been blessed with certain gifts, gifts we all possess but that I have had more access to than many. It doesn't make me any more special than anyone else; it's just who I am.
One of my strongest abilities is seeing people for who they truly are. This is something I try to use, daily, to help people. To use an overly-simple example, think of the bully who bullies because he is hurting inside. Some people cognitively figure this out. I can, too, but even before the brain has a chance to kick in, I see and feel the hurt he feels when I first lay eyes on him or first speak with him. I know what is inside. I can then operate from that standpoint, rather than from the one that most people would. It allows me to reach people in a way I appreciate having and is one of the ways in which I try to make a difference.
Now, to make that relevant to the election. Another way of stating the above is that I can sense people's energy, which can sound a little flaky but is as real as this keyboard, I assure you. I have been pursuing the heightening of my spirituality greatly lately and have been receiving more and more messages and streams of information as a result. I'd known I was uncomfortable with Obama and that, while not overwhelmed, liked McCain. Then, last week, I received a strong message that clarified it for me:
I'd always noticed a "lack" in Obama's eyes (eyes are a big thing for me, it's a soul to soul connection.) But, then, I was watching the news and saw it - dark, dark energy swirling all around him. I very clearly, at the same time, received the word "false." I rarely get scared with real life, but this scares me. He is not who he seems. To the word "false," that's enough for me, but if I were to analyze it I would say a lot could be attributed to his words. Have you ever really listened, I mean really listened to the words? Where are all the "enlightened" people? Are they denying what their souls know is there? Do they not see a man operating purely from his ego? Take away the mesmerization and the "rhetorical flourishes," and you will see. His faith in America is restored because people chose him? I stopped in my tracks when I heard this, while the people in the crowd cheered on. (As a disclaimer, I don't agree intellectually with most anything he says, but I promise this is an accurate recounting of a real message.)
Now, who will win? I don't know. What I get (psychically) is that it hasn't been decided yet. We are meant to learn from this, as from everything. We are here for our soul's evolvement, after all. But what isn't known is whether people will recognize the truth - that gut feeling - prior to or after the election. Do we need things to go all the way for us to learn? Maybe.
I liken it to a commonly-cited lesson I have learned. God sends us "hints" to help direct us. They start out very small, almost no inconvenience at all. They get bigger and more pronounced if we continue to ignore them, until finally we get hit on the head, if we still don't get it. This can be applied to almost every situation in life. Try it; you'll see.
That is what is happening now. Do we get it, or do we need a really good hit over the head?
McCain is not perfect, but he is a good man. And there is no competition on the ego front. McCain rid himself of his a long time ago. And, for the record, I do really like Palin. And Biden is fine, too, although I disagree with his political views.
Mainly, I just have to get this out. I try to avoid politics because for the most part, it is a negative, lower-vibrating segment of our world, but it is important that people like me share what they know. Again, I am nothing special, but I have never, ever been wrong when I have received a clear message, such as this. And that is because it is not me creating it; it was sent to me and for a reason.
I'm not emotionally invested in a particular outcome; what needs to happen will happen. I'm just a proponent of learning things the easy way, when at all possible. :) Just think about it, please. Think about it on a deeper level, a higher level. We should all be loved. Not all of us should be president.