For the first time, since I began writing on this site, I am stumped!
I am pretty sure I remarked just the other day that I mostly watch pre-recorded old time movies. Granted, I am well aware of what a Podcast is, in honesty, I am unable to jump to anything specifically that I regularly watch.
I do watch a game streaming channel, but I think that may be different.
If I am listening without watching, it is music that I am in tune with, not someone talking.
Back when my husband and I lived in our Tractor Trailer, we listened to Audio Books for hours at a time while driving across the states. That was a blast! We listened to everything from futuristic Sci Fi adventures, to going all the way back in imaginary time to The Clan of the Cave Bear and the rest of the series by Jean M. Auel.
I’ll be honest in saying that if I’m going to be involved regularly with any type of Podcast, it’s going to by my own. I already do my own Audio so naturally it may lead me to doing something on the good ole U Tooooooob. Like how I did that? Oh well, don’t judge! I’m only half way through my first cup of coffee.
If I’m all over the place with this one today, we’ll give all the credit to the Prompt! If they can’t even send everyone the same prompt question anymore… well then I can answer any question I want, really!
Here, I’m leaving several different selections of morning treats, as it may look different depending on if you are using your computer, tablet, or smart phone…
Do you ever feel like we sometimes do things that seem to hinder our lives, rather than help?
I want to write about this, because I have shockingly discovered, of late, that I have been sabotaging myself… not joking… and it has shaken me to the core! I’m talking about scaring myself silly!
Before I share my situation, I took the liberty of sharing the actual definition of what a Sabatour does… the only thing I add is, “To Self”. I pulled it from the Oxford Dictionary.
sab·o·tage
verb
verb: sabotage; 3rd person present: sabotages; past tense: sabotaged; past participle: sabotaged; gerund or present participle: sabotaging
deliberately destroy, damage, or obstruct (something)…
Everyone knows that I am currently pursuing medical help for some health issues, but what you do not know is that I have somehow gotten every single appointment wrong… that is no exaggeration. They call to confirm… I write the correct dates down… they text me the correct dates… I look at the dates and times, but here is where I have completely freaked myself out… I fully speak, think, and ACT on the completely wrong information!
It is so ridiculously bad, that my husband has had to take over all my scheduling appointments. I completely fell apart on Thursday of last week when I missed yet another appointment, feeling like I was losing my mind. After more than an hour of sitting and talking with my husband, I realized that my brain is fine, but all the poking and prodding and fear of falling apart physically has sent me into a bit of a tail spin.
I am actually of a mind to believe that I am subconsciously self-sabotaging from an unwillingness to try again with the Medical Profession. Over the years my care has seemingly done more harm than to bring any benefit. I will be honest in saying that I feel pretty confident in my Spiritual Beliefs, but man, when it comes to my physical body, this ole machine goes into full lock down, military grade defenses, and Nuclear resistant walls of the hardest materials!
While I have always felt in control of my faculties, it almost feels like I have a stranger in the midst of my fort manning the defenses… without MY consent!
I am so so so so so grateful for the Grace and Mercy of God in all things of my life… not just the end game at the gate! I am unable to take any medications for any of my conditions, which makes it a lot more work to manage my anxiety and depression, so when I left Big Pharma behind, I switched to the word of God. The truest sense of relief and peace that I experience, comes when I pick up my bible and just read… doesn’t matter what part, it is just the words… they are living you know…
Call it whatever you will, but I think it is simply time spent! Time spent in fellowship, in rest, in His shadow… see where I am going with this idea? The time spent with Him calms me! I can remember that He already knows what is to come, and if I am able to trust Him, the rest will not matter… He’s Got This… cause I know for sure that I don’t!
It has become painfully obvious that our friendly neighborhood prompt is waaaaayyyyy overdue for a vacation! It feels a bit like a Trifecta of fragmented questions.
I will once again tackle these odd, open ended, and multiple directional questions that leave us to guess what the heck the question actually is.
It makes for some interesting ideas about my favorite things… I now have to decide if I am supposed to pick a school, pick a time period in all of my 16 years of schooling, and/or pick a favorite subject in any one of a large number of educational establishments. Don’t forget that we also have to decide what can be construed as a subject… to an emotional middle schooler. Was it my favorite subject back then, or is it the way I feel now? See what I mean?
Perhaps this is the wise secret that is held by the Prompt Genie… designing questions made to entice the minds of many many writers… many many readers… and many many different lives and perspectives. I choose to think along these lines, so as to stretch my outside of the box way of thinking, and also my writing.
So, in only my fashion, I am going to dive in and give it a go… are ya with me? I know you are cause I always leave goodies at the end… not sorry!
Elementary School was not the easiest for me, as my family practiced a religion forbidding the celebrating of any holidays. Because of this, we were ostracized in every possible way so I spent most of my time at recess riding a pretend horse on the fence line with my jump rope. Being sent to another room for the flag ceremony each morning was no fun… being sent home from every party or celebration was no fun… and being bullied and beaten by other children who didn’t know better was no fun. BUT… I had one friend!
Her name was Autumn… and she had the prettiest long red hair and a blanket of freckles across her pretty face… she was my favorite subject in elementary. I cannot remember her face exactly any longer, but I do remember that she always came and sought me out during recess, to ride horses with me at the fence line and share lunch together. My favorite author back then was Louis Lamour and my hero was John Wayne.
Middle School was right about the time I lived either on the streets or in protective custody. From this time forward, my journey was rough and school was a place I rarely turned up, and when I did it would be in a new town, and/or county. The down side to moving me around for my own safety, was that the state never left me in one place long enough to take any quarterly exams and gather any credits towards completing my education. None of the foster homes I stayed in ever focused on my schooling at all! The only place I felt happy was in the schools libraries… they all smelled the same… books! My favorites came from Beverly Cleary, and I shall be forever brave thanks to ALL the Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys.
High School was quite literally 4 years of classes shoved into only 2… my Junior and Senior year. In order to graduate with my proper age class, I went before the school board with my foster mom, and they waived all my elective credits if I could fulfill all of my required credits before graduation. I did… though I was most often high… very into my current boyfriend… and by now, I was really really mad at the world. In honesty, all I can remember is MTV, getting hammered, hooking up, and getting high. I still graduated with an accumulated GPA of 3.94. I have no idea how I did that… lol!
College was more or less a basic Associate of Arts degree, but it did not come until after three children were born into my world. I guess I could claim that as an educational institution, and say that my three kids were my favorite subject… but that would be too easy. While in college, I found myself taking a series of Cultural Anthropology classes to fulfill my humanities section of required credits. I can say hands down that I could soooooooooooooo be an anthropologist if I was made of money or sponsors. But alas, it was not to be… too many babies along with all their toys, to stuff into my travel luggage.
Now that I have regaled you with all my educational travels, it seems pretty clear that my favorite subjects have been, are, and most likely, will continue to be reading and writing… anything and everything!
Well… November is well upon us, and I am setting the stage for our upcoming events. I mentioned before that I wanted to do a Virtual Holiday and I am bringing it up again. I am giving everyone until Thanksgiving to come up with a Christmas Wish List for themselves and put it in the comments anywhere on my site, that is, if you wish to participate.
Anyone wishing to participate can simply use their Christmas Day Post to reveal what they got peeps from those lists… your post is yours so you can present your gifts anyway you wish. It is virtual so the sky is the limit! I thought it would be so beautiful to have the Reader covered with gifts and sharing all across WordPress. Be there or Be SQUARE!
I really hope more folks start adding their Jokes on Wednesday Laugh Off because, if left to my own devices, these jokes may get worse and worse and worse… it’s what I do!
Brutus continues on Live Novel Friday with another chapter.
There is another audio chapter of My Truths available in the Lobby.
Sundays Potluck theme is Lazy Day Take Out, so stick around after Live Wire and don’t forget to pick out your favorite slippers and pillow from the table by the door…
We all find ourselves in front of the fruit and vegetable department at the grocery store, at one time or another, and we want to gather our edible produce with as few blemishes as possible… as well as seeking the best flavor, smell, color and value. No one likes to get home and find a damaged apple in the bag, or maybe a damaged cantaloupe.
My point is, we take time to pick and sort until we find what we want to spend our hard earned money purchasing.
I guess I try to do this with my screen time. It is not as easy as said though, because sometimes it takes a good bit before I realize that what I am watching is wasting my time.
For those who are here reading, as well as myself, we all write blogs and spend a great deal of time in front of our screens, so our time is precious to us.
In all honesty, the biggest change I made was removing comercials from what I watch. When I want to watch a movie, I want my movie to play for an hour and a half, not 50 minutes of my show mixed with 40 minutes of suggested online shopping, therapy, or a new pill on the market… I am so glad my writing doesn’t come with some of the side effects of things like Potato Chips that may or may not make you leak!
I guess what I am saying is that I do my best to use my screen time for my benefit, get what I need done, and stay current on things without loosing hours watching things that waste my precious time …
Over the last year of my journey to healing, I discovered a very strong correlation between what I was spending my time watching, and my anxiety and/or panic attacks… strange, I know.
So I stopped watching most regular television, and chose to seriously police my time on most media platforms, aside from here at WordPress.
The only thing we have available for watching is Roku and YouTube, so for the most part I watch DIY things, and old ridiculously silly black and white movies. In honesty, I read more than watch things anymore these days… which is saying something since one eye barely works right at the moment.
Anyways, this was way more information than you really wanted to know about how this girl Screens…
I am being fully honest in saying that when my study of Moses life began, I had no idea how much I would have in common with the man. The closest tie we share, is that we’re both runners… in every sense of the word!
As I read through his story, in at least 3 different translations, there were things surrounding his story that I found myself relating to on a very personal level. From not being raised by a healthy family, being different than everyone around him, making bad choices, being harshly judged over something he found himself caught up in, and finally the running away part.
Moses found himself living as a foreigner in a foreign land. Hey… that’s how I feel today… right here… in this old RV. I live day to day, surrounded by a good number of folks… none of which I speak to in any form. We all live side by side and know nothing of each others true lives.
That’s part of the problem with running… both Moses and I found ourselves alone and out in the cold. What were the odds that I would encounter a man that could love me so deeply, I could be captivated enough to stop running?
What were the odds that Moses would sit to rest beside the well that would cause him to meet his future wife Zipporah?
I bet Jethro, the priest of Midian and the father of SEVEN daughters, asked himself the same question when his girls came home that day… telling of how an Egyptian man had saved them. When he found out the girls had left Moses back at the well, after besting the cruel shepherds that always ran them off from watering their flocks, he was like, Well… go get him and bring him home.
Was it God that stopped Moses from running, or was it a woman… or was it God using love through Zipporah that gave pause to the runner? The constant take away I get when reading through scriptures, is love… always love.
We, Moses and I, were both born into adversity, which instilled the self-preserving behavior of Running. I also noted that it was love that brought us both to a standstill. When God got ahold of our hearts, planting the seed of love… everything changed.
I take such encouragement from this part of scripture, as it reminds me that if God could do miracles in Moses life way back then, He is still doing them today… all those years I didn’t see Him moving, wasn’t because He wasn’t… I was just so busy running, I couldn’t see what was right before me…
Thank God for Love!
From Elevation Worship comes a song that hits it out of the ball park for me… Runnin I pray you would take a moment to listen.
It’s once again Potluck Sunday and I did my best to provide some lovely things that will sooth our aching fillings from all of the Halloween Candy I am sure that we DID NOT eat… wink wink!
It’s always good to start with some lite appetizers
I read somewhere that doubts were like little fears trying to come to life, or something like that. It makes sense if you think about it for a moment.
I guess when I have doubts about my writing ability, that can be seen as the same thing as fear of failure or rejection.
When I have doubts that we will ever get beyond one step above homelessness, isn’t that the same thing as fearing God will let me down… that He’s forgotten me, or simply left me here?
Some call it doubt, some call it fear, and most often, you’ll hear me call it a Rabbit Hole.
Whatever we choose to call it, we all face obstacles that can cause us to doubt ourselves, and our fear of failing to overcome sends us down all sorts of rabbit holes to try and wriggle out of things.
I think the bottom line is whether we have enough faith, or maybe enough courage, and/or enough inner fortitude to rise above the things we face.
I think it is a good idea to regularly remind myself to do some self-checks of who and what I am… to God, to others, but very importantly, to myself! If I don’t believe that I am valuable and worthy of love, how can I believe that God feels that way about this daughter of His? Does that make sense? If I don’t I am worthy enough to serve God, it makes it very difficult for me to step out in faith when He asks it of me, because I get too caught up in doubt.
So, for a healthy reminder to regularly sweep out my doubt closet, Note To Self #12 is from one of my favorite authors…
“We are what we believe we are”. C.S. Lewis
Just to make sure I have brought my point across about doubt and about believing in ourselves, I’ve included a song by Lauren Daigle called You Say. I hope to leave you with a reminder for those who need it…
God Bless you WordPress, for giving out a prompt that brought me right to this picture only moments after reading the question.
Without a doubt, if I could go back and relive any time in my past, it would be my Baby Days…
What I would give to go back and experience, once again, those times of bonding, nursing, caring for, and watching those first milestones of my baby girls.
It was the first two years of each baby that I wish I could bottle and save within an old worn Hope Chest. I always wanted one at the end of my bed, but it would need to be an old worn one, and not a newly made piece. It should look like it had seen some battles and tough times, but withstood it all just to sit and hold my treasures.
On rainy days I could sit and go back through all my favorite memories that were stashed away for safe keeping. Special baby blankets I had made while waiting for each of my girls birth, their first pair of baby booties, and even favorite first books or teething rings with chew marks still visible. All I have now is a blue plastic tote with the few remnants salvaged from things… it works!
If it were possible I would go back to a time when my babies needed me, loved everything about me, and couldn’t stand to be parted from my breast.
I know deep down in their hearts, my daughters love me… they just don’t really want or need me anymore… it is what it is… I get it!
That was why I wrote all of those Do You Remember letters… one day they will want to look back and remember… one day, and for that day I will trust in God.
Until we meet again, they and I, there will always be those Baby Days…
I find it amazing that even to this day, leopards have spots… they are born with them, just like they were in history long ago… spots are still there… fascinating!
Two of which is the fact that we just had a question that asked if what historical events we remembered. I noticed a very somber atmosphere the entire day out on the feed. We are all pretty friggin miserable with the way of things in our world right now… forget about rehashing historical blunders and kerfuffles, and not too many seemed overly eager to dive in and answer that prompt.
The word Fascinating can be interpreted loosely in the heart of a man… it just depends upon which man is looking at the history!
Thirdly, I find it rather sobering that even today, we really don’t change… not really. Maybe on the surface we act as if we have risen above our own ignorance of mind or heart… but inside, it is easy to hide things that linger… like hatred, jealousy, deceit, malice. Similar to a leopard, I think we will always keep our spots… they just blend in neatly beneath our fur!
WordPress could do better for us all perhaps, if they posed the prompt question as, “What historical events did we as humanity learn from and change for the better”? Maybe lead with that next time…
Here, have a cookie shaped like a Blueberry Muffin…
Journey With Me! 