My Magical JourneyCreating a fabulously fantastic life!

Hello Everyone!

It is so bright, sunny, and Springish today  I just love this weather.  Kitty Cosmo is walking on the windowsill and checking out the outside world.  She’s already chased several birds and a fly today, as well as taking a cozy nap in the sunshine.

I’ve just been working on more content for the website.  There’s so much I’m working on, and I’m really excited about it.  I made 3 new meditation tracks the other week, and I’m listening to all of them to see if it’s really obvious that I was stuffed up with a head cold when I recorded them.  (”dis is da thun medidaton”).  I’m already adding the music to one of the tracks and going to be working on the others soon.  Those should be up and running very shortly.

I’m also making videos!  Well, I’m thinking about making videos  I have all the equipment in our apartment now, including a green screen, which I’m debating on using.  I need to just record a little bit and see how easy it is to work with.  I have a mind full of ideas for videos, so stay tuned for those as well.

In other news, I’m a new blogger for the Live Green in Plano website!  Yea!  That means I get to write even more about eco-friendly living.  Technically, I haven’t received the code yet to begin making entries, but they said they would e-mail it to me.  Yea! Yea! Yea!  I wonder if North Texas wants to know about my DivaCup….hmmmm….?

In other other news, I started my second sewing project today!  The tissues came out fabulously, and now I’m working on my first dress.  I think I’m going to start a crafty section of this website.  Once I have some completed, at least  Right now my kitchen table and dining area is covered in fabric, patterns, sewing books, and a kitty that just sneezed (aw – so cute).

Speaking of kitty, I’ve been debating whether to teach Cosmo to go to the bathroom on the toilet or not.  Come on, haven’t you heard of this?  Kitty potty training?  Well, the technique I’ve read about is to gradually move her litter box higher up to the level of the toilet seat, then put a bowl with litter in the middle of the toilet rim, then gradually remove it.  It’s a little more involved than that, but it takes weeks.  Um..I don’t know if I’ve revealed this or not, but patience is not one of my virtues.  Just ask Mark.  So my plan is to meditate and describe to kitty what I would like her to do telepathically and see if she just starts doing it.  The downside to this is that the toilet seat has to be left up, which I do not like.  The upside is no cleaning the kitty litter out, less packaging, and better for the environment (because most kitty litter is actually not eco-friendly).  But more on that in a different post.

I think I may need to close the window, because kitty just charged the screen to bat at a fly (the door is open, so one came in).  We live on the second floor.  If the screen gives way…Geronimo kitty!

Love,

Melanie

Hello All,

Hello all you wonderful, brilliant, shining beings of light!  (How’s that for an intro?)  Anyhoo, I had the coolest thing happen this morning.  And yes, this does have to do with my recent sewing obsession!  Don’t be surprised if every post on my blog from now on has something to do with sewing.  Ha!  Yesterday, I was wondering how to make ruffles in fabric.  I thought about it several times, but forgot to look it up online.  Then, just before I woke up this morning, a helpful spirit gave me a tutorial!  I saw a close up of some fabric in my head, a large needle, and then the needle went through the fabric at the points marked.  Then, the thread was pulled and voila!  a ruffle!  I said thank you to the friendly Spirit who helped me with that.

One of the things I’m looking forward to is connecting more with my grandmother and Mark’s grandmother, both of whom were avid sewers.  My grandmother on my mom’s side sewed clothing all the time.  She also knitted clothing.  I’ve already told them both that I expect their help in my newish hobby.  I say newish because I had a sewing machine when I was younger.  It lasted several years before the foot pedal broke.  I didn’t realize at the time that I could have just bought a new foot pedal.  I think we gave it away to a woman who wanted to sew for her children.  Then, I took a sewing class in high school.  I made a very structured top but didn’t choose the right material, so I never wore it.  Then, I tried making two different dresses.  One was a semi-disaster.  There were many fitting issues, and I eventually gave up.  Now that I’ve read a million reviews online, I realize this is a common thing.  The second dress ended up looking more like a sack than a dress.  A very well made, pretty purple sack, but a sack nonetheless.

This sewing experience I AM SURE is going to be much more enjoyable and successful.  For one thing, I’m reading everything I can get my hands on about sewing and fitting garments before my sewing machine gets here.  For another, my first project involves sewing the edges of a bunch of flannel squares.  You know how Mark and I are making different changes to be more eco-friendly?  One of the ways is by not buying boxes of tissues.  We read and saw a video about tissues and toilet paper and how they are made from ancient or virgin forests.  We’ve been rethinking parts of our disposable lifestyle and figuring out how to do things differently.  Mark had some monkey print flannel fabric he bought off etsy, so we cut it into squares for tissues.  It is so great!  We tested our creations at the perfect time, because I had a little head cold last week.  I think he cut about 50 flannel squares for me.  Here’s the cool part – this is just like an infomercial.  I spent a day while I was all snotty at my mom’s, so I used regular tissues while I was there.  The skin around my nose was rubbed raw!  Now, this has happened many times before in my life, and I always thought it was because of my cold or allergies.  However, once I got home and started using my flannel tissues, no more sore nosey!!!  It wasn’t my nose that was the problem, it was the tissue!  My mom even uses the nice kind with lotion.  It still was too rough for my skin.  The only issue we’re having with our monkey tissues now is that when we wash them, the edges are fraying.  Enter new sewing machine! Tah dah!

We also got rid of our paper towels.  We started using fabric napkins while eating and cut up an old towel for cleaning rags.  Yesterday we went to a Chinese restaurant nearby, and they had paper napkins.  They were so scratchy!  I never realized it until I started using the good stuff.  I read an article that was talking about how we had to be trained to be in this disposable mindset.  After WWII, everyone was still in the save and reuse mode.  Then, there was a huge advertising push to get people to buy things that was saying how it made life easier to just have everything disposable – plates, napkins, tissues…you get the idea.  It was even on the cover of Life Magazine – I just looked for it online again but couldn’t find it.  It showed a woman with a trash can in front of her, lots of disposable things going into the trash, and big happy smile on her face.  I can see how this makes sense on the one hand.  Who wants to do dishes, right?  But when I realized that my trash doesn’t really go anywhere – that almost everything I use stays around FOREVER, it seems crazy to me to keep living the way that I have been.  So far with tissues and paper towel change, which actually make my life better, I’ve saved a lot of paper = trees = plastic packaging.

I’ve also made some pretty other cool changes.  Stay tuned for my toilet paper and tampon blogs!  HA!  The funny thing is that I’m serious.  :)  Tampons – sheesh.  I think I’ll post that one today.  It’s called The DivaCup Diary.  Check it out in the Eco-Living section of my site.

I hope you have a lovely day,

Melanie

I just asked Mark what he was going to do about his honey’s dinner.  I was hoping he had a quick solution that would mean I didn’t have to figure out what to cook tonight.  He said he was going to pray about it.  I started laughing.  Then he said he was going to meditate about it.  We both started laughing.  Then he said he was going to ask his Spirit Guides about it.  At this point I asked, “Are you mocking me?”  He said he wasn’t at first, but now he was.  So, he continued, “Then I’ll write a blog about it.  Then I’ll call my mom and talk with her about it.”  I said, “You are one sassy man!”  Can you believe that?!  He is so funny.

Last night, I had a great time making dinner for myself.  I made an impromptu tomato soup, making up my own recipe, which turned out much better (I’m thrilled to say) than my vegan brownie experiment.  I played some tango music and had a good ol’ time.

In other news, I ordered my sewing machine the other day!  I’m so so excited.  I took the past two days “off” and have been spending hours upon hours looking at patterns online and figuring out which ones I would like.  I’ve even started a file to write the numbers down and notes from the reviews I’ve read.  ”Reviews?” you ask?  Yes!  I found a pattern review website (which I’ve also spent hours upon hours on) where people post their experiences and photos of what they sewed.  It’s so cool!  I feel like I know these people – and not from the we’re-all-one-energy sense.  I mean, I feel like these are my girlfriends now.  Sewing buddies.  I can’t wait to start on a project and post a review.  Some people post their works-in-progress, and I kinda want to post some just because I’ve bought the pattern.  Which, by the way, I have!  I bought three patterns in the past 2 days because my local big box (it’s a sewing-person’s term – ha! I’m a groupie!) sewing store was having a big sale just in time for my obsession to emerge.  They’re having another sale next week – 99 cent Butterick patterns.  Oh, yeah, people, this is BIG news.

The other super cool thing?  A couple of years ago I decided I wanted to make a quilt.  I was going to do it all by hand (HA!HA!HA!).  I asked the Universe for some help because I didn’t have any fabric, and I needed a lot.  I didn’t want just any fabric.  I wanted the super nice, great-quality quilting fabric.  I was driving along one day and saw a big sign that a quilting shop I didn’t even know existed (even though I must have driven by it at least a million times) was going out of business.  The lady who owned it was going to do something different, exploring different passions and interests and trying something new.  ”More power to ya,” I thought, gasping at the gorgeous fabrics that were all 50% off.  Let me clarify – they were 50% off the already discounted price!!!  I can barely type right now, I’m so thrilled just thinking about it.  This is what can happen when you listen to your intuition!!!!!  Anyhoo, so I grab a basket and pile it full with fat quarters (already cut pieces of fabric for quilting).  I mean, FULL!  When I got home, I counted over 200 fat quarters.  AH HAhahahhaah!  (that’s hysterical laughter, in case you couldn’t figure it out).  Guess how much I paid for it?  Keep in mind, this fabric usually goes for $8-$12 per yard, and I bought about 50 yards of fabric.  Please humor me and guess a number in your mind.  Okay, are you ready for the reveal?  Normally, this much fabric would have cost me $400-$600.  I paid just over $100 for it.  I think it was $106 or something like that.  HOLY COW!  Can you believe it?  Picture me taking a bow right now.  Thank you, thank you (applause, bow, more applause).  I know, I’m a great manifester.

Guess what else?! Guess what else?!  I found the pattern I’m 85% sure I’m going to use to make my wedding dress!  Yes, me, a beginnerish sewer is going to make my wedding dress.  However, it’s not the long silky white dress you might be picturing.  I’m not very traditional – you may have noticed .  I can’t post it yet or say anything about it, because only one other person knows, and that’s my mom.  So you and my mom.  Shhh!  It’s a secret.  Okay, well I told my honey I found it, but he doesn’t know what it looks like.  I couldn’t help myself, I was so excited!!!  I saw it and cried a little.  Awww  So when I said my honey was mocking me at the beginning, he was right on.  I first prayed about finding the perfect dress.  I pictured it in my mind during meditation.  I talked with my Spirit Guides about it.  I found it.  I called my mom.  I blogged about it.  HA!  My honey really knows my routine.

I took the past two days off from doing any sort of “work”.  It’s hard to call it work because I love what I do so much.  However, the one downside to working from home is that I work a lot.  That is compounded with the fact that I’m somewhat of a workaholic.  Actually, I just get so focused and excited about what I’m doing that the rest of the world shuts off.  I only realize the passage of time when I realize I’m starving.  Anyhoo, so at first I was feeling bad for resting.  I didn’t know if I was resting or just procrastinating.  However, I had a dream last night that cleared things up for me.  I’ve been recording my dreams for the past several days because I’ve been getting such great insight from them.

Okay, that’s the latest from Melanie’s world.  I hope you have a fabulous day and thanks for reading.

Melanie