Thursday, January 14, 2010

dreams from the inside out.

this is my health ~

Intention: I move my body joy*fully; I grate*fully eat health*full, nourishing foods; I sleep deeply and well at night without the use of medication and wake feeling refreshed; I have plenty of energy to get through the entire day without napping.

Go to Aquacise and yoga at least once a week each
Continue to follow the Carbohydrate Addicts' Diet with the knowledge that it is what is best for my body.
Ask my doctors about the use of Valerian vs. Ambien/Vistaril
Continue to practice loving-kindness meditation and relaxation exercises.
Use my dialectical behavior therapy skills to cope with distress and regulate my emotions.


these are my relationships:

Intention: I enjoy loving, warm relationships with my family and friends, where it is safe to communicate openly and honestly while speaking words that build, bless, and comfort

Continue to work toward couples' therapy at Family Services
Continue to teach my daughter behaviors that will enable her to fully function and be happy as a child and into her adulthood
Encourage my husband to continue his therapy without taking responsibility for his appointments
Write more snail mail.
Use my dialectical behavior therapy skills to communicate honestly while speaking words that build, bless, and comfort.

this is my abundance:

Intention: I enjoy abundant love, abundant resources, and abundant finances.

Look for a part-time job
Build a savings
Communicate honestly
Practice loving-kindness meditation and radiate love.
Advertise for piano students.

this is my creativity/purpose:

Intention: I connect often with the divine within myself, and enjoy my creativity and my work.

Develop creativity and inspirational workshops.
Devote myself to the study of becoming a birth doula, nursing, and midwifery.
Write a creativity and inspirational workshop to be presented at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship this summer.
Get my study materials for becoming a DONA member and birth doula as soon as I can afford them and study and work hard.
Begin my classes for nursing in June.
Continue to cultivate my spirituality.

this is how i practice self-love/self-care:

Intention: It is safe to live my life in a way that is loving and caring toward myself.

Do a weekly artist date.
Practice loving-kindness meditation.
Take my medications and make sure I don't run out.
Keep working toward eating in a balanced way.
Keep working toward regular exercise.

this is how i experience happiness/adventure:

Intention: I experience happiness and adventure grate*fully, and I enjoy the present moment.

Practice mind*fullness
Practice mind*fullness
Practice mind*fullness
Stay present in the moment when I am feeling happy rather than waiting for the other shoe to drop.

meditation practice

well, one of the things on my 100+ dream list that i did two weeks ago was develop a consistent meditation practice.

now i'm sure that someone i know told me about this long long ago because she actually changed her name to this. but i'm not really GETTING it until now.

i went on my library website and put every book i could find about meditation and mind*fullness on hold. i actually got a snippy message from the library.

"elizabeth, you have thirteen books on hold here at the library and we don't have an abundance of room on our shelves to keep that many books for one person so would you please come pick them up?"

but then when i did go to pick them up they said that i was not the first one that had gone buck nutty putting books on hold on their websight before. so then i felt better.

anyway, one of the books is about loving-kindness, or maitri, meditation. and i actually have a friend who changed her name to maitri, so i know she has told me and the online community in which i met her about it before.

but i actually started it practicing it last night and it actually works for me.

it decreases my anxiety.

it helps me feel more relaxed.

i still did have some insomnia last night and got up after trying to fall asleep for a while. but usually when i get up i'm up for hours. last night i was only up for about 30 minutes.

so it's working.

and it just makes me feel so...GOOD.

full of love...and kindness. go figure, since it's loving-kindness meditation and all...

more later and this week's assignment percolating~
elizabeth

Friday, January 8, 2010

Dreams Come True

So this week, our assignment was to think about and record dreams that have come true in our lives. Thinking about it, the fulfillment of one small dream influenced all the other dreams I ever had.

The first thing that came to my mind was I got married and had a family.
I got into and graduated from college.
When I was little, my big dream was to become an opera singer.

And there were a lot of little dreams along the way, stepping stones along the way to the big dream of becoming an opera singer.
Auditions I would succeed at, etc.

I got into the summer rec productions of Grease and the Music Man in high school (The Music Man, to this day, remains my favorite musical).

I got into select chorus in high school.

And then, I got into a show called Melodies of Christmas my sophomore year in high school. The show is performed by the Empire State Youth Orchestra and Empire State Youth Chorale (I was in Chorale). I had always admired the show, a fundraiser for the pediatric oncology unit at the Albany Medical Center. I had always wanted to go see it. And it was broadcast on local TV!

I remember getting the letter and screaming and jumping around the post office. It was the day of our homecoming pep rally.

And when I really think back about it, that one dream come true is the one that most greatly influenced my life!

It was there that I met my best friend, and my daughter's godmother.

It was there that I found out about the New York State Summer School of the Arts, and when my voice teacher brought the auditions to my attention, I immediately applied, auditioned, and, the summer after my junior year, was accepted.

Once I got into NYSSSA, things really started happening.

I met a professor there named Everett McCorvey, and was immediately greatly impressed by him. He was so knowledgeable, and had such enthusiasm, and had such great rapport with us kids. In a panel discussion that the instructors did on careers in music, I found out that Dr. McCorvey had done his training at the University of Alabama.

Well, I raved about him to my parents.

My dad said, "Did you say he went to the University of Alabama?"

I said, "Yes."

He said, "Well, get back down there and find out if he knew your Uncle Bill!"

Uncle Bill was my father's first wife's uncle, the youngest brother of my third grandma, Grandma Topley. Uncle Bill and his wife, Aunt Belle, had been to visit us several times in my youth when they were up from Tuscaloosa. Uncle Bill had been the head of the music department at Alabama for many, many years.

So I asked Doc if he had known Uncle Bill, and he said, "You know Bill Steven?"

"He was my great-uncle," I said.

Turns out it was Bill Steven who had convinced a young Everett McCorvey to change his major from baritone horn to voice.

Dr. McCorvey was now on the faculty at the University of Kentucky.

Not 30 days after I got home from NYSSSA, I had a huge packet of information from UK. "Dr. Everett McCorvey, with whom you studied at the New York State Summer School of the Arts, recommended that we send you this information," the cover letter said.

That fall, I made a list of schools I wanted to audition for.

"Where is that Dr. McCorvey?" my father asked me. "I liked him."

"The University of Kentucky," I said.

"You should put that on your list. You gotta go where you got the in's," he said.

So I put UK on my list, along with six other schools. My parents said I had to narrow it down to five. So I crossed out the one with the highest application fee and the one with the strictest audition requirements.

UK made the short list.

And, as Dad and I traveled to my different audition sites we were gradually narrowing down the list.

Hartt and Crane, I didn't get enough financial aid.
Shenandoah, the auditions were so disorganized, I was thoroughly disgusted.
Eastman, I didn't get in (but I didn't like it once I got there anyway; I know that sounds like sour grapes, but I really didn't feel like I fit in there).

So in a way, the decision was made for me. Kentucky, it was.

And I fell in love with Lexington, so, several years after I graduated, I moved back.

And it was there that I met my husband, who gave me my child...

Saturday, January 2, 2010

100 dreams...haha, i've got it!!!!! and then some!

1. get pregnant
2. heal my marriage.
3. get the rest of the seasons of friends on dvd (or deedle-dee as melanie says).
4. go back to work.
5. build up a savings.
6. pay down my debt.
7. build up my marykay inventory.
8. attend a mets game at citi field.
9. move out of my in-laws' house.
10. practice meditation consistently.
11. read daily.
12. get regular manicure/pedicures.
13. go on a weekly date with my husband.
14. visit a state i haven't been to yet.
15. plan a honeymoon with my husband.
16. get melanie potty-trained.
17. build etsy inventory.
18. find piano students.
19. sample local finger lakes wines.
20. create a raised-bed garden...vegetables and herbs.
21. create and sing in a band (or an a-cappella octet).
22. volunteer at the horseheads animal shelter.
23. learn to take great landscape photos.
24. create inspirational retreats.
25. attend celebrate your life.
26. create an indoor herb garden.
27. create a meditation spot in the back yard.
28. rebuild my collection of sark books.
29. attend a sark event.
30. write a new book i'm thinking about. non-fic this time.
31. give a weekly contribution to my church.
32. give an annual contribution to a cause i deem worthy.
33. recover the songs i wrote that i lost on my old computer.
34. visit aunt kay once a month.
35. lead a creativity or inspiration workshop.
36. write a bio to accompany website and other internet postings for said creativity/inspiration workshop when i prepare it.
37. write gratitudes daily.
38. keep morning pages every day.
39. learn photoshop.
40. take a yoga class.
41. go back to school.
42. attend new york football giants' training camp.
43. attend a new york football giants' game at the new stadium (carrie if i come to a steelers game w/you you're coming to a giants game w/me...deal?)
44. go to lexington for final four weekend if uk makes the final four
45. finish my novel.
46. self-publish said novel.
47. win nanowrimo again.
48. plan a playdate with jess.
49. plan a playdate with tressa.
50. plan a playdate with earl.
51. plan a playdate with gail.
52. plan a playdate with joann.
53. plan a playdate with merideth.
54. get my guitar fixed.
55. find a local drumming circle.
56. buy a drum.
57. send regular snail mail.
58. get phone service where i can call the us and canada for a flat rate.
59. become fluent in another language.
60. get all my christmas decorations up by the day after thanksgiving.
61. drink more water.
62. get my pilots' license.
63. memorize the gettysburg address.
64. memorize my three favorite poems.
65. memorize the declaration of independence.
66. learn which constitutional amendment grants which freedom (if i'm going to be indignant about terrorists trying to thwart the american way, i'd better at least know what the american way is, n'est-ce pas?)
67. visit a national park.
68. make my great-grandmother's cinnamon roll recipe.
69. finish the knit/crochet projects i started for christmas presents for last year.
70. take weekly spa showers.
71. learn to sew.
72. spend quiet time working on songwriting.
73. write more music.
74. do arrangements for my octet.
75. practice radical acceptance of myself as i am.
76. memorize the sigma alpha iota symphony.
77. join the uk alumni association.
78. join a sigma alpha iota alumnae chapter.
79. join acda.
80. join dona.
81. work on becoming a certified birth doula.
82. practice emotion regulation.
83. do something everyday off the pleasant activities list.
84. create a self-soothe kit.
85. bake all the christmas cookies i want to in time for christmas.
86. keep trying new recipes.
87. stay active every mary kay quarter.
88. attend mary kay seminar in dallas.
89. do a weekly artist date.
90. keep full ink cartridges in my printer.
91. establish an adult choir at my church.
92. create an image journal.
93. establish a routine of regular exercise.
94. crochet or knit daily.
95. visit the corning museum of glass.
96. take anna and melanie to the strong museum in rochester.
97. visit the corning/corelleware store in corning.
98. try new local restaurants.
99. stop relying on meds to help me sleep.
100. practice keeping a positive outlook.
101. reconnect with ned b. fleischer.
102. rebuild my collection of sheet music.
103. take a glider ride at harris hill.
104. stop acting out of fear.
105. stop living in fear.
106. master knitting socks. (maybe wooden needles will help.)

Friday, January 1, 2010

100 dreams...

100 dreams?! Really?!

Hehe it's a challenge from my friend Andrea.

http://www.abccreativity.com/2010/01/01/creating-dreams-come-true-beginning-a-creative-adventre/

I'm doing this online workshop with her.

She challenged us to come up with 100 dreams to get us in the habit of dreaming big!

I'll be back to post my list on Sunday...I'm going to ruminate on this and write them down with pen and paper first.

more later...

love~
elizabeth