Are You Ready?

Hey Guys! So ya, it's pretty much been almost the entire year since i have posted last and i feel freekin horrible about that. When i was blogging i was really excited and truly believed in everything i was blogging about. Then this thing called life kind of got in the way. Within the last couple of weeks or so i have started to take life by the horns and have been making some huge changes for the better and part of that includes this blog.

I'll be returning with a vengeance and with a somewhat new format (layout and content wise). I will be starting over with my ACIM posts as i have strayed from that as well. Instead of trying to do one a day i will do a lesson and not move on until i feel i have fully completed that lesson to the best of my ability. I will also be doing more recipes as i have been actually cooking meals more and become super huge into juicing. (I'm doing a mini juice cleanse right now as we speak). I will be posting on healthy lifestyle topics and general be that mind, body or spirituality reality.

Things are changing and they are changing for the better.

The name for this blog is also changing to better reflect all of the other changes that are happening within in. All of these changes will be happening on a rolling basis (no set date yet) but i honestly feel you are going to love them and you will enjoy this blog better then you did before when i first started out.

So for those of you have the stuck by, awesome! I truly do appreciate it.

See you guys around!

I Am Still Here

I know its been close to a month since my last post so i wanted to come and explain where i have been. (Or at least attempt to). In addition to my college workload picking up other keyholders have left my job (or taken a leave of absence, no one is telling me what is going on) which means i involuntarily have to work even more hours on top of my full time college workload. More recently my grandfather passed away. Now, we weren't particularly close, but what angered me and my mom is his girlfriend called my aunt this week and said "your dad died a week ago and has been cremated." Seriously who the f#ck pulls that kind of s#it? So with all of this extra workload and stress on me, by the time i get home i just want to pass the f#ck out.

I have been somewhat keeping up with my ACIM lessons but i don't do them daily anymore. I've gotten up to the 60's and they are now requiring even more time. I do not want to cheat myself out of what the lessons are trying to tell me so some lessons take a few days and there are some days where i dont even work on a lesson because so much else has come up. I do have a bunch of lessons that i have done that i will post a few at a time over the next week or so so as not to overwhelm you or have to much clutter in one post.

Once this whole mess at work clears up i hope to be back on here more regularly and get back in to the swing of things. In the mean time im currently working on my meditation and yoga practice to get me through this period of time.

"Seeing" Is Believing - A Course In Miracles Lesson 52

So im trying to get better at this time management thing as part of my upcoming detox. Not only will it help with me posting more regularly but also it should help me get to bed earlier. (Which means more sleep and less reliance on coffee... yay!) I'm sure i will let you guys know how that goes...lol.

Speaking of time management, i finally got around to starting and completing my vision board yesterday!

As Claudia said yesterday, "there's a lot of yoga on there." Which makes sense to me since that's ultimately what i want to do in life (and why im saving up for teaching training next year). I also have pictures of meditating (which i want to make a habit), positive affirmations, and just plain overall relaxing. My new year intentions i made at the start of the year have been working out awesome so im hoping this vision board helps me as well.

Not to much to expand on since these next few days will just be reviews. Which i actually like that ACIM does that. I mean, after a few weeks you might not really remember what you did in the past lessons so its nice to have a little refresher every so often.

Well, im off to check on yet another batch of oven dried tomatoes (i think i've almost reached kale chip addiction proportions with these) and try to get some reading done in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and Against the Stream. I hope everyone enjoyed Pancake Day (my made from scratch vegan pancakes were just short of amazing).

~Victoria

It's Off To Sleepy Land But Not Before A Course In Miracles Lessons 49, 50, 51

This is going to be short and sweet cause well, im tired. Since im giving up caffeine for the detox im doing with Claudia  i figured i could use all the sleep i can get. Besides all that i had a pretty productive day. Ran to the organic market so i could get more tomatoes to make oven dried tomatoes and i started and finished my vision board! (Will post later this week for you guys to see).

But on to the lesson notes...

(Was very tired by the time i got to this lesson, 

hence the lack of actually written notes). 

(Next few days are review days. When im not so tired

i'll actually expand on my notes. I'm doing my lessons

but sometime i just dont know how to translate them

in to written notes). 

Home Cooked Meatless Monday Tastiness

Good afternoon everyone! I hope everyone is having an enjoyable Presidents Day (for those of you that live in the US). I was lucky enough to not be scheduled for work today, and because of the holiday i have no classes so i actually have the full day off! And with having a full day off i was able to wake up and enjoy a delicious green juice (cucumber, green squash, apple, carrots, coconut water) as well as make a yummy meatless monday lunch!

It's a "salad" of sorts with quinoa, baked chickpeas (that i baked last night) and oven dried tomatoes (that i also baked... for four hours last night). Once in my bowl i also sprinkled a tablespoon of coarsely ground flax seed that i picked up from Whole Foods last night. Lets just say it was VERY tasty (in addition to being all sorts of good for me nutritionally wise).

"So Victoria, whats with the switch from the processed fake meats that you love so much to this organic whole food goodness" you might be asking?

Later this week, me and my (to steal a line from Gabby Bernstein) Spiritual Running Buddy Claudia are doing a 7 day detox (using the system from Arbonne since her roomie is a rep) so i figured i would get a little bit of a head start on eating cleaner and cutting out my caffeine. (You don't know how hard that is for someone that works at a coffee shop). Sure it's kind of making my grocery bill go up more so then normal but hey, my health it worth it right? (Plus while at Whole Foods i picked up lots of veggies for my juicer... wicked excited about that part especially).

So who knows where this cleaner eating (at least for a week) will take me. But i bet i can get some great meatless monday posts out of it!

Take A Look, It's In A Book, A Reading Rainbow... - A Course In Miracles Lessons 47 & 48

Raise your hand if this was one of your favorite PBS shows growing up in the 80's & 90's. (I can't be the only one. 3-2-1 Contact was also the shiznit). The main reason why i posted this video was because, thank you to my state tax refunds coming in, i was able to acquire these books over the last three days. (Amazon prime is a very, very, evil thing sometimes).

The book in the top left is actually on YogaDistricts reading list for teacher training. Since my goal is to start my teacher training next year i figured i would start acquiring and reading the books now. The three books around it are all by Noah Levine. I kind of equate him along the lines of the male Gabby Bernstein for for buddhist meditation. If i could become a mix of those two people one day that will be awesome! And of course on the right is my third different copy of A Course In Miracles.

Why three different copies?

The first copy i got was the edition put out by the Foundation For Inner Peace since thats what it seamed (at the time to me) everyone was reading. Then at my first DC area HerFuture meetup i saw one of the girls with a smaller travel version she got in the bargain section at Barnes & Noble. So i picked that up so i could do my lessons, if needed on the metro. As for the third copy... The more i do my lessons the more ideas my ~ing leads me to in regards to the Course and sharing it with others. Well, in order to do implement some of these ideas i needed a copy of the public domain version of ACIM so as to avoid legal problems. Lucky for us it is a) available on the web and b) if you want a hard copy the A Course In Miracles Society prints the public domain version. These ideas i have floating around in my head are still a ways off but i get all excited just thinking about them.

And of course my lessons for the past two days...

When i started this lesson the first thing i thought about was my baby blanket i had sitting beside me on my bed. God may be the strength in which i am learning to trust now, but my baby blanket is what got me through a lot of things when i was younger. So i of course kind of cuddled myself in it during the lesson.

In case you can't tell by all the bubbles and arrows, i really enjoyed todays lesson. Then again i've noticed, if any part of the lessons now deal with my lightbulb moment i had earlier this week i get all sorts of excited. Also, i finally have a new song to be stuck in my head during the lessons (lol).

In case you don't know, this is Saosin's "You're Not Alone" and this i think is very applicable to many aspects of A Course In Miracles. Plus, i met the entire band at Warped Tour during the summer of 2009 behind the stage they performed on. All of the guys were awesome and the lead singer was kind enough to take a pic with me and give me a guitar pick.

Tomorrows Shout Out Saturday post may be a little late or it may not happen at all. The HerFuture DC gals are getting together again, this time to drink wine and discus anything and everything related to A Course In Miracles and beyond. Hope you all have an enjoyable weekend!!!

Hugz From The Universe - A Course In Miracles Lessons 45 & 46

(Borrowed from DesiComments)

Awww. I want to thank everyone for their outpouring of love and support these past two days after i posted my "Quantum Shifting In A Major Way" post. I got so many supportive comments here on my blog, on twitter and even via text message from my IRL fellow Spirit Junkie Claudia. Knowing that you guys (and the Universe) have my back means more to me then i could really describe here in a blog post.  Since that post i attended an awesome yoga class (will be going to the same one every week, totally connect and click with the instructor) and started ordering books that Yoga District requires for their teacher training. (I want to start accumulating them over the next couple of months so i have that little bit of an edge when i do my actual teacher training). 

I of course have also been keeping up with my course lessons (in addition to ordering the Original Edition of ACIM, which will bring my copies of the course up to three).

Shhh... don't tell anyone. But i did this lesson after class. Right before that class i met up with Claudia for a few drinks. Maybe thats why i was surprised with myself with how free flowing i was with todays exercise. (Not that i advocate drinking to get through your lessons. But to each their own). 

Also in another awesome note. This Saturday the DC area HerFuture girls are having another meetup! So DC and beyond, prepare for lots of amazing, fun loving vibes going out into the universe!