See You Guys Sunday...

My mom is in town visiting me for the day so there will be no "people you should know" post this week. (There will be one next week though it might be later in the day since next Saturday is the DC area HerFuture meetup!) Enjoy your weekend and tomorrow Lessons 21 & 22 should be up.

^--- Taken around Nov of 2008 i think. Me my mom and little sis

I See Said The Blind Mind - A Course In Miracles Lesson 20

... to his deaf wife. (Ok, bad joke i know but i had to do it).

A short post today as i am prepping for my mom to drive in tomorrow to visit me... yay! (And im not just going "yay" because she offered to buy me 1-2 weeks worth of groceries... although it does help).

Also, if more of the lessons are going to be like this (where they encourage you to tell yourself that you want to see twice an hour) i really need to get in the habit of lugging (seriously, this book is thick and huge) my book with be in my bag when i go to work. I've put it in my bag a handful of times its just since i have to get up wicked early i use my bus ride to work to nap and do my morning meditation (since i dont always have time to do my morning meditation at work). If there was a little paperback with just the lessons in it that i could throw in my bag i would be all over it (and will probably be checking amazon later tonight).

And a random aside. Whenever i would remind myself of the days morning meditation intention "i will not let me ego get the best of me and i will see only love" during work this song liked to pop up in my head...

kind of weird, i know...

I Am Not Alone In These Experiences... A Course In Miracles Lessons 18 & 19

The semester has started for me so you guys will have to give me a few weeks to figure out when i can fit in my blogs in between a full load of classes and 30+ hours a week at work (and dont forget the kickball!) I Will still post all of my lesson notes its just they most likely wont be daily (and i still want to keep my meatless monday segment and my "person you should know" segment that i do over the weekend).  Thursdays might be my "weekend off" from blogging since it is the one day where i work and then go straight to school and am not done with classes till 9:50 pm! I love you all but a girl has to get her sleep.

But on to the lessons...

Now, these lessons didn't necessarily hurt my brain like others. It's more like the concept of joint minds or joint consciousness seems completely foreign and science fictiony to me. And since minds are joined there are no private thoughts... (which totally threw me for a loop). I know im not meant to understand or even grasp these concepts yet, im just wondering when they're not going to seem so out there for me...

Hehe, oh ya, like the doodles in lesson 19? This is what i do in class when i get bored. The lesson didnt bore me, but when trying to read the "Text" before class today it was putting me to sleep *silly ego* so i decided to doodle instead to jog my brain back to being away. (I never doodle first and then do my notes inside the doodle. I always start to write my notes first, doodle, and then do both at the same time. Maybe throughout this semester i shall share some of my handy work).

Stop SOPA & PIPA

Since Blogger isn't as awesome as wordpress there are no handy dandy apps to let me blackout my blog for the day. So in solidarity i will not be posting on Wednesday, January 18. (But will post my days notes on thursday).



PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Forward and Reverse... There Is No Neutral. A Course In Miracles Lessons 16 & 17

Hey, i thought i was being kind of witty at least with my post title. (If you didnt laugh blame it on the fact that im writing this, like i do with most of my other posts, right before i go to bed).

No brain hurting this time around, just lots of pondering about the word "neutral." Lesson 16 says you can have no neutral thoughts, and lesson 17 says you can see no neutral things, so is there ever such a thing as neutral in anything in life? (Something i will again have to ponder when i am not so sleepy).

Lesson 16 notes

Lesson 17 notes

And for those of you that are reading my lesson 17 notes and are like "who in the hell is Mr Snuggles" this is him...

This guy has seen the world! He has been with me to Iraq, Kuwait, Germany, Ukraine, and all over the U.S. He refuses to be in checked baggage and must always travel in a carry-on. (Even going to Iraq he was in my day-pack). He loves Starbucks so much so that my own mom got Mr Snuggles a gift card to Starbucks for Christmas. (Yes, it was actually addressed to him. My own boyfriend will even contribute to his backstory...

So that shows you that even for a stuffed animal he kind of plays an important role in my life... Maybe he should get his own "people you should know" post... lol. (And did i mention that he helped co-author a NaNoWriMo novel? Trust me, he as a very long and detailed backstory).

Meatless Monday's... Kale Chips!

So last week while looking up recipes for green juices i randomly remembered how tasty the kale chips i had were at an event at Elizabeth's Gone Raw over a year ago. Not wanting to pay $7 for a small bag at whole foods i decided to google kale chip recipes and stumbled upon a recipe from Kath Eats Real Food. I made a few personal modifications and came out with this...

It may not look like it from the picture but they actually do come out of the oven crispy and do kind of crunch like potato chips (really, tasty, way better for you potato chips). But i am getting a head of myself here... let me give you Kath Eat's recipe and i will also give you notes on my personal modifications.

• Preheat oven to about 375* Yup, this is what i did. 
• Use about 1 OXO salad spinner’s worth of kale (which was a stuffed grocery store veggie bag). Tear the leaves off the thick stems into bite size pieces. Spread out on cookie sheets. I don't have a salad spinner so i just tore off enough leaves till it filled a regular sized cookie pan. 
• Drizzle with about 2 tsp of olive oil I wound up using about 1 tablespoon of coconut oil. I like the taste better. 
• Sprinkle with Parmesan, Asiago or your seasonings of choice. Plus a sprinkle of kosher salt. In the particular batch that i have pictured i sprinkled it with chili powder, minced garlic, parmesan cheese, and sea salt. Very tasty...
• Bake for about 15 minutes, until edges are brown and kale is crispy when moved in pan. Maybe it's just my oven but i usually wind up baking them for about 17 minutes. I also like my mine extra krispy.

Often times a pan of kale chips and a fresh green juice winds up being my dinner after a long day at work (not the best i know but the combo is just so darn tasty and satisfying). I've also had a lot of fun trying different combinations of toppings for my kale chips (which i hope to share with you guys on future meatless mondays provided they actually turn out well and taste good). 

Speaking of, im actually out of kale and now have a hankering for them just by writing about them. If any of you try out this recipe let me know how it turns out for you. Or if you come up with an awesome combination of seasoning let me know that too!

Toddles!

P.S. PureGlow16 has an awesome section on her blog about different vegan and raw vegan recipes that i  highly recommend. 

When my ego and ~ing go head to head... A Course In Miracles Lesson 15

*For those not familiar with Gabrielle Berstein's work, ~ing means inner guide/inner compass*

So today started out awesome. Since it takes me around 1.5 hours by bus to get to work in the morning i use this time to chill out to some music, maybe listen to one of Gabby's lectures, and just kind of zone out or even meditate. During this zoning out time all of a sudden i came up with an amazing domain name for my blog (and subsequently thanked the universe because the domain name i originally wanted when i started this blog, was unable to be transferred over from my old blog). Work went well, and my kickball team won their second game in a row. Chillaxing at home after even went well. Then i got to todays lesson...

I apologize for the expletives and near expletives written in my notes for today. But this lesson just did not sit well with me at all. I can not grasp even a centimeter of this concept and know that it will be something i have to work on/at for an extremely long time. I am having a hard time grasping the idea that my eye's are not seeing but are only creating images. I don't know, it's just something i do not get right now.

The one part that gave me a little bit of hope was "you will begin to understand it when you have seen little edges of light around the same familiar objects which you see now." I hope that that is true and if any of you are experienced students of ACIM please tell me what your experiences are with this if you have any.

But to put myself in a better mood after i went on youtube and listened to some of my favorite songs (which i will now share with you).

A Day To Remember - If It Means A Lot To You

All Time Low - Remembering Sunday

^--- one of my all time favorite songs. so much so that

my boyfriend learned it on the guitar just so he could

play it for me over skype since he's stationed on the

other side of the country from me (and is sadly for me deployed

right now). 

White Tie Affair - Take It Home

Mayday Parade - Jamie All Over

^--- Long story but this is me and my bf's song...

I would also like to publicly thank Danielle Boonstra for leaving me with this tidbit on the blogpost i made on HerFuture showing my week in review of my lesson notes...

"I love that you do this! And remember, as long as you're doing these with your ~ing and forgiving yourself along the way you are doing it correctly!!! xoxoxo"