Life Is An Adventure

In the past two years I've lived in four states, moved eight times and traveled from one coast to the other. I don't have any regrets about anywhere I've been or anything I've done. My life has not been boring that's for sure! I'm thinking I'll be writing about this story on here. It's quite interesting.

This is the season where we are supposed to be grateful. I am grateful for every single thing I've experienced....good or bad because in the end...everything is a lesson. Everything happens for a reason at the very moment it's meant to happen.

Hello,
I had difficulty with my password. I changed it and then it would not let me sign it. It took me awhile to figure out how to get it fixed but it seems to be working now. I'm happy to have it fixed. Also, I don't have a lot of internet time. I am living in the country and the internet access is through satellite, so it's limited. I already went over for this month!So I need to be careful of how much time I spend on here.

Hello. It's been so long since I last blogged, I have no idea what I'm doing! I need to change a few things on this blog and I'll start that tomorrow. I can't believe I'm blogging again!!

Getting ready tomorrow to start the job hunting again. I will probably get something in retail again. :)

Today I went to the Unity Spiritual Center....which I really loved. I'd been going there four years ago when I was in New Mexico. At that time, I'd gone for a couple of months. I will probably become a member because everything about it is great. Hopefully I will find a job where I don't have to work on Sundays.

I've been walking a lot....a few days ago I spent two hours walking down at the Rio Grande river. I walked on the opposite side of it which I never even knew about and there are some great bike paths there. I still have my bicycle so I may even bring that down there sometime....after I get some bike riding practice. I have not ridden my bike for quite some time.

Not much else is new. I just wanted to do a quick update while I'm able to get on the computer so that is it. I hope y'all are having a great weekend!

Back In New Mexico

I arrived back in New Mexico late Sunday. It was an interesting journey and I enjoyed it very much (well, most of it). I had my GPS set for Four Corners which is up in the left upper part of NM where the four states meet. I ended up being too tired to go that far so I'll make that trip another time. Anyhow it took me on a different route that I took on the way to Massachusetts. It took me through upstate New York and it was so beautiful. I found myself about 40 miles away from Niagara falls so I went there. It was amazing and beautiful and I was glad I went....even though I had to go over too huge bridges to get there and back over them to get back on the road. At the falls, I went on The Maid Of The Mist boat. It took us over to the falls....both the American and Canadian side. As we got close water was spraying every where and the water was wild and rough. I loved it! I also walked around that area of New York a bit and it was so different from the Bronx that I passed through on the way there. I love that part of New York and would love to go back there again some day. Much of the route I took was through rural areas and I saw nothing but cows and farms. When I got to Kansas I went through a little town called Liberal and I went to Dorothy's house (OZ) and museum and that was fun too since I'd always loved The Wizard of Oz as a child.
I think it was after Kansas that I changed my GPS route to Albuquerque and it took me back to I-40 west and I made it all the way from Kansas to New Mexico in one day. The whole trip took four days instead of my normal two and a half days.

When I was in Missouri, I got stuck in some pretty bad thunder storms where the rain was so bad I could hardly see to drive. I had to stop for a couple of hours and then I got started again and I got stuck on the freeway where there was a bad accident involving quite a few vehicles. I had to sit there for about an hour. By then it was almost 10 pm and I was ready to stop but could find no place to stop. I ended up driving until almost one in the morning and I had to stay at a rest area which I really don't like to do. Aside from all this, it was a very fun trip. :)

I am staying over my daughter Kayla's house and she has no internet at this time. I do have it on my phone but can't really do to much with it. I am over my other daughter's house right now (Kelly) on one of the computers. I don't miss the internet as much as I thought I would.....

Well, that is it for now. Hope you all have a good week.

We are all surrounded by people who discriminate against other people because of their religion, race or sexual orientation. What do you say to a person who makes a derogatory remark about a person based not on who they truly are but one of the above? I try very hard to not judge people and since I would not have anything kind to say in a situation like this, I just choose to ignore it. It is their lesson to learn. It takes some people longer than others to realize we are all the same. We come from the same place. Nobody is better than anyone else. I truly do not understand how one's skin color, who they pray to, or who they choose to love makes them less of a person. When it comes to ignorance and bigotry, I believe the answer is COMPASSION and Love. Give both freely and the world will be a much better place.

Love and Peace, Barb

Material things mean nothing....except for the value that we give them. They are merely props in this script called LIFE that we ourselves write. We are the ones who create our lives so who are we to complain about it? We are here to learn compassion and love because really....what else is there?

Every day is a challenge. Last night at work I was having a difficult time because they stuck me in customer service...which I was training for but I'd actually had very little training. I was there for about a half hour by myself. The lines got very long with only two cashiers, the phone was ringing off the hook, a man was yelling at me and everything else that could go wrong....did go wrong.

After it was over I was back on my register. I looked over at the young girl on the register beside me. She is in her early 20's. She walks with a very bad limp. She told me once that she has a difficult time standing for any period of time. She showed me her elbow last night. It was all scraped up and bruised and she said she had fallen. She told me to feel her arm and I could feel that it was clicking when she bent it. It was most likely dislocated. Yet she was still there and worked through the night. It made me realize that my problems were very insignificant in the whole scheme of things. Thank you Angelica for this reminder.

Back to material things. That is what my job is all about. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe it is just a test of my patience to see through all the anger and chaos and see the real person inside. The person that came from the same Divine Presence that I did, the one we all came from. After all.....there is nothing that divides us except what we create in our own minds.
Love and Peace, Barb

Two Simple Words

can make all the difference in the world. (I'm Sorry)

First though I need to say that I have had way too much anger over my last relationship that did not work out. I have not been able to sleep for the past week because I have had this weighing on my heart. Then, a few things happened that made me realize I can't go on being this way. First, I am reading this book called You Are Here by Thich Nhat Hanh. He is a Zen Buddhist. He says we are to BE love and compassion but we are anger also and that is natural. We can transform that anger by recognizing it and then we can let it go. I was having a very difficult time in letting it go until last night when I recieved a few texts....one of which said he was very sorry and he said a few other things that I will always hold in my heart.

I posted the above quote on my Facebook wall yesterday...without thinking much about it. I did not even realize it was from Thich Naht Hanh until later in the day. I realized here I was putting these quotes on Facebook but not really living them. The above says.....When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deep within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment: he needs help. I was angry at someone who was suffering when instead I should just feel compassion.

The first noble truth of Buddhism is suffering. The Buddha tells us to look deeply at our suffering and embrace it in order to understand it and the path of healing and transformation will present itself to us. I am such a beginner to all this but I have to start somewhere. No path has ever felt so right for me. So here I am at the very beginning of the road about to start on a new journey and who knows what I will find?

As each day goes by I realize what a crazy relationship I was in. The funny thing is....that while I was in it, I was blinded. Maybe what they say....love is blind...is true.  It took this distance to be able to see it for what it was. Even before I came to Massachusetts, there are some things that I should have picked up on while we were talking on the phone. But I just ignored those things.

While I was still in New Mexico several things happened that I now realize are strange. One thing was that he told me that he had this App on his phone that enabled him to see what I was doing on my phone. He said it told him when I (and others )went on Facebook or on a browser. I don't know why I chose to believe him. He would tell me that I was going on Facebook and on the internet too much. Then later, he tried to tell me that he had another App that enabled him to see the messages between myself and others on Facebook....the private messages. I told him at the time that I did not believe this. He tried to tell me that I'd written very private things to this one guy that we went to school with. He had me in tears and I wanted to hang up on him and told him so.  He did finally say he was sorry. I should have realized that something was not right with his brain. He has told me several times that he has *brain damage* from so much drinking in the past. I am beginning to believe it.

Another thing that I noticed was that after awhile he started texting someone a lot. He would hide around the corner in the kitchen, or in the bedroom texting away. He would always say he was texting his brother. I knew then, and I know know that he was lying. Did he really think that I would be that stupid to not know he was texting a woman in South Carolina? He would also sit outside in his car for a long period of time when he got home late at night and just sit there on the phone. When I asked him about it, he said he was checking his schedule. I knew he was lying. Eventually I brought it up. I told him that before I came here to Massachusettes that he needed to make sure his previous relationship was over. I even asked him this....."If she stopped drinking all the time would you go back to her?" He said that he never would under any circumstances. He'd told me that she drank every day....starting in the morning and drank all day long. He also told me that she had relations with quite a few other men before and after he visited her but while they were a couple. Anyhow when I asked him about the texting and the phone calls, he denied it all. Well guess who is there with him now at his place? He just makes it very hard for me to have trust in anyone. I don't know why he had so much trouble telling the truth about things. He even lied about himself. He was not as tall as he said he was and I really didn't care about that buy why lie? There are other lies as well but on a more personal level so I won't go into them. It seems like the relationship was one big lie.