A few thoughts from Utah

Change is scary, but staying stuck is scarier.
I miss my bed!
In Ashevegas, I am the Snot Queen. Here in the high altitude and desert, I am the Nosebleed Queen. I am always bringing sexy back, yo.
I just did a test to affirm what I’ve learned in my first week of a five week orientation process, and I did fine, but it was surprising to realize just how much I’ve already learned.
Sometime sushi places make this stuff up. Surf and turf sushi?? (it was good)
I am so grateful for all the love and encouragement that’s been given to me for this change. I’m still scared; I’d be lying if I claimed I wasn’t nervous and weirded out. I chose to earn less money in order to live more richly…I hope you’ll buy me dinner sometime 😉
I miss my kiddo. Teenagers are difficult animals that test our patience, but I miss her snarky eye-rolling face.
Flying is cool, but were the seats designed for people with no arms? Where am I supposed to put my elbows? Do I really have to fold up like origami for four hours at a time?
Audio books are awesome. Close your eyes. Headphones on. Kick the seat back that one glorious inch we’re allotted on a flight and it’s wonderful.
I miss my fur children. I’m told they miss me and are acting out a little…good. Let them know The Food Lady is coming home soon.

Greetings from…Utah!

I’m on the other side of the country…might as well be the other side of the world. No hipsters, craft beer, or tattoos ’round here.
This is the beginning of a new adventure…this time of transition is weird to say the least. I switch between wildly excited to completely freaked out about every 3 minutes or so.

Surprised

I was surprised today.
There is kindness in a check-in, kindness in a message, kindness where I thought the well had long dried up.
I wish kindness was reliable, a rock I could lean on, but even fleeting, it was very welcome, much appreciated.

I Ran Away From Home

Some iteration of this will probably end up on my business site, too, but I wanted to start here, on the good ol’ Kat Box.
Yesterday, my plans changed at the last minute and instead of a full day of scheduled work in front of me, I had half a day of freedom staring me in the face.
I woke up and the first thing I thought of was that I was totally not making breakfast for all these people in my house. All these people could fend for themselves! I threw on clothes and tiptoed out the door before anyone could ask anything of me.
Because I party like a rock star, I went to the post office for stamps. Yes, I still mail things; I know that’s totally old school, but the act of writing checks and applying stamps to envelopes helps me remember that I actually completed the entire bill paying task.
I went to Lowe’s to return something. Yeah, still partying.
I had several other grownup things on my mental to-do list…but I said (out loud, because, alas, most of my talking to myself is out loud), “Fuck it.” I decided to run away for a while, out of cell phone range.
I drove to the Hot Spot, same one I used to go to for a Dr. Pepper on the way to school when I was a teenager. I loaded up a few provisions, put on my sunglasses, and took myself up into the woods. The Bent Creek Experimental Forest around Lake Powhatan is one of my favorite places to hide out, and it’s been that way since I was able to drive myself there.
Driving and driving up the winding dirt road, I was grateful for the recent rain so there weren’t dust clouds. I was excited to see there was no one parked at my favorite pull off spot.
Out of the car and a walk down the steep hill…in moments, my shoes and socks were off and I was out in the middle of the cold creek. If you aren’t from this mountain area, you might think a cold creek on a sunny day is cool and delightful: you need to know it’s really really really cold—cringe-inducing cold. Yep, you will get used to it if you wade a while but it’s not the happy splashing BS of Mountain Dew commercials; it’s just plain cold…but I love it. I ruin many perfectly lovely pedicures with my passion for wandering out into creeks full of rocks and twigs and such. I love the shimmer of the sun across the water, the tadpoles swimming along in the shallows, even the bugs scooting across the surface.
I spent a while in the creek, a wading meditation, I guess. I spent a while on a rock watching butterflies. I spent a while on a log watching bees buzz around the flowers. I spent a while just walking in the quiet. When I walked back up to the car, I was surprised to see how many hours had passed.
I made my way back home, and no surprise, they’d managed to fend for themselves. All was right in the world, and so was I.

I Need a Vacation

I seriously, desperately need a vacation. I have a few weeks in a row of 6 day workweeks between my two, sometimes three, jobs.

My dryer quit working. The dishwasher quit working. The washer only likes to work sometimes. The kid broke her phone and her car needed $1100 in repairs. My HVAC needed replacing. All this within the last 60 days. Kind of at the end of my proverbial rope, y’know?

I am tired. I was just staring hard at the calendar trying to figure out how it got to be April. Wasn’t it just Christmas? I need a nap. In a hammock. By the sea.

Annoyed

I’m Kat and I get annoyed.

This week’s topic of annoyance is snake oil salesmen. Healers in wolves’ clothing. False prophets.

See, here’s the thing:
As logical and linear and stubborn as I am, I’m also crystals, candles, intuition, energy, and shamanic journeying meditations. I have a real problem, though, with folks who pick up a shiny rock and instantly call themselves a healer, a prophet, a light worker, a shaman, whatever. You can’t buy intuition. You can’t shortcut to your higher self or the astral plane with your MasterCard, baby. Doesn’t work like that.

Even if you are gifted with intuition or healing hands, you need some training. You need some kind of education or apprenticeship or even dedicated study and solo practice, but there’s no express line. You can’t hang a pendant around your neck on Friday, get a snazzy tat, throw on a toe ring, and hang out your shingle Monday. That’s reckless. You don’t know what you’re toying with, and we don’t go tinkering around in these realms willy-nilly. Bad things can happen, and that’s not a threat: it’s a flippin’ guarantee that you’ll screw something or someone (maybe yourself) up dispensing bullshit wisdom, leaving portals open, or exercising idiocy in the name of swindling a buck out of unwitting consumers.

We’re in Asheville for gawd’s sake. You wanna learn some reiki acupuncture manifestation raw foods folk magic sound bowl massage crystal healing herbal tincture candle spell transcendental meditation juju? Leave your house: you’ll fall over opportunities to learn and grow in this town. For safety’s sake, may you been seen as who and what you are so no one is harmed by your greedcentric foolishness (so mote it be, so mote it be, so mote it be, and so it is).

Things

I spent a lot of the winter sick as hell. Fevers, chills, coughs. Two or three feeling good days followed by two weeks of illness, repeat all winter long.
Better now, so that’s meant some time playing catch up. Catch up the laundry, hang up the stuff in my closet, put the books and books and books and more books back where they belong. Read all these magazines.
Change some stuff around. Embrace more woo-woo in my life because weird feels good. Let go of more of the uptight stuff, make space for what feels better.
New things in the works. Still purging, still modifying.

Alive

I’ve been sick for weeks now. Bronchitis, sinusitis, ear infection. Two rounds of antibiotics back to back…but my ear still hurts. Makes it hard to think, hard to concentrate for long.
So I’m not gone, just sleeping a lot. I’ll be back soon.

This Really Happened Today

Things that really happened today:
A medicine woman anointed my third eye with an elixir whipped up in a hurricane and red dirt from Sedona.
A medium told me the goddess Diana was waiting for me to call upon her.
I held someone’s ring in my hand and told them where it came from with reasonable accuracy as well as an anecdote about something the original owner used to say/sing all the time.
Just another ordinary day…