Now where did I leave off... oh yes! Well, after all of my rounds of working out yesterday I was very ready to take my evening shower. I decided to pull out a gift that was given to me of the Aromatherapy Sleep Body Wash & Foam Bath by Bath & Body Works which comes in the scent Lavender Vanilla.
The product in the bottle is actually more of a yellow color than it appears in the picture because the natural ingredients can color color differences from bottle to bottle. The product is designed to "help calm feelings of stress" so that you can get a better night's sleep. That should be too surprising since Lavender is known to be considered a calming scent. Technically the specific fragrances in this product are "Lavender Essential Oil" and "Vanilla Absolute". I'm not used to seeing vanilla fragrance referred to as vanilla absolute and immediately thought "well shoot... vanilla absolute... Absolute Vodka... yeah if that were a bottle of Vanilla Absolute Vodka I bet I WOULD get to sleep a lot quicker because that would definitely have some kind of a calming effect I bet." I don't drink though so I'm sticking with the body wash. I found this version of Lavender to actually be a very invigorating fragrance though which I have never experienced with Lavender before and thought it would actually be a better morning body wash for me if I were actually relying on it to change my state of awareness or level of energy in some way. Fragrances don't really work for me in that way though although they do invoke memories and other types of stimulation for me personally and I do change them sometimes based on how I'm feeling or the time of year as I think most people do. I don't feel compelled to do that though. I will use a winter peppermint candy cane scent in the summer time if I want to. I'm not controlled by my fragrances.
I still ended up tossing and turning quite a bit, but I was determined that I was not getting up this morning until I felt like I had at least slept a little bit, felt like I was actually waking up some and was not just forcing myself to get up regardless of what level of incoherence I was in, and like I knew for sure I probably would not even doze off anymore if I tried. At some point in the wee hours of the morning I was forced to bust out the Ipod Nano again and popped on the old Joel Osteen podcast again. This time I got through You are Anointed at least twice and moved onto Say So. I'm not sure how many times I listened to that one before I decided I just was not getting the calming relaxing quieting of the brain effect that I needed to get back to sleep and decided to switch to a meditation podcast I really do enjoy (and am convinced the Old Navy commercial with Amy Poehler where the women walk into the spa is inspiration for) called Meditation Oasis. Now, you aren't TECHNICALLY supposed to fall asleep during meditation although there are meditation session that are specifically designed for just that, but I find it to be one of the most useful resources when I can't slow my brain and get to sleep (although I am very picky about it because some meditation recordings I find to be just annoying and not at all relaxing) and often use it specifically for this purpose. I decided to put the Healthy Body Guided Meditation on repeat and it did the trick. I have no idea how many times it played through and I didn't stay asleep the entire time but it was a lot and it did exactly what I needed it to do. I finally gave up on sleep at about 9:30 because I did at least dream one time even though it was short lived.
I dreamt I went back to work at a place I used to work at about 8 years ago except that most of the people were different (because they are) and the building (which they are actually moving to another building if they haven't already) was very different on the inside. Now they are known for building and tearing down offices inside as they need them, but in my dream I think I was actually mushing the old building and the layout of my Jr. High School together so that in my dream it felt very familiar but I was sufficiently confused about where to find everything and who to ask when I had a question which made my first day at work difficult to maneuver. It was basically a grownup version of the dream teens have where you go to school just to look down and find you are completely naked.
Anyway, I actually got moving about 10:00 and got started on my daily load of laundry. (Today was a load of dark colors in warm water.) Now, if you recall, yesterday I told you how I am really working on trying to be more present and in the moment and am trying to get back to being able to focus on just one thing at a time. Well, it is a work in progress and today was the perfect example of not only how bad I've become at it but also of how bad I am about always having so much on my mind that I occasionally manage to screw up the simplest things. If someone had asked me yesterday if I remembered to put my load of wash into the dryer I would have said "Yes. I did." *Insert wrong answer buzzer sound effect here* I walked downstairs with today's load of laundry fully prepared to get it started and grab yesterdays load out of the dryer to hang it up. Lo and behold... when I opened the washer and started to drop the new load in I had to catch the items before they fell and promptly froze in confusion. There... in what I fully expected to be my empty washing machine... was a completely full load of wet laundry. I was so certain that I had completed my laundry task the day before successfully that for a moment I was so confused that my brain actually wondered momentarily whose laundry was sitting in my washing machine. Then as my eyes began to focus and my brain began to focus I started to be able to make out items of clothing that I recognized and realized that it was MY laundry that was still sitting in the washer from the morning before. "How did I manage to do this?!?" I thought to myself. "I even remember hearing the washer stop and having conscious thought about it being time to go put the load in the dryer and finishing what I was doing so that I could go do that." There was not one moment in the entire day where I had an "Oh CRAP! I forgot to do that!" moment. In fact, as I stood looking at the wet clothes I still feel a sense of certainty that "I HAD to have done it right?!?" I was so pre-occupied that my brain is still practically convinced that I could not have gotten that so wrong and yet here I stand with the evidence right in front of me in a wet twisted ring around the inside of the washer. GOOD GRIEF!
What was I so preoccupied with you ask? Why does my mind have it so wrong without being able to blame it on Alzheimer's? Well I was thinking about 1. needing to remember everything I was doing so that I could write about it in some sort of hopefully entertaining way later and 2. thinking about all of the other things I also needed to get done during that day.
LIVE IN THE MOMENT FAIL
I was thinking so hard about sharing my story about my journey of trying to live life more in the moment that I wasn't in the moment at all. This my friends is one for the record books. I'm blaming it on exhaustion. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I decided to shower but not to film at all today. It is late in the day and I just feel like throwing on my workout clothes and not worrying about makeup and hair.
Next I have a few makeup products I need to catalogue. (I keep a running list of products as they are discontinued. I take them out of my "Active" products storage meaning I stop using them for tutorials and other videos and social media related activities. It also helps me keep track of what products to use first as a part of my "everyday get ready" routine which is basically designed to use products up and get rid of them. Say goodbye to the Mark Super Flip Color Kit (the bronze one) and the Avon True Color Eyeshadow Quad in Savage Beauty.
After that I started on my daily devotional reading. Today I read the entries for July 11 and July 12 (yup... still behind) from the One Year Chronological Bible (NIV). I also read chapter 2 from the book The Haunted Abbot by Peter Tremayne. I have to write up some posts for the book club next. Since it is 5 minutes after 2:00 by the time I am writing this and I haven't eaten a thing yet I think I should probably do that first. Since I am a creature of really bad habits I think I will have another teriyaki baked potato.
*Drools*
Fast forward to me checking my email. 8178...
After a short after school babysitting gig including snacks, cartoons (Ticket to Rod & Farm Fresh Feline/Dog Days), computer games, and a game of hide and seek which included the discovery of a random budding sunflower which I choose to believe was left for us to find by my grandmother who passed away when I was still in high school. (Sunflowers were her favorite.) You can't tell from the photo but it is only about the size of a mini doughnut and already is the most beautiful sunflower I have ever seen
I was back at it checking my accounts online and taking phone calls. I also squeezed in a few YouTube videos which for me falls under the category of research.
Obviously I need to feed my soul right away today. I need to immediately get on top of living in the moment. I actually had started this project last night before I decided I really just needed to go to bed. I have been OBSESSED lately with Eckhart Tolle and his idea of awakening and being present through life. No surprise to you right? I have been reading his book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. I have been reading it chapter by chapter and pairing each chapter with the coordinating podcast from Oprah.com's Spirit Channel which I often watch more than once. I take notes from the chapter and then I take notes from the podcasts and I have found it all to be so calming and restorative for my soul. It is an almost magical process for me late at night when the world is quiet and I can reflect on life and feel most connected to my true self. I honestly believe that not everyone is ready for Eckhart and his ideas. If you aren't ready for it you won't understand it. I know I wasn't ready for it at the time it was all happening years back when he was new to the world. I firmly believe you have to go through the kind of life battles that are tumultuous and sad and make you wonder what's it all for and you have to KNOW that you don't feel like you are your true self anymore. There has to be an awareness that your spirit, your soul is suffering and a desire to free it and get back to the pureness you had as a child. ("To the pure all things are pure.") When you know that and can FEEL the disconnect like thirst in the desert to your core this book will connect with you in a way that no other ever has or maybe ever will again.
I also watched a backlogged episode of E! News. I'm so far behind on my TV watching that it is almost blasphemous. I really need to make some time to get caught up. Believe it or not, keeping up with pop culture is actually a big part of my job.
I also knocked out an episode of Joel Osteen and The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Who would have thought those two shows would ever be in the same sentence together?
That's enough for today. Tomorrow is a new day. See you all on the flip side!
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