I have an ACTUAL bug in my computer, help!

Oh. My. Gawd. I have a computer bug. Literally. Look!

This is one of the teeny tiny ants that fall into my shirt and bite me. Except this one was on my computer. I went to squish it and hit...glass. Huh?? Somehow this bug got into my computer, under the glass! How does that even happen? So I worked for 30 minutes while watching it wander all around my screen and then disappear completely. No idea what happened to it!

ODDS AND ENDS:

Heading out super early (6:15) to do chores on Friday morning and caught this beautiful sunrise!

Still hosing off my girl most evenings since the heat index puts us at 100º or above. The water coming out of the hose is warm for the first 5 minutes so it's like a warm shower, she has decided she loves it. Wynter likes it a little. He doesn't sweat through his coat as much as Rayn does so I let him dance around me while I'm watering Rayn. Last time he cantered in a huge circle around us and stopped in front of Rayn with his head held high, excited and playful. I let the warm water flow over his back until he decided he had had enough, threw his head around like a stallion and went trotting off :-) Cutie pie.

Haaaaaaaaa!

My Craft Your Talk class was kicking my butt this week but the homework did it's job and through much internal thrashing around and wondering why this seemed so hard, I was able to find some answers to her questions. And one of the answers is to hold a women's group. I've wanted to for awhile but haven't done it here, so I made the leap and said out loud on Wednesday, "I'm going to hold a women's group this fall."

And of course the universe stepped up and said, "Hey, here are some people to talk to who might be interested!" Sometimes life is just fun 😁 I'm excited! I'm considering the idea of a teen girls group too. Let me know if either of these sound interesting to you!

Something that I say both to myself when I paint and my art students, "There's going to be an ugly phase. Embrace the suck. Keep going, you will move past it." Even Johanna, the Craft Your Talk teacher, talked about it. It's a good thing to remember when you're trying new things!

She also brought up the flow of the creative process:

This is awesome.

This is hard.

This is shit.

I am shit.

This might be possible.

This is awesome.

I love this. It really does almost always go through this process. Every so often it's just awesome and that's it—those are rare so they always feel absolutely magical.

I just happened to have all of these come into my life this week, funny how that happens isn't it?

THINGS I'M LISTENING TO AND READING THIS WEEK:

For most of my life I've been a bookworm. My family's TV died when I was 8 and my parents just didn't get another one until I was 14. So, I learned to love to read. 7 years ago I stopped reading—PTSD was raging rampant in my brain and I literally couldn't concentrate enough to read a book. It was a piece of me that I've wanted back. I've done a lot of healing in the past 7 years and still struggle to read. I can read news articles or Facebook but a book? Sometimes a little. Once in awhile a whole book but for the most part, nope, that part of me is still locked up. Last week, my dad gave me a big sack of Louis L'Amour books from when my grandpa was alive. Ooo! I used to LOVE Louis L'Amour books! It's probably where my love of Colorado started. So I riffled through them Tuesday night and found one that suited me and started reading.

I finished it Wednesday night. I was so thrilled with myself! Most of his books are fast paced reads and fairly short, about 150 pages or so. I did have to plug in my phone and iPad in another room so I wouldn't be tempted. Which of course reminds me how much our fast paced social media world leads to being unable to focus long enough to read a book. I think it started with PTSD but I feel like I have a fair amount of positive coping mechanisms now and the wild startle response and flashbacks are pretty much a thing of the past. I think nowadays, the thing that's holding me up is that social media appeals to my ADHD brain. My neurofeedback brings my life back into focus and then social sends me right back down the deep groove. So, this week I'm practicing taking my brain out of the groove and giving it something else to play with :-)

And it's not just social really is it? Netflix etc too. So much for us to watch lol  I watched a webinar a few weeks ago where the guy was talking about the Netflix CEO saying they were competing with sleep:

In 2017, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings declared the streamer's biggest competitor was, in fact, sleep. “You get a show or a movie you're really dying to watch, and you end up staying up late at night, so we actually compete with sleep,” Hastings said. “And we're winning.”

I don't know why this horrified me so much. I'm so much more aware now when the next episode starts to play and usually turn it off. Competing against sleep! OMG!

You know how you start wandering the web for something and end up following a rabbit hole to a whole new subject? That's how I found this YouTube video that I thoroughly enjoyed (she is funny!) by Professor of Political Science Melissa Harris-Perry about shame stereotypes and Black women in America.

This article about why you capitalize the "B" in Black, ex: when speaking about Black women. I didn't know. Did you?

ManChild sent me this video yesterday Groundhog Day for a Black Man.  We are in an interesting time of life right now. ManChild is going into his first year of high school. He's starting the classroom portion of his driver's ed class on the 21st. And we are talking about both of those daily. Sure, the normal concerns are coming up but he is diving into racial inequality head first. ManChild and I have exhausted all we know and we are now researching constantly (thus the video on shame stereotypes above.) As you know I've also been learning a lot about inequality in general (about race, gender, LGBT) so we have been having some amazingly deep conversations lately.

FLORA AND FAUNA:

The mushrooms are back! I wonder when the red chanterelles will return? Maybe I'll be brave this year and try them!

I tried to get pics of the two mama deer and their two spotty babies but it was dusk and they just didn't turn out. They were the first babies I've seen on our little farm!

We have these HUGE Lantana bushes along our driveway and the butterflies are swarming!

MEMES OF THE WEEK—JUST ONE!

😳🤯😂

If you are in my area (Apex, NC and surrounding areas) I'm offering a special deal for you to come try out neurofeedback and/or coaching!

Half off your first neurofeedback session ($35 for 45 minutes instead of $70)

$25 off your first Equine Gestalt Coaching session ($100 for an hour instead of $125)

Half off your first Reiki session ($45 for an hour instead of $90)

Please take me up on these—and yes, you can use all three, in fact I encourage it! Doing neurofeedback or Reiki before a coaching session puts you in a regulated state which the animals love and is ideal for the work. Doing neurofeedback or Reiki after helps you process your session :-) so it works either way. The coaching setting is beautiful with the horses, donkey, and goats and in my air conditioned neurofeedback room you have a view of the pond and the wildlife that surrounds it. We are in a covered barn for coaching so are in the shade and out of any rain or weather. Reiki can be inside or outside in the barn, depending on weather and client wishes.

You can read about neurofeedback here!

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