Shopping at HomeGoods with Mom!

Happy Saturday friends!

My mom was beautiful and elegant and statuesque. She was also really funny and had an amazing laugh. She’s been in heaven for almost a year now. I’m lucky, I’m one of those who can talk to souls and I’ve been practicing my skills for about 34 years. About two weeks before Mom crossed she began coming to me when I wasn’t with her to tell me important things about what was happening with both her body and her soul. It was an incredible gift.

She told me that who and what we saw before us on that God-awful rented hospital bed wasn’t her. She told me she was power and light and love for infinity.

I knew the moment she left her body and it was not when her body actually died, it was about 24 hours before that. (I will write about that incredible event soon, maybe for the anniversary of her 1st year in heaven—November 12th.)

I did not know the moment her body actually died. I had gone home to gather some things together so I could go and spend the night when my brother called to tell me. I mostly felt relief that her body had let go. I knew her soul had already released itself at that point.

And when I think back, this ability to tap into her was completely common from the moment I moved out of the house at 20 years old and into my own. Often when something was wrong with Mom, I would get an intuitive hit and call her. It would get to the point, years later where she’d pick up the phone and say, “How did you know?” LOL

Sometimes I’d feel her so strongly in the middle of the night and I’d call. She’d immediately pick up and say, “I’m okay but how did you know?”

“I woke up with you saying, ‘Julie’ so I figured you needed me. Are you okay?” And she’d tell me she had a bad dream or that she didn’t feel good, or she was upset about something in particular. That might happen 2-3 times a year or some years, not at all.

I never knew, until it started happening to me, that being able to talk to someone’s soul was not a “departed only” kind of thing. I didn’t realize a soul would sometimes want to talk even when it was still in its body.

When I was in the early days of this interesting ability and would wake up to a loved one saying my name, I would panic—my God, were they dead? (Which was why she learned to immediately say, “I’m okay.” As her first words when I called at 2am.) I hadn’t had enough practice yet to realize that it was just communication from them, not dire circumstances.

And yet, with all of that, I was still surprised when she arrived by my side a couple weekends ago when I went shopping at HomeGoods/TJ Maxx. I had put my purse in a cart and she popped in saying, “Oh boy! I haven’t been here in forever!” :-)

Of course she’d show up there, it was one of her favorite spots! But I go there maybe once every couple of months and she’s never joined me before so I was pretty surprised by her entrance! Her sweet excitement over going shopping with me made me laugh out loud! I was wearing a mask and noise cancelling earbuds with calming music, so I entered already in my own little world, maybe that made it easier for her to come with me?

I started to walk over to my typical areas and she said, "Wait! I want to go through all of it!" So we walked through the lamps, the bric-a-brac, the food (I never paid attention to it) where I picked up some delicious dark chocolate covered dried cherries, the pillows, blankets, bedding, bath stuff—with her pointing out things she liked—and just as I was going to head to check out she said, "No! We haven't looked at shirts yet! You always need a new shirt!" 😁 She's been trying to get me out of tshirts and jeans forever lol. I found 3 new shirts!

Wow. That was such a gift to go shopping with her. It's been a couple of weeks now and the feeling of it is still in the forefront of my mind. The last time we went shopping together was September 11th, 2022. She was so happy to feel good enough to get out of the house!

THE RANCH:

The weather has cooled down this week, leaving the Polar Bear in her element. When we are home, she just wants to be on the front walk, surveying her domain. I ask her occasionally if she'd like to come in and she refuses. One day it was even raining and she just stayed right where she was. I'm sure she couldn't even feel it with her huge coat:

What is this you ask? It's a vole super highway of course, ugh 🙄 It went all the way up and over the dam!

Dancer is cute and silly and I swear she came over to me like this just to make me laugh:

B-Rad and I cut down all the American Beautyberry bushes that line the walkway to the house. It's strangely bare now but that is part of fall:

Love our groundkeeper's golf cart! We had 4 loads like this!

We didn't know we had to cut these things back every year so they got huge. Next year they won't take over the whole area.

And look! We found two hydrangea bushes struggling to survive among the Beautyberries!

Little Marvel Meow Meow has taken to visiting me in the morning after I come back from taking ManChild to school. She is precious:

And, being a typical cat, she is also a little bitey for no reason and lets you know when she's done with you lol:

Dad and Delores gave me some of Mom's garden stuff, so I've been finding spots for them:

SOME FUN MEMORIES THAT POPPED UP THIS WEEK:

I took this photo in October of 2014 when Rayn was my only horse and we boarded her in a 25 acre pasture with about a dozen horses:

I had been sitting on the ground and I asked them to come lay down with me...you can read the story here!

B-Rad, love this pic of him! We had just moved to our Colorado farm in June of that year and we were ridiculously happy:

I took this photo of Wynter in 2014. The reflection, the sky, his snow white coat...lol read what happened next here!

Was so happy to find some photos I took of ManChild back when we still lived in the burbs, 2015 I think, so he would have been 8 years old. He's with Ike the Border Collie here, such a cool dog and very much ManChild's protector during a time when he really needed it:

A ZILLION MEMES:

I have plans for the grassy areas along my driveway:

Like most people, I loved Matthew Perry. I was so sad to learn about his years of struggling, and sadder still to hear he had crossed. And isn't this the truth. We don't need abs, we need laughter:

I don't know why it's so fascinating but it is:

This joke wasn't understood by 2 of the men in my family. Which made me laugh even harder. I know, I know, I have a squirrely sense of humor:

This also made me laugh and laugh—probably because it totally could have been something that would have happened here: