A Roll in the Universe

All the little blessings add up to one wonderful day. Interestingly, yesterday morning's affirmation involved seeing and experiencing love in everything. Thank you, God, for the love I experienced. Thank you for: …easily finding everything at the grocery store …the money in my account that let me afford all that food - and a cash withdrawal to boot …making the tiresome trip home, carrying four bags of groceries, pulling another heavy two in the wheeled shopping cart, surprisingly easier than I expected, especially up that last long hill …my strong arms, back, legs and lungs …not letting it rain at all during my haul home, considering it had rained just before and was to come down in buckets while I was putting the groceries away …the room in my fridge for this food …the friends that are coming to eat all this food. A huge thank you for that. …the patience I could give a neighbor for not cleaning out the lint trap in the communal dryer, because I had learned the day befor...

Making room 1 I weighed myself this morning. On April 30, when I officially started my diet , I weighed 65.9 kilograms (145 pounds). This is on a body that measures officially 161 cm (5' 3.5"). I was into the "overweight" part of the body mass index as was also evidenced by my need to go up yet another pants (and panties) size. Nothing doing. I have replaced some meals with one of those diet powders, one that mixes with milk. Tasty. Vanilla shake. The other things I have done are: Cut out bread (condensed carbs), start a meal with a glass of water with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, and add a heaping tablespoon virgin coconut oil to my breakfast. Those last two were to speed up metabolism. No extra exercise, food as usual with a slight increase in salads, though I try to keep the meal itself a tad smaller than before. I've also been aware of the need to eat something between main meals, so I keep more healthy snack food around. Today's weigh: 62.4...

If you watch enough Animal Planet or even your own animals, you discover that there are a couple of things that seem to transcend species: The joy of playing with a ball (I was amazed to see even turtles bumping a ball around), and getting their head scratched. We humans tend to anthropomorphize animals a bit too much, and view a dog baring its teeth as "smiling" (while it's a warning), and think cats are plotting evil when their eyes are half-closed (while in fact, that is friendliness). We humans consider a direct gaze or bared teeth friendly, something our pets eventually get used to, even though in their world, an indirect gaze or closed mouth is friendlier. But there may be other human reactions we truly share with animals - like laughter. Researchers have found that rats enjoy being tickled - and even produce a laugh-like sound. It's inaudible to human ears, but slowed down to a frequency we can hear, it does sound giggly. By the way, I love the way the r...

Belinda Carlisle once sang that heaven is a place on Earth and that in heaven love comes first. She wasn't wrong. You don't have to die (and believe in the right god) to get to heaven. Heaven is actually an attitude, and one you can create for yourself. Ernest Holmes, the founder of Science of Mind , writes in "What Religious Science Teaches" : We believe that Heaven is within us and that we experience it to the degree that we become conscious of it. The Kingdom of Heaven means the kingdom of harmony, of peace, of joy, and of wholeness. It is an inward kingdom. [...] Heaven is not a place but an inward state of consciousnes. My experience with Christianity in Norway suggests that the idea that we cannot and should not be happy here in our physical lives, is an idea that still exists. This is one reason why I don't "get" Christianity. There is such a happy message hidden in the religion (you are already saved, loved, protected), but gets overshadowed by ...

Tim took a picture and I think it is absolutely stunning. Go look!