Two days, not a word from Shane.
...and still our lives go on. His life is his life and non of us have any say. If this India trip is his vision quest than who am I to create it. How silly to even think that thought.
Okay so he spiraled and even after coming down, he was (or so it felt from his emails)....he was a little hypo-manic. Nothing wrong with that. His blog shows, lined up, clear thinking, ready to go and forge on with the vision quest. His sense
of humor is there. Nothing wrong with being in bliss.
India, the other side of the world, a day ahead minus two and one half hours behind.
Breathe.....over 3 months to go.
He'll never be the same, we'll never be the same...we will all grow and we will all
live thought his vision quest.
Here is a page from my book of positive aspects about Shane.
Shane is gorgeous.
Shane copes well with all kinds of people (even homeless people).
Shane is a wonderful cook.
Shane understands nutrition.
Shane loves nature.
Shane has discipline to walk his talk.
Shane goes the distance.
Shane loves books.
Shane loves to read and read out loud.
Shane is not afraid of being up on a microphone.
Shane is well read.
Shane is cute.
Shane has a beautiful laugh.
Shane can save dollars
Shane has really nice friends.
Shane navigates well around town, any town, anywhere.
Shane understands music.
Shane can write.
Shane can support himself and still sock some away.
Shane attracts helpful people.
Shane's life is very colorful.
Shane understands Yoga.
Shane understands the people of India.
Shane is fun to hang out with.
Shane is capable of more than we think.
Shane is capable of finding his own way.
Shane is a hell of a lot of fun in a Manic state
Shane memories are uplifting.
Shane is a dreamer and a planner.
Shane planned his trip to India.
Shane knows how to create his beautiful life.
I am thinking good thoughts of Shane. All really is well.

And so this is Christmas!
Don and I enjoyed breakfast...Oatmeal and O.J. (same ole' same ole....hahaha) with a beautiful white shinny table setting and Christmas music playing in the background.
We enjoyed opening a few presents from the students and my sisters that were in the middle of the table and from Joy and I got Shane's gift yesterday. It was fun opening
presents and ooing and ahhaing.
Aunt Betty sent some real Chrismassy stuff.
Aunt Pat sent a box of Judith flower stationery.
Joy sent an uplifting card and an interesting "Alabinia" CD...it sounds kind of sit-tar-ish...in another language. Might even be tango music...I like it. (it's playing now.)
We got some chocolate and some candles from students. Fun!
My husband said, "I left your card at work. It was a nice card too".
In the past he would put a nice big check in the Christmas card. He told me no check this year. He has been really busy at work and we will enjoy a weekend away in February or March. That's what I really want anyway, time alone with just him. I just gave him a hug. As you can see...we are not big into the whole Christmas thing.
On an up note, I have been buying myself Christmas presents all month! I got the best stuff for me. Things that I really, really, wanted.
I bought:
1. a life size (resin) human skeleton with a stand. This was ispired by the Feldenkris workshop I took last month. I can't wait. It will hang in my Karate School office. (actually the Karate School paid for this!)
2. a Kodak easy share digital camera 4 pixel's. (actually the Karate School paid for this one too!)
3. a couple of books off the internet. (yup the Karate School paid for this!)
4. a bunch of Abraham tapes! (some motivational tapes)(hahaha.....actually the Karate School paid for these too!)
5.Here's the big one, I signed up for a year of leading edge coaching, an on line
interactive group that checks in once a week for a phone conference. There's lots of homework writing and vizualizing your perfect life! (hahaha...and of course, the Karate business is picking up the tab for the last one. I'm ready to focus on my Karate Business and the body, mind and spirit aspects of ME in 2006....PERFECT! There are many advantages to having a ball and chain like Karate...I love my life.

In just a few minutes, my x-husband will be here. He is bringing a gift from India that our son sent for Christmas. I am looking forward to seeing him. I will show him how to get on to our son's new blog. All is well.
Today is Christmas Eve.
In the past, on Christmas eve, my husband and I have been going to a hotel on the beach to celebrate and we would walk on the Ocean shore and we would do our karate kata in the sand. I'm not sure what the plans are for this eveing. He would usually give me a knock your socks off expensive Christmas present like a year of massages
or $500 cash hummmmm.....wonder what I'll get? I wonder if I'll get anything this year?.....hahahah.....We'll see.
I feel my life is blessed.
I love my husband. He makes me laugh. We are silly and play all day long. His sense of humor use to erk me. Now I flow with it and I out due his dopey fantsies and we make a great team. I love to laugh and so does he.
This year I am going to have the best year of my life.
I am working on some goals to improve my karate buisness and my spiritual life and my physical body.
I plan to:
dress better
eat better
get up early
meditate twice a day
30 minutes of kata minimum on my own
teach fewer karate classes
do things I've never done
laugh more
and just plain old have fun.
Life is good. All is well. More later.

Oh the agony of not being able to make a decision of what to do! I am use to lineing up with what I want. I never do anything unless it feels right.
Here's what's going on:
For the past week a mom from Melbourne, Florida has been trying to re-cruite me to teach at her childs school. It's only one day a week for one hour and I could make up to $350 a month. Ha!
It isn't the money that attracts me. It is my being in control of my passion and doing the teaching thing my way. I want absolute control of how I teach the class.
30 years of experience and of "running the show" so to speak. I know what to do.
I have decided after much back and forth contemplation, and driving the people close to me crazy with my indecision, to finally teach 4 year olds.
Hahahaha............after 20 years in Florida and having reached the high level of 6th degree blackbelt, and the title Jo-Kyoshi I am being sought after to teach a small group of pre-schoolers at their location in Melbourne. Hahahaha.
The mom has approached me three times and each time, I told her: "Nah! This is something I have resisted for many years. 4 year olds are like monkeys! I'm not lineing up with this!"
However, last night I slept on the idea and this morning I finally focused on the positive aspects and kept that focus for maybe 30 seconds,without contradicting and not looking at the negative and then I easily kept going.
Before that I could only talk less than 15 seconds without feeling resistance. It was like trying to take a journey and going from the car to the house....back and forth with out even getting out of the drive way! Funny huh?
Now I see the big picture. I have decided, I figured it out. Ha! I'm going to teach 4 year olds. I am making a commitment at another location for 5 months. This is total of 20 classes. The money will follow. The main thing is I feel GOOOOOOOOOOD! I can see the big picture. More about this to come.

Sunday afternoon 4:45PM. Great news, Shane sounds like himself again. Finally we were able to make a phone connection. His sense of humor is back and he is able to listen and respond! Phew! What a scare, but I knew he would land on his feet. Thanks to the kindness of strangers. If one is to surrender, what better place than India! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..............
I am re-focusing on my own life minute by minute.
We still have guests from the state of Washington visiting and what a breath of fresh air they both are.
My husband is sound asleep snoring,he went back to bed, his job called him in at 2AM and although he had some sleep when he got back at 4AM it takes him a while to spring back.
I think I'll go outside and rake some leaves and fuss with the landscaping. This always give me back my connection to all that is. I'm feeling good but I could use a little focused messing in the dirt! Ha! It's a good feeling to know that I am not needed for anything urgent. Ha! The universe is working perfectly and all is well.

I know all is well:
I am hopeful that "his" India vision quest will have a happy ending. His plan was 4 months!
His journey began bringing his beautiful girlfriend here to meet us and then taking a month to work/study in an ashram in Mass. and then visiting with his dad and the rest of the "family" in NYC. He decided to make his journey alone and he had a wonderful joyous send off....(there can be freedom in a solitary mission) a great start and now the middle path is getting a little bumpy. What I mean is, India is never what one expects or so they tell me. (I have never been to India and I have zero desire to make the trip). The good news is he know's what to do and the other good news is it's not my vison quest.

I am (the mom) here in Florida holding a good thought.
If it is normal to arrive in India excited, confused and overwhelmed, then
relief is what I pesonally would want for him. When I think of his journey, I can only imagine his reality. I am choosing to imagine him finding his relief and then going further on his quest, I am hopeful that he will choose relief first. I already see him in my mind finding ways to soothe the frayed nerves. Number one in my opinion would be his medicine. I cannot make him swallow.

My heart is filled with love and the best comforting thoughts I can think.
However:
My stomach is filled with butterfliles.
My hands were clammy and cold...hummm..... earlier.
Hummm...they have warmed up a bit.
I notice that my butterflies that were in my stomach all morning are gone.
Ha!
It must be the digging in the garden again. I just spent the better part of an hour digging and clipping. It was wonderful. The soil was sandy and yet dirty. Today I wore my gardning gloves. My figernails are clean!
I found my bucket, shovel and potting soil, just where I left them yesterday.
Today I planted "verigated" ivy (another house plant that I had indoors for years) around the big sign post in front of our comm'l parking lot.
The ivy is spread out on the ground. I am going to train it to weave around the massive sign post. It will probaly take a few months or years but in time it will be very attractive.
I hope I choose a good spot for it to be planted in.
This spot gets a full blast of the Flordia sunshine.
Yes the good news is my hands are warm and I am hopeful. I'll take good news in whatever degree I can. If I don't see it, I'll find it. I know all is well.

My nails are dirty. I was digging in the dirt this afternoon planting some flowers and such! I rarely, almost never, get down and mess with the earth. How utterly refreshing to just putter in the soil.
I liked getting my little orange bucket with the potting soil and my kitchen sizzors and a little shovel. I knew where everything was because I did this about two months ago for the first time ever. Today however, I forget to put on my gloves.

I found a huge colony of ants. Instead of just pulling up a chair and watching them live their lives....I ran for the andro (ant killer). In Florida ants bite. They all bite....hahaha....look how quick I can rationalize that.

I spent about an hour digging holes and clipping extra leaves on my vegetable plants and I felt such a connection to the earth and the sky and even the years gone by.
Hey that rhymes.

As I lifted the layers of mulch, the cedar and wood chips, I remembered when the first layers of mulch and plastic to keep the weeds out were added. We're talkin' about 1992ish. I secretly was looking for a sign of something that was buried way back then. When I remember the 90's I remember a lot of happy times here. (Not that I'm not happy now, it's just life seemed a 10X's more challenging, yet fun back then.) There was nothing. No traces of the past, but my mind was swimming in memories. It was kinda' nice. Nothing down in the soil except for oak tree roots, sand and a few rocks. Where I was digging, there weren't even any bugs or worms (thank GOD...hahaha). I mixed some potting soil with some of the dirt and sand and then planted two "painted lady" (a beautiful hybiscus with a wine colored throat) and an old ivy plant that Norman had given me before he left 5 years ago.

Actually all three plants that I planted were house plants. I hope they make it.
I was careful to water them and douse them with a dilute solution of miracle grow. My hands are clean but my nails are filthy. So nice to have something more to do with my hands and my mind and soul than just Karate, Karate, Karate.....

The love of my life, my son is in India.
Is he having a rough time?
No doubt!
Am I worried?
Heck no.
He knows what to do. He's been through so much in his short life. He will
be just fine. I have a knowing. He hasn't complained, he is just reporting
what is all around him, language barrier, cold water showers, no companions,
new sights, new sounds, organized chaos etc. I just emailed the following to
him in response to his 3rd day email in this new frontier on his vision quest.
I don't even know where he is in India or what his next step is...I just know
that he is overwhelmed and you know....that's okay!
Sunday morning day 3:
Shane,
We went to the Brevard County Zoo yesterday with Tim and his girlfriend.
While looking at the monkey cage I thought to myself:
These creatures are so full of life and look at their soulful eyes.
They have nothing.
They live in a wire cage with a few vines and leaves at the bottom of the cage.
They have nothing.
Nothing.
How do they find relief...don't they know they should be miserable...and yet
they looked normal and healthy and loved. One would pick the others nits...
and another mokey would hang from the top of the cage with his legs flipped
over his arms..and they would swing on the vines and chatter.
They have no books, no radios, no computer, no sewing machine, no bath tubs,
no clothes, no anything
zip, zero, nada.
I thought to myself....I couldn't stand having to amuse myself internally all day.
My god.
Then I thought of you.
You have the same.
It's like you are in a cage of sorts no access to your regular stuff.
Shane, there will be an end to your India journey.
You talk of transformation....I believe that transformation is the end of your journey.
I don't think transformation is a verb....isn't more like an adj. or an adverb?
hummmmm.....
Just like the monkeys....I see you as stark naked and with nothing.
Nothing....well, you are a lot better off then the mokeys.
You do have access to stimulation or better yet over-stimulation.
The newness and over-stimulation of your environment would be too much for me.
You sound like you are over-whelmed, yes, over-whelmed is where you are at
right now but finding
relief in your morning routine
and
and this is helping you to get organized.
Yes you are finding relief in your journey to transformation by getting organized
and finding routine.
On another note:
I feel for you, unable to communicate in words.
For me being heard is the basis of my marriage. I fell in love with Don's ear!
I have to be able to communicate my thoughts and feelings.
Thank you for the blog. I use it. It's working for me.
You will find others soon that will speak English.
You are doing just fine.
You are on the path to transformation and doing so well in finding relief here and there.
It's not easy but you know what to do.
Just a little relief...just a few routines will help you feel secure.
You're doing great.
Your tears of joy are wonderful. Keep going. Love and a big fat hug, Mom

Trip to the Zoo with our house guests.
I wore a huge Vietnamese rice patty hat, sun glasses long shirt and long pants. It gets hot here in Florida and I hate the sun. I liked holding my husbands hand and walking a boardwalk that weaved thoughout the Brevard County Zoo. If you asked me my favorite part of the zoo experience:
The squirrel monkeys. They are tiny and perfectly proportioned. It was fun to watch them hold leaves and use their delicate little fingers to pick things up. What keeps them interested all day? To put myself in that situation, if I were at my size caged, I would have about as much room as my very small living room, only there would be no books, no chairs, no sewing machine, no mirror, no nothing to keep me interested. I'd have to amuse myself with leaves and swing from vine to vine and that would be it.
I also liked seeing the brightly colored birds. Turquoise and gold....ummm...and animals with brown and orange paws....and ohhh....the giraffe's, so that's what giraffe fur looks like big, brown squares.
I liked hearing how some male or female animals were rented for a week or two to mate with their resident animals. The rhinorsoursus was getting a female and the giraffes had a female giraffe visiting already. She was a darker brown and she walked around like a queen.
I didn't like the bird area. The bats in their cave scared me and some of the birds were much too free. I don't like being that close to the animals. I couldn't wait to get out of their cage.
I also like my husbands silly comments about how the bald eagles were plastic and he just hates that and then upon closer look you could see one of them blink their eye and
other silly stuff that I can't remember while writing this I just remember the feeling of laughing and laughing some more....oh and I remember that he help me find the ladies room and that he held on to my big Vietnamese hat and sun glasses when I went in!
It was a fun day. I really enjoyed getting out into nature with my husband and our two house guests.

Interesting, life is so interesting. Just when you think you are living one day just like any other day, everything changes.
Shane my 27 year old son is on a vision quest to India. He just sent me a report on day one. His story made me cry. I was filled with emotion. I understood right away that he is an old soul. Shane must have been around many lifetimes because his understanding of our true nature is communicated easily. He is so beyond me and his dad in his maturity and understanding of the essence of life. What a guy!
I know he will be just fine and I expect there is a book in here somewhere or at least some stories for a travel magazine. I emailed him that I would print out his day to day journals so he would have them in hard copy when he gets back in April.
In the meantime our house guests have arrived. They put their bikes together and are riding to Cocoa Beach, a 7 mile bike ride. Tim says they are use to 100 miles a day!
Ha! His girlfriend Gretchin is so perfect. I have nothing to say but, young, smart, athletic, a dimand in the rough. I think they will be gone more than here.
I sold two idems on ebay with a total ebay salels bottom line of $37.
Today, I'm getting on line and buying myself a Christmas present, a full sized hanging skelleton. The perfect Christmas gift for me!

Sunday afternoon, I just checked my email and I got a wonderful connect from Joy. Joy is a pulsating light force....just like me (smile). I love her energy and her focus on spirit. Shane is so fortunate to have her in his life. Her email inspired me to reconnect with my blog, it's been a few days so here goes:
I'm loving my red hair.
Since it now has dark almost black/brown (underneath)sideburns and highlights of same here and there in a few other places it looks really cool. I again used just a tich of "Just for men"...that stuff dosn't last very long. I may have to re-touch weekly. (Oh well at least I don't have to fuss with make-up, never did, never will!) My eyebrows are not so dark, since I just use a toothpick to touch them up. I feel a new sense of dressing and presenting myself to the world. I have gone through my closet and elimated anything or most everything (bumped to museum storage) that isn't brown, green or shades there of...although I am keeping my red cashmere and also my orange cashmere sweather and a few black thing. Autum colors are bringing out my hazel eyes and I feel like myself again. I decided to finally wear things that fit me, tighter jeans and form fitting jackets...I'm looking gooooooooooood.
What's Don up to?
Don is still working on the fence outside, digging post holes, almost finished with the task, it's taking two weekends. He works so hard and he has that drive that all guys do to stay the focus till the job is complete. Not only does he get the job done but it's looks good, straight lines and perfect distance from post to post. It's kinda cool having a barracade of sorts around our property. Soon I'll take a picture and post it here.
I'm going take a bunch of photos and post up on this blog. When?..hummm.....
We have two house guests soon.
We're waiting for Don's son Tim to arrive next weekend for two weeks with his girlfriend. Tim is an expert computer person and he can help me figure out how to better set up this blog. I'm just barely doing it.
We are excited to have company. We will be happy to see them arrive. They will probably set up "camp" in the Museum as the weather is much cooler.
Tim and Gretchin pre-shipped their bikes (bicycles). They will be bike riding to St.Augustine and back! That's like 16 hours or two days.....Hahahaha...........I know it's a little crazy but they are both extremely out-doorzy....Tim finally met someone who can keep up with him, mountain climbing, caving and all that jazz. (I don't get it....hahahaha)
All is well.