the birthday present from Rhonda Byrne

it was a typical monday.

i am not yet in the habit of gratitude journalling on the weekends because the w/ends just tend to get away from me. i blame the children. oh i'm kidding - i full well realize that i am still attracting the 'time is running out!!!!' experience into my weekends. and i will stop doing that.
i will
i will
i will
next weekend, as the universe is my witness i will make it last an eternity! or at least not make it slip away. a nice lovely long weekend is on my horizons. you read it here first. i'll let you know how that works out.

anyway, driving on towards my point. although i didn't do any gratitude or pray-rain journal at the weekend, i did do one today. at a reasonable breaking point at work, i whipped out my notepad and just wrote away. it only took a couple minutes to fill out the two sides of the paper, and it makes *such* a difference. once you go into that mindset, you get a bit chirpier, a bit of a bounce creeps into your walk, and the smile that had eluded your morning finally surfaces. oh i was smiling before that, but it was the smile that everyone knows is fake. the 'really! i'm serious, i'm really really pretty almost good!'

but having taken a couple minutes to really feel the feelings of where i wanted my vibration to be really changed the rest of the day.

i also thought of how i am already wealthy. that goes a long way to feeling your own abundance. what have i got that i used to really want? i now have the house i wanted for three years, the car i wanted for two years, a job i enjoy, the books i wanted, the computer i wanted.

and something smacked me in the face today that i had hoped for years ago. there is a 'techie' journal that i read occasionally, but the articles used to be way over my head. long ago, i had the intention that in five years, i would be able to pick this journal up and understand every bit of it. that day was today. i couldn't believe it. i read every article in that mag, and it was clear as a bell. a m a z i n g. it was so amazing it made me giddy to think what's ahead of me, now that i'm consciously applying LOA.

to be clear : i am not a geek. just wanted to point that out before continuing. i just understand that magazine.

but THE most amazing thing to happen today was weigh-in. oh yes, monday is weigh-in day, and holly was just attracting maintenance all day long. actually, in my really good-feeling-moments, i was thinking it would be great to have lost a pound, and felt what that was like, but i was really just letting go of the need to have lost any weight this week.

WHY? well, let's see
a birthday concert.
a birthday four-glasses-of-amaretto
a birthday cup of ice cream
and those were the day BEFORE the birthday!
on the day, i had my favorite almond-marzipan chocolate bar and a terry's mint chocolate orange.

then, on saturday, we had a movie with obligatory sweets, dinner at a place where the menu serves half- and quarter- chickens. (i mean c'mon! work with me here! i need to make it home in one pair of jeans!) then i had my favorite thing i have every year on my birthday. ice cream mushed into a cake slice. yuuuuuuuuuuuum.

did i mention i'd had starbucks on friday?

i also went running on wednesday.

but clearly, it was not a dieting-type week. but my mantra all week was what Rhonda said on The Secret cds. "i eat whatever i want and maintain my perfect weight." that was the best gift she has given me on that series. it's all gold, but this has been fantastic - virtually instant manifestation of what i want!

so that was my mantra all week and it bloody worked!!!! i lost a pound and a half this week! woo hoo!!!!!!

now before i get told by some readers that i can't really just go eat anything i want and yet magically lose weight, i have two things to say:

a) when you can eat anything you want to eat, you want to eat the right things more often than not. and when you're happy most of the time like LOA encourages, you don't need 'comfort food' like maybe you used to. but more importantly,

b) i think i just proved i can, actually :)

all the same, i got a whole pile of veggies in today. d'em's good eatin'!

back to form

okay. i think i got the sugar out of my system. today was a glorious day. nothing particularly lovely happened, it just *was lovely*. i had decided to just feel good, and did.

actually, i'm wrong, something lovely *did* happen. my code - the code that i 'finished' writing a couple days ago - had bugs. that's a natural part of the software lifecycle. there be bugs, so find them, squash them.

a HA, but the system is so complex that i don't really know how to test it. (i only wrote a small component of the overall system.) enter a, the stereotypical techie. he of the there is no software i can't understand community. and, co-architect of the system. my bug is preventing him from using something *he* wrote. but bless him, he good-naturedly looks at where he suspects the problem is. finds it, tweaks it, with me looking over his shoulder. it was the easiest thing in the world - particularly as he did most of the work. actually the easiest thing in the world would have been for me to stay home. but i did one better, i went to work and looked over a's shoulder. i love teamwork!

i am absolutely blessed by having really great programmers as co-workers. it makes it easy to deal with problems like this, as normally i can find the bug, but sometimes, like today, i needed help.

i have a really good rapport with my coworkers and boss, and that is the great thing about working where i do. it means i can have exchanges like this with my boss:

"holly, do you have any tipex?" (note: 'tipex' is white-out)

"um, no, it tends to get the screen all mucky."

everyone laughed, including, thank god, my boss. but i suppose you had to be there.

learning the lessons of a sugar high

note to self : ignore the sugar. attract more healthy food.

so after the indulgence of cake day, i have struggled come back from the brink of disaster my sugar-overdose took me to. it turns out that i prefer not having sugar. who knew?

why do i prefer not having the sugar? because today i struggled with the following types of thoughts:

me: "oh i feel great today."

the sugar: "you don't, you lousy woman you are fakin' every bit of this."

me: "no, i really feel the love. i feel my inner being."

the sugar: "that is *me* swirling around your system. and i'm staying as long as i can, and i'm going to make you pay! and once i go, you're going to wish i was back. ha ha ha!"

me: "okay, i am a competent programmer."

the sugar: "you don't know jack about any of those little things you're typing, you should give it up now."

me: "perhaps i'll just have a nap. that would feel better."

the sugar: "that's right. ha ha ha throw your life away in bed. that's what i wanted all along!"

then i got home, and it was:

the sugar: "how very nice of my husband to wait for me to get home from the parent-teacher conference he sent me to, show me where the food he wants cooked is, then leave me to a bunch of dirty pans to cook it in. charming."

me: "i'm busy in bed feeling love. don't bother me."

the sugar: "i'll just bang this pan on the oven. that will let him know i'm annoyed."

me: "you probably shouldn't behave that way. he has no way of knowing why you're annoyed. you should have told him to start the dinner. he's a man - he doesn't get it otherwise."

the sugar: "ha right! like he'd have cooked anything that wasn't covered with three inches of batter!"

me: "i'm going to go over here and try feeling the love again."

the sugar: "don't you want some more of ME first?!"

in the end, i'm hoping i won out, because i'm amusing myself with the idea of today's lack being because of some extra sugar floating around the old bloodstream. i have started flushing water through the ol' system, and hey, who knows what i could attract and allow tomorrow. i think it will be something great.

i *was* able, in spite of the sugar, to find humour in a letter from the city council. it was a reply to my husband's letter, which states why they are not going to do anything about dogs that poop outside our front door. their arguments were:
a) people who follow the signs they put up don't need the signs - they pick it up anyway
b) people who *don't* follow the signs won't obey the signs they put up
with logic like that, it's not hard to figure out that if there's going to be poop-free pavement in front of my house, i have to ignore the poop. that's my mantra for tomorrow : ignore the poop.

a truly fabulous annual cake day

although there was no actual cake. but there was plenty of other stuff. oh man did i make up for several hundred days of being 'good'. it's not that i've been depriving myself, i just like the new way of eating. but once in awhile, you gotta have an extraordinary day. i had cookies, a piece of almond cake slice (does not count as cake), and half of pecan pie dessert pot. yes, i know how to pack it away, friends. but i now have no trouble maintaining my perfect weight, so this will have no bearing on it. it was so gooooooood at the time. mind you, a couple hundred days without junk, your body doesn't really like to process junk as much. that's all i'll say about that. let's just say i won't be having another junk day soon. :)

but the day started really nicely with oodles of hugs from my son. and okay, no husbands or daughters said the "happy birthday" greeting this morning, but i was greeted at work with cards, flowers, wine and girlie goodies. niiiice. i shall have soft hands and sparkly lips for a good while. it could happen, i could attract more pampering in my life. . . if i wanted to. . .

and this was after waking up an hour late. i just felt like feeling good, and bed felt good. so i stay an hour late. no big whoop. what's amazing about this? well, being an hour late makes you have to park in parking lot number two. nosiree, i got to the roundabout 1/4 mile away, and thought "i'd love to have a parking spot waiting for me in the first lot." then i just saw it.

yup. it was there. WOW! this is really amazing. i know it doesn't sound that amazing, but it really is impossible to get a spot if you're more than 30 minutes late. an hour? no way! yay me!

and i even got well-wishes from my hawaiian friends. this reminds me of the biggest thing of all that's changed since i started seriously trying to apply LOA. instead of missing them in a "why oh why did i ever move away, why can't i be there, why can't they be here, sob sob sob" kind of way (they don't have that section in the card store, i checked), i now miss them in a "what a great time we had, isn't it great we still keep in touch, won't it be great to see them again" kind of way (although that, too, is not in the card store).

oh but wait. i work with 5 guys. very technie face-in-computer dudes. very nice, but not at all touchy-feely. well these guys got me flowers! how cool is that?

basically, i was showered with affection, love and good feelings today. nice one.

the code i have been working on, and trying to attract the end to, is DONE as of today. that was nice. wow is it nice. it turns out, in order to be competent, all i had to do was realize i *am*.

this marks a real drastic change from past birthdays. i won't give energy to it by talking about it but let's just say in the past i have attracted severe lack on this day. i love that i stopped doing that! let's all stop attracting birthday lack! i think we can all do this one day. yes?

and now i must tell my son i'd like to attract more sleeping-type behaviour from him.
and, of course, me :)

blueberry squash, key chains and RUFUS!

oh, but a lot of thought manifested today!

to start with, although i got a bit lax about gratitude-journaling at the weekend, i *still* got a call from my husband out of the blue, asking if i wanted such-and-such a cd. nice! yes, i *will* have them! a little bit of journaling goes a long long way.

then, i was given a bottle of blueberry squash (british concentrate that you dilute with water to make a drink out of). my co-worker didn't like it. now i was in the shop two days ago, spotted it and thought "hmmm...i wonder what that tastes like; i'd quite like to try it!" but i was in a hurry, and had to complete my shopping mission, which still included an assortment of peanuts for the guests we were having over, so i didn't stop. well this was a nice way to get to taste it. it turns out, i love it. :)

and i have a keychain that holds a fake pound coin for inserting into shopping trolleys while you shop. it broke midweek, and i was a bit disappointed, but not overly so. i thought i'd keep the fake coin, and see if i could make-shift some other key-chain combination, or just hold onto it in case i needed a spare for the next one i got. WELL! what was on the ground right outside my car when i got back from my shopping mission? a brand new shiny fake pound coin keychain, needing a fake coin! thank YOU universe! it was really weird, like someone bought it and dropped it next to my car on purpose! really, if someone is following me around with a 'candid camera' type scenario, could you just please tell me now? no wait, don't, i like this whole magic thing that's going on.

but the best thing was that i got to go see Rufus Wainwright in concert tonight. WOW he was fabulous! the reason his fabulous-ness gets a mention in this particular blog, is that i had a few 'flashback' moments tonight, to when i would listen to his songs and think how much i'd love to hear this one or that one live in concert. AND HERE I WAS! rufus didn't come to bristol, which is bigger. he came to cardiff! he came to me, to play these songs for me! yay! and so what if i was sitting in the nose-bleed seats! next time i'll attract a closer seat! i intend to sit closer to rufus at his next concert. there, it is done. YAY!

okay, i must sleep, for tomorrow is my annual cake day. and what a nice cake day it shall be.

my new coat of many colors

it's definitely becoming habit to get out of bed thinking 'this is going to be a great day,' and then to have a great day.

now last night i didn't post, but it was a gotta-practice day. hubby took daughter to see a movie i'd been wanting to take her to. so i REAAAALLLLy had to focus on how great it was that they were spending some time together. i *had* been writing in my pray-rain journal that he would spend more quality time with her. i couldn't now say 'how dare my attractions come to me!'

so i did have a lovely afternoon with my son. oh wow did we have fun. he is really becoming a lovely little boy. well he's always been lovely, but he keeps adding new dimensions to his loveliness. we shared a bowl of lunch, we gave each other silly looks out the corner of our eyes, and tumbled around the floor like idiots. hey! he's 2! this is how life is supposed to be at 2! and it was great!

the evening was spent intending to be this side of tipsy by the time bedtime came, as i had stuff i wanted to accomplish today. so i did not keep pace with our wine-bearing friends. i had one malibu - okay two malibus okay it was three small ones in cherryade but NO MORE. and called it good. and the amazing thing about that is that i was at the shop earlier in the evening, procuring snacks for the get-together. i had the thought 'y'know, it would be great if there was a cherry flavoured drink i could have tonight.' and when i picked up my husband's favourite soft drink, there was the cherry-ade! i thought 'naw, couldn't be', and checked a little closer. sugar free! we have a winner! (truth be told, i probably would have had it even if it had sugar, as a certain blogger's birthday is less than 48 hours away!)

so this morning, i woke up to the cute sounds of my son trying to get my daughter's attention. 'manya! .........manya! ...........manya! ..............manya!'
i drag my butt I MEAN HAPPILY WALK downstairs and ask "would you not please answer him?"

"okay, what is it m2?"

"hiiiiyu-uh" that is his word for.......everything. but in this case he wanted her to read him a book.

chuckling, i slammed a banana down and instructed them to dress themselves we were on for an outing. starbucks was calling me, as it does on sundays.

driving down, i just was in a really good mood, just because i wanted to be. we got to the car park, and as i was pulling up to the ticket dispenser, i said wistfully, "oh universe, i'd love a spot on the second or third level, close to the elevators."

m1 pipes up, "why don't you ask for one on the first level?"

"well, it needs to be believable, and i've only just asked."

i pull up the ramp and there is one smack dab as we pull up the ramp. wow! level 2 it is! but it leaves us a little cramped for exiting-the-car room. so i say "um, no, i need a space that is easy to get out of and close to the lifts."

next level, BANG! there it is! i'm amazed at the unusual number of spaces, and we get one next to the elevator!

we get downstairs to start our trek to borders/starbucks, and m1 looks at me and says "there's a spot on the first level!" why oh why don't we listen to the children? "wow!" i say, although i shouldn't have been amazed. i asked for one on the 2nd/3rd level, believed, and received. she asked for one on the 1st level, believed, and if i'd have just turned down the 1st level row, we'd have used what she received! constantly learning, i am.

still, we were on our way to a nice little nibble session at starbucks. on the way, i saw the sign of the sports business that has been going out of business, ALL STOCK MUST GO, for a year now. hmmm... i thought it might have a coat. i now need a new coat since i am constantly moving towards my perfect weight, making my old coat too large. i say "oh i'd love a new coat today, a colorful one that is kind of sporty." and then i think about looking on the way back to the car.

we have a nice time in starbucks, and peruse the heck out of borders. walking out with our purchases, it hits me that tk-maxx (americans - yes, in britain, it is tk, not tj) might have something in the area of coats. i never go in tk, but i figure what the heck, i'm not chasing time today. i decide not to care that the kids are running around a circular clothes rack, and i specifically decide not to attract someone to ask us to leave, or give us any odd looks. so no one did either. and the perfect coat all but smacked me in the face. it was vibrantly gorgeous. and it goes with my LOA red toyota car! how perfect! i shall get a picture uploaded soon. and the best thing about it is that it makes me feel like a million bucks - you want something, you gotta feel like it, and now i really can! it is my LOA coat all the way! and it was almost made to my exact spec. there are pockets all over the dang thing, and sporty? it's a ski jacket! i have always wanted one of those!

i can't wait to see what i attract with my new million-dollar-feeling coat!!!

a little bit of sleep goes a long long way

oh wow what a day i had. who knew that getting the right amount of sleep would so facilitate the LOA?

although clearly i didn't learn my lesson, as it is 1:06. this is the LAST time i will write after midnight. gotta be.

particularly after today, in which holly discovered that the combination of a good night's sleep AND happy feelings AND letting go just makes things rocket towards you. today i was given a birthday present - and it was something i had been wanting for QUITE some time, and the person could NOT have known it (it's geeky/techie, and i don't mention those things to her, she's more human-resources-y). WOW!!!

and some information i have been looking for plopped right in my lap (well, my desktop, which is on my laptop, which, yes! is on my lap!)

and although i have been mentioning code working for quite some time, the BIG test of really working was today. RIGHT AS GOING HOME TIME CAME, the dang thing worked perfectly. my coworkers are starting to tease me about my victory dance. why the heck not!?!

but the freakiest thing of all. it shouldn't be freaky, after all the things i've witnessed recently, but it is. on The Secret cds, when (i will have to look up and edit this post later to put the right name in) says he just visualizes cheques coming, i thought "hey, i want some of that." so i have been visualizing cheques coming in the mail.

what did i do today? i was holding a stack of cheques that had come in. a STACK. just like i'd pictured. now they were in amounts on the order of XX, and i really kind of wanted the order of XXXX, but hey, i'll take the XXs. they work too! the amazing thing is that i was holding a bloody stack of cheques, folks! this stuff works! i just really have to working on
a) getting clearer; and
b) the letting go - the allowing.

it doesn't just snap to. but the development is so awesome. i can't WAIT to see what's next!

and hopefully my son will sleep in tomorrow. OR, in the next few minutes, i will be able to attract a time machine to take me back one hour, write this post and go to bed. but that sounds like an awful lot of work for one day. i'll just have the intention that tomorrow will be wonderful.

i'll let you know. :)