100 Days of Writing – Day Eighty-Three

Two-and-a-half weeks into my hiatus from social media and all is well. I’ve even contemplated not going back once Easter Sunday has arrived. Time will tell….

Twenty-some-odd days into staying away from social media and I can actually say I’m not missing it all that much. At least not as much as I did the first few times I tried much the same. There are those times that I’ve been tempted to take a peek but have been able to thwart the craving.

The past three Saturdays, I’ve gone on antique hunting expeditions. The first Saturday I went to places locally that I’ve been to before, but then the past two weekends, I ventured out and traveled quite a bit in a quest to find some treasures.

The biggest finds for me, at least as far as what I like to look for, have been two Coca-Cola clocks from the 1950s. The first came last week at a quaint antique store that I had found. I even managed to get a discount on it after asking if they’d take any less than the sticker price. I don’t often times do that, but in this case, it was beneficial and worked!

Today I found a similar Coca-Cola clock that had the same design, but a different background color. The price on it was already reasonable, so I didn’t dicker with the owner at this antique mall. In the case of both clocks, I made sure to plug them in and let them run a bit before purchasing them. Older clocks can be problematic when it comes to working condition. I found another old clock that I would have purchased today, but it didn’t run.

There’s a map of all the antique malls in North Carolina and I’ve been checking them off as I visit them. While I don’t buy something at each stop, it is interesting to see what is out there that people enjoy looking for. I’m not sure that I’ll go anywhere next Saturday, as I need to work some here around the house, including find places for the buys that I’ve made.

David Lee

100 Days of Writing – Day Eighty-Two

It’s been a week since my hiatus from social media began and all is well….

The season of Lent began last Wednesday and since the point in time, I have visited any social media pages. I’ve done this before and it would seem this time around it’s been much easier to stay away from the temptation to scroll those pages.

I’ve found myself writing in my journal a lot more, which was to be expected. I used one whole journal for the month of February and have started yet another this week. I have found it would seem that my desire to write has increased with the reduction of time devoted to social media sites.

I started another interim teaching position the first full week of February and that too has been a good “distraction” to my addiction to spending hours each week on Facebook and the like. I have found quite a few new sites that I’ve been able to use with my students and of course, have also been planning lessons and grading student work.

I recently went through some major changes in my personal life just before the end of 2022 and that’s required a lot of soul-searching on my part. While social media sites many times give me a lot of inspiration and motivation, I have found multiple other sources that seem to fit the bill as well. I also have friends who are willing to share humorous and thoughtful memes with me and that’s been a help to keep my spirits and sense of humor alive and well.

So one week in, all is well. I will continue to branch out and am planning on starting back to my walking routine this next weekend. I also have visited quite a few antique malls and have rekindled my interest in antique advertising.

One last thing,,,,I’d always do my FB posts first thing when I got up in the morning. While it didn’t take a great deal of time, I have been able to use that five to ten minutes productively. I’ve started to practice a positive meditation that I actually look forward to each morning. And that’s gotta be a good thing.

David Lee

100 Days of Writing – Day Eighty-One

Two days in to my Lenten sabbatical from social media and all is well.

For the past two days, I’ve been off social media, namely Facebook, and all is going well thus far. My morning routine is definitely at a slower pace since I don’t have to do my daily posts when I awaken. I’ve also found that my time on my phone has lessened, as I’ve taken social media icons where they can’t be seen. Actually, I deleted the apps and will have to reinstall them when I return.

My interim teaching position had cut down on my time with social media anyway. So the transition this time around hasn’t seemed to be as difficult. I do miss seeing what others are sharing and I’m thinking some people are missing the daily posts I do. But it does give me time to focus on something other than the electronic feed.

I’ve done quite a bit more reading and writing, which I consider to be a good thing. I’ve played quite a few of my baseball simulation board game and that’s always a lot of fun. Overall, it’s been fairly easy to stay away from it all. I just wonder if when the Lenten season is officially over, if I’ll even want to come back at all.

David Lee

100 Days of Writing – Day Eighty

The Lenten sabbatical from social media is a little over an hour away. It comes at what I would call an opportune moment, a time where I need to examine my life and develop a plan for moving forward.

I’ve decided to take the Lenten season as a time to stay off of social media and focus more on living life each day the best I can. There have been quite a few events of these past two and a half months that have caused me some confusion and bewilderment and this hiatus will be an important time in my life.

I’ve taken these vacations from social media before for Lent. It’s always most difficult at first given that social media, namely Facebook, was something that I turned to when I didn’t have much going on in my life. As the days and weeks wind on, I have found it becomes much easier. I guess it’s that way with any addiction, the first days are the most difficult.

I had a talk with a good friend tonight and he said that one part of his self-care was at least thirty minutes of exercise each day. So as a starting point for my own self-care, I’ll make a concerted effort to get some exercise, such as walking, each day. The last part of this week is supposed to be much warmer and that will help immensely.

So at least for now, that’s a reasonable goal and a healthy replacement for surfing social media each day. I make a commitment to exercise in some form for at least one hour each day. And tomorrow will be that all-important first day.

I’ve blacked out both my profile picture and cover picture on FB as a sign not of darkness in my life, but a time of deep examination of who I am and what I’m all about.

David Lee

100 Days of Writing – Day Seventy-Nine

Random thoughts and musings on this day…

Nothing in particular as a topic to write about today, so I’ll just post random thoughts as they arise in my mind this beautiful Sunday morning…

  • I got the fever to get a new car yesterday, at least a “new for me” car. I realized that I didn’t know where my car title was and finally figured out it was in hiding from one of the several moves I’ve made over the past years. So I looked where I could in my house and not finding it, thought it might be with the things I have stored in my daughter’s garage. And so last night, right around 10 pm, I went to her house and used my vehicle’s headlights to see what I could find. Within about ten minutes, I found the title. Mission accomplished! I’m not 100% sure I’ll be trading cars, but nice to know I found the missing title.
  • I met a good teaching friend at Barnes and Noble last evening. One of those chance meetings that you know was no coincidence. We had a good conversation about what was going on in both of our lives. It was nice to be able to share with a trusted friend and I consider it a blessing.
  • I did some housework yesterday, which for me is a real chore. I worked on the kitchen and have it looking somewhat more respectable. The thing about it is, it didn’t take that much time and looks so much better. Today, I am willing to try much the same on one of the other rooms in the house. My home is quite small and I realize there are some things I need to get rid of, but that’s for another day.
  • I was a part of a Zoom group on synchronicity yesterday. It’s a topic I’ve been interested in for the past twenty years or so. We had small breakout groups to discuss synchs in our own lives. There were about one hundred people total and the breakout groups were composed of four people. The leader of our group showed a book on synchronicity he had written and it looked familiar. I looked on my bookshelf and sure enough, there it was. So I shared with him that I had read his book and he was quite pleased. So in a group devoted to synchronicity, I was “randomly” placed in a group that had an author of a book that I had on my bookshelf. Needless to say, I’m going to re-read the book. Pretty cool if you ask me.

That’s all for right now….

David Lee

100 Days of Writing – Day Seventy-Eight

I’ve fallen off on my writing a bit…at least as far as this blog goes. I’ve decided to take a Lenten break from social media starting on Wednesday of this next week, so I’ll have more time to spend here.

Life happens. Sometimes it happens in leaps and bounds. Then sometimes it’s as if nothing is happening at all. The past two months have seen a lot of changes in my personal life. Changes that I couldn’t have envisioned happening, but happen they did. While I’ve written a ton in my pen-and-paper journal, I haven’t done nearly as much here on my blog. Beginning this next week, on Ash Wednesday, I’ll once again take a break from social media and you’ll likely see me sharing more here.

The past nine weeks have been a challenge to say the least. In addition to a new living arrangement, I’ve started yet another interim teaching position. When you have so many changes taking place over such a short period of time, it’s hard to get a good grasp on exactly what reality is.

I’m convinced that change is a part of life and we as humans have to adapt to our constantly changing world. Just when you think you’ve gotten used to a particular style of life, something happens that causes you to have to make adjustments. Some of the adjustments are small, others quite large. It’s all a part of the journey, a part of life.

So you can expect to see quite a bit more written here, if all goes as planned. I’m going to put a link on my FB page for those who want to keep up with what I’m doing. I also have a fair number of WP followers that will hopefully be able to share in the fun as well.

Keep the faith and trust the journey.

David Lee

100 Days of Writing – Day Seventy-Seven

This afternoon while taking a nap, I had a dream unlike any I’d had before…after waking and realizing it was just a dream, I fell back asleep and had a similar dream again. When I woke up for the second time, I had to research the vivid dream’s possible meaning.

This afternoon I laid down to take a short nap. I’ve been having some issues with getting quality amounts of sleep lately and figured it would do me good. It was during that nap that I had a quite vivid dream that seemed so very real.

In the dream, I was leaving my bedroom, heading for the back porch of my home. My eyes went shut and I couldn’t get them to open back. I pried them open with my fingers, only to have them go back shut. I wandered around in the backyard aimlessly, not knowing where I was going. It was a deeply-disturbing type of feeling.

I think woke up and it took me a few seconds to realize the vivid dream was just that – a dream. I then proceeded to go back to sleep and the same dream started all over again. I once again, couldn’t get my eyes to open. I wondered onto the back porch again and then back into the house, whereupon I fell backward, still unable to pry my eyes open for very long. It was at that point that I considered I might be having a stroke and needed to call 911. I then woke up and once again, was relieved to find out it was just a dream.

My research led me to the following messages that the dreams might be trying to convey:

A dream where you cannot open your eyes may be symbolic of how you feel helpless and lost in your waking life. There could be something that is making you anxious and not allowing you to live your life to the fullest. Another interpretation is that we are trying to safeguard ourselves from discomfort.
Often dreams have certain messages for us. To decipher the message as accurately as possible, you need to focus on what is happening in your life. The dream could be giving you a message to help you through an obstacle in your life.
For example, are you going through a challenging time in your life? If so, the dream could be a message to hold on to your courage. Life will always have ups and downs, but hard times will pass. We just need to have the courage to get through them.

https://www.liquidsandsolids.com/cant-open-eyes-in-dream/#:~:text=A%20dream%20where%20you%20cannot,to%20safeguard%20ourselves%20from%20discomfort.

A lot of what I read did sound like my thought life here of late. The past month (in fact, exactly one month today) has been a whirlwind of emotions.

  • helpless and lost – Yes, especially during the first couple of weeks of my most-recent life experience, that’s exactly how I felt. I’ve been able to recover somewhat over the past couple of weeks and these feelings have lessened, but are still present to some extent.
  • trying to safeguard ourselves from discomfort – There’s been quite a bit of discomfort in my life over the past month. I’m guessing the closed-eyes part of the dream might be an effort to hide from all of it.
  • hold onto your courage – This is the message that I tend to drift towards. I know while the past month has been unsettling, I’ve found the courage to continue to move forward with my life. I am reminded that hard times will pass and need to stay the course and be courageous

So there you go. My mid-afternoon dream and what message it might hold. It’s one of the most vivid dreams I’ve had in a long time and am open to the possibility of the message(s) it might possibly carry for me.

David Lee

100 Days of Writing – Day Seventy-Six

I’ve always been obsessed with numbers. I believe they have a story to tell and a path to point to. I recently came upon a guide that shows what certain repeating numbers mean and looked out for those as I went through my day. I found two such patterns and share those with you today.

666 —-> Usually I would tend to shy away from this number combination, but there it was, on a license tag, on the car I had parked behind on the street. So I chose not to ignore it and looked at the chart to see what wisdom it held.

“Reexamine your life and get into better alignment.” – Wow! Does this not ring true for me. Over the past month, I have seen big changes in my life and it’s been difficult to readjust to all the changes. I have actually been doing a lot of reexamination of my life and the choices I have made. I think you could say my life has been out of alignment here of late, so this message is loud and clear. I had my car serviced earlier in the week and they told me it needed an alignment and I’m thinking that I do as well.

999—–> I found this trio of numbers on a dollar bill. I know that 9s are usually associated with endings and wasn’t surprised by what the chart had to tell me.

“Forgiveness. Release control and accept the reality of a certain situation. End of a chapter.” – And once again, WOW! Given the events of my life over the past month, this reading says even more than the first. I’ve in the past been a person who tries to control things in the external environment. That usually hasn’t worked out very well.

I’ve had a hard time accepting my recent reality in life, but accept it I must. And I very definitely recently met the end of a chapter in my life.

So today’s readings were quite insightful and yes, numbers do help point our way.

David Lee

100 Days of Writing – Day Seventy-Five

The power of attraction and all that it encompasses is definitely a real thing. I put it to the test with an intention I’m putting out into the universe.

I recently read an article that details the meanings behind finding a feather. I have to be honest and say I didn’t read the full article. But to further my thoughts that I didn’t see that article by accident, I’m putting it out into the Universe to find a feather sometime over the next three days.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been isolating quite a bit, processing situations in my life. I know to help bring my feather intention into fruition, I will have to get out and about some this weekend. The weather is supposed to cooperate and that’s always a plus.

I’ll let you know if the law of attraction plays out in this experiment of sorts. I’m also including a copy of the article I referenced.

David Lee

Feather Study… I love finding feathers!
WHEN A FEATHER FALLS ON YOUR PATH…
Have you wondered about what it might mean when you find a feather? Feathers are ways that Spirit (of different forms) sends us signs.
For a start, feathers (and other items such as coins, and creatures such as birds, butterflies) and dragonflies), can be signs from the angels, guides, or loved ones in that they are near – that they hear you, guide you and are supporting you. It can be an acknowledgement of you or your thoughts or it is their way of saying hello.
Finding a feather is often a magical moment. I have had many beautiful feather experiences and have watched one fall down from the sky onto my daughter’s lap while we had a picnic in our backyard! In my children are often sign-bearers, delivering me feathers from their playtime travels.
Feathers represent flight and freedom, soaring above, looking from a higher perspective, and moving beyond boundaries and limitations. Different colours and colour combinations can also add extra meaning. (see further below about various colour meanings).
Interpreting the Meaning of the Feather Sign
Whenever you observe a sign, take note of what you were thinking just before it happened, or what is going on in your life at that moment. What could the sign be telling you? Don’t stress yourself about finding a meaning. Even if you do not understand the meaning of the sign at the time, it could become clearer later, or you may be absorbing it in at a sub-conscious level. Just trust that it is a sign and let go of any doubts. Enjoy the way that Spirit works, and embrace the fact you are intermingling with it and paying attention.
Asking for Feather (& other) Signs
You can ask for feather (or other) signs to come to you. And you can be specific. I once asked for confirmation that I had a male guide watching over me (which is what I was feeling and just wanted the magical validation). I asked that if it were true I be shown in the form of a blue feather. I picked blue because it was more rare and unusual, and I saw it as an obviously male colour. Exactly one week later I went to work and as I approached some steps outside there were bright blue feathers everywhere! They were fake ones but it didn’t matter. It was another of those magical moments.
It is just a matter of believing, letting go, and staying aware. Signs often remind us to be at peace and relax into the nature and flow of life. The meanings can at times be profound, and at other times quite simple. The best advice when signs happen is to not put any pressure on yourself to understand it. Take it as an opportunity to connect, take notice of and thank the ever-present Spirit. If your sign is an item such as a feather, you can keep it in a special place whether that be by your bedside, on your dresser, or added to your sacred space / spiritual altar. Or you can gently release it back to nature or where you found it.
How do you know for sure your feather is a sign?
It is especially a sign if it comes in a magical way or you find it in an odd place. Feather signs often appear on your path in front of you, or at your doorstep. Once a feather appeared in my bag, and on my bedroom floor.
This article by Natalia Kuna was published in the magazine “Alive, So Make it Count!”
What Different Feather Colours Mean
The Native American people had a great spiritual understanding about feathers, their colours and their meaning. They would take the utmost care of any feathers that came their way as they saw it as a sacred gift, or a powerful talisman in battle.
When considering feather colours, firstly I always recommend seeking the answer within yourself first. Do you have any particular personal association with the colour? What does the colour make you think of or feel? What are the universal meanings of that colour to your knowledge? Does the feather you found act as an answer to a question or some kind of acknowledgement. Always go with your gut and the first impressions you get, and trust. I recommend noting it down and keeping a journal of signs and synchronicities. You might see more in connection to this sign, so stay alert and enjoy the mystery of the process.
Below is a brief rundown of the possible colour meanings of feathers (though trust your own heart and use this as a general guide – you can experiment with this!):
WHITE – purification, spirituality, hope, trust, faith, protection, peace, Heaven, angels, and also act as blessings and wisdom connected with moon.
RED – the root chakra (money, possessions, security, career), physical vitality/energy/life force/action, good fortune, passion, emotions, courage.
BLUE – throat chakra (communication, acceptance, speaking your truth) peace, inspiration, mental abilities/knowledge, connection with spirits, spiritual protection and psychic awareness.
YELLOW – solar plexus chakra (gut intuition, happiness), blessings and wisdom connected with powerful sun energy, intelligence, playfulness, joy, cheerfulness, mental alertness, vision.
GREEN – (heart chakra – love, emotions, relationships, forgiveness), health, healing, nature, environment, nature spirits, plant spirits, animal spirits, growth, fertility, harmony, unity, money, prosperity, success.
ORANGE (sacral chakra – sex/physical relationships, love, appetitite, attraction), energy, change, optimism, and ambition, success, new ideas, will power, creativity, physical love, new ideas, will power, independence.
PINK – unconditional love, romance, feelings, friendship, caring, compassion, harmony, service, empathy, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, honour, inspiration.
GREY – peace and neutrality (as it is in the middle of black and white), authenticness, flexibility.
PURPLE – (crown chakra – universal consiousness, spiritual connection), heightened spiritual growth and experiences, higher thought.
BROWN – earth, stability, grounding, endurance, home, friendship, respect.
BLACK – protection, warning, repelling or warning of negative energy, death (as in a closed chapter), mystical wisdom – a sign that you are undergoing a spiritual initiation, growth or increased wisdom. When the feathers are irridescent, oir represents high mystical insight (especially if there is a shiny irridescence).
COLOUR COMBINATIONS:
Black and white mixed feathers can represent protection, or the sense of union.
Black mixed with purple represents a very deep spirituality. i would take it as a feeply mystical sign.
Black, white, and blue mixed feathers denote change on the horizon.
Brown and black striped pattern (like a pheasant/s feather) – balance between the physical and the spiritual.
Brown and white – happiness, and you will go under the radar from psychic or other harm.
Feathers with red and green in them or together would denote that you are being assisted financially. I would take it as a very lucky sign.
Grey and white symbolise hope.
Sourced from patrica pellos