The good, bad, and the ugly

As the title suggests, the past few weeks have been a bit of all of the above. First of all, I need to make an urgent request of the universe, please tell Mercury and it's retrograde self that it has messed with my head for the last time. I still wax vague on many things astrological, but hells bells if I don't feel the effects of Mercury in retrograde every single time.

For example, the day Mercury went into retrograde my cwrubs email address finally bit the bullet. After many months of not receiving invoices from my hosting company, and then having my email service turned off without notice, I finally called them and told them that they could kindly shove their hosting services up their collective RAMs. So Ly and I now only have our gmail addresses. I'm sure this is doing wonderful things to my business and all the people that have emailed me wanting massage in the last week. More Mercurial examples: faxes not going through, complete misunderstandings with friends, clients cancelling and not calling, phones acting c.r.a.z.y. It all needs to stop or I'm gonna stick my big Sagittarian Jupiter ass on it.

In car news, I found out that Washington Mutual no longer does car loans. What's up with that? I thought all banks were supposed to carry car loans. I have some leads on places online that can do financing though, so I'm going to shop around, get a few interest rate quotes, so I can have them when I go to the dealership after we return from Albuquerque.

In biz news, I have hired someone to help me with my bookkeeping and office work. After 6 months of looking at a 4-month backlog of receipts that need to be entered into my expense ledger, I finally decided to hire someone for 4 hours a week. I just can't do all the work that is entailed in running my business. It takes so much discipline to work at home. It takes a lot of prioritizing to decide if one should do billing, do follow-up with insurance companies, enter receipts into one's expense ledger, do the laundry, do the dishes, vacuum the floor, chant, work-out etc. I think that this person will be a life-saver. Although the idea of me actually having an independent contractor employee is kind of tripping me out. Now all I need to do is get online and do some research on exactly what forms I need her to fill out.

Which brings me to exciting things, two weeks until we leave for Albuquerque. I can not WAIT. I can't wait to go to multiple yoga classes, to play with my Mandy kids. We just made reservations at a hotel today. We're going to stay with Mandy for two days, in a hotel for two days, and then back to Mandy's for two days. That way we can break it up, have some time on our own, give the folks some space, and still have plenty of time to hang, and partake in a delightful Thanksgiving.

That all said, I feel the need to work through some things that have been going on in my head as of late. I'm not necessarily looking for validation, I'm just writing about this to get it out of my head. I find that scary discloser usually lessens the hold my neuroses have on me. I've been feeling pretty insecure about many things as of late. This insecurity is more annoying than crippling(I've definitely had that kind as well). I go through these phases of feeling like I'm a bad wife, a barely adequate massage therapist, that everyone out there thinks that Lyam is the only actor in this family and that I suck at that too, and ultimately, an anxiety-wridden(sp?) bitter fop with no life of her own.

We recently found out that another one of our good friends is going to have a baby. Right now, in this moment, I am very, very happy for her. A massage therapist where I work just had a new baby, and my little sister is going to give birth to her 4th in just a few months. When I first heard the news about our friend, it totally threw me for a loop. When I first heard it, I heard it with ears that were sure that it was yet another way of the universe reminding me of all the things that everyone else can have, except for Stine. I completely went to victimland. Babies were taken away from me, my voice was taken away from me, monetary compensation has eluded me (until recently), my father left when I was little...blah..blah...blah. The usual course of this line of thinking is that Stine then becomes very bitter and resentful. I've been really trying to work through that the past few weeks. The more bitter and resentful I feel, the more I beat myself up, and the whole process starts all over again.

So what have I done about it? Well first of all, I'm trying really hard to not discount or compartimentalize my shit, because that only makes it worse. So as uncomfortable as I sometimes feel, I just have to feel like ass, and take care of myself. I've been chanting up a storm lately, and that is helping immensely. It just helps me center myself, give myself that time and care, and clear out some of that energy from my body. And finally, I've been trying desperately to shift my perceptions of what I don't have, to what I do have. So in that spirit, I feel the need to make a list to remind myself of all the things I have been blessed with.

- a solid, realistic, exciting, passionate, frustrating, tantalizing, and exquisite marriage
- a fairly adept sense of humor (however raunchy it may run on occasion)
- hands that feel, see, and hear so much of what is going on when they touch people
- a business that is booming, and challenges me every day
- a very anal organized sense of what it takes to run an office (thank you mother)
- a humanistic philosophy and Buddhist practice that keeps me grounded, safe, and constantly moving in a forward direction
- most of the time, a sex life that would be envied by any married couple(speaking of, it may be time for a purple toy combo)
- a best friend who's presence reminds me every day what being human, compassionate, open, and resiliant really mean
- an extended group of talented, generous, and vibrant friends

See, what do I have to be worried about?