UPDATE

Well, as you all know I have pretty much dissolved The Juicy Life except for this one final announcement that my website is fully up and going now!

I would love for you all to visit me at www.thewildnesswithin.com and become a member of this new project of mine! Not only will you get the same insane blogging that you all have grown to love on here (haha!) but there is a wonderful photo gallery as well as a forum for members to talk about anything and everything. I am still taking baby steps with the forum but it is certainly coming along and new topics will be added daily.

I want The Wildness Within to become an amazing site where parents and friends alike can come to shake up their creative juices and get a fresh, new perspective on living in the 21st century... getting a little of that Wild Child vibe that you all have learned about from my rants and raves regarding my own little Wild Child, Autumn.

Hope to see you there!

-Heather

Ta Ta for Now!

I'm feeling a sense of bad mojo flowing over this blog so I am calling it quits and moving on to bigger and better horizons. Before anyone pipes in - I am not running with my tail between my legs because of one not very nice comment from my ex... there is no way in HELL I would give him that much power over me anymore! The new site I am moving to is a labor of love I have been working on for about a week now (and forewarning - it's still a work in progress!) It too includes a blog and I don't want to be too repetitive working on two different blogs but saying a lot of the same things... that would drive me nuts!

I have sent a private message to my little band of readers in regards to my fabulous new website I have started. I hope you are willing to take this leap of faith with me and hop over as well! If you received my message - please pass the website information along to any friends you think would be interested in this little venture. Thanks for making this my first blog a wonderful experience!

Ta Ta for Now!

Heather

Word and Powerpoint and Excel, Oh My!

A new class starts today. I must admit I am less than thrilled with the prospect...Computer Literacy (can I say yeck!) I was loving my English Comp. class and I am fairly proud of the final research paper I turned in yesterday (cross your fingers on another A!) Today, on the other hand, I am faced with something I knew was bound to come along eventually... I have to buy the full Microsoft Office program for this class (yes, somehow I have managed getting by with reformatting from Works to Word on all of my papers in my past five classes...but now they want it all... Word, Powerpoint, Excel... double yeck!) Trust me when I say we have tried putting the trial version on the computer but some glitch just isn't taking it. Aye yi yi!

The only light at the end of my tunnel seems to be (hopefully) a financial aid refund check sent to me from the school. I'd love to be able to save it but the bills they are piling up and I still haven't gotten a job (remember that endless cycle of money/car/job I spoke of before...still there), and my former significant other hasn't come across with any financial support for his daughter since November 2008... so a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do. It will certainly be making my parents happy since I will be putting the program on their computer. I've even been pricing laptops that would make my life a hell of a lot easier with school work and my writing in general... that one still might be just a dream for now. We'll see.

I really shouldn't be so morose about this class. I am fairly good with computers and anything new I learn will definitely be an advantage for future work prospects. I think it's just a little downer from having two classes in a row of writing (which as you know I love) to a class that is completely technical and not at all me :( But I will make the best of it and I will make this class my sixth A in a row! I will rock it!

Attack of the Censorship Police

Aggh!!! The Censorship Police have arrived on my blog and believe it or not they are living in my head! Yep, that's right. I've discovered that I can not write anything remotely condescending about anyone else on here without just moments later feeling completely guilty and in the end deleting the blog I had written. Where in the hell did my backbone go?!?

This has become a reoccurring matter so I need to face this demon and banish it forever. What I write on here is what I feel at the time - good or bad. Two very well-written and sincerely thought-out blogs have been sucked up by the delete key and it must stop. I have been going on this entire year trying to be honest with myself and in turn I believe that honesty should be extended to my blogdom readers. No, life isn't juicy all the time... it is still a great work in progress. Yes, I can get extremely ticked off with people who come in and out of my life and that is just human nature. The matter at hand is how I handle the being ticked off part... and I do it through words on here. My vent. My rant...of course as soon as I vent I am pretty much over the initial tickiness and feel as if the moment has passed and the words I had written are sort of null and void... oy vey!

Well, for the time being, those who I mentioned in my writing (and I never used actual names - just initials) have gotten off easily since they probably never read the blogs in the five seconds they were published anyway. Will the censorship police return now that I have confronted them? Probably... I'm only human. However, in the future I must remember that I am doing myself an injustice by keeping things bottled up when I feel them. One of the many reasons I ended up getting a divorce is for far too long I left a lot of things bottled up without being honest and it not only hurt me but someone I had loved. Let's all say it loud and clear... HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY!!!

Now...to just practice what I preach...

The Season of Halloween!

"Witches flying past on broomsticks, Black cats leaping here and there,
White-robed spooks on ever corner, Mournful moaning in the air,

"Goblins peering out of windows, Spirit-things that rap and run-
But don't be scared - it's just October, Having one last hour of fun!"
-"Halloween," Mary Jane Carr

I woke up this morning down-right excited... it's October! This same feeling swept over me the first day of Fall and now it is completely official...we have hit Halloween season! My absolute favorite time of year! I am bouncy and giddy and chomping at the bit to go to the pumpkin patch! Autumn has no idea what is in store for her this month!

I can't say where I first got my love for this holiday... as far back as I can recall I have always loved scary stories and movies. I remember going to sleep as a very young child with my mother listening to John Williams' soundtrack to the movie "Dracula" on record (Frank Langella - I believe that was the first vampire she was in love with!); I recall seeing "Friday the 13th" when I was in the third grade; I adored reading Stephen King's "IT" during Spring Break of my 5th grade year... it all has just seeped into my blood over the years and this holiday is the celebration of all those things rolled into one great day!

Beyond the commercialized trick-or-treating fun this season brings, I have also over the many years fallen in love with its origins of Samhain. I have decided in this year of my reinvention I am going to stop pretending that I am something other than my truest self spiritually (it's insane how afraid I have been of my family's opinion of me that has led me to keep hidden what I have felt so deeply in my heart for most of my life...) so out of the "broom closet" I come (yeah - I read that somewhere, I'm not that witty 95% of the time!)

Samhain is, in a sense, a new year's celebration, honoring those that have passed on while looking forward to the future (and no - it has absolutely nothing to do with the Christian-based Satan.) This one night out of the whole year the veil between the living and the spirit world is thinnest - where we may be able to celebrate with our ancestors and learn from them. How beautiful a sentiment is that... to honor your family in such a way! A few years back my ex-husband and I even held a Dumb Supper which - to be honest- reminds me a lot of Passover's Seder in the way that you have a seat at your table for your ancestors with a plate and drink just for them (during Passover the prophet Elijah visits.) I can't recall whether we all actually ate in complete silence as the supper is supposed to go...but it was the act of this honor that counted...and what a feast I created that night! It rivaled Thanksgiving in size!

So this month is the beginning of great celebration and fun... and I am all ears if anyone has suggestions for activities in the Middle Georgia area that are three-year old friendly (seriously looking!) May everyone have the happiest of Octobers yet! Brightest blessings!

Wild Woods and Birthday Wishes

My life seems to finally be getting back to a state of normalcy... Autumn is napping and I am enjoying these few blissful moments to myself. The only thing on my mind right now is to relax and wait patiently (okay, I have to laugh at that one!) for my grades to be posted in my English class as I finish my final draft of my research paper.

I awoke this morning to that glorious Fall chill in the air (okay - I'm being nice about the "chill" part - it was downright cold this morning!) No complaints here... I loved it! My Wild Child and I ventured a little farther into the Wild Woods with a keen belief that no snakes would cross our path and we were correct! I love the woods this time of year...the sunlight seemed to be dancing around us as it broke through the leaves which were swaying in the breeze. We explored the mushrooms growing out of odd homes on the ground (including a tree stump), and that ever-present stone fireplace that has always sparked my imagination since my parents first moved to this land. I was so proud of my little one who agreed to hold my hand as we walked deeper into the woods... but to be honest I'm sure she knows those woods better than anyone else, aside from my father and her own father as well!

Now that we are inside, I am on my own personal hunt to discover things for the Wild Child to do this Fall. October is just around the corner (tomorrow to be exact), and we have thirty one days that I want filled with spooktacular fun! I think I might just even have to break out "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" for her tomorrow! My goodness I can't express how much I love this coming month!

And speaking of October... I want to wish someone who was once a very dear friend to me a happy birthday that is coming up in a couple of days. We have really lost touch over the past few years (aside from a few comments here and there on facebook)- but I just want her to know she is always in my thoughts and maybe one day we can truly reconnect as friends. Brightest blessings on her birthday!

A Week of Thankfuls

I have downsized my blogging life by keeping my thankfuls to once a week now... I was really aiming high (at a not particularly high point in my life) to come out with a "top ten" list every single day. But here goes... I am always thankful for...

1. Having the courage to post my paintings online (that takes a lot for me to show these)

2. Kermit's "The Rainbow Connection" - such a beautiful song

3. Autumn "swimming" in the back of my Dad's truck - splashing up the rainwater that had collected there.

4. Connecting with new friends (you're a highly intriguing person, R.)

5. Connecting with yet more old friends on facebook (this is such a great site!)

6. almost being done with my research paper (one week to go)

7. seeing my little girl's hair get more and more golden the longer she stayed outside today

8. just this overwhelming sense of happiness

9. my determination to continue my reinvention and not sit idly by after all I have accomplished

10. the twist of fate that may be bringing Daniel Sklar back into my life - and have a published writer actually look at my work!