Expansion time

Remember I told you that Rick had heeded an internal nudge to email Barbara Rose who has an e-zine called “inspire!” to ask her if she might feature Recreating Eden? She was most receptive and gathered the necessary information immediately, but told us that she would have to wait till the March issue to put us in as the February issue was already full. I was surprised today to find out that Recreating Eden is in the Feb. issue after all! I guess the timing is being handled by a universal calendar we’re not privy to! We’re on the page with all sorts of interesting books and articles, including with Steve Rother’s latest book. Ellen is a friend of his, and she and her friend Anne, who are setting up my visit to Louisiana, hosted a visit from him in Baton Rouge a couple of years ago with great success. At any rate, on the front page of “inspire!” there is an image of Recreating Eden’s cover and a link to an excerpt from the introduction. I’ll be interested to see how many people are lead to recreating-eden.com from there. The more exposure and links we get the better! And this is an excellent situation since there’s an excerpt with it. Do check out “inspire!” as well as Barbara’s site borntoinspire.com. She’s an interesting, inspiring (!), and very kind lady who obviously has taken to heart the understanding that the path to personal success is paved by helping other people get where they want to go. You’ll also want to read “About Barbara Rose” on her site (left-side menu of borntoinspire). She has an interesting background story…

I was busy, busy today. I baked Rick’s cake last night but today was about putting up the traditional decorations that come out every birthday season. Both Rick’s and my birthdays are in Feb., and 3 of the 4 girls' b-days are in March, and then the other one’s is in April! So the end of winter and beginning of spring is “Birthday Season” at our house. Soooo, today I cleaned up a little bit, got out the decorations and put them up, made the raspberry coulis for the cake, exercised, and then found out I'd need to be extra speedy with dinner since daughter #1 would be cramming her visit in between 2 rehearsals (she’s starring in a community musical production for charity in March, and is also in a musical through University of Denver, where she is a student. A very busy girl!). We were happy she could fit us in! Her birthday gift to her dad was a commitment to go out to lunch once a month with him, which was the best possible gift as she’s so busy, we rarely see her these days. Anyway, I really had to hustle to fit in my workout and get dinner made in time for her to eat and get back to rehearsal #2. But somehow, it all got done and it was delicious and much appreciated by all (I always love that!). The other girls were here, too, though daughter #2 didn’t get here till we’d finished dinner since she was in a study session—and left early to go to another one! The performer and the academic—both maxing out their time, doing their thing!

Fixing a feast for six people in a tiny kitchen like ours is quite a feat. For almost as long as we’ve lived here, I have found myself getting frustrated and sometimes even rabidly angry about dealing with such a tiny space when I love to cook but am not spontaneously organized the way you'd need to be to operate successfully in a postage-stamp-size kitchen. Realizing that what you’re vibrating around a topic is the attracting factor, and knowing that my anger only attracts more frustration, I’ve wrestled with the whole issue, trying to figure out how to stop going to the angry place when working in the kitchen and a manifestation of it’s Liliputian size shows up (no available counterspace and a hot pot to set down, or Rick is needing to be in there to get what is needed to set the table and it's that critical moment when all the parts of dinner are coming together at the end, etc.). I’ve tried with moderate success to be at peace with it, and I’m certainly grateful for our home and for the kitchen, but all too often, something comes up that really points up the unsuitability of it and pushes my buttons about it! So what I’ve come up with lately is that everytime something like that happens, I shift out of frustration and pour my passion into saying, “Wow—I’m going to LOVE our big, new kitchen!” or “Isn't it great to be getting that new big kitchen?!” I use the incident to trigger an affirmation of what I am intending to manifest. At this point, the universe has not revealed how or when the “big new kitchen” will be showing up, but it certainly feels like a necessity, so I am sure it’s on it’s way, and in Divine Order and Divine Timing. I do need to shift my wording to the present tense, i.e.: “I sure do LOVE our big, new kitchen!” but it feels like shifting things in degrees is what needs to be done here since it’s quite a stretch to believe those words while banging my hips between the cabinets in our little galley-style space! I’ve decided that I’m going to see any intensifying frustration with the kitchen as a sign that something is about to change and expand. I bet that’s what it feels like to a baby chick who’s about to break out of its shell into a larger world!