Life is Good

These are the bloggers over at bumpinthenightcentral.com, at our Dragon Con booth a couple of weeks ago. Left to right, Maggie Shayne, Angela Knight, Rebecca York, Susan Sizemore, and Susan Kearney. I just got this shot in my email so I thought I'd post it today. And I know I keep mentioning my new group blog on my current group blog site, but that's okay, because i'll be mentioning this one on that one too, and besides, here at Storybroads, "It's all good!"

Today, my friends, life is good. I've had such a busy few weeks lately that it's been a whirlwind, but every bit of it has been fun and wonderful.

Late last week I stayed overnight with daughter #2, Katie. We had pizza and talked half the night and watched Lewis Black, Black on Broadway. I spent time at my grandson's birthday party last weekend, and enjoyed it immensely, though I ate too much! The next day, I headed over to Colorscape Chenango, an annual event in Norwich NY and spent most of the day at the Evening Sun's booth, promoting my new column there, "Shayne on You." (The column will launch the final week of September, and will be viewable at www.evesun.com. I believe that you'll be able to see it without subscribing, at least to begin with.) At the booth I hung out with daughter #3, Jessica, a full fledged journalist at the Evening Sun, along with several other members of the team, and I enjoyed every minute of it, even getting soaked in a merciless deluge at day's end as I ran back to my car.

Tuesday night I had dinner with daughter #4, Stacie, at Applebee's in Binghamton, and then we went to Kohl's and bought tops because they were buy one get one free. We each bought two. I think it's been almost two weeks since I had quality time with daughter #1, Jena. We had a day of shopping not too terribly long ago and a great lunch at Tully's. But I think we're due for another girl's day. I intend to call her this afternoon to plan one.

And tonight, it's Katie's again, for pizza and talking. Friday I'm taking the dogs to the kennel in the morning, getting an oil change in the afternoon, critique group in the evening, and then it's a weekend retreat for some serious R&R.

Yes, life is good. I finished a novella this week, and completed the copy-edits on the latest novel, and got a serious start on the synopsis for the next novel. I'm going to work on that some more today and hope to make major progress.

As busy as life is, I'm enjoying every second of it. So much so that when anything unpleasant tries to insert itself into my existence, I put up walls, act rudely toward it and then turn immediately away from it. I just don't have room in my existence for anything nasty anymore. I really don't.

So I'm just going to be disgustingly upbeat here and tell you how much I love Fall. This is my absolute favorite season. I'd been worrying about my lawn mower being broken, because the lawn was shaggy and I wanted to decorate for Halloween, but not until it was mowed. I'd been trying to solve the problem with action. Poking around in my lawn mower's innards, buying various things and trying them out. I changed the spark plug, air filter, and installed a new battery. It needs an oil change. I found a broken part, took it out and ordered a new one. But none of that was getting my grass cut.

So one day, I sat down in the morning and wrote down my deliberate intentions for the week, which included finishing the novella and copy edits, and my grass being cut. I didn't write "the lawn will be fixed" or "a new lawn mower will appear." Because those were not the goals. Instead I just wrote, "My grass will be cut, my lawn will be mowed."

The next day a neighbor stopped by. This is a fellow who does lots of handy man work for lots of the locals. He saw me working on my mower and asked if I'd like him to mow my lawn before it got too big to deal with. I gratefully accepted. For thirty bucks, he mowed my lawn. I provided the gas, he provided the mower. He brought a local farm boy over with a push mower to do the small parts. The two of them got the weed-whacker that came with the house running and did a lot of the trim work. They even climbed up on the roof of my little barn and took the rooster off the top of the weathervane, and replaced it with my signature witch-on-a-broomstick.

The place looks great! So today, I'm heading out to buy some Halloween decorations to embrace the season. And while I'm out on the road this weekend, you can bet I'll be on the lookout for pumpkins to bring home. I hear there's a new Dremmel Pumpkin Carving took on sale at Lowe's! That's on my list too.

So life is good. And here's one of my secrets. It's actually from Jerry and Esther Hicks and Abraham. They call it the Placemat Exercise because they tend to do it at diners on the back of a paper placemat while on the road. I use a sheet of computer paper.

Take your paper, and draw a line down the center. At the top of one side write ME. At the top of the other side write UNIVERSE.

Under the me side, write down the things you want to get done today (or within the next few days) that you are ready to tackle, and that you believe you can easily accomplish.

Under the Universe side, write down the things you wish would get done today (or within the next few days) that you are not ready to tackle, and have no idea how you'll ever have time to accomplish. Or things that are out of your hands.

Now go about doing the things on your side of the list. Those should include fun things, not just work things. Things you really WANT to do. Don't waste time worrying about the things on the Universe's side of the list, because you've handed those over. They're not your problem. If you focus on not getting them done, not getting them done is what you get. So focus on your stuff, and leave the rest to the universe. Be happy, be joyful, don't stress, just relax, and let it in. And sure as hell, it all gets done. Just like my lawn got mowed. Just like magick.

Try this out and let me know how it goes.

Today, on the me side, I have:
go to the bank
buy Halloween decorations
put them up
go for a run
spend an evening with Katie and the kids


On the Universe's side I have some more time consuming and less fun tasks, like
make significant progress on the synopsis
figure out how to upload some huge photo files to my publicist and do so
print, sign and send a contract and a deposit for a video trailer
go for a run (just in case.)

I bet most, if not all my tasks will get done with time to spare. It always happens that way when I make use of my magic.
It'll work for you too!

Maggie