Live with an attitude of gratitude!

Notes from Thursday, October 1st
I didn't have a moment to write yesterday (Thursday), but some neat things happened. The day was a little more low key than I have been all week, but it proved to be an important day as far as working on eliminating the negative messages that my subconscious mind was happily delivering to me. I was constantly being bombarded by them all day long, but I kept checking in with my self and working to replace the negative with more positive and empowering ones. (It was a tad exhausting trying to keep up.) I also worked on moving forward despite the fact that there were moments where all I wanted to do was pull the covers up over my head and hide from the world. I did however manage to persevere and wah-lah, more coolness came from the day than not!!

I met with one of my clients in the am to talk over a few design ideas for her kitchen. I love, love, love when I share an idea about something and the client replies, "I love that idea. I hadn't thought about it, but it makes perfect sense!" Ta-dah! It makes me feel so genius! :-)

After leaving her place I went out to run a few errands. On Monday am, I had posted some of my jewelry designs (earrings mostly) on eBay. I have never used eBay as an outlet for selling my stuff before, but had always wanted to, and since I was feeling pretty inspired, I took the necessary pictures and set about creating ads for each item. Kind of fun, but it took a little bit more time than I expected. No worries, it was an experiment, and as part of the experiment I decided to employ the strategies I have been learning in Karim Hajee's Creating Power book. So, as a sign to the universe that I trusted it would help lead people to my auctions and help me sell my items, I decided I should go out and buy the mailing supplies I needed to ship everything that people bought! I also thought that it would be a nice idea to get individually wrapped pieces of chocolate to pop into the package as a little thank you surprise! (That idea just puts a smile on my face because I always love when there is a little something extra in packages I receive. It seems like a nice way to do business!) In addition to this, I knew that I needed to head to the craft store to follow up on my "to-do" list for the scarf idea I had earlier in the week. My kids are with their father this weekend and I figured I would have some free time to try and come up with a pattern for it. I managed to find some really awesome yarn and come up with a brilliant idea for the button I need for the scarf while I was there. (Love that!!)

Anyway, as I was checking out, the "customer service representative" asked if I would like to donate a dollar to charity. (Quickly a phrase I have read repeatedly in books by Joe Vitale popped into my head, "money is energy, it needs to flow. To get you must give.") "Sure!" I said to the cashier with a smile on my face. "I would love to give a dollar to charity, thank you for asking." He rang up my merchandise and I headed out home.

By the time I got home it was close to 1:30. I stopped at the mailbox before pulling into the driveway, and much to my surprise, there was a check from work I had done two months ago and completely forgotten about. It was for $21.02. I had to smile!! How awesome! I gave away a dollar and got back $21!!

The rest of the day puttered along nicely and around 9pm I checked in on my eBay items. "I know it is too early, I know it is too early," I kept saying to myself, but I was curious. AND, to my amazement, some one had not only looked at one of my items, but put a bid in on it!!! An adorable pair of earrings that I had pulled together on Sunday morning while I was playing with my daughter Olivia and her friend. They wanted to make bracelets, so as I helped them, I was poking around in the bead box and the beads for this particular pair of earrings came together for me. Fun!!!

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Friday, October 2nd
Today I woke up in a much better mood. I took a long hot bath last night and thought about the day. Then as I went to bed, I made a conscious decision to have a better day today. That seemed to work (for the most part) although admittedly I hit the off button on my alarm this morning instead of the snooze button and ended up missing the school bus which meant I had to drive an hour round trip to get my son Sam off to school. Aarrgh! I made the best of it though and listened to some positive affirmations on my way. (That was bonus time and I wouldn't have had to do that otherwise.)

After getting dressed (yes, I did drive Sam to school in my pj's) and getting Olivia out the door to school, I headed off to the gym. Had a good work out, and took some time to practice the deep breathing exercises I began using earlier in the week. It really is a great way to refocus.

I zipped back home after the gym to take a quick shower and change in time for a meeting with one of my favorite clients, Steve. The man is always happy and positive and you've got to love that! Plus he was taking me to a really great restaurant for lunch to discuss upcoming projects, so it was a win!! During lunch we talked about a lot of stuff. I mentioned to him my plan to manifest $5,000.- (you never know who is going to be able to help you get there) and we joked about that for a while. The joking is all fine, but it is difficult to not have anyone believe in you when you mention things like that. (I have gotten really good a deflecting comments and brushing them off! Whatever. I'll get there, and when I do, they will all be asking me what I did! :-) ).

As we headed out to our cars, I stopped by Steve's car to take a look at the new winter sleds we had worked on over the summer (retail is a crazy business, you area always working in the opposite seasons.) Anyway, WOW!! So cool. The new sleds had just come in from China, along with the packaging, and I can't tell you what a rush it is to see your designs live, 3-D, actually printed, touchable, holdable. WOW! The packaging looked great and is going to absolutely dance on the store shelves, and the sleds, well, they just came out awesome! (Visit MutualSales.com and search Arctic Gear).

What a fantastic day. I was flying!! So exciting! I've had a pair of earrings on eBay (see SoBeaded.com or bluerskies06 on eBay) that someone is bidding on, a ton of new products and packaging to design (summer stuff) for Steve and my first look at the new sleds I designed. It is hard to believe that the day could get any better.... BUT, IT DID!!

When I returned home, I had just enough time to grab the mail, check my status on eBay and zip off a couple quick emails. Strike that, I had enough time to make a phone call to my best friend Sue as well. I couldn't not make the call. I know she thinks I am an absolute nut sometimes, but she has always been a big fan and supporter!! (And secretly, I know that she employs a lot of the strategies I tell her about in the secret of her own home!) Anyway, I had to call her because she knew of my plan to manifest $5,000.- this week and I absolutely had to share what I found in the mail today. I can't believe it myself. Here's the list:

• $10 Old Navy Gift Card
• $50 Target Gift Card
• $25 AMC Theatre Gift Card
• $65 Discover Gift Card
• $4,125.25 Credit to my sons school account

I am absolutely NOT joking. I couldn't believe it myself!!! It almost slipped by me what I had done. Let's do the tally: that's $4,635.50. (I forgot to mention that while I was at lunch with Steve he handed me a check for $225 for some work I had done a while ago. It could have come at any time, but it came today! TODAY! This is only 4 days into my experiment!!!

Skeptical? I know, I am still trying to take it all in myself. My logical brain is trying to justify everything for me, for example: 1. I can account for every single penny of the money I have manifested so far. 2. I knew that the gift cards were coming because I had cashed in on reward points from my credit cards. 3. The checks were money I was owed, so it would have come eventually anyway, and 4. the credit for my son's school is mine and it isn't. I wasn't aware that there was a credit coming, and it was a really awesome surprise, but since my father has been paying the tuition for my son to go to school, the money is actually his and unless I think of some really elaborate plan on how to "hide its arrival" I will need to sign it over to him.

BUT the rest of me really wants to embrace the fact that I did it!! I did! Regardless of how it all came about, I did it and that is an awesome feeling! And taking the lesssons I have learned from it, I will just have to work on refining my requests to the universe and not allow room for as many loop holes and technicalities.

This was truly an awesome experiment, and I highly recommend that everyone try it. There is abundance and wealth out there for all of us!! I will keep you posted as I continue on my journey. For now I am going to take a look at my request and see how I can tweek it to get cash, new cash, cash I knew nothing about with no strings attached!! :-) I am really looking forward to that!

ps. Everyone will be getting sleds for Christmas this year!!