THANK YOU!

Buddy Guy is playing through the stereo, sauce is simmering, I feel good!  Yesterday, I hit the big 10,000 pageviews on this blog!  The universe must have known it would happen yesterday because I had a nice meal planned and instead of for no reason it was a celebration dinner for me!

Considering I began this blog as an journey and exploration of myself, which I never expected anyone to read I am totally blown away!  I have discovered a lot about me which I had forgotten over the years as my focus was on children, work, home and survival.

I have been reminded of my love of Art ~ appreciation of and participation in; Cooking ~ and not just as a responsibility but as something I love to do and enjoy learning and discovering new ways to me be it new recipes, techniques, and flavorings of food; and most obviously Writing.

I am still working on the interpersonal relationship skills.  I do fine except I am still learning to assess people. I say assess because I still think judging people is bad, although I am learning you need to make judgements in order to make accurate assessments!

I am great with people, need a certain level of interactions on a regular basis or else I just do not feel right, but not people who are selfish, greedy and self promoting or mean.  Being a person who see the good in most everything that is difficult as people, even when they say they are showing you their "authentic selves" are lying.  I have rediscovered what friendship is by reconnecting with authentic friends who remind me of the difference between the real deal and the false faces.

That is my most difficult lesson besides not reacting to those people who do not have my best interests at heart ~ the vampires who suck the life right out of you ~ throw you aside ~ wait for you to recharge and regain your energy and come back and do it all over again!  That is going to take a bit more time.

I have learned that 13 years is too long for me to be unproductive, that I have value and worth and that I need to tap into those resources within myself and that when I do I feel so much better as a human being!  I have also learned that I am a social person and that I do like myself and that not everyone on the planet hates me!

I say this because over the past 11 months of writing I have only had to delete two comments out of 163 wonderful ones and that is because there tone was a bit snotty and I did not appreciate them from a "friend". I do not consider that too shabby personally.

Since I don't know the technical side of blogging, I do not label, tag, permalink or add search descriptions because I do not know what the heck all that means!  I have 22 followers whom I thank personally for reading and inspiring me, share publicly on Google and Facebook with a link most recently going to Twitter and that is it.

I still do not have a plan in mind specifically other than to remain faithful to my writing, look for a tangible story which I know is in there and which is getting clearer and clearer but is still hiding from my fingertips somewhere in the recesses of my brain.

All and all, I think it is going well.  Yesterdays blog did much to advance my confidence, the feedback was so nice and yes I will admit it made me feel good ~ something that is foreign to me and to tell the truth I feel a bit guilty about feeling good.

I could not have done it without you all and again ~ thank you for all of the support when times were hard and my son was sick, that really made a difference ~ thanks for boosting me up when I was down and reaching out and making me feel the energy you sent back to me when I asked.  For me riches are not measured in money, it is the love that you send out and receive and that for me is more valuable than all of the gold or oil in the world!