By
Pauline Evanosky
Resolutions
Psychics are the same as everybody else. It’s just that our friends
are nearer to us than regular people. One resolution I want to embrace
in the coming year is to pay more attention to my dreams. The dream
state is where many people of spirit can come to visit with you. Who? My
spirit guide, Seth, my relatives who have passed, mostly my mother. My
pets who have passed visit. I would expect some of my literary
characters might come. I’ve never had that happen, but if I can talk
with them in an awakened state, there is no reason I couldn’t talk to
them in the dream state. How in the world would you, who are reading
this, make it happen for yourself? Don’t be afraid of it. Nobody shows
up dripping grave goo. Everybody looks hale and hearty. They all wear
clothes. Mostly. And all you have to do is to welcome the idea. In a few
days, it might happen.
For instance, I’d been wanting to remember more of my dreams,
and I realized I was not remembering the colors. I learned how to do
this as a teenager. It took about three days of thinking about seeing
color in my dreams often during each day, and then I began to notice
what was going on in my dreams and the colors in them. This morning, I
awakened, seeing a bright circle of yellow. I couldn’t tell you what it
was to the sequence of the dream, but I awakened knowing I had just seen
a bright disk of yellow. The other morning, I saw something that was
peach or coral-colored. These are small steps, but they will eventually
evolve into my remembering more of my dreams.
Everybody gets a chance to start anew when January rolls
around. Whatever you are already doing, if you want to, can infuse it
with new life or at least a little bit of enthusiasm. Ask yourself what
you do regularly that can sometimes get you down.
Laundry? Does it depress you? Would you like a new spin on it? What is it about laundry that depresses you?
Is the mending you need to do putting you off? Did you know
you can make fingerless gloves out of socks with holes in them? The
problem with darning holes in socks is that you might be inviting
blisters if you are not an expert darner.
So, wear your socks as long as you want, and when the time
comes, cut them off a little bit over the heel. Heels and toes are where
most holes happen. Now, you have a tube. You decide whether you want
the finished end on your palm or nearer your elbow. Cut a two-inch slit
where your thumbs can go, and bingo; you just saved $10 on some
fingerless gloves. If you are handy with a needle and thread, you can
finish the raw edges. Or not. This is one of those easy projects. I find
them very handy when I am writing in a cold room. Plus, there is no
rule that says you have to have matching gloves. You could use socks
that have lost their mates.
What else about laundry is getting you down? You know what I
do now? I have trouble getting up and down the stairs to our laundry
room. So, I wash clothes in the kitchen sink now. Sometimes, I just use
dish soap and not laundry soap. Hey, I found out it works. I remember to
have a final soak in water with a scented softener and then hang the
whole shebang on the porch on one of those dryer racks. Stuff that needs
to be hung, like shirts and nightgowns, gets hung on hangers over the
tub in the bathroom. In the winter, it just takes an extra day or two to
dry. It’s funny, but I think our clothes might just end up being
cleaner when I wash them this way than they might have gotten in a
washing machine.
One of the things that always interests me is learning
languages. I am certainly not proficient in any of the ones I know, but
signing up for lessons somewhere online is easy. Some websites cost
money, others are free. I would start with the free sites first. You can
go to Redditt.com and search through the language sections to find
others who might want to learn your language while offering to help you
with their native tongue. I belong to Duolingo, which is free, and to
Rosetta Stone, which is not free. Our world is smaller now because of
the internet. Wouldn’t you like to read a blog by a person who is
involved in a hobby you love from another country?
You probably need a 2,000-word vocabulary to get a nice
conversation going with somebody. You could make up some imaginary
dialogs in your native tongue and then translate them into whatever
language you are seeking to learn in the translation section of Google.
How do you get there? Type into the Google search bar: “Translate How do
I get to the bank? In Spanish.” A Google translate box will appear with
your answer. You can continue using the box to get anything you want
translated. Then, to double-check yourself, go to ChatGPT.com and do the
same thing again.
The nice thing about ChatGPT is that all your questions are
saved for you. You could re-open a conversation and add to it, for
instance, if the topic is about woodworking or baking and you thought of
a new angle you want to explore. Or you could start as many new
conversations as you want.
The one thing you don’t want to do with ChatGPT is to put any of your personal information into the conversations. Just be safe.
I have heard a lot of people who are afraid of AI Artificial
Intelligence, but Google uses it all the time. We use it when talking to
automated customer service on the telephone. You can even ask ChatGPT
for cherry pie recipes. Learn to use it, and you will find it comes in
handy for all sorts of things.
Additionally, I have started using Microsoft Designer to
illustrate the articles I write. If you have a picture in mind but can’t
find what you want on the internet in all the usual places you look for
illustrations that don’t require that you spend an arm and a leg for
licensing, just use a prompt in Microsoft Designer:
Text Prompt for ChatGPT: Cat reading a book to her kittens cartoon style with pastel colors
Or another picture in a different style
Text Prompt for ChatGPT: Cat reading a book to her kittens in watercolor
The nice thing about using Microsoft Designer is that it is
free. More and more websites are being made available all the time. Some
of them cost money. Some of them allow you to do a certain number of
illustrations at a time. Every time I ask for an illustration at
Microsoft Designer, they give me four to choose from. Tweak them, and
then you can download them to your computer.
So, learning to illustrate your own blogs and articles this year, I think, might be interesting.
What is one thing you have wanted to do for years and have
never gotten around to? Make a list of all the things you think you need
in order to make a dream come true for you. Are they art supplies? Does
your workroom need to be reorganized? Do you need a certain amount of
money to get started? Do you need to learn a new skill? In fact, this is
a project you could take to ChatGPT.com to see some suggestions. If
this particular project requires a lot of steps, just take a few and
work on them until you are ready for more steps. Break a big project
down into manageable steps.
Above all, be kind to yourself. If you find in June that you
have not started something you thought you would like to do at the
beginning of the year, ask yourself if you are still interested in doing
it. Many times, there are hidden levels in the things we want to do.
There might be some steps you didn’t think you needed to do.
Above all, listen to the universe. It might not be what you want, but it could be what you need.
For instance, I needed to learn how to draw before I could
become a psychic. Who would ever think that was a necessary step, but
for me, it was.
Perhaps it is time that you need. Perhaps you think you will
need a nice big three-hour chunk of time, and it is rare for you to find
that kind of time available to you. People have lives. They go to work.
They meet with their friends and want to be available for their
families. It isn’t easy to carve big blocks of time away from busy
schedules to work on projects. Perhaps you can break that three-hour
block of time into half-hour intervals and spread them out over the
course of the week. What you can do with 30 minutes is pretty amazing.
When I was working, I would get up an hour or two early to
write while the world was still asleep. Find out when you have the most
energy and utilize that.
Make your overall goal for 2024 to be one of creativity and happiness. Best of luck, and get this thing done.
Click on the author's byline for bio and list of other works published by Pencil Stubs Online.
This issue appears in the ezine at www.pencilstubs.com and also in the
blog www.pencilstubs.net with the capability of adding comments at the
latter.
Posts
