Embracing the Good Life

I spent some time going through some old blogs on this site and at times I am highly delighted and at other times highly contemplative. It is strange reading about times in the past. I am different now. I can even tell by my recent blogs and writings.

I have received the gift of vetiver. It is an essential oil for ADHD and it works. My writings reflect this. I am calmer and able to stay "on task" as my elementary school teachers had so wanted from me as a child and in which I wanted from me as an adult. I recently went four days without it, by the fourth day it was truly noticable. Even I knew it. It was fun being the old Heidi for a little while, but she wasn't very productive. Ha!

Tomorrow is my first screenplay writer's meet up, I am pretty excited and hopeful for some answers on this query letter situation. I read that August is a month to not have any expectations and to not try and push any agenda. I have been following this advice from "the moon" and it has been exceptionally helpful. I truly believe that if the moon can control the ocean tides then it probably can have an effect on us as well. I believe God created all things to work together, so I am using all things in my journey. It is incredible. I don't feel like I am floundering in the ocean waiting for God to speak anymore. I am using the elements and nature to hear from him now. The universe is filled with his answers. I don't know why Christians feel that they have to stay away from these ways of learning and being guided. If God created it all then can't he speak through it all. That is a rhetorical question, meaning, I don't need or even want an answer, ha! I read a lot about new and wondrous things. I chew on what I read and then if it feels right I do it. I am open to new people and new philosophies. I am learning that people I once thought evil are not. I am learning that they have strong foundations and a love for their beliefs and traditions just as deeply rooted as mine once were. They are not evil, they are just trying to make it in this world like the rest of us. I am excited to learn as much as I can about everything the world has in store for me. Everyday it is like I have been granted a freedom pass into the unknown and I am fully on board with this adventure.

Another thing that I have done is remove people from my life who look down on me, who gossip about my life and think and say negative things about me or my family. I need uplifting. I think it is important to live in the light. To have people around you who add to the light and who can see gOOd things for your future. If all they have are dark things to say and think about you then it sticks to you like a magnet. Once I had finally severed this cord to their darkness my life became lighter. It became gentler. That big cloud of doom I was walking under was being fueled by people who unknowingly were adding more darkness and foreboding to it by using my life as a drama to unfold and play out like a great story to tell. Now that my life is hidden from the people with the flapping lips, it is quieter. Pleasant and protected. Protected by my silence. I notice a difference. The big cloud is shrinking and will one day be only a memory. I will use it as healing for others, as a way to speak light into their lives. It will do good, at last.

Today, my life is not exactly where I want it, but I am in love with it again and that is a very good thing. This. I. Know.

Embracing the good life,

Heidi L. Shepherd

Life is a Wonderland, Let's Enjoy It!

So, I have been taking it easy, laying low, spending more time on the things and people that matter.  My pilot is finished and copyrighted. Pretty exciting!!! I will be going to my first screenwriters meetup in a few weeks. That should prove to be interesting since I have never done anything like that before, I am a little nervous, but if you want different results then you have to do things differently, right? I find that I am not at all interested in the things I was once drawn to. The car accident really knocked my noggin. I am not drawn to blogging, or fb. I decided today would be a good day to write a blog update. It has been a while and just in case anyone needed a good word, I thought I would put this out there into the universe. That life gets better. I have no desire to entertain "friends" with the drama of my life, I just want to move on to the next part of it and am working my butt off trying to do my part, hoping the universe will meet me halfway, maybe even cut me some slack. The query letter is proving to be a very hard task. Why was it so easy to write a sixty-six page pilot, but I can't sit down and write a couple of paragraphs? I know exactly who I want to be my agent and that is a great start, but I know that the letter is my first introduction to her. That's a little daunting to say the least. I am hoping to get some wisdom and insight from the writing group I am joining. So, anyway, my life is pretty boring now, which is good, very good! No drama to share. Still fighting the good fight of poverty, but it's getting easier and easier. Life is quiet right now and I like it this way. I know our future is bright, brighter than it has ever been, just a little while longer and then, life will be sweet, very, very sweet. I don't need anyone to believe it. I don't need anyone to jump on board with my vision and dreams, my little family and two friends are behind me 100% and those are the only people who matter. Everyone else was only along for the drama or to see the fall. I have a nice little concussion team rooting for me as well. It is so amazing to have people supporting you and hoping for your success. Building that strong support, that's what my life is about now. If you love us, then you help take care of us. That's really the end all for choosing people to be in our lives. That's what it is all about now. Choosing and making decisions not letting life happen or letting people pop in and out of my life at random. I have finally learned, on a higher, level that I choose who and what I want to spend my energies on. The car accident was a new beginning for me, spiritually speaking. I still believe in God and Jesus Christ, but since they seem to have removed their hand from us, for whatever purpose, I am choosing to go in a new, different direction. This path is bringing me peace, contentment and freedom to just be who I am and explore all that this world, life, has to offer. I have a new found freedom to explore other ways of believing, of thinking. Ways in which I always believed and was taught were wrong, forbidden even, like I have been granted a hiatus from the strict rules of my Christianity. At times, I feel like I am a new creature on this earth, reading and thinking new and interesting thoughts, with no condemnation. I would have to describe it somewhat like being told that there are no such things as fairies and elfs only to stumble upon an entire world full of them. I am like a child in a candy store with an endless supply of money, but unlike the child, I am grown and I know that too much candy can give you a stomach ache. So, I pay attention to what I think the universe is trying to tell me and I take steps in that direction and I take chances. Not unwise, whimsical chances, I take calculated and thought about chances. Right now, life is good and I aim to continue going in the direction of the good life. Today, I am choosing to believe in magic and that life was meant to be wonderful. What about you?

Someday

Saturday Morning April 26, 2014

I have been working on a brand new writing venue and I have been looking for a specific agent for this genre with absolutely no luck! My only other writing confidant I have, really, is my mom. She is the only one who really makes me feel like I have an incredible talent ( I am sure she is biased). So, I went to her in frustration. She hands me a brand new writer’s digest and says they have agents in here all the time, have you been reading yours? (she is referring to the stack of hand-me-down ones she gives me). I confess I haven’t been. Over the last couple of days I have had this in the back of my mind (Every time I look at my magazine rack, which is strategically placed onwards into the kitchen!).

This morning when I woke up, my teenage son, his friend nor my youngest son had invaded the living room and I decided it was a perfect time to start working on my Dream Board. About a year ago I had this idea to create a dream board, this is where you go through magazines and various other types of picture cutting methods and put everything you want for your future on this board for inspiration. Well, life happened and I totally forgot about my Dream Board idea. While browsing the internet I recently  stumbled upon a delightful blog by Gala Darling. You can find her on twitter and facebook. Believe me I was depressed and in a rut and her blogs have just really helped me to fall in love with myself again!!! Thanks Gala Darling! I of course have no money to buy her incredible ideas, like the radical self love Bible, or the notebook she recommends upon which you write down the things you’re grateful for, but her blogs are free and with a bit of your own creativity you can come up with your own self-love ideas, which leads me back to my Dream Board, (whew, ya, this is pretty much what it’s like inside my head ALL THE TIME!) Her blog reminded me of my Dream Board idea from forever ago and this is what inspired my morning.

 The first stack of magazines I decide to go through was my pile of writer’s digest, big mistake for my Dream Board, (I know, I am SO sorry Dream Board, hopefully it won’t be another year before I think of you again, haha!) As I began to thumb through the most recent magazine I found a few Dream Board worthy pictures, but I also found myself reading more than cutting and then I get this amazing idea to go through all of my writer’s digest magazines and tear out every important article…(which is quite a few, let me tell you!). Therein lies how I began My Writer’s Bible~

I began ripping and separating the articles into appropriate piles and when I had gone through ALL the magazines I stared at the pile of “empty” writer’s digest magazines. The shells of what were once individual masterpieces to encourage the masterminds we, writer’s deem ourselves to be. Me, sitting crisscross applesauce with stacks of knowledge sitting around me on the carpet, like friends. I sat back and stretched, it was great to be back!

For two years at least I could not write nor read for that matter. I had “woken up, for the first time and finally gotten out of a horrible marriage, which was a relief and much needed, for our safety and my sanity, but even when you make a ginormous, positive change, there is always a healing process and mine included walking through life kind of like a sleepwalker. I was basically guided 100% by life. If a door opened I went through it, if it closed or stayed shut I just stayed on this conveyor belt of life until I either tripped into or was dumped through an open door. Let me just say it has been an adventure to say the least!

So, this morning is a giant stepping stone in “waking up” again.  To be on the living room floor hidden amongst piles of wonderful trinkets of loveliness was familiar…was family. It was me. And I relish these moments. For a minute or two I forget that I am financially poor, (as the neighborhood troll peels out in the cul-de-sac, again with the rearranging of his vehicles, which he does habitually) I smile to myself…I am a writer and one day I won’t be here. I will be in another living room in my very own house…with no troll disturbing the birds with his bee bee gun, or his loud cars. Just my family and me and the birds…someday. Someday I will be too busy to even notice the trolls of life and I will be just where I was meant to be, just like I am this morning.

I hope you all have a great day and feel free to create your own dream board or Writer’s Bible, mine is coming along quite nicely, I have a collection of clear, vinyl page covers from yard sale’s, (the best place to find office supplies, when you’re poor!) which I have used to cover the articles and put them very orderly into what is now My Writer’s Bible!

The TRUTH in LOVE,

Heidi L. Shepherd

P.S. What’s really hysterical is that I actually started my day out with a notebook, a pen, a highlighter and the book Screenwriting for Dummies! Hahaha, life with ADHD, is never boring, that’s for sure!

My Life in Transition

My life is in transition, it has been for almost three years. Prior to this I was a married, stay-at-home, homeschooling, mother of two boys. Wow! That's a mouthful! Nowadays, I am just a girlfriend, working-outside-the-home, still homeschooling, mother of two, but I am also a writer, blogger with a twitter and facebook addiction, which doesn't help with the writing...except for when it does...I know that doesn't make sense, but it really does, if you follow the right people on twitter. haha! I am also a poverty advocate, why? Cause I am poor! I live in an "economically challenged neighborhood" ( Like that? I made it up to use in place of the word "ghetto"), which is code for the "wrong side of the tracks", which is code for "poor"! You know like that other term; "Working Class".

Anyway, I am at the Library writing this to you for I am poor and cannot afford my internet bill which I mistakenly made into a bundle package with my cable AND my phone, all very big mistakes when you are poor cause there is no "robbing Peter to pay Paul" when Peter and Paul are one in the same! UGH! You see when you are poor it is easier to come up with fifty bucks to pay your internet bill than it is to come up with three hundred bucks to pay your internet, cable and phone...this truly sucks especially when you could easily go without your cable and in most cases, your phone! There's a little education for those of you who don't understand the "rob Peter to pay Paul" method. 

I am in a new line of work, it is caregiving, let me just say I would NEVER HAVE IN A MILLION YEARS seen myself in this line of work, EVER! But, I love it! Absolutely LOVE it! Let me just tell how I stumbled upon this career choice, I was evicted and let go from my job ON THE SAME DAY! Can you believe that, WOW! I wouldn't have even believed it if it didn't happen to me! It was like the forces of the universe decided to drastically change my life course! So, for four months my little family of four were homeless...we "couch-surfed" for three months and then the last month we stayed with an incredibly gracious friend, all four of us crammed into one little room. THAT WAS AN EXPERIENCE, one I do not wish to do again! During that time I filled out tons of applications, sent/delivered/emailed WAY TOO MANY resumes and went on numerous interviews, no one would hire me. It was quite tragical...it was the most devastating and despairing time of our lives.

It was so overwhelming that I had to see a counselor. I was eventually diagnosed  with PTSD, anxiety disorder, and a couple of others I forgot, we already knew I had  ADHD!

During this time, at the back of my mind, all I could relate this to was, now my outside matches my inside. You see I was in a terribly abusive and controlling relationship for twenty-one years. I was all messed up on the inside trying to make it in this world. But that's a whole 'nother story.

Finally, after four months, I was offered a connection to a company where I would be a "life coach" provider of sorts. Take clients to outings like; laser tag, the movies, bowling, shopping, to lunch, and also helping them with learning and doing their everyday chores of life, you know; laundry, dishes, hygiene (just reminding them to take care of their hygiene, I am NOT THAT hands on with the clients!), you get the picture. I was hired the same day I was interviewed and eventually, after my background cleared was employed. A few weeks later we were loaned some money and were able to get a small duplex with a huge back yard. 

There is still sadness, that for whatever reason, we were forgotten by society, life, God,  everyone, for SO long, will always remain. I don't think it will ever go away.  At least not until I get dementia and forget how easy it was for everyone to go on with their lives when my family was loosing faith. Part of my oldest died, his faith in God is lower than mine. He want's nothing to do with church, he believes church people are all hypocrites...I fear he is right. He grew up with a mom, who did everything out of love, even if there was a chance we would be burdened by our giving, but we never were, God always took care of us for our kindness. I taught him that one day we may need this type of help and we will want someone there to help us out, no strings attached. I guess my teaching was wrong or based on human response. Human response to God's plan, when fear is involved, is always tainted.  My faith in God is low, I actually am afraid to even pray or ask Him for anything, even in writing this blog I am afraid to give Him credit or to blame Him. I know it was His children who failed us and Him and they still do, blessings with strings, I call them. Someday, I will not need anyone to help us and that will be best. I can, now, understand why my mother is the way she is, she has been where I was, she was forgotten by everyone, even what felt like God, and she will not ever trust another human being again...in a way she's right, you simply can't, we are a selfish, me-minded people and if we're not struggling it is a whole lot easier for us to forget those who are...my prayer, always is to never forget those forgotten!

On a brighter note, I FELL IN LOVE with my clients! Everyday they made me laugh and I found that they were also teaching me and supporting me. They could tell if I was having a bad day just as I could tell if they were. It was so healing and continues to be. I was hired privately by one of my clients and became a Domestic Employee. Which means I set my own hours AND a pretty substantial pay raise. This is all well and good, but I only get paid once a month. Since I started right after the pay date it will be almost a month of working before I see any income! For a family of four, still in poverty, this is tragic. I mean where are we going to get gas money to even get me there? I got my last unemployment check last week and filled my gas tank up...that's where we are now.
I don't know how these next few weeks are going to play out, but after evrything life has already handed to me...I'm game!

I don't know who I am writing this too or if ANYONE will read this, but here it is, my life laid out in black and white font and maybe later some color. ;)

the TRUTH IN LOVE,
~Heidi

A New Post

Gosh, my life is just a continuum of ups and downs. Today alone went from extreme elation that I was finally going to get my rig back from the shop, to plummeting despair as the shop wouldn't take half of the amount and let me make payments on the other half. Then joyous happiness as one of my good friends paid the other half, to the downward spiral of sadness as I left the rig at the Fred Meyers because the battery had finally died for good and no money to get a new one, to instant relief when another friend volunteered to get the battery by tomorrow. And this is just ONE day in my life. This is constant.  My youngest son said today that our life reminds him of a story in the Bible where the devil goes and tells God that the only reason why the man loved him was because God gave him everything he ever wanted. So, God let the devil do whatever he wanted, but not kill him or his wife. I immediately heard a voice rise up within me and say; "I will never curse God and die!", as I recalled the book of Job in which my young son was referring too. I don't know what God is doing in my life, but I do know that I have lost some faith in Him. After all I gave up and sacrificed for the sake of my marriage just to finally know I needed to walk away, I guess, subconsciously, my faith in the Lord weakened. I am now in faith boot camp. It is hard, the toughest thing I have ever done, but I am thankful I am surrounded by such amazing friends and family who let me whine and cry and just plain throw fits as I grow and stretch in new and old ways. I am also grateful that my Father is ever patient with me, although I do wish He would go ahead and pass me through to the "trusting with much" part of my life. ;) I hope this blog finds you well and blessed, if not and you too are enduring the painful struggles of just living, I pray for you. I pray you have incredible friends and family, I pray you can feel the Fathers arms around you! I pray you can see Him in your struggles...as I sometimes fail to do...I am still learning. 

Click the below link to watch the video for this blog;

http://youtu.be/MjmZ2v0niCI

the Truth in Love,

Heidi L. Shepherd

Found a Job!

So, I FINALLY was hired! On the spot also! The first interview where I was interviewed by a woman only and I get hired right then and there, tell me it's not a sexist world out there! Right now I am pretty in love with my new job. I have disabled clients and I take them on filed trips. Last week we went bowling and to Peacock Lane, pretty incredible. I also help them out with learning the everyday things of living on your own. Tomorrow I have planned an ornament making project so they can see you don't have to buy presents, you can make them. It has been three long months of interviewing and heartbreak, but we finally have the first needed step to success completed! Here's to hoping 2014 is a MUCH better year! 

the Truth in Love,

Heidi L. Shepherd

Selling Your Soul to the Devil

Living with relatives can be a little like selling your soul to the devil. Almost three months ago I lost my job because I missed too many days due to a horrible toothache and our states horrible dental plan that I am on. The same day I was evicted, after my landlord said it would be okay if my boyfriend moved in, that he would work with us on getting him on the lease.

For three months we have been moving back and forth between two homes, when I say we I mean me, my boyfriend, and my two boys, because no one really has the room for us. Well, the one does, but that's where the fire-breathing dragon lives. We never know when she will rear her ugly head.

I had an incredible internship. I loved my job. I could see myself working somewhere like that forever, but it ended and even though I went on interview after interview I just couldn't get a job in that type of setting.  I am sure if you read my other posts you will gather I left an abusive relationship after being with him for twenty-one years. Trying to get a job at my age is the worst. It doesn't matter that I look ten years younger than I am, it doesn't matter if I am qualified. I cannot get a job.

My boyfriend really is incredible! He suffered an injury about five years ago and continued to work the remainder of the five years. His back finally went out after another work-related injury and now he can do nothing. He is trying to get social security, but it is a lengthy process. He got a crapy lawyer and the workman's comp was denied. He is really in a bad situation. If it was just him I am sure he would be better off...but he loves us and we love him!

We are getting help through the state, but food doesn't a home make! It's funny, when I was working and living on my own we barely ate, now that we're homeless all we have is food!

I have two nieces who have decided to have both of their families live together so they can survive in this economy. I wish we had someone with room for us in their home and their heart. Someone who could sacrifice and share their home with us until life stops beating us about the head.

I have tried freelance writing, but it just doesn't cut it! I was getting ready to enroll into school when all this went down. I don't know what else to do. I get the interviews, but not the jobs. I am at my end here with all of this trying and when I just stop and try and let God be, I am told I am not trying hard enough.

My self-esteem seriously is so very damaged! I get sick to my stomach and have a panic attack whenever I get on craigslist.

If there is a light at the end of the tunnel I am sure it is attatched to a big ol' train!

the Truth in Love,
Heidi L. Shepherd