This card asks you to align with your soul’s journey and place it first in your life. We may not always know what our soul’s journey is or how to align with it. It takes dedication to know our path this lifetime. The first step in working with this card is to give yourself time to hear your soul. Spend time in meditation for the next week, with the intent of listening to yourself. You can also go somewhere that inspires you, like the ocean or woods, harnessing the power of nature to unleash your soul. Ask yourself what makes you feel aligned each day. What activities, people, or projects feel like home? What feels like your mission in this life? What are your resounding yes’s? Give time for these answers to appear.

Once you understand what your soul truly wants, then it’s time to begin. It’s time to change your life in a way that aligns with your soul’s path. This may mean making small changes to embrace your life’s mission, or it may mean making big changes. Whatever you need to do, this card asks you to begin.

Feel into what motivates you to overcome internal barriers and harness that motivation to begin on the path of your soul.

This card is also a reminder that motivation to stay on your soul’s journey takes effort. Burnout can set in quickly, even if you love what you do. It’s essential to find ways to nurture your creativity and love for your path. After miles on your journey, you may feel like quitting despite success. If you feel unmotivated, find ways to reconnect with your joy and the part of you that remembers when it was all brand new. Revisit old memories of when you first started on your journey and remember what signs showed up to affirm your alignment.

Also, take a break. Pick a new hobby that restores your energy, or focus your attention on something else. Come back to your purpose afterward renewed and begin again.

I should take notes…

Today I changed my system’s settings to “dark mode”. It is nice, given that my corner of the office (which is really in a trailer) is not very illuminated so dark everything suits me nicely. The problem with this is inconsistency. Every app and every website has a different dark color scheme so it can get weird. And if a particular webpage or web app doesn’t have a dark mode (like all my work web-based tools), it is like taking a punch in the eyes. 😅

The last two nights I have had very bad luck with my sleep, I mean, I have been having issues with it for months but even more so the past two nights. This morning I realized, that I may have been “missing” my ADHD medication by mistake. Both my ADHD and Gabapentin pills, look exactly the same. There is a chance that I have been taking my Gabapentin instead of the ADHD the past few days, making me chemically unbalanced 🤪, which in turn could and will mess up my sleep.

Ever since I have been blogging, especially since using Micro.blog as my platform, I have had this Day One IFTTT action that every post gets logged as an entry in Day One. I have had this for years and it is nice to use it’s On This Day to recall past events and posts. However, it can be weird at times. The entries aren’t necessarily clean, they always come with random ifttt links and the blog’s URL too, so is not the cleanest format. Also, if the post had multiple images, it’d only show (or import) the very first one and omit the rest. At some point, it would seem like I managed to clean up better whatever came from gaby.micro.blog’s RSS rather than from the main blog URL (Gabz.blog), and has no random links and such but still missing photos if multiple.

The good thing about this is that it all works in the background and I don’t even have to think about it or even manage it. That being said, since I have both recipes going, I do find myself now with duplicate entries, ups! Thus, I am thinking of a different approach. It would be more manual, but it is doable.

If I compose my post in Ulysses, I can always export it in markdown format to Day One, all pictures and all. Pretty straightforward. The Challenge will be when I am composing from my work PC, which I often do. Well, luckily, Day One has a web app, currently in beta I believe, so it is all about copy and paste.

We will see how it goes.

I know many people that run their lives, not only using some fancy task manager but also actually using, a calendar!

A Calendar, what a concept, right?

I have to admit that I am the most unorganized, most forgetful person ever. So you would think, that I would be taking advantages of all these amazing tools that I have at my disposal. Well, you would be surprised.

I do use calendar to a certain extent, for work mainly, and many of the events in my calendar are invites, nothing I actively create for future me. For personal life? Uff! Well, 99.00% of my calendar events, are also appointments, created by someone else, my wife. And just like my work calendar, if it doesn’t have a reminder of sorts, I won’t know what’s happening until 15 minutes before it’s supposed to happen.

Told ya’, I am super unorganized!

I need to get better at managing my life, especially my personal ones. Kids’ activities, family events, Parent-Teacher conferences, Disney Encanto: The Sing-along Film concert! And for now, I have it easy, there’s no sports or band practice, or any extracurricular shenanigans. So I better start changing my Calendar and life managing habits, and quick!

In other words, I have a super fancy calendar in all my devices, like Fantastical and I rarely look at then thing, I rarely use it our take true advantage of it. And unless Annie mentions anything, sigh, I never know what’s going on.

Now, can someone please explain my girls' obsession with freaking Bluey!

1. Last night we made chicken-bacon-ranch mini wraps/soft tacos/burritos type thing, therefore, there was bacon! Of course, by the end of it, there was some leftover bacon. Bedtime came around, and we asked the girls to grab a snack before brushing their teeth. The next thing I saw was Luna snacking on a big piece of bacon while watching night-night stories.

2. Although I went to bed relatively early and had my super-magical melatonin gummies, I still had a shitty night’s sleep. It is going to be a rough day.

3. Looking forward to some Sea of Stars tonight.

Part of me just wants to leave work and nap. I am truly struggling and it is hard to concentrate on anything. Too many nights, and it is starting to mess me up mentally, and physically.

But then, what would be the purpose? For just to have the same issue tonight?

Even the thought of knowing is nighttime and that I need to go to sleep gives me anxiety.

Today we visited a new spot for a late lunch with the family, El Cafetal Colombian Food.

It was delicious! I had the Bandeja paisana!

Arroz, frijoles, chicharrón, chorizo, carne molida*, huevo frito, maduro, arepa y aguacate.

Red kidney beans, white rice, pork belly, chorizo (pork sausage), shredded beef*, arepa, sweet plantain, avocado, and sunny side up egg*

Friday, August 11th, around noon, we head out to Bend, Oregon. This trip, had two intentions, the most important being, meeting up with the Burks. Why Bend, Oregon? Neither party has ever been. Thus, it was the perfect excuse for the trip.

After almost five hours of non-stop driving, well, we did stop in Burns for gas and pee-stop.

Our first stop was, Crux Fermentation Project, because we needed food, duh! 😜

Next morning, breakfast at the Bends. It was Smokey, due to neighboring fires, of course, and yet it was a good morning out.

An hour or two after breakfast. A nice yellow thing shows up!

And so, our adventure begins.

There was some beer and crafting at Bend Brewing.

Then some mermaid hunting.

The Mermaid

Then, it was another brewery plus, tiny tattoos session by Marley.

More crafting courtesy of Valerie

After all that fun beering, walking, and crafting, there was one stop that _had_to be done. The last, and only, Blockbuster in the United States of America!

After our visit to the last and only Blockbuster in existence, a nice little bbq at the Airbnb that was not documented in photos was had. There was good local Bend beer, steaks, chicken, salad, and then some.

Once our friends were fed and somewhat rested from all their driving, they left. And we stayed one last night before driving back to the 208s.

So, what is next for the wonderboy (yours truly)?

After driving almost five hours, again, we drive not to our home, but straight to the airport!

Our wonderboy is now heading to Sacramento, California! For work. Field grow outs, tomatoes. Also, we had the chance to see how watermelon seed production gets done. Something I hadn’t experienced before.

There was also good local beer to be had, of course.

And there was that. Four states in less than 24 hours. I mean, on a Sunday.

I want to thank Jason and Valerie for joining us in Bend. We had a good time. In fact, in you’d as Marley what her favorite part of the trip was, it was riding in Jason’s car 😅, and second, hunting for mermaids.

We definitely want to be back in Bend, but much longer. There’s so much to enjoy and explore.

According to “The Oracle”, I slept 7 hours last night. That is a new record! Let us see how the rest of the week shapes up. Last week due to some work travel and Marley starting school again, it kind of screwed up my workout routine, so very little was accomplished or done. The plan for this week is to come back in full force.

My only debate is if I want to set up my new workout routine in the mornings, right after dinner, or at night after the girls go to bed. I must admit, going to the gym right after work, was probably the best time.