Naoko Takeuchi's Original Manga Scans

Public Library Used Bookstore Hustle

While reading may be a little slow this week (spending over a week with a book that’s good, but can’t quite intercede the distractions that make up life), I’ve decided to stop over-browsing my public library’s used bookstore and actually buy something.  These two books (and many more left abandoned) have been in my hands throughout each of my visits there.  And both for good reason.

My Top 5 Favorite Crystals & Stones

Crystals, stones, rocks, and gemstones.  One of the clearest symbolic gateways into New Age and metaphysical studies.  And as these studies and philosophies go, these minerals come charged with energetic healing properties direct from within our planet.  They’re constructed through a variety of temperatures and pressures–straight out of the Earth’s crust.  Some even emerging from cooled lava.  But as a whole, they’re comprised of compacted plant and animal life, squashed by a multitude of adjoining layers.  Heck, the first layer started probably as far back as the Paleozoic Era.  Of course certainly beyond then as well.  Nonetheless, the processing of minerals into the crystals and stones we know now are compounded with stories of life connected to the earth.  And it's these stories of life that serves us through the stone's energetic vibrations.  It sounds super esoteric at its best, I know.  But have you ever picked up a penny dated 1980, and studied it in concerns to the year it was made?  Have you ever wondered whose hand it first crossed?  What store and till it was first dropped in?  And who was the last to have slipped it into his or her pocket?  And how did it end up at your feet?  Would its previous owner even miss it?  Or need it as they come up short at his or her trip to the convenient store?  

Now take all those thoughts and imagine how for the 36 years that penny has been in existent, each time it changed hands it sipped something energetic from its handler.  Then imagine how holding that penny makes you feel?  Sad?  Happy?  Alive?  Where do those feelings come from?

That's how I believe crystals work.  Except you're holding something harboring energy from the earth from possibly over 252 million years ago!

Now I don’t claim to have a handle on the subject of crystals/stones and their energetic vibrations.  However, placebo effect or not, I do appreciate the gesture that comes with believing in the power of crystals.  And like many things I appreciate, I've come to research as much as I can to discover how close are the theories true for myself.  So I won't sit here and claim to have all the answers, especially when some of my research has led me to believe I don’t always work closely enough with my crystals for them to be effective, exactly.  So if any progress has arrived over the years, it's probably more subtle than I've come to realize.  

However, I like them.  Some I’ve been carrying in a pouch in my pocket for four years.  Some I occasionally pile underneath my pillow at night.  And when it comes to cleansing, I give them the proper sea salt bath before allowing them to dry in direct sunlight.  Others, I smudge to “reset” their vibrational frequency after a long day of absorbing others’ energy myself.

Researched and accepting of their individual purposes in fulfilling my personal intents over the years, here are my Top 5 Favorite Crystals & Stones that I never leave home without.

Deserving a Re-Read? Victoria Beckham's Learning to Fly

So I was digging through my tote of older books–as in books with zero chance of acquiring some real estate on my shelves–and came across this one.  It’s been a good ten years since I read Victoria Beckham’s autobiography, Learning to Fly.  And this minor rediscovery comes begging for me to read her story again.  As in a little sooner than now.  I mean, really.  Posh Spice was and always will be my favorite Spice Girl. 

 







So while my R. L. Stine Fear Street series won’t find its way out of that tote any time soon, and nor will all those old middle school reads, I kind of think Posh wins the bid for a space on the shelves.

My Kim Harrison Reads Are Suffering...

If only I could find my way back to this series.  Especially considering it ended back in 2014.  You'd think I would run to wrap it up–you know, having read 9 out of the 13 books in the series.  But I just can't seem to get with Rachel Morgan again.  Yet, as this post may indicate, she keeps crossing my mind.  Over and over again.  Her voice speaks from the bookshelf grave, asking me to pick up book 10.  And actually get past the first twenty pages.  The echo of her voice is desperate for me to finish her bounty hunter/witch/demon story.  I sigh in a mix of pain and relief of my escape.  But I'll never forget those 2007 afternoons where I had an hour or two between school and work.  I would sit down at McDonald's and read these books.  Actually, I would gobble them up!  If only Rachel spent a little less time negotiating over her hormones, then things would've turned out differently.

Oh well.  Maybe this summer I'll finally pick up the series where I (swiftly) jumped ship from.  And... well... try again.  Maybe with a glass of wine to go along with the reading.  A sip for every occasion Rachel slobs all over herself over a shirtless man.  Who happens to be an elf-thing.  Who happens to be a killer somehow in need of the reader's sympathy.  The details get fuzzy as the years go by, but the inner ache remains the same.

Aw, hell.  Forget that noise!  Maybe I'll try again when I have nothing else available to read.  (Ah, let's go to Barnes & Nobles and order books today!)

R.I.P RACHEL MORGAN

(FOR NOW!)

Getting the Hang of Zazzle

I’ve been going up the wall lately on optimizing a controlled and organized Zazzle store.  Before products were arranged in any and all kinds of order.  This left visitors scrambling all over the store.  Which isn't good!  Even I came frustrated with the disarray I’d created.  Added to my organizing, I’ve also been reviving the color of my original uploads from 2012.  A few color correcting techniques in the drawing process have stepped up since 2012.  So the difference from then and now were a little too noticeable for me to ignore.  

I wouldn’t call it grueling, but I’ve been up until like 4am all weekend redoing all my previous faults.  I think we've all been there, where it's late but we tell ourselves just one more action before we sleep.  Then one action leads to ten.  

So here are a few of my considerations to optimizing a fresh Zazzle store.

Another Abandoned Series I Haven't Licked

In Me Trilogy Order

1.  It Sleeps in Me

2.  It Wakes in Me

3.  It Dreams in Me

I’m ashamed I’ve collected, but haven’t completed, the In Me trilogy by Kathleen O’Neal Gear.  If you’re not familiar with Gear, she and her husband, W. Michael Gear, co-authored fiction and non-fiction books surrounding Native American history.  Or, to be specific, the First North Americans.  Which is the title of the couple’s most popular and long-running historical fiction series.  On occasion the two step out and write books alone, and this is where the In Me trilogy came from Kathleen.  It’s a trilogy that has always caught my eye, while shelving them on bookstores.  However, it would be years later when I spent a night fighting a tipsy disposition before I actually finished the first book.  Yet, I'm sad to say, the following two books hibernated on my shelf thereafter.  I simply never made it back.  And I say so despite really enjoying the first book.  I guess it was a situation of never wanting to spoil a debut's magic.

Nevertheless, the series is about a young High Chieftess name Sora.  She’s the head of a Native American tribe called the Black Falcon Nation.  Sora, described as extraordinarily beautiful and desirable, was married to a warrior named Flint.  Flint was a warrior who would kill men with even the slightest glance toward his wife.  So with a possessive and territorial rage uncontrolled, Flint divorces Sora and moves back to his original clan.