Domesticated Madness

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Amanda

When I told my family about my desires to start BAKING, I was not quite prepared for the reactions. My husband went into the kitchen to check that the fire blanket and fire extinguisher were still there and working, one daughter looked as if she was going to faint in shock and the other begged me not to do this to myself or to my family because it really was not safe for me or for anyone else! Cheeky lot! They have no faith in me.

In my morning meditation, I decided to check whether this kitchen cleaning and baking is the right way forward for me and some part of me, or a Universe with a very twisted and strange sense of humour, seemed to think it was.

So I set to work on day two of my kitchen-cleaning extravaganza. First, I emptied the dishwasher and put all the dishes and pans in the cupboard. Now, I remember why we stopped doing that! This was because they do not all fit in the cupboard, so we felt it was better for them to pile up on the draining board and in the sink until the end of the day when nobody wanted to empty and re-fill the dishwasher. This was also the reason why the clean dishes lived in the dishwasher and did not get put away.

I then proceeded to put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher during the course of the day. This level of domesticated organisation cannot be good for me!

I made my way around the kitchen, cleaning almost everything.

As I was trying to clean the inside of the window, I could feel that the stool I was standing on was gradually slipping away under my feet, so every so often, I had to do this odd little rabbit hop and try to pull the stool forward again. It is a good job there are tiles on the floor because I ripped the carpet in my room when I tried the same trick.

The kitchen units are very old and the cabinets have this weird little ridge effect on the top of them, which I am sure has been designed to catch and trap as much muck as is humanly possible. They are also very difficult to clean.

I have used a LOT of steel wool in this kitchen today.

When I came to the fridge I took off all the fridge magnets that we have collected from our holidays and travels over time and looked at them all. It was quite a nostalgic trip as many of them had photos of the kids on them from different theme parks and trips out over the years.

As I made my way around the kitchen, I realised I have got a lot of clearing and cleaning to do INSIDE the drawers and cupboards. One draw contains bits and pieces of junk that we brought with us from our house in Bolton in 2002! Most of that probably needs to head into the nearest bin! Yes, the bin got washed as well today.

The only trouble with cleaning the kitchen like this is that I now really need to do the same thing to the cloakroom and dining area, both of which adjoin the kitchen. The last time I repainted a small square of wall in the hallway, we ended up having the whole house painted and I suspect this cleaning malarkey is going to leave to the same thing!

When my daughter came back from walking the dog, she took her boots off, went into the kitchen and THREW them down onto the mat in front of the radiator to day! I could almost hear the mud falling off them, all over my beautifully washed floor!

I decided to leave the inside of the oven for another day but I did clean the outside and the top – well the bits of it that were really visible. I ventured to open the bottom section of the over, where plates and dishes might normally go and shut it very quickly in total fright. There were a lot of huge cobwebs in there, so I decided that probably would not hurt and could stay as it was.

Greg used the grill to cook the burgers for tea and he actually cleaned it afterwards, which is a total first! Perhaps he has got the same bizarre bug that I seem to have got.

He did say that he thought he had better clean it because he was afraid I would shout at him if he didn’t, especially after all my hard work at cleaning it. Yes, he did have a point!

So this is Step ONE of the Manifest a New Kitchen Plan – CLEAN and LOVE my existing kitchen. It certainly feels better in there now it is clean. All the family are saying this domesticated bug won’t last, so we shall have to see.

Step TWO is de-cluttering, emptying and cleaning the INSIDE of cupboards and drawers and a bit of FENG SHUI to improve the energies of that area of the house.

Then I shall venture onto Step THREE and attempt to do some BAKING in my existing kitchen.

I can quite clearly see my kitchen in my imagination. I know what I want and I am beginning to see MYSELF in the kitchen Baking and HAVING FUN. Hmm, scary thought!

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine did a tarot reading for me and told me that she could see the kitchen being renovated and me spending more time in the kitchen, cooking and making things and enjoying doing it. We all fell about laughing when she said that, but maybe she was right!

I’ll be back soon with more from the Undomesticated Goddess!

With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

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I am having a mid-life crisis!

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Amanda

Over the last few days I have had quite a bit of Thinking Time because I have taken my daughter, Jacqueline, to her exams and I have had to sit and wait for her. I have been in an internet-free zone, so I have just had my Ipod (with my relaxation music) and a notepad and pen with me.

I started out by asking myself a couple of questions and I was really surprised at the answers that were coming out.

With a large mug of tea and some relaxation music, sitting by a quiet lake, the questions I asked were the following:

Questions

“How can I double my prize winnings with half the effort?”
“How can I double my income with putting in half as much effort?”
and, as a sort of token gesture –

“What wants to emerge?”

Ideas

The initial ideas were around increasing my energy and BEING Amanda, Happy, Lucky, Sparkle who wins lots of things and attracts things easily and effortlessly, which was all good stuff.

There were a few ideas about re-packaging my products into a complete coaching programme and re-writing the sales, some ideas for product reviews and affiliate promotion for other people, some ideas around my business and products and then the weird stuff started to appear on the page.

I was contemplating the question about increasing my winnings from competitions and wondering where I could find comps that might have fewer entries. Creative comps and those requiring effort tend to attract less entries.

The latest trend seems to be Pinterest and there are a few comps appearing on there. I am not really sure how that works, so that needs to be a learning curve. I was thinking about other creative comps and suddenly my brain went to RECIPE and BAKING comps.

Usually I have got Greg to do these comps because he is the cook in our house and makes some lovely food, especially cakes.

Suddenly there were THREE things on my page that I would like to do or learn to do and I was quite surprised by all of them.

Bizarre Ideas

1) DRAWING, especially pencil sketching. I never considered myself an artist and hated the subject at school, especially as Art was put together with all the academic subjects and cost me my place at the top of the class every single term because it pulled my overall average down so much. Yes, the best Art mark I ever had was 28%!

2)SINGING , especially Power Ballad type songs. This was another shocker because I have shied away from singing since I was 8 years old, when I was singing my heart out (Donkey Riding) and suddenly realised all the class, including the teacher, had stopped and were all laughing at me. I tried some singing on the Singstar recently and got very disheartened when the machine kept telling me that my singing was “awful!”

The third one totally and utterly completely stunned me and I found myself staring in amazement at what I was writing on the page. Most of what came out centred around this third one.

When I told Greg, my husband, his jaw dropped and he stared at me in complete astonishment. He stopped what he was doing and seemed at a complete loss for words and he is someone who is not normally shocked by anything.

3)The third one was BAKING! I am probably the most undomesticated person I know. I do not normally go anywhere near the kitchen, unless it is to make myself a cup of tea (I can manage that one). In a recent conversation about “hazards in the kitchen,” I ranked myself as the highest one, shortly followed by the dog!

The flow of ideas centred around baking shortbread biscuits and scones.

Weirldy, the other thing was cooking variations of scrambled egg – which I always make in a saucepan and not in the microwave.

I tried very hard to shake all this silly nonsense out of my head and it got worse! Then ideas popped into my head for rich cakes based around scone or shortbread mix. I think this is because of the huge amount of comps around at the moment on the theme of “Best of British” or “The Diamond Jubilee” with some very nice prizes, however this desire for baking seemed to be much more than just a way of winning a comp, although I suspect that is part of it.

Manifesting a Kitchen?

Whilst thinking about prizes such as a new range-style cooker, a cooking mixer and even a new kitchen, I then found myself planning a new kitchen in my head! Wait! Whoa! Back up! The Undomesticated Goddess is planning a kitchen???? A room where she actually DESIRES to spend some time??? And she is planning to do Mummy-type things like baking?? Something is really not right here!

Later that same evening I found myself on the kitchen design section of UK DIY (Do it Yourself) website, planning and designing a new kitchen, including carefully inputting all the measurements of our own kitchen.

I did a Pinterest Wishlish of Prizes I would like to win, actually for another comp, and most of the items were kitchen related, including a new kitchen.

Pinterest Wish List

This is really most strange.

As part of the musings, I wondered whether I could have a “Manifest a Kitchen” intention and what that might involve.

The first step that came out was “CLEAN and LOVE your existing kitchen,” so, believe it or not, that is what I found myself doing today.

I really, truly think I am going completely mad!!

So, I suppose the next posts will be pictures of my creations in the kitchen!

Have a great day.
With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

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Fabulous Day at Cybher

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Amanda

Yesterday, Saturday 12th May 2012, I went to London for the Cyber conference for Women who Blog.

Cybher 2012

It was a fabulous day. Due to a mix up with my train tickets, I ended up buying a ticket at the very last minute and got a First Class Ticket on Virgin Trains. It was lovely. There was so more leg room than in Cattle Class and I got a free cup of tea and some really yummy clotted cream shortbread biscuits. On the way home, I had a Standard Ticket, but they were offering an upgrade to First for £10, which I thought was well worth it.

I really enjoyed the day at Cybher. I met some very interesting ladies, who blog on all sorts of different subjects. The workshop sessions were very useful. I got a lot of very helpful information about WordPress and some very nifty plugins I can add to my website.

I went to a couple of workshops about turning the content of my blog into a book. Whilst that is a brilliant idea and I would love to do, I need to have a lot more focus and direction for my blog, as well as having something that is perhaps a little “different” or “quirky”, so I am going to need to think about that. For the moment, my blog is just going to continue as my musings and ramblings.

On Friday I found out I had won a Slimpod and Fitpod from one of the sponsors of the event, Thinking Slimmer. I am really looking forward to using this because it is an audio relaxation, designed to reprogramme my mind to have a different relationship to food, health and exercise. In other ways, to help me to eat less, so my exercise is more effective and so that should help me to lose weight. I was really thrilled with this, as my weight loss has stagnated recently and it is largetly due to the QUANTITY of food I eat.

I came away with a HUGE bag of goodies from Palmers Skin care. These are some of my favourite skincare products. I was so pleased to see that they were one of the sponsors and I went straight to their stand to collect my goody bag. Palmers is about the only skin care product that has any lasting impact on the dry skin on my feet. I am sure that even the “stretch mark creams” (of which there were quite a few) will get put to good use, probably somewhere other than stretch marks!!

I had my bra size measured from the lovely ladies at Freya lingerie and was very surprised with the size they said I am. Perhaps I have done better in the gym than I have given myself credit for.

I got picked to go in the Cash Collector machine with Savoo which is one of the largest money-saving and voucher codes websites for the UK.

The notes were flying around and I had to collect them. I ended up with $34 USD and £30 in cash, so I was really delighted with that.

This picture was taken by my friend Di Coke, SuperluckyDi who is my heroine in the wonderful world of Competition winning.

Di gave a fabulous presentation about competitions on blogs and Facebook. She was accompanied by the lovely ladies from Spark and Fuse who talked about some of the pitfalls that many promoters fall into when they run comps on blogs and facebook.

Although I don’t run comps on my blog, I have seen so many promoters fall foul of the rules in so many ways.

I had my eagle eyes open for any comps that the sponsors were running. The other one was from the Leather Satchel Company.

They were giving away a gorgeous satchel and all you had to do was to have a photo taken at the Cybher event of you with one of their gorgeous satchels. We were given one for free as part of the ticket. Here is the picture of me with my satchel, that was also my competition entry.

This was also taken by my friend SuperLucky Di. She was kindly acting as my tech -geek, as I was not confident with Greg’s smartphone and I completely forgot that I had a video camera with me.

Fingers crossed. I really hope I win.

All in all it was a brilliant day and I am so glad I went. It was nowhere near as scary as I thought it was going to be.

Looking forward to next year.

With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

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Cash for my opinions

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Amanda

I have won a few prizes for commenting on a blog or on Facebook, which I think is really cool. These have been where someone has actually selected my comments rather than being a random draw.

Cash is Cool

The most recent was £250 from a fantastic website called Cash-Is-Cool where I voiced my opinions about the Contactless Payment Card Technology that major banks on the UK are starting to try to encourage people to use. This is essentially where you wave your card in front of the card reader and it automatically debits the payment from your bank account or credit card.

Personally I think it is a very BAD idea and is a Fraudster’s Paradise.

You can read the full article and my comments here – My comment is the first one under the blog post.

Contactless Payments on Cash is Cool

Cash is Cool is actually a very Cool (pardon the pun) website, whose purpose is to stop the extinction of cash (that is paper and coins) in our society. It aims to encourage people to use cash more, to pay with cash instead of debit or credit cards, to budget with cash and to use cash as much as possible in everyday transactions.

This is something that I totally support. I am a huge fan of cash and paying for things, where possible, with cash.

We stopped using credit cards in 2007 and, although we have debit cards, we try to use them as little as possible.

With cash, you know exactly how much money you have got in your purse or pocket, you can only spend what you have got, you can budget much easier than with cards, you tend to be much more careful with what you spend and you tend to be more aware of exactly how much things cost.

Granted, it probably is more of a shock to the system when you physically count out £85 in notes and coins to fill the car up with fuel than if you stuck it on your card, but it makes you more aware of the value of things.

On the downside you do become more acutely aware of the absence of money when you want to buy something and feel that you can’t because you have not got enough. It really is a welcome return to the days of “If you want it, save up for it” and “If you can’t have it now and you still want it in a week, then save up for it and buy it when you have the cash (or win it!).”

These are the ideas I grew up with and they served me very well until credit cards came into my life, along with the easy money. Debt and pain built up very quickly and it was not a pleasant place to be.

In 2006, we had the unfortunate experience of having a business shut down, our personal and business assets frozen and our bank accounts closed.

We had to learn how to live on cash, without any credit. It was quite a strange experience trying to pay cash for things in what is rapidly becoming a “cashless society.”

That story is the subject of another blog post as there is a lot to it – both frustration and humour!

In my opinion, Cash really is King.

Have a great day.
With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

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What would I do with £1,000,000?

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Amanda

Well, yet another Tuesday evening has gone by and we did not have one single number on the Euromillions draw yesterday. Bah! Well at least it has rolled over to £35, 000,000 for next Friday ($50,000,000 USD approx).

This got me thinking about what I would do with a large sum of money, as and when (‘if’ is a rather negative word) I drew that into my life.

What surprised me was I got to £975,370 – yes, nine hundred and seventy five thousand, three hundred and seventy – (not even a million) and with that I would have done everything on my list that I can think of right now.

I had really thought it would be much higher than that. This is a purely selfish list and does not include anything that I might like to give to family members to help them out or to charitable causes.

One of the first things I would do is to pay someone to totally revamp my websites. I would then pay a good person to market them on a regular basis, so they start to generate a passive income for me. My ideal would be to spend my days creating new products, that I can then give to the marketing person to promote and then each month I receive a passive income cheque for the profits.

I have not really included the cost of developing new products for me but I would want to get Greg’s beautiful Inspiration Cards made into physical cards and into an app for smartphones, as well as having his pictures made into calendars and books.

Next on the list would be paying off the mortgage and debts, as well as paying all the household bills upfront for a year. Once the house it ours, it needs a major renovation including rewiring, replastering, new windows and doors, a new bathroom, redecorating throughout and new carpets.

Part of this plan would be opening up the fireplace in the kitchen and having a range style cooker installed in the new kitchen. I would also like a multifuel stove installed in my room and that burns smokeless coal briquettes and wood, so I can sit on my new sofa and enjoy the cosiness of the room.

I would put a large sum of money to one side for my daughters’ further education, as well as some other investments that will produce income for me in some way.

There are a lot of “techie-toys” on the list, including camera equipment for Greg, new computers, laptops, ipods, iphone, various size TVs and ipads. These are part of the “I need” list of everyone in the family.

There are several different holidays, including trips to Florida, Alaska, the Northern Lights and Lapland. These include family holidays, trips for me and Greg and trips for the kids on their own.

Major dental work, including orthodontic treatment for Jacqueline would be very high on the list.

I would love to go on a champagne balloon flight, so that would be an essential item.

New cars for me and Greg would be very nice, especially if they can run on something other than fossil-fuel-based oil. Water would be brilliant!

And a big YES PLEASE to a weekly cleaner and a gardener so I don’t have to do any housework and I can simply enjoy the garden.

There are probably quite a few things that I have forgotten, which would take that total up over £1,000,000.

So, I suppose, if that is all it is going to take for me to buy everything and do everything for myself and my family, then I need to open myself up to allowing the energy of that money (and all it can buy) to flow easily and effortlessly into my life.

It would be really lovely to win all of these things on my list, however some of them require cash to pay for them or for certain parts of them. It would also be very nice to pick out exactly what I want rather than the selection made a by a prize promoter, which is not always exactly what I would select for myself. I don’t want to sound ungrateful because I have won some lovely prizes.

So, with all my financial needs taken care of, what would I do then? I would spend my days creating new products and services that offer real value to people in their lives. These could be fairly low-priced as I would not be dependent on product sales for my income.

I would love to travel the world with my husband Greg, who is an amazing inspirational photographer and then create books, inspirational cards, apps, calendars and other products from his fabulous images – just because we wanted to do that and it was fun to do!

I would like to learn to sing and I would also like to learn to cook. There are lots of creative things that I would like to try, which would be much more fun with the financial stability of £1,000,000 cash in the bank, that is mine to keep and spend as I choose.

So, my job then is to really visualise and imagine all this as real, keep entering the competitions (especially the lottery), get rid of fears and limiting beliefs about allowing that money into my life, be open to see what ideas are emerging and what opportunities are opening up to me and then take action on them.

That is probably quite a quantum leap in thinking, feeling and being, however something needs to change because my current life is not what I would choose and is far from ideal.

Maybe a multi-million pound / dollar book deal and/ or blockbuster movie based around my musings is around the corner???

My request to the Universe is very simple, “Please bring me £1,000,000 that is mine to keep and spend as I choose – this or something better – Thank You!”

With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

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I am now officially TERRIFIED

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Amanda

Well, this Cybher conference is certainly bringing up all my issues around self-image, self-worth and fitting in with “the crowd.” And I have to say I am not doing very well at the moment.

After spending some considerable time trying to get my head around BO.LT yesterday, I could not figure out how to find and/ or follow Cybher and I have absolutely no idea how to upload pictures from my husband Greg’s smartphone or Ipad – yes I have shall to be borrowing these for Saturday as my simple, trusty Doro phone does not have any of those capacities.

Last night there was another message on the Cybher page, saying that everything is going to be as paperless as possible, so we need to be able to use a QR Scanner Reader on our Smartphone! Oh, God! Help, please!

We tried to look at it on Greg’s Smartphone and could not get it to work. Goooooood start!

Today, to add further to my feelings of inadequacy and not good enough, there was another post about what everyone is wearing and I nearly had heart failure at the very chic, stylish and very expensive items of clothing that various ladies will be wearing on the day.

Take a Look

This fish is not only out of water, it is now resident on the top of the highest mountain in a dry desert!

All these ladies seem to be confident, sophisiticated, stylish, tech-savvy women with a powerful message and a mission to share that message. It sort of makes me think of “Well, who am I? What have I really got to share and who is going to be interested?”

I was so exicted when the Universe sent me a ticket to this event as a prize (and train tickets as well). I feel sure I will get a lot of value from the content of the speakers and hopefully that will help me to move my blogs forward but I am now really dreading going and trying to hold my own with the geeky, chic-y superwomen that are attending.

At least I have now got to grips with my camera and vidoe camers, so I can at least take photos and videos with it, even if I can’t (yet) send them whizzing into cyberspace, so at least that is a start.

I have had some instruction on use of Greg’s smartphone. I can find the QR reader and point it at the box code thingey, even if it does not work properly.

Next lessons are how to answer said smartphone, should it ring, or better still – how to turn it off completely – and how to answer and/or turn off any texts that might come in. I know those are basic functions but they might save further embarrasment on Saturday.

We are going to look at this BO.LT stuff and also at photo and image taking/processing and sharing software so I might at least have some hope of looking like I know how to work the smartphone and the software on it.

Oh dear, whatever next! I am seriosuly beginning to wonder at the wiseness of this idea of getting out and meeting people!

On Twitter, I met one superwoman blogger that is taking an 8 week old baby to the event! GAWD! Do I really feel inadequate now!

At the moment, not much that I am doing is having any sort of impact on shifting my fear and worry. I have tried allsorts this afternoon – from copious quantities of tea, shortbread biscuits (essential for a crisis), chocolates, fruit (to compensate for all the junk food), meditation (bit stressed to do that properly) and exercise at the bootcamp this evening.

Well, the thing is, I am going to have to go in comfortable clothing and focus more on the content from the day, which is the reason I am going to this event.

Have a wonderful day.
With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

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Technophobe Scary Day

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Amanda

In some ways I am quite tech-savvy and in other ways I am a total scaredy-cat. I have built all my own websites using Dreamweaver, I have (more or less) got to grips with my WordPress for my blogs (although there is probably a lot more I could do to make them more user-friendly), yet for some reason I have been really resistant to mobile technology.

This really came up to me today. I was lucky enough to win a ticket to Cybher which a conference for women who blog.
Well, I sort of do! My blogging has been very hit and miss and I have not blogged regularly.

Cybher 2012

The strapline of “Geek is the New Chic” really says it all!

One of the items on the instruction list was to sign up to BO.LT which is a way of sharing images and content direct from the event. I signed up to it and then had no clue how to use it.

The rest of the instructions centred around uploading pictures to and via Instagram and to Pinterest. This was all punctuated with hashtags # and @ symbols. My eyes glazed over and I felt a bit of a cold sweat coming on.

The last instruction sent me off into a real panic. “What To Bring : Your smartphone / iPad or laptop, charger cable. You won’t need a notebook or pen as we will be supplying them for you.”

I have not got a smartphone and I would not have a clue how to use those for taking notes or for recording. At least there is going to be good old pen and paper, although I have a feeling I might be one of the few women using that form of note taking.

Huge feeling of inadequacy rearing its ugly head here!

I have a Doro phone which is a very simple phone that was actually designed for people with hearing problems, difficulty of movement and no interest in technology.

Over the last few weeks I have felt the need for an iphone or more updated Apple products than we currently have because there have been a lot of comps (with some lovely prizes) using a piece of software called Blippar. It has not worked on my husband’s android smartphone and our Ipad is a version one, which does not have a camera on it, as are the ipods that we have.

It would really make my blogs and websites a lot more interesting and interactive with photos, video and real-time content, so I need to make a concerted effort to get to grips with these things. I have no idea why I think it is going to be difficult. Maybe I just don’t want to make a fool of myself in front of my tech-savvy husband and teenagers!

So my task for this evening is to learn how to use my nice new video camcorder that I won from SixtyPlusSurfers, both as a camera and as a video, to get to grips with BO.LT, have a proper look at Pinterest and also get to grips with Greg’s smartphone, which he has bravely said I can borrow for the event.

I am viewing this as a big step out of my comfort zone, although once I get going with it, I shall probably thoroughly enjoy it.

With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

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Cybher Meet and Greet

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Amanda

I am going to the Cybher Conference for women who blog at the weekend, so here is a little bit about me as a way of Meet and Greet.

Name: Amanda Goldston
Blogs : Get Your Dream Life and Learn Tarot Online
Twitter ID : Amanda_Goldston
Height : 5’ 6”
Hair: Blonde (ish) – well at least the grey doesn’t show

Five things you should know about me …
1. I am happily married to Greg Goldston who is an amazing Inspirational Photographer
2. I have 2 daughters (18 and 15) who we have home educated since 2007
3. Originally from North Devon, I now live in the Midlands
4. My idea of heaven is to sit in my favourite chair with my eyes closed, enjoying a lovely meditation (or afternoon snooze as my kids tell me)
5. I have developed a new found love of going to gym, after losing over 2 stone in about 6 months

So that’s it.

If you would like to join in the Cybher Meet and Greet, do a post and add it to the Linky over at Geek is the New Chic. See you in May!

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Scorpio Full Moon and Identity

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Amanda

It seems that wherever I look at the moment, I am being faced with questions of WHO AM I at my core? WHO is the True Amanda?

Yesterday (Saturday) was the Full Moon in Scorpio and it was classed as a SUPERMOON. This is because it was at one of the closest possible points to the Earth and is a Moon that appeared huge.

From an Astrology point of view this is very significant for me. My sun sign is Scorpio and my Moon sign is Taurus, which is directly opposite Scorpio in the astrological layout. Taurus is a very practical, grounded sign with a love of material things such as good food and material stability. That part of me has been making sure I have been busy doing practical stuff today, such as ferrying the kids around, washing, cleaning, thinking about cutting the long grass and entering competitions. This has been a great measure to ensure I have not really delved into the energy of the Full Moon in Scorpio, which is far more introspective.

As I am not an expert astrologer, much of what follows is quoted from my friend Holly Hall, Astrologer of http://a2zen.fm/

All of it is very relevant to me.

From Holly Hall: “This Taurus/Scorpio Full Moon asks us to become aware of the people and things we give the highest value to, and to look at the emotional trauma that keeps us apart. It’s time to question our values and beliefs about money, power, happiness and our connection to each other and to the Earth. There are powerful forces at work determined to keep the old system alive, regardless of how many people and places it destroys. But we are equally powerful, and the Cosmos is lending us energy to break-through our paralysis and stand up for our beliefs.

On her Facebook page www.facebook.com/astroholly someone asked Holly specifically about the significance of this Full Moon for people with a Scorpio Moon sign. Although my sun sign is Scorpio, I found this particularly relevant because it sums up exactly how I have been feeling over the last few days.

From Holly Hall: “This is your SUPER FULL MOON Scorpio, it’s a weekend that focuses completely on bringing one version of your identity to a complete close or celebrating some major achievement that is about you, your brand, image, body, or personal goal. If there has been some ongoing issue in one of these areas it should wrap up and if you’ve been working hard to make a change or reach some goal then you should see the rewards coming in. Put yourself out there. You will need to have one serious talk or decision involving work, a co-worker, employee, health matter, or pet today and this is about committing long term, ending things, setting limits, or structures involved.”

One of the decisions I made today was to start seeing myself as “Competition and Contest Winner” and to start to expect success to come from every entry that I submit. I have been guilty of getting into a bit of a mindless routine and actually not really expecting success or big wins to come into my life. That means I have been putting an awful lot of effort into entering competitions without the belief and expectation that I would win.

From the perspective of my health and weight, I need to be seeing myself as a slim, trim, fit, healthy person at my ideal body weight and who can release weight and tone up easily and effortlessly.

Interesting Day.
With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

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Pining for Missed Prizes and Off Track with Manifesting

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Amanda

Yes, it really is time to write the blog post I have putting off doing all day. Clearly there is an important message for me and I need to stop procrastinating in Comping Land and write this down.

I did not sleep very well last night (Friday) because my back was still twingeing a bit. Once I finally got comfortable, I must have been lying on a small bit of the quilt because I suddenly felt it slip out from under me as The Quilt Thief, aka my dear husband Greg rolled over and took the quilt with him.

Anyway, there was some strange stuff that I seemed to be looking at whilst my eyes were closed but I was not asleep.

I saw a board that had lots of pictures on it. These seemed to be pictures of competitions I had entered and NOT won or things where I had heard of other people entering the same competitions and they were winning and I was not.

There also seemed to be a focus on competitions that had required a bit of extra effort and had I not done that and so had not won, whereas other people had made that bit of extra effort and had won.

I think all this was triggered off by a huge spate of wins of washing machines by people on one of the competition forums I belong to. There were nearly 100 won in the last couple of days from about half a dozen competitions. I know I entered all the email ones and text ones but I don’t go to a particular shop and buy a cleaning product, which was needed as a purchase to entry. Guess what! Most of the winners came from that comp! The other ones were well publicized across several sites, so there would have been a lot more entries.

There was a sense of loss, of missing out, of standing on the sidelines and being just outside the flow of positive energy and good luck. There was a sense of taking the action (and entering the comps) yet not being in the flow of the winning.

I suppose it could be called a “Striving but not Arriving” type of energy. I have a steady trickle of wins from comps but most of them are not really prizes that I am bothered about. Yes, there are nice to win and all of them get used in some way, but they are not really the BIG prizes, such as large amounts of cash or large household appliances or things that would really be on my wish list.

There was sense of frustration and missing out in some way. I kept seeing this board of negative pictures, which seemed to be rooted in the past and the habit patterns of the past. It was a sense of the same old patterns producing the same old results and that continuing without change.

At one point I recall thinking how much more effective my goal attraction would be if I could focus on a board of positive things, that I would like to attract into my life, and I could see them in the same way in this state between waking and sleeping. I tried to focus on my new kitchen with all the shiny new appliances and new range style cooker, but it would not stay there and kept going back to the old negative pictures.

Perhaps if I did a Vision Board of the goals I desire and looked at that repeatedly, especially as I am going to bed, that might help. I have got my pictures on my computer. Maybe they need to be more in front of me more of the time.

Someone said to me last year that they thought I had an “addiction to struggle” and I am really beginning to think they might be right. I am not sure how to shift it as nothing I have tried so far seems to have worked.

I can see myself running the same patterns over and over again around money, yet I don’t seem to be able to change that.

My desire really is to have things flow easily and effortlessly into my life, yet I seem to constantly run the pattern of “just enough”, or “not enough”, “eeking out” “putting things off until money has actually arrived” and struggle.

Again I find it really frustrating when I see people on competition forums saying they have won something in an hourly or daily comp (that I have meticulously entered at every opportunity) and they have won the first or second time they have entered.

I seem to open the flow a little bit and then I get an email to say I have won something and then the flow seems to stop or I have to battle for weeks to get my prize.

This also ties in with a meditation I did the other day about clearing fears. The fears that came up for me were about money and success and allowing things to be easy. I have worked on these old chestnut beliefs for so long now and I am getting really sick of it, as nothing I do seems to make any difference.

On the day I did that meditation I found out I had won a video camera, which was on my wish list, (although that particular type was more on my daughter’s wish list than mine) and £250 in cash – which I have already mentally spent and have still yet to receive. Then it stopped and I got depressed with all the washing machine winners on the forum this week!

Looks like the £250 will go on stuff that needs paying for and everyone else’s needs, so I probably won’t see much of it anyway. Yes, I can feel the resentment rising to the surface. Perhaps this is also part of it as a lot of my prizes end up being more used by other people than by me.

So the question arises of “what would I actually do if I won a lot of money and could just go and buy all the stuff on my list?” Who would I be then and what would I do with my day if I didn’t spend endless hours comping and not winning very much?

What if I allowed myself to have the power to win every comp I entered and to attract stuff easily and effortlessly? Now, there’s a thought and some interesting musings for another day. The issue of My Personal Power is probably where all this is headed.

I would dearly love to master the art of “Push- Button Abundance and Instant Manifestation” and be able to teach others to do the same.

I suppose I need to start with the Identity of “I am a Competition Winner” rather than merely entering comps.

Hmm, lots to ponder on.
With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

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