I hope everyone enjoyed the full moon this week! Did anyone else have some trouble sleeping around the full moon? I couldn't stay asleep very well around the full moon; I'm guessing the energies were rather high. I included some videos below if you're interested in learning some more info about this full moon in Pisces or doing a meditation for it:
I didn't sleep all that well Sunday night/Monday morning, and my dreams were surrounded in a haze (I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the full moon, but it was massive and orange as I drove to before care Monday morning). What I did recall was that at one point it involved Eep and Thunk from Meet the Croods. I think it was related to the sequel; Thunk was in tears, not wanting his sister, Eep, to go even though she would literally be in a hut not too far away. He wanted to cling onto her so desperately but was torn up about it because he recognized that his sister needed the freedom to "spread her wings" and live her life. He kept taking a few steps towards her, wanting to envelop her in a crushing hug, only to back away, trying to give her the space she needed. A lot more happened in my dream, but that's all I could remember.
I woke up on Tuesday morning after another night of not sleeping well (it's probably the new moon energies). I remembered bits and pieces from my dream(s). The first thing I remember is Sesshomaru sending these little beings (possibly yokai but it sort of seemed like they were parts of himself) to protect someone. I think it might have shifted to sort of a galactic theme where whoever it was moved to a new planet? I wasn't really sure as this part was fuzzy. The next thing I recalled was being at some gym, helping out at an elementary school. It sort of seemed like I was student teaching again. I kind of gained a flock of students that adored me. I didn't remember much from this part either. The last thing I could remember is that I met up with one of my fellow art education majors back from when we were in college. She came up to me as a giant peep (the marshmallow treat but it was a chick not a bunny or any other shape). She asked if she surprised me, and I admitted that she didn't because I hadn't expected a giant peep to come up to me and talk to me. I'm not sure how she did it, but I think she ended up returning to her human self. I couldn't remember anything else from the dream.
When I woke up on Wednesday morning, I didn’t recall everything that happened in my dream, but I remembered that it involved the boys that I babysit regularly. I think my dream started with me picking up the older from school, although it was an unusual school day. I apparently worked at his school now. I was going through the hall, seeing many of the kids I’ve worked with in before/after care now grown up more. It was kind of emotional. I ended up walking through this one classroom that was set up like auditorium style and making my way out some secret back entrance. Apparently, the school was now connected to the local park. I was reaching the park when the school started either a fire drill or had an actual fire (I couldn’t tell). The boy I babysit found me, and we ended up leaving (I’m not sure if it was the official end of the school day—after all it seemed like it had just started—but no one tried to stop us). We ended up hanging out at his house, and apparently, I was babysitting the boys for the night. We ended up looking for funny InuYasha clips together (like searching through the actual episodes for them). The main one I remembered us looking for was the clip of Sesshomaru and Jaken searching for boats. I knew where it was and was trying to get to it, but the elder brother kept trying to search in other parts of the episode/surrounding episodes. I tried explaining that I knew where it was if he’d give me a chance to get to it, but he seemed convinced that he knew where it was. With him trying to get to it, we ended up at some scene that was never apart of the official story. It involved Kikyo finding a baby Kagome (but it seemed like it was back in feudal Japan rather than present day Tokyo). She recognized her soul in the newborn girl (I want to say she was going to be named Chiba in this part) and realized that the new incarnation just wanted to be a normal girl, so that her impressive spiritual powers were locked away. I’m not sure what happened to this incarnation because the next thing I knew, it was Kagome and InuYasha traveling in feudal Japan; Kagome ended up sitting InuYasha, and they were in some town with this massive hot spring (it looked phenomenal, to be honest). April and Iris ended up walking through the door, and Iris exclaimed, “Guess who I just saw!” Apparently, April and Iris had just gotten back from eating dinner at IHOP with the boys’ parents (considering they’ve never met, I was a bit surprised she knew who they were and vice versa). Iris was so excited about it and had the boys guess who she just had eaten pancakes with. It was cute. That was the last part of my dream I could remember.
I woke up Thursday morning extremely groggy and out of it; I hadn't slept well and didn't recall much from my dream. What I did remember was going to visit my aunt in Colorado with my mom and finding out they had made this sweet airplane thing in their backyard. It was the size of a small plane, but they had made it out of recycled items/different items than normal planes are constructed out of. It kind of seemed more like art (it wasn't a functional plane), and it was suspended in the air. You could still go inside of it, and it was pretty neat and colorful. More happened, but it's hazy. I know at one point in my dream Dragon Ball Z characters made an appearance. Krillin was getting beaten up, and his friends were sick of it (specifically how he ended up dying a lot in the past), so they decided to use the dragon balls to make it a rule that people couldn't kill him any more. Bulma is the one who ultimately spoke it, and Krillin let it go to his head, getting rather cocky and deciding that meant she like liked him. She ended up giving him a major blow that sent him flying. Android 18 found him and was super disappointed, saying something about how Krillin was after Kikyo and how she couldn't believe him before dramatically leaving. That's all I could remember.
When I woke up on Friday morning, I was kind of out of it, and my dream was super fuzzy. It somehow involved travel, snow, and before care I think, but I had no idea about details. I couldn't recall what happened specifically. When I woke up on Saturday morning, my dream was just as fuzzy. I think it involve travel and snow again, but it was hard to be certain with the haziness that surrounded the dream.
I could tell a lot happened in my dream when I woke up this morning. I didn't remember everything, but from what I recall InuYasha characters were involved in one part. InuYasha either got turned into a child or was naturally a little kid in the dream and was very clingy to Kagome, viewing her as a mother figure. Kagome was showing him various things, trying to keep him out of trouble and help him learn. She was showing him some charcoal sticks (like the kind artists use); InuYasha sniffed them, curious about what they were. She showed him that it could be used to write/draw, drawing lines on a tree. InuYasha was somewhat interested, but I think he got bored with it. It started snowing, so Kagome tried to distract him, exclaiming, "Look, InuYasha, it's snowing!" I think she was trying to keep him from acting out because Sesshomaru got cast into the role of father figure (but neither were his actual parents) and since InuYasha had been acting like a spoiled brat, he was getting fed up with him. I think Sesshomaru was getting ready to spank InuYasha because he was whining and clinging to a tree, refusing to budge. More happened, but I couldn't remember any more of this part.
The other part I could remember involved being on a trip with my family. My siblings and I were kids again. We seemed to be visiting some kind of carnival or festival. We were at a game booth. I think you had to throw a ball to knock over cans/pop balloons. My youngest brother was dead set on getting a certain prize. I think it was a Waluigi plush. My parents were trying to help him get it. Someone else won the game before he did and claimed the last plush that my brother wanted. My brother started throwing a tantrum, and we ended up leaving. We went back to wherever we were staying for the trip for a meal. My parents had bought new blankets prior to the trip for some reason and still had the receipt. I couldn't recall what food there was, but for whatever reason my sister had put a soft pretzel inside of her soda (it was totally submerged). More happened in the dream, but all the other details are hazy. I find it interesting that travel and snow keeps popping up in my dreams.
One night while little Tsuki was curled up on my lap as I was reading, I looked out the window to see a massive rainbow. It was beautiful! It stretched so far across the sky. The photos really don't do it justice.
It was another fun week with before care; Monday morning rolled around, and the Cosmo twins apparently were good over the weekend (the little girl informed me as such). She then added that they had to take medicine to ensure that they were well behaved and not crazy. Makes me wonder if she or her sister are supposed to take medicine because I feel like that's not necessarily something kids normally say/think of. The Cosmo twins always seem busy. Another one of the girls happened to have a "Cosmo," and apparently, they're all triplets. I got really curious since I had never seen these Cosmo toys before. Turns out the kids got them all from McDonald's (I asked where they got it from--I haven't been to McDonald's in forever, so I'm not surprised that I had no idea). They told me that they're for a new movie, but they had no idea what the movie was. I did some digging, and turns out it's for Ron's Gone Wrong. Never heard of it. Maybe I've been under a rock, but the fact that the kids didn't remember the name of the movie says something about the movie. I don't think the Cosmo twins/triplets are actually named "Cosmo" in the movie, but I like the name. Has anyone heard of this movie? Thoughts?
Turns out a number of the kids are into crystals, which I find cool. We got into discussions about them. One little girl was showing off her amethyst necklace to me, emphasizing how it's a real crystal and how she got it from a farmer's market. I showed her a piece of fluorite I had with me, and she looked mesmerized by it. It was cute. She had us play "store" and had us buy our crystals from the shop. Another girl was showing me all the items that she had in her backpack, which included Pokémon cards, bracelets, glasses, fidgets, and a bag of crystals. We discussed where we get some crystals and shared some of our favorites. It was really nice.
We finished a 300 piece ocean puzzle one of the girls brought in, and the group was so excited that we completed it; the kids came and went for working on the puzzle, often enlisting my help. When a pair finished the puzzle with me one morning, they started bringing everyone over, exclaiming how proud they were that we finally finished the puzzle. It was heartwarming. It started a trend of group collaborations for puzzles, although completing the other puzzles was a bit challenging as most were missing pieces.
They also have a special dinosaur book that they love to give me. It's neat because it's in three different sections, breaking the dinosaur names and images into pieces. They like to tell me to flip through the book, so I'll exclaim, "Yay! Let's make new dinosaurs!" We've made a lot, which always leads to them laughing because I'll make them look absurd. The last request they gave me was to make a bird dinosaur, and thus the "Paraopraptor" was born.
The kids also decided to teach the staff on how to take care of kids; they sat us down for various classes (it was rather humorous). They walked us through various ages, what the kids would be up to, rules that we would need to follow, etc. (I included photos from their classes below lol). They had us complete math problems; when we would get a question correct, they would make us wear a bracelet as punishment (but it really wasn't much of a punishment). There were quite a few rules they insisted we know. They also told us that we had to make sure that kids knew the difference between a lower case 'b' and 'd', saying that 'b' is for bellybutton and 'd' is for diaper (and drew on the letters for emphasis). They told me not to worry about how the "D" in Dogman was backwards and proceeded to say it was because they skipped 1st grade. It made me wonder if there was any fact behind the story they had told earlier in the class about how if there's a really strict 1st grade teacher, named Ms. Wolf, that you needed to write her a letter, telling her that your kid will not be back for the rest of the school year. Over the class more and more details kept coming up, lending credibility to my growing suspicions about it being a real thing. I could be wrong, but something was in that story; I know that kids can be imaginative and quite creative, but it felt like there was something more to it than mere creative story telling and playing pretend.
It was a fun week of babysitting! The boys were happy to see me and wanted to tell me all that they did over the weekend (they had some awesome cheese fries and found a funny video for starters lol). They also wanted to show me something called "cable guys;" they told me they were phone/controller holders. They were disappointed that there weren't anime ones but enjoyed the Disney/video game ones. We got into a discussion about tanuki/racoon dogs and kitsune/foxes (it started because they asked if I recalled the episode of InuYasha where there were "three Kagomes"--Shippo and Hachi had transformed into a Kagome clone, and they wanted to know who Hachi was). We talked about how in yokai lore/Japanese lore the tanuki and kitsune had similarities (i.e. mischief, transformations) but that they had a rivalry. We talked about the bad blood between Tom Nook and Red in Animal Crossing. After our discussion, they had an ah-ha moment, exclaiming, "Oh, so that's why there's Tanuki Mario suit and Luigi's suit is the fox." Discussions with the boys are always fun, although sometimes they can get a bit strange. On Tuesday afternoon they were getting ready to do some homework, and the younger of the two started chatting with me as he got out his books, binder, and notebook. He proceeded to tell me about "The Law of Thumb." I gave him a confused look and stated that I had heard of a "rule of thumb" or a "green thumb" but that I had never heard of this "law of thumb." He told me that I needed to learn about it and proceeded to inform me all about it, elaborating that it was a detached thumb (his exact word was probably decapitated, though) on a floating platform in hell; the platform is chained to keep it from leaving and also serves as a way to drain the thumb of its power. I decided to go with it (it was unexpected, and I found the surprise rather humorous--kids will say the most unusual things sometimes). As he was working on his math homework, he suddenly announced, "Super Sonic is negative eighteen. It's a fact." He then proceeded to tell me not to debate it--it was irrefutable fact. They boys are interesting characters, and there's never a dull moment with them.
Little Tsukihime has been a nut like usual. She loves curling up in my lap and crawling up onto my shoulder. She basically throws herself over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She'll stay like that for many minutes. She'll then perch herself onto my shoulder like a bird and lick my face. She's such a Sour Patch Kid; she'll be curled up sweetly in my lap, snoozing, and then start flipping and rolling around like a nut. The little nut even crawled inside a decorative pumpkin and lost one of her baby teeth when she was chewing on my blanket Saturday morning. She can be so crazy, but she so adorable.
My goodies from Spiritual Supermall's Divine $9 arrived! The ones from last week finally arrived as well as the ones from this week. I'm super grateful to have all these new goodies!
Here are the newest paintings from this week; I tried out a new technique, a double pour, this week.
I mostly read and wrote this week, although I did watch a bit of anime. Fanfic for this week included: That's My Boy!, Irony is So Ironic, Aphrodisiac, Cuckoldry and Deserted Love, Regret, Accuracy, In a Moment, Everything Changed, Perfect Match, Those Arc People, Nightmare, It's Disgusting!, In Death, Trust Me, As You Didn't in Life, and Illumination. I wrote a new story for the Inside Joke Challenge! This challenge focused on a real inside joke between your childhood friends; if you're interested, you can read my story here: The Ken Saga. I'm still working on Serena and Karissa short stories, and I'm always open to recommendations for future story themes/topics/prompts. I also am pretty close to finishing my piece for the EmPAWyee of the Month challenge about little Tsuki, so look forward to that being posted soon!
I watched the newest episodes of My Hero Academia and Black Clover. The villain's have had such harsh pasts. Granted, that doesn't give them a pass on their choices and actions, but you can definitely see where they're coming from and understand why they'd feel that way. Saying Tomura Shigaraki had it rough in childhood is an understatement. He just wanted to be accepted as he was and not be forced to change/hide under his father's harsh rules (although, his father's past with his mother leaving due to being a hero also makes sense why he wouldn't see heroes in the best light). People can only take so much pressure until they snap, and, boy, did he ever. He was only five. That's so much for anyone to experience, let alone a young child like that. I feel like if we would actually listen to others, hear what they're really saying, and reach an understanding so many of the problems we face today wouldn't even be problems--they'd cease to exist. So many stem from assumptions and judgments. Our world is so divided between sides, with the each feeling that they're in the right and the other is in the wrong. It makes my heart ache. Ironically enough, light and dark, "good" and "evil" are two sides of the same coin. It's the concept of yin and yang. We all have light and shadow within us; the world would be so different if we could learn to accept both rather than judging and assuming. Similarly, the interaction between Asta and "his devil" hit hard. Others immediately write devils off as being "evil"/"bad," but Asta isn't entirely convinced. His devil, I feel, is playing the role, buying into the stories of others, as he even points out that he took Asta's arm. Asta points out that it was fair because it was part of the deal he willingly made. It surprises the devil. Asta also emphasizes that the devil's ki doesn't feel "bad" or like he is trying to actually harm him. The hints of flashbacks for the devil lead me to believe that he had known Asta's mother/ancestor, and it really has me curious about what is going to be revealed. I want to know more. Honestly, I feel like Asta's devil really just yearned for love and a place to belong; frankly, he could have taken body parts from Asta a long time ago, but it was only recently that he took Asta's arm. It makes me wonder about Asta's devil and what differs between him and the others (and how the devil was able to meet Asta's mother/ancestor). Things are reaching a boiling point, a breaking point. Things are never going to be the same again. It feels like we're on the verge of something monumental, but I'm not sure what exactly it is. I feel like people are picking up on this fact, and that's why our stories/shows/art are portraying such. The pressure is building. I hope that people choose kindness, to themselves and others, and can learn from the past and our stories (whether in the form of books, movies, anime, etc.). If we can't learn, we'll probably repeat cycles of revolution and the like. Please, be gentle with yourselves and practice self care. You're doing the best you can. You are worthy of love, kindness, and compassion. Listen to your heart and follow your joy. Your story is uniquely your own, so it won't look identical to others; do what works best for you, whatever that may be. Be blessed with love and light, everyone~
Here's some food for thought from Ralph Smart on Infinite Waters:
Some food for thought to consider for this week:
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