Woo Woo

By Pauline Evanosky

Psychics are the same as everybody else. It’s just that our friends are nearer to us than regular people. One resolution I want to embrace in the coming year is to pay more attention to my dreams. The dream state is where many people of spirit can come to visit with you. Who? My spirit guide, Seth, my relatives who have passed, mostly my mother. My pets who have passed visit. I would expect some of my literary characters might come. I’ve never had that happen, but if I can talk with them in an awakened state, there is no reason I couldn’t talk to them in the dream state. How in the world would you, who are reading this, make it happen for yourself? Don’t be afraid of it. Nobody shows up dripping grave goo. Everybody looks hale and hearty. They all wear clothes. Mostly. And all you have to do is to welcome the idea. In a few days, it might happen.

For instance, I’d been wanting to remember more of my dreams, and I realized I was not remembering the colors. I learned how to do this as a teenager. It took about three days of thinking about seeing color in my dreams often during each day, and then I began to notice what was going on in my dreams and the colors in them. This morning, I awakened, seeing a bright circle of yellow. I couldn’t tell you what it was to the sequence of the dream, but I awakened knowing I had just seen a bright disk of yellow. The other morning, I saw something that was peach or coral-colored. These are small steps, but they will eventually evolve into my remembering more of my dreams.

Everybody gets a chance to start anew when January rolls around. Whatever you are already doing, if you want to, can infuse it with new life or at least a little bit of enthusiasm. Ask yourself what you do regularly that can sometimes get you down.

Laundry? Does it depress you? Would you like a new spin on it? What is it about laundry that depresses you?

Is the mending you need to do putting you off? Did you know you can make fingerless gloves out of socks with holes in them? The problem with darning holes in socks is that you might be inviting blisters if you are not an expert darner.

So, wear your socks as long as you want, and when the time comes, cut them off a little bit over the heel. Heels and toes are where most holes happen. Now, you have a tube. You decide whether you want the finished end on your palm or nearer your elbow. Cut a two-inch slit where your thumbs can go, and bingo; you just saved $10 on some fingerless gloves. If you are handy with a needle and thread, you can finish the raw edges. Or not. This is one of those easy projects. I find them very handy when I am writing in a cold room. Plus, there is no rule that says you have to have matching gloves. You could use socks that have lost their mates.

What else about laundry is getting you down? You know what I do now? I have trouble getting up and down the stairs to our laundry room. So, I wash clothes in the kitchen sink now. Sometimes, I just use dish soap and not laundry soap. Hey, I found out it works. I remember to have a final soak in water with a scented softener and then hang the whole shebang on the porch on one of those dryer racks. Stuff that needs to be hung, like shirts and nightgowns, gets hung on hangers over the tub in the bathroom. In the winter, it just takes an extra day or two to dry. It’s funny, but I think our clothes might just end up being cleaner when I wash them this way than they might have gotten in a washing machine.

One of the things that always interests me is learning languages. I am certainly not proficient in any of the ones I know, but signing up for lessons somewhere online is easy. Some websites cost money, others are free. I would start with the free sites first. You can go to Redditt.com and search through the language sections to find others who might want to learn your language while offering to help you with their native tongue. I belong to Duolingo, which is free, and to Rosetta Stone, which is not free. Our world is smaller now because of the internet. Wouldn’t you like to read a blog by a person who is involved in a hobby you love from another country?

You probably need a 2,000-word vocabulary to get a nice conversation going with somebody. You could make up some imaginary dialogs in your native tongue and then translate them into whatever language you are seeking to learn in the translation section of Google. How do you get there? Type into the Google search bar: “Translate How do I get to the bank? In Spanish.” A Google translate box will appear with your answer. You can continue using the box to get anything you want translated. Then, to double-check yourself, go to ChatGPT.com and do the same thing again.

The nice thing about ChatGPT is that all your questions are saved for you. You could re-open a conversation and add to it, for instance, if the topic is about woodworking or baking and you thought of a new angle you want to explore. Or you could start as many new conversations as you want.

The one thing you don’t want to do with ChatGPT is to put any of your personal information into the conversations. Just be safe.

I have heard a lot of people who are afraid of AI Artificial Intelligence, but Google uses it all the time. We use it when talking to automated customer service on the telephone. You can even ask ChatGPT for cherry pie recipes. Learn to use it, and you will find it comes in handy for all sorts of things.

Additionally, I have started using Microsoft Designer to illustrate the articles I write. If you have a picture in mind but can’t find what you want on the internet in all the usual places you look for illustrations that don’t require that you spend an arm and a leg for licensing, just use a prompt in Microsoft Designer:

Text Prompt for ChatGPT: Cat reading a book to her kittens cartoon style with pastel colors

Or another picture in a different style

Text Prompt for ChatGPT: Cat reading a book to her kittens in watercolor

The nice thing about using Microsoft Designer is that it is free. More and more websites are being made available all the time. Some of them cost money. Some of them allow you to do a certain number of illustrations at a time. Every time I ask for an illustration at Microsoft Designer, they give me four to choose from. Tweak them, and then you can download them to your computer.

So, learning to illustrate your own blogs and articles this year, I think, might be interesting.

What is one thing you have wanted to do for years and have never gotten around to? Make a list of all the things you think you need in order to make a dream come true for you. Are they art supplies? Does your workroom need to be reorganized? Do you need a certain amount of money to get started? Do you need to learn a new skill? In fact, this is a project you could take to ChatGPT.com to see some suggestions. If this particular project requires a lot of steps, just take a few and work on them until you are ready for more steps. Break a big project down into manageable steps.

Above all, be kind to yourself. If you find in June that you have not started something you thought you would like to do at the beginning of the year, ask yourself if you are still interested in doing it. Many times, there are hidden levels in the things we want to do. There might be some steps you didn’t think you needed to do.

Above all, listen to the universe. It might not be what you want, but it could be what you need.

For instance, I needed to learn how to draw before I could become a psychic. Who would ever think that was a necessary step, but for me, it was.

Perhaps it is time that you need. Perhaps you think you will need a nice big three-hour chunk of time, and it is rare for you to find that kind of time available to you. People have lives. They go to work. They meet with their friends and want to be available for their families. It isn’t easy to carve big blocks of time away from busy schedules to work on projects. Perhaps you can break that three-hour block of time into half-hour intervals and spread them out over the course of the week. What you can do with 30 minutes is pretty amazing.

When I was working, I would get up an hour or two early to write while the world was still asleep. Find out when you have the most energy and utilize that.

Make your overall goal for 2024 to be one of creativity and happiness. Best of luck, and get this thing done.