My Polyvore Posting

All About Me by ashaluly

Here is my most recent post to Polyvore.com a super fun website for making fashion collages that I have recently submerged myself into for no good reason.  This one was entered into a contest.  It consumes too much time but I feel like I am learning so much about fashion and allowing myself to play!!!  Play is a must every now and then!

My own

There is something amazing about having nieces and nephews!  Just when you thought you couldn't love anything more they show up and in an instant you are overwhelmed with so much love, compassion, playfulness, and happiness that you can hardly remember the other emotions you previously carried like heavy pathetic bags of rocks.  I feel as though all the world has disappeared and the most important thing I can do, the only purpose I have in life, is to put that child in a complete state of bliss.  The best part is how simple it is to send a child into random fits of laughter and giggles!  Its amazing how your ears perk up to their voices, giggles and cries, how you can pick their sounds out from millions of little kids anywhere in the room and when you hear them laughing and playing and you know they are perfectly happy, it's an instant lift of the heart!  Those are the days I look forward to!

Five

     Recently I started reading this book entitled Five, by Dan Zadra (you can find it at http://www.live-inspired.com/).  It is an inspirational book about what you can accomplish in five years.  So I decided to come up with some lists of “things” I would like to do, see, accomplish, etc. in the next five years.  I hope you enjoy them and maybe find a little inspiration yourself!  When I look back from the next five years I want to be able to say that I stayed healthy and active, lived creatively, loved passionately, played often, and enjoyed living, etc.!  Please keep in mind that this is still a work in progress list and I would love your ideas, suggestions and feedback!

List of Adventures I want to have within the next five years:

1. Learn to drive shift stick cars!
2. Explore the Amazon.
3. Take a road trip with my Cousins, Meagan Brown, Michelle Brown, Sarah Traylor, Rachel Traylor, Leanne Shaluly, Nina Shaluly, and Salwa Shaluly.
4. Take several trips to North Carolina for a weekend adventure with Aunt Rosemary.
5. Explore Florida’s vastness.
6. Go Camping at least 10 times!
7. Learn to Surf.
8. Learn to Cayak.
9. Visit Angkor Wat with close friends.
10. Play on the playground more often.
11. Take a new route every week for a whole year (or what adds up to a year in five).
12. Live away from home.  Dun dun duhhh
13. Visit Jeff Gibbons and Hannah Hudson in Texas.
14. Create adventures to do with my two beautiful Nieces and watch them grow!
15. Take a cruise with my sister, Meara Trine.

List of Accomplishments I want to achieve within the next five years:

1. Record my own music CD (and to make it an adventure and add to above, give this one a twist and record with Manny Penton and Daniel Kurant).
2. Create at least two good films.
3. Finish my website (to a point where it is not embarrassing anymore).
4. Exhibit in 20 different art shows (this obviously requires me to get art done).
5. Become financially stable and knowledgeable.
6. Perfect my Spanish and French.
7. Pick a career that I will truly love and blossom in!
8. Go back to school for Fine Arts/Art Therapy.
9. Volunteer regularly and continue to support various charities.
10. Motivate, inspire, and empower young females.

My Sito

Last week was my Grandmothers birthday.  She is no longer with us but I decided to celebrate her day anyways because she has had such a great impact on me and my various life styles.  Growing up, I only saw one or two sides of my Sito (the arabic way of saying grandma).  She was a fun loving, beautiful person who was always laughing, and making me smile with great joy.  However she had many difficulties.  I am not sure at what age she was diagnosed with diabetes but since I could remember she was always digging through her medicine bag, pulling out a tiny bottle of clear fluids and syringe and having to stick herself with a needle at least twice a day.  I remember watching with great intensity as she went through the process of filling the syringe with the fluid, tapping her skin, and pricking.  My grandmother was a classic blonde haired blue eyed beauty in her younger years, but lost all control of her weight after giving birth to her four children, my dad, two uncles and wonderful Aunt, her one daughter.  In our eyes, her hair was grey, her eyes faded, and her body inable to run and play, but in our hearts she was also the most lovable, kind, loud, funny, and playful grandmother.  She had a heart of Gold!  I know that deep down, she must have been an awful lot like me in her younger years, with a mind constantly on a wild adventourous journey, a naive and kind temperment, and dreams that rose high above everyone elses.  I wish I knew her millions of tales, and I wish more than anything to go back in time and ask her for her story.  You know, the one everyone has, that one story that sums up your life in a dramatic, at times tragic, and completely beautiful way, detailing the highlights and skimming the simple, mundane and everyday.  Anyways, as I celebrated my Sito last week I made a vow to honor her with my life.  I want to do great things that she dreamed of.  So I am on a journey, delving into the depths of my mind, soul, and heart to discover what dreams I will bring to life for the beautiful woman who set my world into motion long before I ever existed!

Girl’s Night Out…or in rather

Buenos Aires is just as I left it; the weather, absolutely beautiful; the breeze, comfortably chilly; and the sun, burning hot. I already have a sun tan from taking a few strolls outside to the park and the market. When I got here it was raining but today is flawless, brilliant with color and life. Magnificent shades of greens and coral pinks surround me, while the mouth watering scent of food fills the air and teases my nose. My cousin is cooking. Preparing the meat with eggs, potatoes and other delicious flavors all mixed together for stuffing the “masa,” to complete the empanadas. I’m sitting with the youngsters chatting away and listening to random songs from my iPhone. Veronica is painting my Aunt’s nails purple with flowers. She already painted mine bright pink and it’s a girl’s house today. No boys allowed today a continuation of the girl’s night out we all shared last night. Nine of us spent the night together. Sprawled out wherever there was space and cushion to sleep! We had a blast, playing cards, sipping mate that we passed around the table, and nibbling on leftovers. Harmless gossips and laughter filled the air till late in the evening! The morning seems peaceful and calm and the conversations carry on as though they never ended. It’s a beautiful day!

My Inner Imaginings

Something I realized recently, I don’t talk much about my deepest inner self to any one person in particular, yet I tend to write from deep within about myself to the world on a daily basis, although, even then it is fairly incomplete and veiled.  I conceal my personal, weighty emotions and most protected thoughts and keep them under wraps as if it were necessary for my whole world to be clenched tightly between the two valves of my ever beating heart!  When I speak, I sound so superficial, talking about such mundane and unimportant things like lip-gloss and the bores of my daily motions.  In my mind, I share myself however; I attempt to communicate my heart to the world in a more universal way, without verbal language, in the hopes and belief that maybe, just maybe, there truly is a universal language spoken silently, that I somehow imagine the whole world can hear, though in reality I know most cannot.  I imagine that when I come into contact with others, I automatically connect with them, listening to their inner self’s manifestations and I express my love and emotions silently, as though my eyes could give away my whole life story, if only they were listening. 

Once I realized all this I decided it was time to make a few adjustments.  Although I know imagination is beautiful, necessary and extremely powerful, and I will continue to believe, know, that I can connect with another without words and even send messages to their inner selves, I also know it is important to express my true and most profound self to those around me loudly, verbally, and completely.  This will be one of my many new goals to start off my month of March. 

My Journey begins

Today I leave for Miami.  I look forward to spending the weekend with my friends and celebrating in the love between two people.  It is a formal affair in my mind.  A moment where I must be on my best behaviour and put my heart to my sleeve.  From Miami, though, I am going to Argentina, where family awaits me.  Buenos Aires is always an adventure and always booming with life and activity, but what I really look forward to is Catamarca.  Going to Catamarca is like going to another world.  It is as if time and space are operating at a different pace.  There the world rotates on an entirely different level.  It is slow, calm and peaceful.  The earth is wild and the air is filled with it's distinct smell.  Family is important, close, interactive.  Everything is one, connected in some beautiful, awe inspiring way.  The animals roam free and instinctively come home.  They are loving, protective, and cautious.  The warmth engulfs you, and the breeze kisses your skin with its sweet sighs and quiet caresses.  The river is a calm, cool, sparkling beacon that calls softly to every creature within its wide distance.  I long to be there already.  To sit by the babbling stream of water at its edge and take it all in.  To feel the heat fill my body with warm tenderness.  To watch the magnificent horses with all their colors and strength, dip their heads for a sip and stride, proudly on.  There are cows, sheep, and pigs too.  Everything seems to roam so freely so wild and alive.  There is nothing to do but relax, connect, and energize!  Going to Catamarca is like coming up from the deep ocean with all its dangerous pressures and taking in a deep, long awaited, gasp of fresh air.  My heart is there already!