31 December 2021 Friday

Hello friend. How are you doing today? It’s still morning and frosty here as I write 22 degrees! The sun is trying to peak out which helps. I think I have gotten myself a mild cold but I’m not going to focus on it too much. The coffee is soothing my throat.

I pulled out the last blank t- shirt I have and it will be a perfect canvas. As it is right now it looks like bleach might of got on it and something else that couldn’t come out. I can use my art to hide those flaws and enjoy wearing the shirt again. The drawing today is me thinking about what I will draw on the shirt. I’m thinking one of my whisp people with a rainbow ribbon. I did a canvas painting like that once as a commission piece for my therapist a couple of years ago.

Thinking about what to draw and paint today

Looks like I will be alone for New Years Eve and New Years. It’s ok as I’ve never been big on the holiday and if I’m truly sick I don’t want to spread it!

Last night I had a nice Twitch livestream visit with a new follower from Brazil. I keep connecting with young men from overseas. When we get a chance to visit it’s usually way past their bed times! I’m always surprised that they want to talk to me out of all the bazillion channels there are on Twitch. Last night we talked a bit about religion and God. His family is into spiritualism. Apparently his mom tried church and it didn’t work out. I’m still finding my way myself. I like the relationship I have with God. It can be both a simple and complex relationship. As big as the entirety of existence to as small as a grain of sand.

Is there anything beyond this door today?

We talked about Christianity and how you have to be saved…believe in Jesus or you will burn in hell. I always am left thinking how can such a large part of the world with their different belief systems be “wrong?” I looked up the percentages for religions and 31% are Christian while 25% are Muslim 16% are non religious and 15% are Hindu – as of 2020. There were 18 others – I found it using Google.

Something we didn’t talk about was free will. If God is all knowing of everything do we really have it? If there is a divine plan in all things I don’t believe we really have free will. Our path seems to be set before we are even born. Where was God when my Mom decided to take her own life? From what I read of her writings she loved God/Jesus more than anything. Where was God when my Grandpa decided to take his life? He was a loyal servant to God got so many years! Where was God when I attempted to take my life a couple of years ago? I had to remember I was bulemic and save myself – there was nothing and no one to save me but myself! The only thing I can think is God doesn’t interfere. He knew what I would do before I did it? He knew I would live to tell the tale may be to save someone else from doing the same thing? Much of my life has been like that. I make “mistakes” and share about it afterwards to help others. Is that part of why I still exist?

The question is still there and may be there is scripture or some kind of answer somewhere – Where is God when it comes to suicide?! According to my Catholic education suicide gets you put into purgatory and you can’t even have a church funeral.

Interesting paper I found about this subject : https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/11/987/htm

Is Suicide the Unforgivable Sin? Understanding Suicide, Stigma, and Salvation through Two Christian Perspectives 

by John Potter

Are there really that many lost souls? According to this paper 703,000 people a year?!! Where is God in all of that? Are all these people lost? There is no one living that truly answer that question not even the Pope!

I hope something here was helpful. If you or if you have someone in your life that is suicidal I hope you have a support system. I hope you have a relationship with a higher power. I hope you will choose life. I know it’s a struggle some days but you are not a mistake!

30 December 2021 Snow

Check out 30 December 2021 Snow https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1247967777 – just a little video to share the heavy snowfall with you!

Good morning to you from snowy Idaho! How are you? I’m doing pretty good. I decided to unbury my car and go get groceries before we get so much snow I can’t get out. I’m so grateful to the people who work at our local Ridleys grocery store. If it gets much worse I hope they’ll let them close early but after talking to one of the gals who lives here in town, she said it’s unlikely they will close. These folks are some of the unsung hero’s in our world. I pray they will all be safe getting to and from work. Anyhew I am grateful. In awhile I need to go out and rearrange some of the snow that’s fallen! It’s accumulating fast!

Last night I had a nice stream on Twitch. A couple followers visited and that’s always fun. One is from London and the other France. We just talked about random stuff. It’s nice to have company in the evening. The only thing that is kind of annoying is the delay in the chat sometimes. They enjoyed getting to see the snow!

My friend contacted me about getting together tonight and we decided to cancel. With the roads like they are and all the snowfall we decided it was just better to wait til the weather was better.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to paint another shirt yet or not. I will say it’s been fun taking some old plain tshirts and breathing new life into them with art!

26 December 2021 Feelings

Check out 26 December 2021 Sunday chat https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1244211250

Hello it’s me again. It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m feeling lonesome so I thought I would write to you again….hope you don’t mind.

Something happened with me and my Twitch channel and I feel really bad about it. I had a rant and it wasn’t subtle and I ended up hurting the feelings of someone I love and care about very much. I felt so bad that I had to delete the video. It was not the place to express what I expressed in such a brutal manner. If you knew the person I’m referring to, you would agree. They are the last person on earth that you would want to hurt! We have cleared the air but I still feel horrible about it! Ugh!! I feel like such a shit!

The subject matter at the core of this debacle is how I feel about “stuff.” Living in this tiny home means there is little space for extra things. Anything added to the limited surface space I have can look like clutter if there is too much of it. I prefer to receive gifts that are going to be used up and gone like soaps, lotions and food things. I didn’t buy gifts for anyone this year. Instead I bought bags of food for the local food pantry in my families honor.

I am not sure if the livestream lifestyle is my friend. Part of me wonders if it’s best left to content creators like musicians, magicians and artists. The reason I started using Twitch was to try and reach out and make a connection. There have been a couple sessions where I have had communication with people like I’m looking for but it’s rare. If you aren’t playing instruments, singing, playing video games or doing some sort of something people just don’t tune in. Something tells me not to give up just yet though. I have 12 followers and that’s pretty good for a channel like mine!

I have a couple more shirts I can paint just not sure if I want to do that today. It goes so fast! Some people when they are drawing and or painting they take their time. It doesn’t go that way with me. As soon as I decide to do it, whatever comes forth is the finished product. It’s like I have this notebook I have been drawing in and it’s almost full. Then I will have to get another one and have to find a place for the one I finished. The “stuff” monster rears it’s ugly head again – even in my art! May be that’s why people use food as their area of craft. Make a beautiful cake and it gets eaten – the byproduct goes into the toilets. You don’t have to feel guilty about it ending up in a landfill.

Every something that is tangible ends up somewhere. Thankfully this blog is just digital text but it still takes up space in a server and a server is a tangible thing. I have a friend who’s job it is to manage large servers…..even digital things…words…..taking up space in our tangible world! The other thing is it doesn’t really belong to me once I publish it. I should be saving my posts on an external hard drive but I don’t after what happened to the last one.

May be all of this explains why I’m still keeping and using towels that are nearly 30 years old. I use things until they fall apart. My first husband taught me about buying high quality stuff so you don’t have to replace it so often. Unfortunately we live in a world of products designed with planned obsolescence in mind. Some of the towels I received as gifts in years past are not holding up nearly as well as the older ones.

It’s hard for me to live in a material world at times. There are tubs of stuff that I have that I don’t know if I’ll ever get the courage to go through. I had hoped the gals I hired to organize my stuff would help me cull but they didn’t. They just put it in tubs and stacked it neatly – now it’s harder to get into. I need a disinterested party that specializes in what I have going on to come in and help me cull. I mean what do you do with boxes that once held your beloved pets ashes?! What do I do with Knick knacks that I have no cabinets to display them in?! If I set stuff out it has to be dusted. I don’t want to dust! Years and years of journals and drawing books….nobody is going to want my shit when I’m gone and that’s the harsh truth of this modern world. Everything has become so cheap that things that really should matter have little to no value.

The story of stuff goes back a long ways. I can remember when my first husband and I lived in an apartment in Fliessem Germany. All our stuff fit until Helga the landlady asked us to move out so her son and his new wife could live there. We ended up moving to a place up the street but it was smaller than the place we were living. I got overwhelmed. There is a picture of me sitting where we had to stack everything and I had been crying. There just wasn’t enough room. The house in Alvarado was the first time there was enough room for everything but I still had a problem with stuff. I liked Christmas gift exchanges with my parents the best. You told them what you wanted and that’s exactly what you got. It was always good quality stuff that we were going to use.

The story of stuff really opened my eyes to what our material world is doing to us and this planet: https://youtu.be/9GorqroigqM – after seeing it and seeing what The Ocean Cleanup project is encountering out in our oceans I really started to think about how I live. Like I said earlier everything we make and use has a life of its own. You can’t get something for nothing and it’s important to be responsible consumers.

24 December 2021 Sunshine !

So happy to see this glowing orb of warmth and light

Hello to you. How are you? We have sunshine this morning and I’m so grateful to see it! I’ve got coffee and my sweet boy beside me….load of laundry going. I will be honest it was hard getting up this morning. As I get older I’m starting to understand my parents better. They didn’t like to sit still too long. If you sit still too long it’s hard to get moving again! Stuff hurts!

It’s Christmas Eve and I am not sure how I feel about it. Everything feels so surreal. It’s really my second Christmas in Idaho! No matter how tight I have been holding on, time has been moving forward. There is no comfort for what I am feeling….only more time and distance from where all these wounds began. There are times I wish I could get on with life with less of the feelings but then I wouldn’t be me anymore! Ugh!!

It will be nice to have this evening with my Aunt and Uncle and go to a candle light service here in town. Then tomorrow we are having brunch at my cousins. I am blessed to have family!

I hope you are doing ok today wherever and however you are spending it. If your not ok I hope you have a support system to help you make it through!

I’m live on Twitch – Watch me at https://twitch.tv/jwygant

Good music: Check out Merry Jamzmas! | !spotify !youtube !bandcamp !twitter !merch https://www.twitch.tv/astravert

13 December 2021 Stories

Hello to you from here. How are you today? As I write to you I’m sitting here with some coffee and the world is gray again. I didn’t sleep very well last night again. I have to have background noise when I sleep. I decided to try cat purring noises. My Amber kitty used to purr me to sleep. It helped!

Talked to my my dad yesterday. I feel bad for my dad being trapped in his body and having to be in a nursing home. He’s making the best of it but didn’t sound very happy. He was the kind of person that liked to be on the go all the time……then his legs failed him.

So last night I did a shorter live stream. A couple of my friends got on and that was super nice. I got introduced to a new song. Im always on the lookout for new music: The Hu Song of Woman https://youtu.be/mdN1U9NvuIc

After my friends left I got a chance to visit with a 29 year old man from Mexico. He lives in a large city and misses living in a more forestry place. He mentioned not feeling real safe where he lives namely drug cartels! I shared some of my art with him. He’s learning to play bass guitar and likes to draw too. He’s considering starting his own channel! Evening seems to be the best time to find people that want to visit.

It’s nice that there are only a couple people that get on my channel at a time. I like having the back and forth conversation. Some channels on Twitch have thousands of viewers at a time which is fine for the music channels but for chatting not so much. I like to get to know my viewers and followers.

I hope you have s wonderful day. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day for me!

I’m live on Twitch – Watch me at https://twitch.tv/jwygant

6 December 2021 Dream Kiss

Good morning from here. I’m writing from bed where it’s warm and cozy! Link and and I haven’t decided to get up and face today yet.

Have you ever had a vivid and really happy dream that ended abruptly and you find yourself trying to go back but you can’t? That’s what happened to me last night. I dreamt I was with this blonde man and we kissed – it felt so real! I woke up disappointed to leave him! Sometimes my dreams feel like real experiences. Sometimes it feels like the only difference between dreams and reality is whether or not my eyes are open.

I am not sure if I’m going to to a video or not today for Twitch. I’m having trouble with content. I’m starting to remember how I used to do my YouTube videos. I would actually write out what I wanted to say – like a script. I don’t know if I want to do that or not. It doesn’t feel as natural if there is a script. I will have to think on this – may be not do a video everyday?

“Do you see me through all the words? Can you hear me when there is no sound? Can you feel me when no one is around? Through the wires and cables from me to you one way or another I’m going to get to you.”

I hope you have a great day! Love and be loved!

30 November 2021 Good morning

Check out this video Morning coffee with Jackie 30 November 2021 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1220155075

Good morning to you! How are you? This morning the psalm 49 really resonated with me. I tried to copy and paste it here but I can’t for some reason. Here is Link if you would like to read it:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+49&version=NIV&interface=amp

—————–

In today’s world it seems like so many aspire for wealth and fame. The fundamental truth is you can’t take it with you and from watching the mainstream wealthy, it seems like enough is never enough. I wonder if many of the ultra wealthy have God in their lives….I hope so. For me personally, I just want to be able to pay my bills, bless my family and be comfortable. I don’t need much. If I was ever to become famous and wealthy I would have to have ways to give it back … pay it forward. I would hire people that would make sure I was doing that! Honoring Gods blessing of my life would have to be at the top of the list….leave a legacy to be blessed by!

My life with money right now is a weird one. Since I am on my own and am on a fixed income I am kind of afraid to spend money sometimes. With the sale of our home in Texas I got a nice chunk of change but I feel like I have to hold on to that money “just in case.” I used to be really generous but these past couple of years I’ve been stingy. The world feels so uncertain at times! Ugh!!! Lol.

I hope something resonated here today. I hope you have a great day.

29 November 2021 Good Morning

Check out this video Morning coffee with Jackie 29 November 2021 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1219285881

Hi there. This morning I had the privilege of chatting with an old friend and it just made my whole day! She is the only friend I still have from my military days. I’m so blessed to have her!

I was chatting to myself and she popped up. I have a follower!! It was so exciting to see that this morning! I was starting to question myself!

In awhile I have my therapist appointment and I’m looking forward to that. Lots to talk about! I AM HOME…..yes! My friend reiterated that message too. Be at home in your own skin before you bring somebody else into your life. I’m sure God has a plan in all the little pieces that are floating about me right now….fragments of time.

I hope this finds you well today. What are you grateful for? I’m grateful to have been able to reconnect with my friend. I’m grateful for my new friend and my family…my sweet Link. I’m grateful for me still getting to be on this plane of existence. Even if you are really having trouble I hope you can find something to be grateful for!

Drawing for today:

This is my drawing processing my healing session yesterday .

28 November 2021 Sunday

Check out this video Morning Coffee With Jackie 28 November 2021 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1218405193

Good morning from here. How are you? The video today is about 22 minutes if you have the time! Hopefully something will resonate with you. I felt called to read Psalm 27. I feel like no matter what your walk of the spirit that the Psalms are a neutral ground:

Psalm 27

Of David.

The Lord is my light and my salvation—
    whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strongholdof my life—
    of whom shall I be afraid?

——————

I’m getting together with my friend today for some Pranic healing which should be interesting . I’ve never heard of it before!

I decided to close the door on having my own Meetup group. The people I wanted to reach just didn’t express interest. I don’t think a lot of people even know Meetup exists. I checked into Facebook and that was nice – it was good to reconnect with family and friends there.

Anyhew thank you for spending some time with me today!

26 November 2021 Hello

Hi there! How are you? How’s your day been going? I’m sitting here cuddled with Mr. Link. It’s been a gray and overcast day. I haven’t really been outside. I will be going out this evening to see the Christmas lights in Caldwell. I will need to dress warm as it’s been getting a lot cooler here.

I did another Twitch video today. It’s about Links origin story. It came out ok but not all in one take. I haven’t been able to figure out how to delete videos yet lol!! I’m not sure about this video making stuff! The more I watch other streamers the more less prepared I feel. I guess the most important thing is to keep being myself and work with what I have. My channel is jwygant.

My thanks to all of you that continue with me on this journey I’m on – especially my Auntie!! You are such a beautiful and awesome cheerleader ! The encouragement helps so much but I also appreciate feedback on how I can do better!