Author: Mstldelano

Digital curator, art enthusiast, creator of daily luxurious experiences.
writing

Writers Wednesdays – In The Thick of It

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Happy Writers Wednesday! I’m in the midst of editing, and I find myself constantly wanting a distraction.

YouTube, other books on my reading list, preparing elaborate multi-course meals, and even cleaning have become some fantastic distractions for me. I start with several hours of free time, then I underestimate exactly how quickly the time can get away from me.

Two or three hours later, and I’ve descended down the rabbit hole of Truly, Barcroft TV, and Hooked on the Look. And I’m still no closer to finishing up the book edits.

I think it’s almost an inevitable part of the process. The deeper you are in the editing process, the more easily distracted you become. I think it’s partially due to fear: if you actually finish editing, then you have no excuses for why your book isn’t published. And once your book is published, you open yourself up to scrutiny, which can be mortifying.

I understand it well: fear of being “seen” is real. I have absolutely suffered from it in the past. Sometimes I think I’ve overcome it . . . Then I start editing a new work and those feelings come rushing back to me.

Also, it could be a bit of imposter syndrome: I have, in the back of my mind, thoughts of being not good enough, not worthy of being published or having fans, and feeling unworthy of even of being supported by my loved ones. It’s so easy to see all of my shortcomings and automatically go to thoughts of being inferior and unworthy.

As I try to edit, all of these low-vibe thoughts come to mind. And it paralyzes me far more than I care to admit. But this blog is about transparency as regards the growth process, so here I am, admitting that while I’m in the thick of editing, I’m scared senseless.

Despite those feelings, I press on. Not because I want to overcome those emotions, but because I’ve committed to creating a product by a certain date, and I hate failure more than I despise the discomforting thoughts that have been running through my mind.

So I press on, staying the course while I’m in the thick of it. I’m looking forward to seeing you all on the other side.

beauty · culture · life curation · luxury

Five Easy Ways to Be More Like Meghan, Duchess of Sussex

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Happy Monday, friends! I hope the beginning of your week is pleasant and everything that you need it to be.

Recently, I reviewed Archewell Audio, the podcast project started by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Harry and Meghan. I’ve been fascinated with Meghan for quite some time: I love that she is graceful, elegant and intelligent, and she uses her influence to create positive changes in society.

As part of learning more about this brilliant woman, I read a bit about her and found that there are many things that she’s done to position herself as a woman of status and influence. I made a video highlighting five of those qualities.

The qualities I discussed are as follows:

  • Learn a foreign language
  • Take up a luxurious hobby
  • Eliminate or reduce meat from your diet
  • Wear blush
  • Start a blog

By engaging in one or more of these activities, you can live a little more like Meghan.

Do you have any Duchess-worthy tips? Let me hear about it in the comments below!

health

Fibro Fridays: My Everywell Experience

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Happy Fibro Friday! I hope everyone is feeling well and having a great day or evening wherever you are.

As you all recall, one of my goals for 2021 is to minimize or completely eliminate my fibromyalgia symptoms. On this journey, I will do my best to learn as much as I can about my body so that I can formulate an approach that works for me over the long term.

On the quest to gather as much useful information about my body as possible, I purchased the Everlywell Food Sensitivity Test. This is not an allergy test: it’s a test that measures how much your body responds to certain foods by testing your body for antibody activity. The science for this is fascinating, which is why I encourage you to check out the website for an in-depth explanation.

When you first receive your test, you have to register it on the Everylywell website. After registration, you can commence with doing the test. My test involved pricking my finger and saturating a blood sample collection card. After saturating the card, I sent it back to the lab in a biohazard envelope.

After waiting a little over a week, the lab sent me an in-depth report, explaining my results. I was moderately sensitive to 3 foods, and minimally sensitive to 7 foods. I’ll be using this information as a starting point for an elimination diet. I will add more details about the elimination diet in a few weeks, but for now, at least I know what I should exclude first.

I filmed a video with a lot more details which I will embed below.

Have you all done a food sensitivity test? How did that go? Let me know all about it in the comments below!

reading list

Book Review: Synergy by C. O. Clark

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Hi friends! After sharing that I’m a little behind on my book reading, I decided to buckle down and read at least ten books this month. So I’m already done with one book and working on my next one, four days into the month. That’s what I’m talking about!

This book is titled Synergy, written by C. O. Clark. This is a book of poetry that describes the experience of daring to live boldly and claim our authentic selves. The book description on Amazon states:

“Synergy is the third and final volume in the Equilibrium series. This three volume series is a poetic approach to articulating life, and emotions we bury; afraid of ridicule and rejection. Together we bring down the walls of what it means to remove the veil of being vulnerable — the false equating of vulnerability being weakness. We create a safe space to be authentic and to express our beliefs, fears, doubts, and all the what-ifs. We lay the foundation to voice our troubles, pains, and burdens.”

Because this is Black History Month in the United States, I am focusing specifically on works written Black/African-American authors this month. For the entire month, I am reading works by Black authors exclusively, and I’ll be featuring authors that live locally for this month’s book reviews. As it turns out, I attended the book launch for Synergy back in 2019, and the author read a few of the poems to us. I purchased the book that night, and I’m thrilled that I’m finally reviewing it.

I love the journey that Clark takes you on when you read her work. She goes through a range of emotions, from pain, fear and rejection, to joy, romantic love, and spiritual awakening. This is a wonderful book that I’m looking forward to reading again and again. I definitely recommend it!

That’s all for today. I hope you all are doing well. I’ll talk to you all tomorrow!

This post contains affiliate links.

writing

Writers Wednesdays – Starting to Edit

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So, it’s Writers Wednesday, and I’m editing.

Lord help me!

Actually, I don’t mind editing. If anyone is going to kill my darlings, let it be me, so the death will be merciful. As it turns out, I’ve been blessed (and cursed) with a critical eye, so I’m a natural editor. So, this experience isn’t so bad.

Editing is time-consuming, but rewarding. I love seeing my ideas come together more cohesively, so the editing process is fine with me. I’m giving myself the entire month to get it done, and even a little more time, if necessary.

For my fellow writers, do you all do your own editing? Or, do you hire an editor to do it for you? I’m curious about what works for you.

travel

My Kenya Trip: Looking Back

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Hi friends! I’m so happy to FINALLY share my videos from my trip to Kenya in 2018. I can’t believe it’s been almost THREE years since my trip!

I wrote multiple posts about my Nairobi adventures on this blog. I was enthralled by the art, I loved the food, I was captivated by the national museum, and my safari experience was incredible. So you all are well aware that I loved my time there. But, I had video that I had not yet shared, until now.

I posted this on my YouTube channel and now I’m sharing it over here. I speak specifically about how I manifested this trip because yes, it was a manifestation. I used the power of intention and focus to bring my dream trip into fruition. I loved this manifestation, and I’m excited that I get to share those details with you all!

That’s it for today. I hope you all enjoy this post, and I’ll talk to you all tomorrow.

reading list

Books Read in January 2021

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Happy Monday, and Happy First Day of February! We made it through the first month of 2021 and so far, so good. I’m anticipating that the remaining months will go smoothly and will be absolutely AMAZING!

So as you know from my 2021 goals post, I had a goal to read 100+ books this year. Of course, I don’t anticipate that I will read exactly 9-10 books every single month, though that would be nice. But, if I can get close to that amount, I count it as a win.

For me, acknowledging the progress I’m making is important to keeping me accountable. So, in an attempt to continue with my accountability, here are the books that I read in January:

As you can see, I only read 4 books this month. But, compared to last year, this is fantastic! I finally have the energy and time to read through books, and eventually, I’ll read even more books throughout this year. I’m already working on my February books, and I think I’ll get closer to reading 9/10 books, even though there are fewer days in this month.

I think that noting progress is crucial for all of us. Any improvement puts us closer to our goals. It’s so easy to focus on what’s wrong instead of focusing on the ways that you’re getting better every day. Why not choose to look at what’s going right?

That’s my brief book update. I’m looking forward to listing more books for February!

That’s it for today. I’ll talk to you all tomorrow!

*This post contains affiliate links.

health

Fibro Friday : My Magical Body Balm for Muscle and Nerve Pain Relief

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Happy Fibro Friday, friends! I sincerely hope that you’ve had a great week, and I hope that your weekend is amazing!

Recently, I shared with one of my favorite vloggers, Deena from Adventures with Fibro, that I make a body balm that helps with both muscular and neurological pain. I also promised her that I would make a video. And yes, I kept my word.

If you have fibromyalgia, you are already intimately aware of the pain that occurs due to the condition. But if you don’t have the condition, I’ll try my best to explain it to you. The pain that comes from fibromyalgia is often diffuse: it’s not usually concentrated into just one spot. And the pain goes beyond just soreness (as if you overused a particular muscle group): the pain can include stinging, burning, prickly, tingly, or throbbing sensations.

Many of the products available for pain address the muscle component exclusively. So the neurological pain (or neuropathy) remains unaddressed. You usually have to use medication prescribed by a neurologist or a rheumatologist to alleviate the nerve pain. Sadly, these medicines do a poor job of offering relief, and can have a range of awful side effects.*

So I opted to create a product that could give me relief for both body systems (musculoskeletal and nervous). In this video, I give a nice, customizable recipe that can offer you some relief and hopefully make your flare days a little more tolerable. I’m writing out the recipe and instructions on this post, to be followed by a link to the video.

Magic Body Balm (makes 4 ounces (120 ml) of product)

  1. A few weeks prior to making this balm, purchase dried arnica and place 1 or 2 ounces of the dried plant into 2-3 ounces of avocado oil. Let it sit for several weeks in a dark, cool spot, gently shaking the oil every couple of days.
  2. Start by placing the nut butter into the glass bowl.
  3. Fill the bottom of the shallow bowl with less than 1 inch of boiling hot water. You only need enough hot water to cover the bottom of the shallow bowl.
  4. Place the glass bowl with the nut butter into the shallow bowl, allowing the hot water to heat the bottom of the glass ramekin and start melting the butter.
  5. THIS IS CRUCIAL – Avoid getting any water into the liquefying nut butter, the oil additives, or any other ingredients. This will prevent bacteria from growing in the balm.
  6. While the nut butter is melting, strain your arnica infused oil. (Skip this step if you’re using pure arnica oil that you purchased).
  7. Once the nut butter is liquefied, combine it with the arnica infused oil (or the pure avocado oil and arnica oil drops), copaiba oil, davana oil, and fragrant oil of your choice (I prefer tangerine, lavender or peppermint oil). Stir well.
  8. Pour the mixture into the container of choice. Place in a refrigerator to let it cool and set (roughly 1-2 hours). Remove and use on achy, sore body parts.

This recipe is mostly relying on eyeballing the measurements, so if it isn’t exact, try adjusting individual ingredients until you get the consistency you prefer. I’m linking the ingredients and tools above, so you can easily get what you need. I hope this helps you! Take care, and enjoy your weekend.

* Disclaimer: I use two medications for neurological symptoms. I weighed the efficacy versus the side effects, and I determined that it was worth the risk. Discuss the options with your doctor to see what is recommended for your condition.

This post contains affiliate links.

art · culture

The Scribe – Egyptian Keepers of Culture and Subjects of Timeless Art

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I’ve started this post multiple times (and even accidentally posted it once or twice) but I struggled with putting this into words.

Until now.

A couple of years ago, I went to Virginia Museum of Fine Art (VMFA), my favorite local museum. I always try to spend a little more time in the permanent collection, so that I can be really familiar with the contents of the museum. On this particular visit, I focused more of my time on the Egyptian collection. I was struck by one particular piece.

Statue of Seated Scribe, Sema-tawy-tefnakht is more than 2500 years old, and appears just as wise and intuitive today as it probably did when it was first sculpted. The scribe looks toward the horizon, with a soft smile on his face and hands resting comfortably on his thighs as he holds a roll of papyrus. He appears to know a lot but, instead of it filling him with arrogance and an unapproachable energy, his face seems to invite you to ask questions that he will gladly answer. The piece is sculpted from alabaster, and still features the original text at the base, no doubt describing who he is and his role in the kingdom.

I loved, too, the plaque posted next to the Statue of Seated Scribe. The museum notes that being a scribe was often a hereditary role, with fathers preparing their sons for positions as bureaucrats for future pharoahs. It also touches on the significance of Thoth, the patron deity of scribes. Thoth himself was a scribe within Egyptian mythology, recording the judgments of human souls who had entered the afterlife.

What’s significant about this piece to me is the power held by a scribe. In the spiritual realm, it was believed that all information about whether a person would live in peace or eternal torment was captured by the scribe. It’s true, in a sense, that the “scribes” of today – journalists, novelists, memoirists, and the like – function much the same. We as writers keep the records of the actions of others, whether they be good, bad or neutral.

Another thing that really impacted me was the fact that this role was more than a job: it was an inheritance. Being the male child of a scribe meant that you were born into a legacy of being a gatekeeper of the empire’s history and secrets. This made me think of the children being born to us today: how many parents are preparing their children for their legacy? As a mom, I understand how overwhelmed we all are right now, with many schools being closed due to COVID. But what little things are we doing daily to prepare our children for the heavy roles they will have in the future, as responsible citizens, future artists and patrons, the builders and organizers of society, and possibly parents themselves?

It’s a lot to consider. I’ve been toying around with these ideas for years, which is why I knew I had to write this post. I’m just glad I finally got the words for it.

Anyways, that’s it for today. I’m looking forward to tomorrow, when I share with you all my amazing body balm recipe that is great for muscle and nerve pain. Take care, and I’ll talk to you soon.