Deeper Connections

Similar to my arrival in Lexington, VA, as I departed, I saw a pair of deer and they ran alongside my car as if to wish me well on my travels. According to CrystalClearIntuition.com, "A deer represents inner peace, tranquility, gentleness, intuition, graceful action, and self-awareness. They have a strong spiritual connection, as they are aware of subtle energies happening all around them. They can also represent your deeper connections with your close family and friends, bringing unconditional love, belonging, and community to the forefront." Well if that isn't a beautiful message on the tail end of this wild soul journey,  I don't know what is.

My hostess had recommended I make a pit stop at Tamarack Marketplace in Beckley, West Virginia, so I set my GPS for the detour stop and settled in to finish up The Worthy Project on Audible. This book has some great exercises and journaling prompts to help move you from an unworthy mindset to a worthy mindset. I still need to do these! I would highly recommend this read for just about anyone, because who doesn't feel less than at some point along their journey?

The first leg of the day's journey was easy, breezy with mostly highway cruising. The only snag was determining where the front door was on the round-shaped marketplace! The circular building was loaded with locally made arts, crafts, and food stuff along the outer wall with some smaller displays located along the inner wall overlooking a courtyard. The building housed a convention center, theater, and art gallery in addition to artist studios you could view and a restaurant to catch a bite. 

I made a full loop of the circle before proceeding to pick out a few treasures. After scouring all the options, I picked out a small pottery bowl for my aunt's birthday and even found a notecard with a daisy watercolor print on it. Daisies are her favorite!

The path from Beckley to Pikeville proved more rural than the morning commute had been. I found myself on a winding mountain highway and as much as I've discovered I love the mountains, I do not love these winding highways! In between a twist or a turn in the road, I wrapped up The Worthy Project and didn't feel comfortable searching for something new or stopping alongside the road for that matter. I turned on the radio and my scan feature detected 2 country stations and 1 other station that almost came in. This I do not love about the mountains either.

Eventually my mountain path dumped me out onto a four-lane highway and I took off on the last stretch towards Pikeville. By mid-afternoon I had unloaded my car, snuggled the puppy, planned food to eat for the week, and went grocery shopping. I arrived back at the house with grocery bags in hand at the same time my aunt was arriving home from work.

We decided on a burrito bowl recipe featuring Chipotle Rub I had received with my Pampered Chef TasteBuds subscription. (As a side note, this dinner inspiration service is on sale during the month of September!) It included ground beef, rice, pepper, tomato salsa, lettuce, and avocado crema (delish). Even my aunt seemed to like it. She loaded her plate with way more than she ever eats, but stashed the leftovers for lunch the next day. We caught up over a few rounds of our favorite card game before I settled into my new digs. I even knocked out a blog post before falling fast asleep. Another day of connecting with family in the books.