So many things have been written about the power of visualization, the law of attraction, the power of positive thinking. But when all is said and done what it comes down to is the ability to focus your intent

Be careful what you wish for - or rather what you focus your intent on -because you will get EXACTLY what you focus on, just not always in the WAY you thought you would get it.

Case in point: not three days ago I had written out some goals in my journal. One of those goals was "to clean the crap out of my life". Of course I re-wrote the affirmation as "I have cleaned all the crap out of my life". I then focused on the affirmation and worked it into a deep-level meditation.

Then I forgot about it.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I got home from work - walked in the front door of my house, and got hit in the face with a wall of stink. It made me gag it was so strong, and it didn't take long to find out why:The county sewer line (that runs between ours and our neighbor's house) had backed up into our basement.

The entire basement had been flooded.My basement was, literally, four inches deep in crap.

We called the county - who sent out a crew who immediately called a clean-up crew for our basement (at the county's expense). The catch is - by law, anything that has come in contact with raw sewerage (and which can not be disinfected properly) has to be disposed of.

Basically, the entire contents of our basement have to go.

When I got over the initial shock of finding my basement innundated with fecal matter, I started laughing - I couldn't stop! The cleaning crew thought I'd lost it - and my husband had the worried crease between his eyebrows when he looked at me, until I explained to him what was so funny.

"It looks like a not-so-subtle hint from the universe for us to clean up our crap" I sniggered.

Husband opened his mouth - probably to point out (in his practical/logical way) that it was the county's fault for allowing the system to get so clogged, but then he just stood there for a minute with an odd look on his face, then looked at me - and I knew he was thinking about the problems we've been having because he got an odd sort of half smile on his face and said "You know steph, I think you might just be right."