I never did.

Well, I ended up not going to the store. I just wasn't in the proper mood for it and felt like doing other things, so I looked at my supply of milk and decided that I would have to make it last for the weekend. Instead, I washed the covers of the cushions of the sofa and they came out nice and clean and I've already put them back on the sofa too. It was fairly easy to do and not at all the pain in the neck that I thought it would be, so now I am going to do it more often. There's nothing like stainless cushion covers on your sofa.

I had washed the covers on the red and white striped chair already and next are the covers on the black and white chair. That will be next weekend, or maybe tomorrow, I'll see. I've done odd little jobs around the apartment this afternoon and I took a nap also. This was after I discovered that a small tin of mackerel is too much to eat for me, so I can strike that off my grocery list.

In order to recover properly from the after effects of the overdose of mackerel, I had a glass of cold chocolate milk to make me feel better. I do like that very much and I think that despite the diet, this is one item that I will keep buying. It is such a treat and I do make it last long. I usually have a glass before I go to sleep at night, but sometimes don't get around to drinking it, so it still is there in the morning when I wake up, and I drink it all up then and it is such a treat to start the day with. How very decadent of me!

I took all of the plants out of their pots and gave them a good soaking in the kitchen sink. They perked up before my very eyes. One plant I bought was not doing very well. It was loosing all of its leaves every time I touched it, yet growing new leaves where it was loosing the old ones. I have moved it now to the kitchen windowsill and hope that more light will encourage it to do better. Maybe its the kind of plant that ought to come with an instruction booklet and not the kind I should own. I'll see how it does in its new spot among the jars of vitamins.

I just took the Überhund for a walk and you wouldn't believe how nice it was outside. I could have done with just a sweater. The sun has been shining all day and there was no wind and it really did feel like the first day of spring. Kids were playing outside again and that's always a joy to behold. Boys with their footballs and girls on their roller skates. There's lots of room for them to play, as it is a child friendly neighborhood.

It makes me think of when my own kids were that age and the fun they had playing with the kids in our street and how safe they were there. All the kids in the neighborhood went to the same school and they all played together and all of us moms knew one another. We all had each other's phone number. I think we were very privileged living in the neighborhood that we did, because everybody had a large front yard and there was a playground at the end of the street. You always knew where your kids were and if you didn't, you could track them down easily.

Hey, I mustn't get caught up in memories of the past! That chapter is closed and behind me now. I do have to stay in the here and now. It's no good looking back longingly at some things that were and forget the rest, although I do have to say that with my children, these were happy years.

When I was 37 years old, I had a complete burn out and I ran away from home. I took my clothes and my books and left. I left behind a marriage that I should never have gotten into and two teenagers. I didn't have it in me anymore to take care of anything or anybody. I felt as though I liberated myself out of a prison cell. That's how oppressive my life felt to me. I never went back. If you want to know if this was easy, I can only tell you that I was consumed with guilt for an enormously long time afterwards, but I still could not go back. I liberated myself at a terrible price. Not only to me, but to other people as well, but I could never go back.

I don't recommend this course of action to anybody. It was an act of desperation on my part. The only way I knew to get myself free. It was very hard. Your children will suffer and so will you.

You see, now I've gone back into that past anyway and revealed some of it to you. The less appealing part of it. Some parts of your life are forever damaging to your mind. This was one of them.

On to other things more happy. Now I live this life and it is becoming to me. After all that, it turns out that living by myself is the happiest scenario. It turns out that I'm a self sufficient woman who likes her own company. After all that, I know this. It sure took a lot to find this out, but better late than never, right? There's a book called 'A Cabin of my Own' and I read it a long time ago and it had an appeal to me then, but I think I wasn't ready to understand it then, so I should read it again and see how I perceive it now. I will look it up at Bol.com.

I think I was prepared as a child to be married and have children without questioning if that was truely my fate and if it was the right one for me. I think that I was an overanxious mother and that I worried so much about everything that I worried myself into a state of irreversible anxiety. The load became to large to carry. I was too conscious of what I could and did do wrong, giving myself a failing grade at the end. I don't think that motherhood came that naturally to me. It made me overwrought. It hurt me too much.

It's good to have animals. I know what to do with animals. I know how to feed them and pet them and take them out for walks and be kind to them and patient. I don't know how to raise a human being and do a good job. I'm not smart enough for that and I know the pitfalls too well and I don't think that everybody should just go ahead and procreate. We shouldn't take it as a given.

Okay, that's enough self analysis. In the meantime, it has really become evening and it is dark outside. That means I can close the blinds and put on my pajamas and sit on my very clean sofa. I will make myself some Cup a Soup and watch the news.

Have a good evening all of you. Don't get bogged down in your own minds.

Ciao...