At the Ranch.

It's been a long and happy day at the ranch and its outlying grazing grounds. Well actually, it isn't really over yet, but I'm pretending that it is and I'm calling it a day, although I may have to take the dog for one more walk. It will be a sauntering jaunt around the inner circle of the property, though. Yeah, as if those green fields belong to me only and not to the whole darn neighborhood. Well, I can pretend I'm the owner and cast a proud eye on the clover and the buttercups that grow so sprightly in the grass. Hell, I can pretend anything I want, as long as I don't share it with too many people. They may start having doubts about the soundness of my mind.

In between everything else I've done today, I've decorated my bedroom and made it a place of my own, which I had never done with the other bedroom. I got all the things I cared about the most together and artfully arranged them on the shelves of the white bookcase and on the shelves of the wooden shelf system that stayed in my room and was the nicest and sturdiest one, which I found out after the Exfactor and I unloaded the thing. I know a good deal when I see it and how to confiscate something worth while.

I have Aims' bear and Tessa's print and all the other things that are precious to me, plus lots of framed photographs of the kids and the grandson. The Exfactor hung up my two big framed movie posters and I hung up four small framed collages that you haven't seen and I made a long time ago. Then I sat down in one of the rattan chairs and had a good look around and was satisfied. The walls badly need a coat of paint, but I'm very good at ignoring that for now. I look past that and at the things I like. Home sweet home.

I got up bright and early this morning and was in the shower by 7 am. I finally figured out how to get the shower head to point in the proper direction and it was actually very simple once you knew how and very obvious. I saw a knob which I turned and that did the trick. Surprisingly enough, the Exfactor with his mechanical brain had not figured this out, so I beat him to it. Women so rule!

Since it promised to be a hot day, I only wore my jeans skirt and a tank top and my ballerina slippers. I actually let people look at my bare legs, but they weren't as milk bottle white as I had feared. I have seen worse. It was hot all day long and then at the end of the afternoon, there was one roll of thunder and two and a half drops of rain fell out of the sky and that was it. Now the sun is shining again. That was the thunder storm that was promised.

I had creative therapy this morning and someone convinced me to just take a block of clay and no example, and to just start creating with no preconceived idea in my head. I thought that was going to be awfully hard, but I went ahead and stuck the clay vertically on a pin and start manipulating it until slowly an idea started to form and it is taking better shape as I am working with it and will change some more as I go along. Something is emerging and it is starting to look African, but at this point, anything is possible.

So, I did not want it to be break time and I did not want the morning to end, but it did and I had to go home to the ranch where my animals waited for me. My trusty dog had been asleep in the bedroom on his pillow, because his blanket was in the washing machine. I think it's so cute that he slept in my bedroom while I was gone. It's a little bit his bedroom too, which reminds me that I have to put his picture up also. He's been especially close to me today and hasn't been gone from my side whenever I'm home, even forsaking his food when I wasn't close enough so that he could see me.

The Exfactor came over shortly after I came home and we tackled the shelf system and packed the stuff that was his in boxes. He also brought me a small box with assorted nails and screws and hooks and I already have a hammer and two screwdrivers and a measuring tape. That's how I came to hang the collages on my own on a wall that was soft enough to hammer nails in. I would like some more tools, so I guess I'll ask for a power drill for my birthday. It's handy when you live on a ranch to have power tools. I should get a real strong drill for these hard walls.

After he left, I jazzed up the room and then I had to leave again for my Patient Evaluation Meeting with my SPN and all the therapists from my activities. The purpose is to reassess your goals and assess your progress and what there is left to do and everybody gets to have some input, including me.

I was very worried, because the new policy states that patients ought to finish their course of treatment in 9 to 12 months and I have been there 11 months. I was ready to hear that my time was going to be up. However, I get another 4 months and then a decision will be made at the next evaluation and if it is decided that I have reached my goal, I will still be given 2 months to finish. During that time, everybody will help me figure out what I will do next and help me get there. Nobody tell me that I live in the wrong country when it comes to care for psychologically disabled people (for lack of a better term).

I am very much relieved, because I know I'm on the right track and I'm learning things and I'm catching on and they notice that I am, so they know the treatment works. We are getting somewhere, we are getting results.

My SPN is a great one. She always puts me in such good daylight and even brings my lesser periods in a positive way. She such an assertive person and I can really trust her to take care of my interests. It was a lucky day, the day I met her.

So, when I finally came home, being rained on by those two and a half drops of rain, I didn't feel like going to the store anymore to buy the multi vitamin juice I like so much or the dog food that the dog likes so much. I will have to find time tomorrow, when I have another two creative classes and an appointment with my SPN. This creative class is the one in which I'm now doodling and I can't wait to finish the one I'm working on and start a new one, but I have to be patient and not rush things and do everything properly until it's truly done. No short cuts on the ranch.

That just about really and truly brings me to the end of this ramble. I feel like I've had my daily talk with you, although there's not one particular person I have in mind when I'm writing down all these things. Just a general audience, I guess. Whoever is out there and willing to read. Being out on the ranch now, I feel like I'm talking like a cowboy with a twang and maybe you should read it that way too. Makes it real authentic.

Well, bye for now, hope you all have a good evening.

Ciao...