Before the morning starts...

I'm up before it's even dawn and no doubt this will necessitate me going back to bed sometime today to sleep some more, but never mind. I do have the time to do that. I have no appointments and no one coming over. It's a free day. I will go back to bed when I feel that I can't stand on my two legs anymore and that I will fall asleep while I'm doing whatever chores I find to do. In the bedroom the radio is softly playing, so I can go back to it whenever I please.

I didn't sleep for a long time. I had to go to the toilet and let Tyke out back and then I was so wide awake that I stayed up. I'm always so full of curiosity and action when I get up at that time. It's like I can't wait to start the day and wait for the sun to come up to shed light on it. I'm too impatient to stay in bed, no matter how nice and comfortable it was in there. I'm definitely an early morning person.

If I had a garden, I would be out there first thing with my cup of coffee and do whatever I could to make it look better. Pinch off dead flowers, remove dead leaves, pick out snails, admire my handiwork. I'm going to fertilize the soil of my flowerbeds next spring and plant shade loving plants there, never mind that Tyke will probably pee on them. I'm an optimist and assume that most of them will survive. I will pick hardy plants that can take a beating.

The peanut butter sandwiches worked out well. I can eat one if I cut off all the crusts and feed those to Tyke who gladly eats them up. One is just enough and then I'm full, but I savor each bite and I can eat again a couple of hours later. I forgot how good peanut butter tastes and how well fresh wheat bread tastes. It's a pure luxury to eat those things and I'm in 7th heaven when I do. I have a glass of cold milk to go with it and it is very good, though I can hardly finish it. The gastric band does restrict me and that's a good thing, because I would have many peanut butter sandwiches if it didn't. I do have a tendency to find my solace in food and now I can't. I just have to be creative with the foods that I can eat and find ways to get full and get my nutrition.

Yesterday afternoon I sat in my armchair by the light of the reading lamp with a tall glass of milk and read my novel. To make myself more comfortable, I had the armrest pillow of the sofa at my side so I could lean against it. I had put a pillowcase around it that fit it perfectly and matched the decor. The pillow is always picking up cat hair and Tyke likes to toss it to the ground so it gets dirty easily. I have to find the matching pillowcase for the other pillow. I'll have to dig into the closet where I'm sure it is. My complimentary colors are red and yellow.

I read my novel and I'm sure caught up in it. There is a terrible secret in it that's bound to be revealed in the end and we are slowly being led to the revelation, but not without there growing a terrible misunderstanding. This evolves out of a sense of shame and madness. Actually, you get the sense that one of the main characters of the book is really a terrible woman and that she must be very mad indeed, but I suppose I will understand it better in the end. I don't feel a lot of compassion for her as yet. She irritates me terribly and I find little excuse for her behavior. But that's me looking at it with my 21st century eyes. The novel takes place in the early part of the 20th century when norms and peoples' motivations were different.

The formation of our government is at risk. That's a good thing because the coalition that's trying to be formed is a very faulty one in my eyes and in the eyes of many other people as well. It would be a coalition to the right with the support of an extreme right party. Now there is some serious backlash from the members of one of the coalition partners who say that you can't seriously govern with that extreme right party and stick to the principles of the constitution. There is a crisis. It seems that nobody, including the queen, ever took the attempt at this coalition seriously and didn't think it would go as far as it did. Unfortunately, power hungry people did and are very eager to rule the country and be prime minister. A dangerous game was played and now we have the almost disastrous results. These are grown up boys playing at politics and seeing themselves as very important people. I think it is very risky and they need to be stopped. I hope and pray for a good outcome.

I seem to have pulled a muscle in my shoulder and it won't stop hurting. I think I need a good massage, but I don't know anybody close by who could give me one. I may try some pain medication and see if that will relax it some, because it tightens up the muscles in my neck too. There's always some ache or pain somewhere in my body. Well no, I shouldn't say that. Sometimes there is. I'm sure everybody else has the same problem. It's just a result of living and being a human being. My back recovered well and I can sit behind the computer again without any problem. I took some pain medication for it and that cleared it up in no time. I will try to do the same thing for my shoulder.

I hope you all have a terrific day with beautiful weather, but rain for those of you who need it badly.

Ciao,
Nora