Being in possession of my good fortune...

The mission that I was on yesterday was a big success. This was because I was well prepared and in the right frame of mind. I also felt very strong and sure of myself and I was pretty convinced that it was going to have a good outcome. The person I was doing it all for also turned out to be more than ready to receive help and was very co-operative and open to all I had to say. She was further along in the process of discovering herself than I had anticipated. It was a pleasant surprise. 

I now feel that I've succeeded at something very important and that a huge step has been made. It is another great beginning to the new year which is looking good so far. I have a very good feeling about 2012 and I think compared to last year, this is going to be a much better one. And I don't mean just for me personally, but for the world as a whole generally. I think women especially are going to play a big role in bringing about change. It started off with the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prizes at the end of last year and will continue into this year.

If I can be accused of anything it's optimism, but I refuse to see the glass nearly empty. That's not at all the state of mind I'm in. 

I'm sitting here with a glass of milk in the middle of the night and I have to think about going back to bed soon because my personal helper is going to be here early in the morning. I do have to get up on time if I want to have a cup of coffee leisurely and get dressed properly. After she's been here, the Exfactor will come to do the groceries. 

I can't think of another thing to add.

I hope you're all sleeping soundly.

Ciao,

Nora

Great and small...

I'm having my second much needed cup of coffee after experiencing serious brain drain when I got up from my nap this afternoon. I slept a little longer than I had intended to, but I must have needed the sleep. As a result, I was a little foggy when I got up and needed the caffeine very much. 

I was reluctant to make a pot of coffee because sometimes my stomach revolts against it and I never know when that is going to be. I sat here bleary eyed and had no other choice but to make one if I wanted to get anything done and be in a good mood. 

Luckily, the coffee was quickly made and the first cup not only agreed with my stomach but also put my mind in working order in no time at all. I was tremendously cheered. I felt that I had triumphed over evil forces and that the goodness of the caffeine was allowed to do its healing work. 

Outside it is raining hard and the wind is whipping it against the windows. I don't think the dog and I will be going for a walk any time soon. The weather has been bad for the past few days and I don't know exactly when it is supposed to improve. I'm hopelessly out of touch with the latest news. I haven't been watching TV at all.

My daughter and her father are on their way back to the States. I'm in the process of getting used to their absence and that will take me a while. I must be careful not to fall into a big hole and I have to hang on to the sense of optimism that I got out of the visit. It did me a lot of good and I feel like a reborn woman.

I have made some resolutions for the new year and I hope I can stick to them. They are not too complicated and some of them are just continuations of ones that I had last year. Others are new and take some effort to get used to as new goals. It's easier to leave everything the way it was, but not wiser. 

There is such a thing called emotional investment and I've decided to do much more of it. In the past I've always been afraid to take the chance in case I got hurt, but now I'm willing to invest. It's going to be a theme throughout my life this whole year and I'm going to put a lot of effort into it. It's not just going to be a hobby that I do on the side. 

The focus will not be on me but on other people. My look will be outwards. I will not be self centered but social. There is enough of me to go around. 

Have a good day, all of you.

Ciao,

Nora

2010 Finally!

I'm so glad it is the new year now and a new decade. I am a firm believer in new beginnings and this really feels like one. Basically, I'm an optimist and I assume the best will happen and that is how I look at this coming year. I assume that good things will happen in it and that whatever happens it will come to a good end, even if it has a less than good beginning. I am bound and determined to see the glass half full, if not completely full at times. I feel there will be no end to the possibilities that will come my way and I will meet every opportunity head on.

Oh, see how brave I sound! I must have something extra in my coffee this morning. I'm full of good intentions and I think that's half the work. I don't know if my willpower will be half as great, but I hope that my courage will not forsake me. I'm chicken little who cries that the sky will come falling down sometimes, but I'm also a brave trooper when it is necessary and I can move mountains if I have to. The cause has to be the right one, that's all.

I wasn't so brave last night when I sat here by myself waiting for it to be midnight. I felt kind of sorry for myself, because there would be nobody to kiss me at midnight when all the fireworks went off. I quickly got over that when I got involved watching a fun program on television and forgot about time passing and before I knew it, it was 12 o'clock and I wished myself a Happy New Year. Then all the fireworks went off and the cats went into hiding and I put on my pajamas and waited to go to bed when things had quieted down again. That took about 45 minutes and the cats reappeared and we all went to bed.

Now it literally is the morning of a brand new day and I'm full of good spirits. Not only is it a brand new day, it is a brand new year and that promises something. I'm very curious to see what will happen in it. I wonder if everybody is as full of good intentions as I am. I suppose people are, you can't help yourself, can you? It is kind of exciting to stand at the beginning of a new decade. People must have all sorts of resolutions, although I don't have any as such to keep myself bound to. I just have a general sort of attitude that I hope to carry far into the new year with me. It's better than having a birthday, because today everybody starts afresh. Today the whole world is one big tribe.

It literally is a load of my mind to start this new year. I feel like I've had a very good session of therapy. I was down in the dumps yesterday and felt unable to write a post. I slept a lot and was very tired all day. The events of the past days had really gotten to me and I felt worn out from them and slightly contaminated, as if I had been in contact with something toxic. I was not proud of my own role in them and as time wore on, I could better see what my own mistakes had been. I could more objectively look at the situation and realize that I had been looking for love in the wrong place. The fact that I allowed myself to look for it is an amazing thing to me, because I thought I had sworn it off and here it was clutching me in its claws again.

Even though I don't think of myself as an unattractive woman, I don't think of myself as someone somebody could fall in love with. I see too many flaws in myself to make that a possibility. I think I'm okay at arm's length, but not any closer than that. It was nice to contemplate the possibility that I was wrong and it awakened a little flame in me and made it grow bigger. Now, obviously, this was awakened by the wrong person, but that was just bad timing. The fact is, that suddenly I felt very female and attractive and I haven't felt that way in a long time. It was nice to have that feeling again, even though it turned out only to be an illusion. It has given me some hope for the future. Maybe some day I will feel this way again and it will be with the right person and it will not be an illusion.

Well, I have to get dressed and walk the dog. He is very impatient. It is -1C outside and cloudy and we are supposed to get some snow.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Ciao,
Nora

It's too early to go to bed.

I was planning on going to bed, but it's really too early to go and it would be slightly ridiculous if I went now. So, instead of that I will write another post and tell you about the amazing paint job I did over the mildewy patches of the living room walls. There, I just told you. No really, I had a nice little can of white paint and a brand new brush and I didn't dribble any paint and very neatly covered up the mildewed patches (of which I don't know the origins) and, as the paint has been drying, the mildewed patches have not reappeared, except for one particularly stubborn spot. I'll slap more paint on there later.

I also keep trying to improve the living room and I found in the junk room a rod iron candle holder for three candles that you hang on the wall. That was just what I needed for one bare spot, but I knew that wall needed screws and I had no drill. But I also remembered that before the last paint job, there had been a hole somewhere in that spot that we had puttied, so I had to try and find it. After a while I did. It was just a little bump and I hammered a nail into it and hung up the candle holder. Then I looked in the junk drawer (every good household has one) and found three matching blue candles and stuck them in and voilà, it was a done deed and it looked nice. I even lit the candles for a while, but then blew them out and decided to save them for a really romantic evening. I am going to have one of those, you know!

Then I got really bold and took a lamp out of the bedroom and added it to a spot beside a chair in the living room, but it was a wrong move and it didn't even grow on me, and I have to take it back to the bedroom when I go there next. Sometimes you want things too much and then you overdo it. It is that way in real life too. Curses!

It's been freezing here and in some places there's an inch of ice on the water. That's not thick enough to skate on, but some daredevils do it anyway. It's going to keep freezing, so by this weekend we should all be able to skate outdoors. Not I, of course, I have no skates. I haven't skated in 30 years and doubt I could do it anymore. That's not at all spoken like a true Dutch woman, because no Dutch woman would say that. Everybody here knows how to skate, it's the law. It's as normal as bike riding. Even the queen knows how to skate. Heck, she even knows how to ski and you don't see the queen of England doing that. Yes, our queen rides horses too. I really shouldn't make a big deal out of that, should I? I mean, why should the queen not know how to skate or ski? She's a normal person of flesh and blood, isn't she? In the end, she's no different than you or me. She's about as royal as my left foot.

The dog's on a diet and is only getting half the food that he was getting. I am buying him some very good dog food, but giving him a little in two portions. He thinks it's fine and loves it and when his bowl is empty he thinks he's had enough. Except for tonight when he went over and in one big vacuuming motion ate all the cat kibbles out of their bowl. I hope he doesn't keep doing that, or I'll have to feed them on the kitchen counter. I do have a small bowl of dried dog food for him, but he is completely ignoring it. He must think eating dried dog food is beneath his dignity. He has to lose 12 lbs at least, but I have to buy him food that he likes to eat, otherwise he'll start begging for his Bonzo bones and those are only for special. He's such a goof ball.

I was sitting here with the blinds wide open letting the whole world see that I'm a woman living all by myself. I guess I always feel safe in this neighborhood, or it is because I have a dog. Little do they know that he is deaf and doesn't even hear the doorbell. It's very convenient that he's deaf when all the fireworks go of at New year's. It's like WWIII broke out, but he doesn't hear it and is not in the least scared. The cats are and go into hiding, the poor things.

Well, my dog thinks it's time to go to bed. He keeps going to the bedroom and coming back here and sighing deeply. I think it has great meaning. I must heed his call.

I hope you will all have a good night and sleep tight.

Ciao,
Nora

The First One...

After I mailed my Christmas cards this afternoon, there was a big envelope in the mail for me from Canada with a calender with my first Christmas card in it. So the Christmas season has really begun for me now. The calender was from Violet Sky, who sent me the Canadian Milk Calender, which has recipes with milk as one of the ingredients in it. I coveted it and she was kind enough to send it to me. It got here just in time, because I needed the month of January to write appointments in.

Now I have a brand new, almost empty year ahead of me and I can't wait to start filling in all the little squares and read all the recipes at the same time and, most likely, try some of them out also. You see how there is temptation in even something as innocent as a calender. I think 2009 is going to be a good year. A tasty year.

I wore my glasses today, after I put my make up on sparingly, but nicely, and then everyone kept looking at me and doing double takes, but mostly nobody could figure out what was different about me. Some people thought I had gotten a haircut, but nobody said, "Oh, you're wearing glasses!" I thought that was interesting and it goes to show you that wearing glasses is really no big deal. People just accept them as being part of you and can't even remember if you always wore them or not, which makes me determined to keep wearing them. It's part of my new style and approach to the world. They are not rose colored, but they could be.

I went to the grocery store to buy more milk and bought stamps for all of the cards and swung by that clothing store to buy another scarf for 5 Euros. I like wearing the green one so much, that I wanted another one in another color. This second one has purple and black and red in it. I know I have things in my closet that will match it. I'll be known as the scarf lady and it will become a whole new hobby of mine, scarf collecting, along with necklace collecting. I can't have it tight around my neck, though. That makes me feel like I'm suffocating, so I drape it loosely.

The Überhund has decided that what he really likes for breakfast, is a bowl of muesli, so I have been giving him one. He eats it up all at once and can't stand having the cats come near, he likes it that much. He is extremely fond of milk and I am assuming it is okay. I give him more muesli than milk, and he just chows it down.

His eyes are also starting to look really good and I think the worst of it is over. They are looking much more normal now. The right eye is still a little cloudy, but it is definitely better than it has been and he sees better too.

I finished another collage at creative therapy today, I worked and worked and suddenly it was done. That was it, there was no more I could do to it. Next month I'll buy two frames and frame it and the other one that I have done already and hang them above my bed. Or hang them above the sofa and hang the ones above the sofa above the bed. I'll see. Whatever colors work best. You always think that the one you finished last is the best one you did. That's the one you are the most fond of. I have already cut images for the next one, I have to find bits of text, but I am going to wait until I have the images down. I want this one to be more whimsical and playful and less structured.

The time passed quickly this morning and before I knew it, it was time to go home, when I could have stayed there for a few more hours. Alas, it is not to be so. Three hours is all we get. Between Christmas and New Year's there is going to be no therapy and I will miss it, but on Friday the 2nd of January, we are all invited to come to a creative therapy class. Thank goodness for that. If I could tell you how much I like creative therapy, I would be a heck of a writer.

It's only 5 o'clock and already it is completely dark out. It makes you think it is much later and that you ought to get your pajamas on. The days go by quickly when I don't get home until 1 PM. I wonder how it is to work from 8 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon.It must be real drudgery, because you spend so many hours away from home and come home tired, with hardly any hours left to do anything interesting. I have admiration for people who do it and hope they love their jobs. Otherwise it is just a sort of slavery to your work and having to go to earn the money because you have to and not because you want to and that must be awful.

Well, I'll find out one of these days, although when I had children, I felt I was on the job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, non stop. Always alert and always patient and always ready to jump in for whatever needed to get done. They don't teach you that in school. Nobody tells you about that. I envied my then husband, who drove off to work in his nice shiny car, in his nice pressed suit and his freshly ironed shirt. Although I am sure that he had his tough days too.

Well, I have to feed the animals. Various ones are staring at me. Sort of hypnotizing me into action. I have to feed myself also. I may just have scrambled eggs. That would be a treat.

I hope you all had a good day and that the world has treated you right. Noli nothis permittere te terere.

Ciao...