At Dawn...

I'm very cozily sitting here with my cup of coffee after having been mightily entertained by Tyke and his tennis ball, which I had to roll across the living room numerous times. Of course, we couldn't make too much noise for fear of waking up the neighbors, but we had a good time anyway as silently as we could. I didn't bounce the ball off the furniture too much.

Yesterday evening I took the big African walking stick and swept it under the sofa and all sorts of things reappeared that Tyke could play with and he's had a good time ever since. I had not realized that so much had disappeared under the sofa. He found a good rawhide bone to chew on too, so he's intermittently been busy with that. I'll be regularly sweeping under the sofa with that big African walking stick now.

Yesterday was a nice enough day and overall I felt content enough for no reason in particular except for the fact that I was alive and well. Sometimes you just count a blessing as simple as that, especially if you've just watched the daytime news and seen the calamities on it. It does make you feel very safe and privileged and you're thankful for the country you live in. Still.

I always like Fridays, because that's when my hardest working domestic help gets here, who takes special pride in really getting the apartment spotless and I'm always so grateful to her for doing that. She always looks at me with a great deal of satisfaction when she's done and it is a wonderful start to the weekend for me. I completely relax in the afternoons, knowing that everything is in order and that all I have to do is pick up well after myself.

I dress with care every day, as if I'm going to meet someone important, and I do it purely for myself so that I will feel good. I decorate myself with something extra if I'm in the mood. A necklace or a scarf. Usually I'm in the mood. I check myself in two mirrors. The bathroom mirror and the long mirror of the closet door. Both of them show me in kindly light and hide my imperfections and that is fine with me. I don't need to be closely scrutinized by myself. I pretend the world sees me in the same way.

My sister gave me two English language books. They're both literature and a little hard to get through, she found. That means they're going to be a challenge and I like challenges. I like it when I have to pay attention to a novel and really have to make an effort. When I'm not just reading for relaxation, but also to use my head and figure out harder to understand concepts. The books are "A Woman of Salt" by Mary Potter Engel and "Unconfessed"by Yvette Christiansë.

At the rate I'm amassing books, I'm not going to run out of anything to read for a while. I've still got about 40 unread novels. I'll read them in due time if I don't get side tracked by something else. I'm really into thrillers right now and there is the lure of another Inspector Linley. I'm perfectly willing to be completely surprised by their outcomes. I read them purely for pleasure and I don't necessarily have to know ahead of time who the perpetrator is, although it's nice to speculate.

I'm going to eat breakfast and go back to bed for awhile. I just stood by the back door and I'm cold now. I'm looking forward to getting under the duvet where it is nice and warm. It's the best way to start a Saturday.

Have a good day.

Ciao,
Nora

A rainy Friday...

It is fairly early in the morning still and it has rained already. I think it rained during the night too. I have the back door open and could hear the birds welcome the day. It smells good outside, like springtime should, but that could all be in my fruitful imagination, because it is that time of year. When you hear the birds sing like that, you automatically start thinking along those lines.

Tyke has been running in and out and thinks he is having great adventures. He comes in quite excited and then plops down to go to sleep. I think he is just chasing cats that can climb fences and frustrate him and maybe the occasional bird. Oh, he just came to get me. Apparently he can't poop end pee without me watching him. I'm so honored.

I slept very well last night. I climbed under the covers and was asleep within a minute. I slept for 8 hours and could have slept more, but I felt like getting up. There may be a nap later in the day, though, now that I know it doesn't interfere with my night rest and now that I have decent decaf to drink. Welbutrin is supposed to cause you insomnia, but that has not been my experience. What causes me insomnia is coffee.

I just had my breakfast of Brie and a glass of cold milk. I'm still drinking the milk. This morning I had lost 5.2 kg, that's about 11.5 lbs.

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I suddenly found myself so sleepy that I had to shut down the computer and go back to bed where I slept another 2 hours. I'm in the process of waking up now with another cup of coffee. I hope I'm successful, otherwise I'll have to go back to bed and it will be so boring for the dog, who's now looking out the window for people and dogs to bark at.

About the weight loss. I had said I would not weigh myself compulsively, but I find that I go on the scale almost every morning now. Just like I used to do when I was losing massive amounts of weight, so it is becoming a big deal to me and I want to keep track of it daily, so that I know I am losing weight and not unknowingly gaining any. Yeah right, it's becoming compulsive behavior, but I think it is very understandable and forgive myself for it. There are worse habits to have and I only have 12 kg to go. At this rate, it will take me 6 weeks. That's why I'm so excited.

Okay, I have sufficiently calmed down now and will write about something else. Tyke had found a book that had slipped under the bed and has torn it to pieces during the night. It is another fine mess for me to clean up. He had much fun chewing on the cover and spitting out the pieces. If he had hands, I would make him clean it up himself, but then again, he doesn't have the sense that God gave him either. He's more like a very inept small child that's just out of it's Pampers. Every time I think he's done destroying things, he finds something to tear apart. That's why I don't go to bed with a book and my reading glasses. I'll fall asleep with them in place and wake up to a disaster. If you'll remember, he's already destroyed one pair of reading glasses.

Now all I have to say is, "It's my monkey," and he grabs his monkey and keeps it just out of reach of me until I manage to grab it anyway and then we have a tug of war which I let him win. "How to amuse your dog and play other boring games with him. A handy guide book in 10 chapters, illustrated with very interesting photographs.Published by Reader's Digest."

Oh, I just found out that I have a choice of languages now to write in and have a spell check for. Well, that sure simplifies my life. Now I don't have to keep rereading the text for stupid mistakes. I can also point my mouse to an English word and it gives me the translation in Dutch, which is interesting and not always to my agreement, but then nobody asked me first. I think they should have.

Before, it would only spell check in Dutch and, of course, it was underlining every word and giving me Dutch words to put down instead. Now it's reading the text in American English. It gave me that option, so the dictionary must have installed itself anyway. They just assume you'll figure out all these things by yourself, which I did, quite by accident. Maybe I'm a dumb blond after all.

Well, it's time to do something else besides sit here and write posts, though what it could be I have no idea. Well yes, there are several options when I really think about it. None are really urgent, though, but not many things in my life are. They are things I ought to do.

Have a great day. It's still raining on and off here.

Ciao,
Nora

As is usual....

As is usual, I find myself wide a wake again in the middle of the night and this time I was up very early because of the time I went to bed. It was just after 8 pm when I crawled under the covers with my book. I don't know what it is, but lately I have not felt like staying up at night and I have felt like getting into bed early and I look forward to that very much. It is always my plan to read for a long time, but I fall asleep fairly soon. Unfortunately, I wake up 4 or 5 hours later, ready to see some action. That means turning on the computer and reading any emails that are there and answering those and downloading photographs from Foxsaver for my blog, amongst other things. I have to look through a lot of photographs to find the ones I like and even then I'm in doubt and after a while I can't see the forest for the trees and I have to stop searching.

The book I'm reading, "Sullivan's Island," is so different than "Prodigal Summer," that it is taking me some effort to get into it. I'm not taking it quite seriously and I think I have to regard it as 'light' reading. I'm going to persist and read it and not put it aside as being unworthy of being read, but it's not the kind of book I was in the mood for reading. I wanted more of an intellectual challenge and this one is too easy coming after "Prodigal Summer." I hate to leave a book unfinished, though, because it may be good in its own right, in spite of the fact that I'm not in the right mood for it. It got good reviews, so there must be some merit to it. I guess I'm a very picky reader.

Jesker and I very slowly and carefully took a little walk last night. It took him some effort and he drank a lot of water when we got home. He did eat three slices of salami, one with a pill in it, so that was something. He didn't eat the Bonzo bone that I gave him. He took that in his mouth and dropped it. I tried to give him some of his regular food, but he's not interested. He's lost a lot of weight, but he can stand it and is now starting to look like a normal sized dog.

Well, I'm off to eat some breakfast and then I'm going to tackle that book again in my bed. Hopefully I'll be fascinated by it this time. Brrr... it's cold. It's -3C outside.

Have a good morning!

Ciao,
Nora

Second Christmas Day.

It's officially another holiday, but I'm not going to let that bother me and finish up with the chores I have to do. But that's for later. Right now I'm sitting here with my cup of coffee and cigarettes slowly letting the day come to a start, not sure if I am willing and able to. It's always a question if I want to get the show on the road this early in the morning or if I want to go back to bed and sleep some more. I think sleeping some more will win out in the end. I feel in my bones that there are several hours of it left in me. So, I will eat breakfast shortly and climb back into bed. The dog will have to do with a piddle out back, because I'm not getting dressed yet. I mustn't even think about being outside yet, where it is a chilly 2C and even though it isn't freezing, that's quite cold enough for me.

I have slept well, and with the exception of having to get up once, I slept through the night and I went to bed on time too. These mini expeditions to the bathroom take place in a half awake situation and I barely open my eyes. I don't even know if I turn on all the lights to get there and I'm sound asleep again before I'm even under the covers again. I always have my little reading light on and when I go back to bed, I turn it off and the only light in the room is from the lighted branches in the vase on my bookshelf. The ones I've decorated for Christmas. This makes it quite cozy in the room and I like to fall asleep in the dim light of it.

I could have gotten a little Christmas tree to put on the dresser in the living room. I had the decorations and the lights for it, but then I thought about it drying out and the needles falling on the ground and I just thought, "No, I don't want to deal with that aggravation." I'm really not that into Christmas that very much, although I've enjoyed receiving the cards. I don't believe in the biblical story, so I don't celebrate it for that reason, but I appreciate the fact that in the middle of winter people want to have a festival of lights and good foods. It's just too bad that it gets so commercialized, although it's not as bad here, because we don't as a rule give gifts at this time of the year. Still, there's a mad rush of shopping to get all thess enormous amounts of food in the house. And drinks not to forget. Yet, I must not begrudge people their happiness at wanting to celebrate in style in the middle of these dreary days and make something special out of it.

In the meantime, I'm stuck with about 12 Christmas stamps that I hope to be able to use on my regular mail after Christmas, although they are less in value. I'm sure the post office will allow it, because they must realize that you have to use them up. They sell them in sheets of 20 stamps and there was no way I was going to use all of them. Unless I suddenly get more cards from people I have forgotten. Most of my cards went outside the country. It shows you that I know more foreigners than I do Dutch people, at least those I exchange Christmas cards with. I wrote two more cards yesterday and those I will stick in the mailbox today, although they will get at their point of arrival too late. It's the thought that counts.

Now I must go back to bed, because I'm getting sleepy again. I will be so nice to get under the duvet again and to sleep some more. It will be just what the doctor ordered.

I hope you all have a good day. It's Boxing day in England, isn't it? Isn't that when everybody goes to the stores to exchange their presents? The same should be happening in the States.

Ciao,
Nora

Christmas Eve

I slept well last night, about 9 hours, which is not bad when you consider I went to bed early too. I was in bed by 9:30 pm and asleep a short time after that. When I got up this morning, I was not quite done sleeping, but I had to get up on time and be functioning, because my sister and I were going grocery shopping early to avoid the crowds. Well, the whole neighborhood must have had the same idea, because there was already a crowd when we got there. So, we got our trolleys and split up and did our shopping and met again at the cash registers. I thought I had spent too much money, but the total wasn't as bad as I had anticipated, which was a relief. I had bought some extras because of the holidays, because you do have to get into the swing of things a little bit and I had to buy food for Joost, who is going to be here the day after Christmas. He does have a healthy appetite.

After I got home and had unloaded everything, and had eaten breakfast, I went back to bed and slept for another two hours, because I just couldn't wait to do that and while I was waiting for my sister to come and pick me up earlier, I had almost fallen asleep on the sofa. I think it's because I'm back on my old dose of antipsychotics again, but I'd rather be sleepy than paranoid and, let's face it, that's what I was yesterday. As a matter of fact, I just had to call for a new recipe for them, because I didn't realize I was almost out of them and I got my psychiatrist on the line and I told him I was taking three tablets and he didn't complain about it or protest. He's leaving it up to me, which I think is pretty decent of him. I do have to learn my own lessons, after all, and not climb in the phone to him every time something is wrong.

So, today I have to finish cleaning the apartment. I have to get on my knees and scrub the kitchen floor, especially the area where the animals always eat. It's pretty messy there. You can tell it has not been cleaned for awhile. I've got a great scrub sponge, though, that works wonders. It and a little elbow grease will take care of it. Plus lots of sudsy warm water, of course. I'm a great believer in that and it feels good to put your hands in.

I also have to walk the dog again and I hope he forgets it for just a while, because I'm not quite ready yet. I'd like one more cup of coffee before I really get started. I so need that. And I would like to drink a tall glass of juice, because I'm very thirsty, so I suppose I'll have that first.

I just noticed that a cat barfed under the coffee table, so that will be my first clean up job. Oh, aren't I lucky? Fortunately, I have lots of paper towels.

I am most definitely not in the same mood I was in yesterday and I can only assume it is because of the medication and it seems to me that I have tried to do with less before and that it didn't work out then either. I said at the time, that I would never decrease the amount again, but for some reason I had forgotten that or I thought it was necessary. I must remember not to do this, but to stick to this dose no matter what. Even if it does make me sleepy and a bit flat emotionally. It is preferable to how I felt yesterday, which was just awful and not at all the way I would want to go through life. I seemed to have forgotten my common sense and my optimism and I could only see the dark side of things and be suspicious of everything and everybody. What sort of an attitude is that?

Well, I must end this now. All sorts of duties call me. I'm sitting on the edge of my seat getting ready to do them.

Have a good day!

Ciao,
Nora

Frittering away the time.

I've managed to fritter away the day doing I don't know what. Yes, doing all sorts of inconsequential things that didn't add up to anything worthwhile. At least, it doesn't leave me with a lot to show for. After I walked the dog this morning in the slushy snow, which was cold and wet, I ate breakfast and went back to bed and slept another three hours, which was wonderful and I'm convinced I needed it, because when I woke up, I felt great and ever so ready to enjoy the rest of the day. Of course, I started it off by turning on the computer and reading my emails.

Mistake # 1. Never turn on your computer at a random time, because you will get stuck there in the middle of the day and forget to do other things that are more important. I did remember to get dressed, which is good, because the mailman rang the doorbell with a package for me and I did have my clothes on and that was doubly good, because a while later the Exfactor showed up for coffee and a chat. I would hate to have him see me in leggings and a T-shirt. We're past that stage of intimacy.

He stayed for quite awhile and that took a big bite out of my afternoon and then I still had to walk the dog in the slushy snow. My boots have gotten wet and need drying out, but I keep wearing them, because I'm not feeling anything in my toes that's indicating cold or wetness, unless the feeling has gone out of them completely. I probably have wet socks and don't even realize it. After I walk the dog for the last time, I will take them off and put them on a radiator and let them dry properly. The Exfactor brought some cable holders to tack the cable of the computer to the baseboards with, but not enough, so I need to go to the hardware store to buy more.

I must make a list of things I have to buy before the year is out. It's adding up in my head, but I'm bound to forget something now, as there are too many items on it. I will sit down shortly and start writing that list.

The package I got from the mailman contained a book that wouldn't fit through the mailbox slot, but when I got the mail out of the mailbox, there was another book there and some Christmas cards, bringing the total to 13. I do hope I get more than that...

Eventually I remembered my wet laundry hanging out on the clothesline and brought it all in and put it in the washing machine for the spin cycle. It's done now and I can hang it up to dry shortly. Mistake # 2, don't hang up your laundry outside to dry when it's wintertime and it has been snowing and it may rain soon. Mistake # 3, don't trust the weather forecast on your computer.

Well, I have so little to show for my day, it's just outrageous. I did all these little things that are not worth mentioning. If you sleep half of the day and spend another chunk visiting with you ex, it takes care of a good portion of it. I also find myself tired now and I don't know why that is. I'm very much looking forward to going to bed and pulling the duvet over my head. It can be that visiting with the Exfactor has exhausted me. Who knows what sort of subliminal things take place while we meet? Maybe it wears me out.

I think I will hang up the laundry now and then walk the dog and have something to eat. Hey, this was supposed to be an upbeat post, but I 'm ending it in a minor mood. I'm just very tired suddenly. Have a wonderful evening.

Ciao,
Nora