As you were...

It's late at night and I'm sitting here slightly drowsy, but not enough to go to sleep. Actually, I may be too agitated to go to sleep and I may want to enjoy the quiet hours of the night more than lying in bed. I have also been known to have a stubborn streak, because I did lie in bed for about an hour and decided to get up again because I was bored and not patient enough to wait for sleep.

There's nothing worse than lying in bed and staring at the ceiling while you can't fall asleep. I was not serene enough to keep lying there. I petted Tyke to pass the time, but that was boring after a while too. There's only so much attention you can give to a dog before you grow tired of it and want to do something else. I decided to get up and pass the time behind the computer until I was good and tired. 

I watched some entertaining television and went to bed late thinking that would do the job of putting me to sleep soon. Apparently this did not work. I had my head full of impressions and it would have been better if I had sat quietly in my armchair and had read my book. I must remember that for the next time. Television can be a great agitator and it takes a while to get over it. You really need some peace and quiet after you've watched it. 

I passed the time very quietly today and did nothing out of the ordinary. I walked Tyke three times and would have walked him more often, but we ran out of time and daylight. I did walk him after dinner when it was already dark, but that's the latest I take him out and I stick to the most familiar streets. I'm not very brave at night. The later it gets, the less brave I am.

I hardly had any chores to do today and I didn't really go looking for them. I figured that it was Sunday and that I didn't really need to do any. I did the little bit that was necessary and called it quits. I spent some time taking a nap that I had not planned on. It took me by surprise as I thought I had gotten enough sleep the night before. I never know when my unpredictable mind needs more of it. 

I was supposed to have gone to see my sister today, but I never did get around to that, so I had to call and cancel. That's the first time I've done that. I wasn't really looking forward to riding my bike over there with my bum knee and the nap got in the way. I think I was forgiven. There will be another day to go over there. I was feeling very much like hibernating today and not coming out of my cave too much. That's typical for a Sunday, especially if it's a dreary one like it was today.

I do feel like I wasted a large portion of the day doing nothing much of anything, but I'm not going to feel bad about it. I did watch one political program and I do feel that I got better informed because of it, so my mind was fed a little bit. I would watch more of them, but on Sundays it's mostly sports that are on during the day. I am getting quite informed about them. I can even stand the post-discussions about the various football games, as long as they have intelligent people doing them. I don't like a lot of hype and excitement. 

For a single, middle aged woman, I watch a lot of football. I don't know if I would watch as much football if I were attached to a man person. I enjoy watching it on my own and providing my own commentary about the different plays and penalties and discussions about schwalbes. I haven't picked a team that I'm especially a fan of, though I seem to root for the underdog a lot. I also don't have a favorite player yet. I will be following what the national team is doing closely. 

I have to mentally prepare myself for tomorrow when the personal helper and the domestic help will be here. They will help me pass the time of day, so that will be good. They're good for a diversion. My personal helper is good to talk to and we usually find some subjects to discuss. I do lose a bit of my privacy, but that's a small price to pay for the company and a clean apartment. The domestic help always stays and talks too. She tells me about her boys and I always have tears of laughter when she tells me about their shenanigans. They are quite a handful. 

I will end this post because it's gotten quite long enough. I can sit here and ramble on all night long, but there comes a time to stop. I'm not quite sleepy enough yet to go to bed, so I'll have to amuse myself a while longer. No doubt I'll find a way.

Sleep tight and have a good morning.

Ciao,

Nora

Climbing to the top....

It's early in the morning again. I've had my cup of coffee and answered my emails. It's with great pleasure that I do. It keeps me in touch with so many people. Tyke is lying by my feet after thinking initially that great things were going to happen when we got up. He had to go out and be petted and have a rawhide bone and be fed and be petted some more, but now he's settled down again. I guess he realized it was to early to really start the day. I'm not quite ready for that yet. I do need some more coffee before I'm completely functioning.

So, I've just made myself another cup and I'm ready for a good chat about nothing important at all. That has to be possible too. I suppose I will just rattle on about whatever comes up in my head and tell you about that. My coffee tastes very good and strong and it is a joy to drink. It puts hair on your chest, although in my case that's not the required effect. It would look funny, all that chest hair sticking out above my bra. Nevertheless, the coffee packs a punch. Besides, even with men the smooth look is in and men aren't supposed to have chest hair now. I wonder if George Clooney does? I'm not that intimate with him. Somebody inform me.

Today I have a busy day. The Exfactor is going to get here first. He called me on the phone yesterday and asked me if I would need anything at the store and I said, "Well, now that you mention it, I do have a craving for ice cream." That made him laugh wickedly and he said that he would see what he could do about that. I want chocolate covered ice creams and regular ice cream in a box. Vanilla. I don't care for any other flavor and when I'm next in town, I'm going to the ice cream parlor and having myself an ice cream sundae. It's not summertime unless you've had ice cream. That will hopefully take care of my craving. I'll have an overdose of it.

After that my personal helper is going to be here and she's not going to be pleased with me, because I didn't clean out those dresser drawers like I said I would. I spent too much of my daytime hours sleeping. Maybe it's a job we can do together. I'll ask her and see how she reacts to that. I have no, I can always get yes. We are really supposed to go to the post office to mail a package, but the Exfactor can do that instead and that will give us time to clean out the drawers. See, I have it all planned. My evilly scheming mind has it all worked out.

Before she's gone, my domestic help will be here and that will be most pleasant, because the apartment always smells so good after it has been cleaned and, of course, it looks good too, though I have to say that I've been keeping it in good shape and hardly dirty it. I do clean up after myself. There's hardly enough work for two people, two hours a week each. I need to be messier than I am. I have to do the dishes this morning and make my bed, but that is about it.

There was a World Cup match on between the Netherlands and Cameroon last night,but I didn't watch it. I'm a bad Dutch person. I watched Dalziel and Pascoe instead, which to me was much more exciting. I do know that the Netherlands won 2-1, which is not a great score. There are detective series on one of the other channels as long as the World Cup is on. There was an Inspector Linley the night before last. I guess I'm really not that thrilled about football after all, though I do care about the score. I think they can manage that without me watching. I don't think I'm denying myself any great pleasures.

I've got to take a shower and wash my hair which is sticky with hairspray. This morning it was plastered to my head on one side. It's always a real trick to get it back in shape after I've washed it, it's so soft and fine. I don't like to wait until my personal helper gets here to shower. I like to do this job on my own, as I'm quite capable of it and I do want to pick out my clothes carefully. I suppose I will not be wearing any leggings today because they will be too warm. That means I will wear my black jeans skirt with a tank top and a bolero top over it with short sleeves. I do want to cover my arms a little bit. I have too many scars on them to leave them completely uncovered. I wonder what the sun and vitamin E would do for my arms?

Right, it's time to get going. I hope you all have a lovely day. I know I'm going to have lovely weather. I hope you do too.

Ciao,
Nora

Cleavage!

The first thing I did this morning after I wrote my post, was pay the bills. This was less of a stressful job than I had anticipated (it always is) and I was done quickly. I pay them all on line, so it is easy to do. I was able to pay back a loan, so that made me feel real good. It's always nice when you don't have that hanging over your head anymore.

I was feeling tired despite my efforts to stay awake and to want to do chores. I made myself a cup of coffee but it was all in vain. I had to go back to bed. Just as I was about to, the package of clothes arrived. I was so tired that I didn't even open it, but put it down on the chair in my bedroom and went sound to sleep.

I woke up at noontime from the telephone ringing. It was my sister who wanted to go take the dogs for a walk. I said I was not coherent yet and that I would call her back and smoked a cigarette. Then I opened the package with clothes and got dressed. I tried on a bra first and it fit well and to my great pleasure, I had cleavage. That's what you get when you have the right cup size. I tried on one of the sundresses and it fit too and showed my cleavage really well. Lol.

I put on leggings and a cardigan and my boots and was ready to go. I called my sister and told her so. We met in the street and went for a walk. It was cold outside and there were dark gray clouds overhead. We didn't wander too far from home, because it really looked threatening. We were walking around the field in front of her house when the first splatters of rain came down and we hurried home as quick as we could. I had to drag Tyke with me because he wanted to stop and sniff everywhere.

When we got home, it was just about time for the match between the Netherlands and Japan, so I watched that. It was okay, nothing really noteworthy and the Netherlands won with 1-0. I keep getting ready to see some very exciting football, but I'm not seeing it. I probably have my hopes up too much. People were making all sorts of predictions about the outcome, but 1-0 is really a meager score. You'd think the Netherlands could do better than that.

After the game, I fell asleep on the sofa and slept for a few hours. Tyke slept on the other end. I don't know what it is with me and sleeping lately, but I can't seem to get enough of it. I've heard, though, that more people are bothered by it, so it may have something to do with the weather. The cold dreariness may make us want to hibernate.

Of course, I haven't done a thing in the apartment. All of my chores are left undone. Do I care? Not very much, but I have to get them done tomorrow. The place has to be in good shape when the domestic help gets here Monday afternoon. I don't want her to think that I'm a messy person. She probably already thinks that after cleaning up my dirty apartment. I do want to make a good second impression. I don't want her to think that I'm a hopeless case.

I'm already looking forward to going to bed in a few hours. I can't wait to get under the covers. I probably will change the sheets before I get in, because it will be so nice and clean and good smelling. That will make going to bed extra special. I hope I sleep for a long time. I will get my pajamas and bathrobe on in a minute and hang out behind the computer for a while. I have to visit blogs and answer emails.

Have a good rest of the evening or rest of the day. It is dry here now, but there are many threatening clouds. It's kind of cozy inside.

Ciao,
Nora

Later in the day...

Very early in the morning I took a shower and fixed my hair into a punk style hairdo with a lot of hairspray. I picked out my clothes for the day. Several layers to be nice and warm and one of them was the long sleeved flowered dress that I hadn't worn for a long time. It fit me great and I wore a black sweater over it with a very low cut V-neck so the dress showed up well.

It was a good thing I wore several layers and my leather jacket, because when I took Tyke out at 6 am for his walk, it was cold outside and my scarf was not a luxury item. We made a longer walk and enjoyed the peace and quiet of the early morning. Hardly anyone was out there but a little traffic and some newspaper delivery people. We didn't meet one other dog and his owner.

Tyke likes this walk, because it takes us past the white horse in his meadow and Tyke is fascinated and scared of it at the same time. We always stop and look at it and usually the horse walks up to the fence to greet Tyke. Tyke is very weary of him and to hide his fear he ends up barking at him, at which point we promptly leave so as not to wake up the whole neighborhood. It's quite a bit of excitement.

Then we reach a stretch of grass where everybody must walk their dog, because I can't get Tyke away from there and he pulls at the leash if I try to move him from a particular interesting spot and there are many spots like it. It's a battle that eventually I win by persistence. You wouldn't think that a 13 kilo dog had so much strength in him.

When we got home, I turned on the computer because I had to order some new bras because of my weight loss. I had become less endowed. This doesn't bother me, but I do want to fit well in my bras. It looks ridiculous if they are too big. I found the right ones in the right size and I also found a set of two sundresses in two different prints for a good price and ordered those as well. I can wear cardigans and leggings with them, or sweaters on top. I ordered them in a smaller size than the rest of my clothes are, figuring I am ready for that. My other clothes are getting too big.

Then I laid down on the sofa and took a little nap. Just for an hour to get over the worst of my momentary dip. That's all I needed and when I woke up I was completely over it again. I felt fine and did some chores. Mostly decluttering the kitchen and the living room and taking care of the trash.

Then Toby managed to knock over a dining chair and it knocked over the plant stand which caused the plant to fall on the floor. The plant landed upside down and the pot broke. I said, "Bravo, Toby, you did a good job. Encore!" I swept up the shards and the dirt and found a different pot to put the plant in. Luckily I had one and this one won't break because it's made of aluminum. The plant doesn't look too bad and I think it's going to be okay. It did make me realize that I had over watered it and that I need to let it dry out, so it was good for something.

The personal helper got here and she had gotten a haircut which made her look a lot younger. I told her so and I must say that a good haircut can do wonders. We sat and talked for a while about how the week had gone and then took Tyke for a long walk through the next neighborhood. Tyke and I walk quickly, I realized, and she had a hard time keeping up. It wasn't warm outside, so it was pleasant to go for a walk and I could have gone much further than the 50 minutes that we walked, but we weren't wearing the right shoes for it. We'll go for an hour the next time.

Shortly after she left, the Exfactor got here. I was watching Germany play Serbia in the World Cup and it was an interesting game. We watched it while we talked, because we're not that fanatic. We didn't miss any of the exciting parts, besides, there were repeats immediately. There were many yellow cards and one red one, all deserved. Serbia won. Germany didn't start to play well until the second half when Serbia defended very well. Tomorrow The Netherlands play Japan in the afternoon. I will be watching and commentating.

I made a deal with my personal helper that I would clean out some of the dresser drawers and organize my photographs that are in there somewhere. Most likely I will be doing that this weekend. I'm looking for the last photographs I have of my son. I was going to show them to her today, but couldn't find them because the drawers are so unorganized. That's terrible. I must get some order into them. I will get a trash bag and throw away everything that is obsolete and useless. I will show no mercy.

It isn't cold in the apartment, but it feels as though it is. I still have the windows open at the top, but there's not much of a draft. Still, my feet are cold and I should put on some warm socks. There are kids playing outside without their jackets on and I wonder if they are confused or if I am. I could have sworn it wasn't warm enough.

Alright, I will see if I can catch the latest political news anywhere. Attempts at coalition forming are still going on and it's starting to look very interesting. We may become much less right oriented than was originally feared.

Have a good rest of the day.

Ciao,
Nora

One more for the road.

I've just written a post, but I thought I would start writing another one and see where it would take me. In reality I'm just a bit bored and don't want to do any of the things that I could be doing, like the ironing. Besides, who wants to do the ironing with a sore thumb? I really could if I had to, but I don't know if I'm quite in the mood for it this time of the day. The afternoon is just about over and the news will be on in an hour. Of course, that's a perfect time to do the ironing, so I'm just making excuses. I'll tell you what. I'll do the ironing tomorrow when I don't have anything better to do. When I've run out of excuses.

With Tyke's help I managed to eat a small apple. Tyke had three bites and I had the rest, not counting the fact that I left a large core that I could have cut down some more. I didn't know dogs liked apples. I've never seen a dog eat one. Tyke looked for more when I had thrown the core in the trash. He looked mighty disappointed when he saw it was all gone. He does try to drink my coffee and my lemonade, so maybe he has strange tastes for a dog. The apple tasted good and my little stomach could just handle it. One bite more would have been too much, so it's a good thing that Tyke liked it too. I'm going to be living on apples for a while now.

I took Tyke for another walk, because he was begging for it. He was sitting in the arm chair and breathing down my neck again. I guess he's figured out that it's the best way to get my attention. He grumbles in my ear very gently and won't stop. That's his way of telling me that we really need to go now and that I need to get up off that chair. It's funny how he figures these things out on his own and the fact that he needs to "talk" to me to get me going. He's a pretty smart dog. On our walk we saw other dogs, but none of them came close enough for a proper greeting, so Tyke was very disappointed and sat on his rear end watching them disappear down the street. I always feel sorry for him when that happens. I want to call those dogs back to us and have them at least greet Tyke. Just to make him a little happy. I know, I'm an overprotective "mom."

I wear my sunglasses when I go outside and it's a bright day. I do it so I won't squint and get wrinkles by my eyes. So far I hardly have any and I want to keep it that way. I forget I have them on when I go back inside and wonder why I can't see a thing when I try to open my front door in the stairwell entry with my key. It slowly dawns on me that I'm wearing my sunglasses and that's why. I want to buy myself a really good pair, but I need to find a lost wallet with a lot of money in it first and borrow some. If there's no identification in it, I'm keeping it. I figure that's drugs money. Anyway, then I can get a decent pair of sunglasses instead of this pair from the lost and found at the film house. I want to look like a movie star too.

I'm a bit sleepy. Last night I went to bed at 8 pm and I woke up at nearly 4 am. I decided I wasn't quite awake enough yet and went back to bed at 6:30 am and slept until 8 am when the alarm clock awakened me. I'll go to bed early tonight too. It's so wonderful to sleep, especially now that I'm wearing some really comfortable pajamas and I like my present duvet cover. Tyke likes it too, because he sleeps on the bed with me every night. There's just enough room for the both of us. Tyke rolls himself into a ball and lies by my feet. It's a good way to wake up in the morning, to have your trusty four footer lying there.

When I don't feel well, I take naps during the day, but when my mood is good, I don't. I do get tired, though, and as soon as it starts to be evening, I look forward to going to bed. I think it also helps that I like my bedroom, although it needs work done on it. It needs new wallpaper and new curtains. Staying up all day and just participating in life, though, does tire me and I wonder how I would do with a busier schedule. I'm not afraid of one and would gladly participate in it if I knew I could handle it.

There seems to be a threshold that I can't cross right now, so I have to increase my activities within the possibilities that I have. Make longer walks with Tyke, do more with my personal helper, go out more on my own on small errands. These are conscious choices that I have to make and I really need to stop and think about them and put them into action. They're not huge changes, but big enough to shake me out of my complacency and make me more involved in life. I will check my bank account balance once again and tomorrow I will go buy a new bathroom scale. That will take me to a different shopping center where I haven't been in a long time. It will be good for me. It's a little thing, but it's a big deal for me.

I'm going to put on my pajamas and hang out in my bathrobe for a while. There's nothing but football or football related programs on my favorite channel. It does get tiresome after a while. As if there's no life besides football. Pretty soon the Tour de France starts. That's more interesting to me, because I like the scenery and the commentary. The scenery especially and I imagine being there. I've been in France, so some parts of it look familiar. I'd love to go back to Paris, but in September when there are less tourists there and go to all the museums and visit them properly. One day for each museum and then lots of strolling and coffees and cafes.

Have a good evening.

Ciao,
Nora