Sunday early in the morning...

No new snow fell during the night and we are left with the snow as it was yesterday, trodden on by a dozen feet and compacted by car tires. More snow is expected today and more wind from the northeast. From Siberia, as my sister says. Right now it's cloudy and a mere -2C, so it's not very cold at all. Well, I wouldn't want to go out there in my bathrobe and slippers, but then nobody is expecting me to.

I've been up for quite a while. I went to bed very early last night, finding that I had no patience to watch the television and no energy to blog. I would sleep longer, I think, if it weren't for the pain in that darn arm that keeps waking me up. It radiates from my shoulder, because I know I have a bad shoulder and it hurts too. I may end up going to the doctor with it, even if he says there's nothing that can be done about it. I can't afford physiotherapy, so that's out. I think I will get the heating pad out and put that on my shoulder and see if it helps me any. It's very frustrating not to be able to do anything.

In the meantime, I've had my second cup of coffee, I've fed the cats and petted the dog several times, and I've had a tall glass of multi vitamin juice, which was delicious. I'm imagining that my hair has gotten thicker now that I take that special vitamin pill every day, but that may really just be my imagination. It seems that way to me anyway. It would be really good, because I had a thin patch on my head that really showed up and my mother used to have it too. I guess I'm genetically predisposed. My bad luck. I try to fix my hair in such a way that it doesn't show up, but I'm not always successful.

That special shampoo and conditioner I bought for brown hair work great, though. My hair is keeping the color I dyed it in much better and there aren't any roots showing yet. Usually the color would have faded by now and I would have had to dye it again, so it was worth buying those products. Andrélon has them for blond hair too and you can use those products too if blond and brown or red are your natural colors. It just perks them up a bit. Hey, I should be paid for being a spokeswoman again. I do speak up for a product every once in a while, completely free of charge and hey, hair is dead, you can do to it what you like, it's your scalp that counts.

I put my reading glasses on this morning to read what it said on the tube of ointment that I'm now using for my eczema. Much to my surprise it turned out to be a homeopathic medicine. Now, I hold no faith in homeopathic medicine whatsoever. I don't believe in it, so it is with great skepticism that I will continue using this ointment, but I'm going to give it a fair chance and see if it will do the job. It says that I need to apply it 2 to 3 times a day and so I will. I'm not going to dismiss it outright and say it won't work. I will just assume that it will and forget my prejudice. Stranger things have happened and maybe I will be proved wrong. I used to be very skeptic about antidepressants too, and about mood stabilizers, until I started using them. Once I'm done with the tube, I'll look for an ointment that's based on medicinal herbs. When I'm done with this post, I'm going to look up the main ingredient in the ointment.

Oh well, I just did. The main ingredient is from a plant called Cardiospermum Haliacabum, also called "Love in a Puff" in English. It is a vine from Africa, South America and India and the product of the plant is used there for skin conditions. Well, you learn something new every day. Maybe this ointment will work after all. Except that homeopathic medicine just has the very diluted "memory" of the original ingredient in it. So it's really quack medicine, but like I said, I may be wrong. The ointment is called Cardiflor. I'll keep you updated. At least I didn't go out and buy it, because I never would have.

It pays to always be skeptical in this world and to not believe everything you hear outright. People make so many claims and tell so many stories. It's best to be a cynic and to be your own best advisor and to look up information as well as you can before you accept all sorts of Indian stories. It's unbelievable how gullible some people are or want to be, or just are because they lack a certain amount of common sense or power of deduction. When someone says to me that I'm a cynic, I'm proud of it, because that means the wool can't be pulled over my eyes easily. I'd rather be a cynic than the naive believer in things that I used to be when I was younger and impressionable and not taught to rely on my own powers of observation. Being impressionable is not a positive trait. I say, make your children skeptical and teach them to be cynical. They'll be better armed to survive in this world.

When I was young, I was taught to ignore many things that were just very wrong and I was not allowed to talk about them or acknowledge them in any way. That teaches you to doubt yourself and your feelings and your powers of observation. It also teaches you to accept the unacceptable. You can see how subsequently that allows you to get into all sorts of unpleasant situations when you get older. You doubt yourself too much to put your foot down and demand proper treatment and living conditions. You don't know when you are in an unacceptable situation. You go along with whatever program you find yourself in, no matter how unpleasant it is. It's very awful to be denied the truth of your situation when you are a child, but also when you are older and you don't have the tools yet to extract yourself. You find yourself trying to manage a life that you're not equipped for and there's nobody around to show you that it's not okay, that there's something seriously wrong with it. If on top of that you are naive and gullible and impressionable, you have a very sad situation. That's why I prefer being a skeptic and a cynic and I hope I only become more so.

That was a little observation on life I allowed myself. Now it's time to eat breakfast and go back to bed for a while. I've got to get a few more hours of sleep. First I've got to find the heating pad, but I think I gave it to the Exfactor when he had a backache.

Have a wonderful Sunday and don't let the weather get you down.

Ciao,
Nora

Early Sunday Morning...

I spend a long time each morning taking care of my emails. It's a pleasant occupation and I never get bored with it. It's a good way to start the day and a good exercise for my brain. Some of them are facebook notifications and they are always fun, as they take me from one subject to another and I have to be on my toes and respond to all the different types of comments. The other emails are comments on my blog posts, or responses to my comments on the comments. I hope I still make sense. Either way, I have to switch from one subject to the next and I like to think that these mental acrobatics keep my mind lively and that I will stay alert better for a longer period of my life. Especially if I keep doing this as I grow older.

No doubt this thought is inspired by the fact that I'm turning 55 tomorrow and, although it doesn't seem to me like such a very old age, I am aware of the fact that I need to keep mentally active and always challenge myself. I've seen the slow decline of age in other people and it seemed to come with a certain amount of lack of mental challenges and an overall laziness of the mind, when they couldn't be bothered with how a computer worked or how a cash machine and blamed the machine for their frustrations. I don't want to fall into that kind of trap.

Well, you scratch the surface and what do you find? A woman who is worried about growing older and I didn't think I was, because whatever age I am, I always think it's still young enough. I just have a bad memory sometimes, but I've had that for a long time, so I should not worry about it.

Another thing, just when I was boasting yesterday about not taking naps during the day, I took one in the afternoon. It was very pleasant and really belonged to the tradition of weekend napping. I laid down on the sofa and pushed my face down into the pillow of the armrest and was asleep in no time, totally oblivious of everything around me. This didn't prevent me from sleeping very well last night and, although I read my book for a while, I was gone from this world in the shortest amount of time.

So, you can never say that you'll never do something again or that you always do something, because life is unpredictable and your body has a mind of its own. Well, it really and truly does, doesn't it?

I'm going to spend the day getting this apartment in order, because tomorrow my sister and my nephew and the Exfactor are coming over to help me celebrate my birthday. I must get this place cleaned up, although it isn't in that bad a shape. I do need to vacuum and dust and water the plants. I think I will make a list of chores to do and check them off as I do them. That way I will see the progress and it will be a more rewarding exercise.

I keep trying to see the positive sides of whatever sort of events take place in my life, no matter how insignificant and instead of only living in the moment, I'm trying to look ahead a little bit and project myself into the near future. This is not something I have been doing, as I've only lived from one day to the next and have hardly given tomorrow a thought, let alone the days after that. I'm starting to think about next week now and maybe even the week after that, although this is still very tenuous.

I feel that today is still within my control and maybe the day after that too, but when you get beyond that I don't know how much control I have over the events, although I could have more control if I planned things better. It all depends on how much I am willing to face up to what is coming up, instead of ignoring what may happen. In a way, I'm a procrastinator and hope for things to resolve themselves before we get to the point that I have to. Very often they do with a little help from me, I admit.

I thought I was like a Buddhist by living in the moment, but actually I was living in denial of all sorts of realities by pushing them away and sending them underground to my subconscious. I try not to do that anymore now and to stop and pay attention to what I feel and think about, especially when it regards my future.

I'm very much aware that I have to find my value as a human being in very small and not so very significant things, at least relatively insignificant things if you compare them to what is significant in this society, but I have a high enough opinion of myself that I will be able to do that. I don't have to have a successful career and make a lot of money to prove my worth. My aim is to be able to live with myself in the most comfortable way possible, without causing myself mental pain and agony and to find peace and serenity and a stable frame of mind. If I manage that I will have come very far in this life. How I go about achieving that will be a subject of discussion on the meeting with my therapists on the 21st of this month.

It's very funny how I always get bogged down in a serious subject, isn't it? It's second nature to me. I always have to air my ponderings and make them public to somehow give them more value and authority. I probably should have been a religious leader and I would have led my flock with a daily sermon. No, the power would have gone to my head and I would have made a shambles of it, as do so many of them. Who do they think they are anyway to preach their word at a group of followers who believe in them?

I hope you all have a nice Sunday. Honor the day and don't make too many efforts.

Ciao...

At the end of the day.

The day is drawing to an end. I'm already in my pajamas and my bathrobe and I've been drinking decaf for some hours now, so I'm suitable decaffeinated.

I just ate a big bowl of hot oatmeal and it was so good, it warmed my stomach and all my extremities. I feel like I've had the ultimate comfort food. I had forgotten that I had oatmeal in the cupboard and ran across it yesterday when I was looking for something soothing to eat. What a lucky find.

I've called up about my package and have now been told that it will be here on Tuesday. No explanation really on why it was taking so long and I'll believe it when I see it. I just helped vote this company into the best on line store of the Netherlands and now they are letting me down. They've grown to big for their britches. Isn't that always the way it goes?

I am being distracted by the television which for a change I have not turned off. There is a silly program on and I don't recommend typing a post and listening to a silly television program at the same time. No matter how hard you concentrate, you do get distracted.

There, I've turned the television off, because I don't need that kind of interference. I never do understand people who can blog and listen to music at the same time. I need complete silence when I try to write things down. I do like the sound of the clickety click of the keys on the keyboard. It makes me sound industrious.

It was cold today. There wasn't that much rain, but the wind whipped icy cold around you when you went outside. I want to take the Überhund for longer walks, but it's not the weather for it and he also chooses the short route. I can't wait for nice quiet weather that allows you to walk without a scarf bundled around your neck and wishing for a thicker jacket. The wind is always the culprit in the weather, because it makes the temperatures feel colder than they actually are and it seems that the wind is always blowing here. It's always an important element of the weather.

I've lived in the Netherlands for 15 years now and you'd think I'd be used to it by now, but I never get used to the cold of the winter season, and really, it's not that bad compared to the weather people get in the Midwest or in Canada where there is lots of snow and ice and winters last forever. We have nothing like that here, because we are in a temperate zone, but I sure don't like the cold and rain that we do get. I'm a springtime sort of person and I can't wait for April and May when the fun part of the year starts. I shouldn't complain though, because I know that some of you are still stuck in the snow and are waiting for that to thaw.

My day went well enough for a Saturday, because you all know that I really take the weekends off without the least bit of guilt. I do the minimum housework and let the apartment be as it is and try not to get excited about anything that really needs to happen. I figure those are the working day jobs.

I managed a nap on the sofa and that was very pleasant, but I needed it, because I felt it in my bones. A sudden weariness came over me and I laid down and was asleep within a few minutes. I leave the television on turned down low for company and I sleep right through it and then wake up to some program of which I don't have the least idea of what it is about. Very often it is a sports program and some team is performing an obscure sport in some part of the world that I've never heard of and we are not doing well. Sports programs do have to fill their time with sports, even if there is barely anything to cover.

After a refreshing nap, it is time for a good cup of coffee and some computer time, but first I have to bond with the Überhund who has been taking his nap beside me, while some cat has been laying on top of me. The Überhund lies on his back while I rub his belly and he purrs like a kitten, at least, that's what it sounds like to me. It's actually a series of low moans and snorts and sighs, all out of happiness and contentment. Oh, to be a dog and to be that happy.

Firefox opens up six tabs (I don't know the proper word in English) and I can see if there are any new posts or any new comments to the blogs I follow. They also take me to 6S and Facebook and Blogger dashboard and my own blog. If I'm very bored, I read my own old posts and am amazed at what I've written, because I have a bad memory and have forgotten a lot of those things already.

I never let on how bad my memory is. I cover it all up, but I know very often I don't get my facts straight. One thing I alwas forget is how close I am to someone. It's like I have to start every relationship over again from scratch every time, while only vaguely being aware of how close I already am to that person. If it weren't for the other person's efforts, I would remain a stranger to everybody. That's a very odd thing, isn't it? I've always thought that it was something autistic in me. I identify with some aspects of autism and have often wondered if I have some of it myself.

After that revelation, I think it's time for me to go to bed, although I'm not nearly sleepy, but it's late. I'll read until I fall asleep. I've got a new book called The Road Home by Rose Tremain and I think I'll start reading it tonight.

It's turned into a midnight ramble. Have a good sleep, everyone.

Ciao...