On with the saga...

Well, I carry on bravely with my depression on a beautiful sunny day that was deceptively not as warm as it looked. I celebrated the warmest part of the day by taking a long nap on the sofa where I have been taking all my afternoon naps lately. I've decided that this makes it look less official than going to lie down in bed for them. It makes me look less lazy, I think. 

I had all the windows open and a draft blew through the apartment making it so chilly in here that I had to put on my jeans jacket. The temperatures weren't exactly tropical despite all the sunshine. It was 18C outside and that isn't exactly very warm. No doubt there were lots of people on the cafe terraces downtown basking in the light of the sun, but to me it still wasn't warm enough. I need for it to be just a little bit hotter before I will bask. 

Yes, I am still depressed. I can tell by the lack of enthusiasm with which I do everything and the number of cups of coffee that I need to do them. I am also filled with cynicism and I know that is a way to overcome my own deep dark thoughts. If you don't want to be harsh on yourself, be harsh on the world around you. The world around you can take a licking, there are enough people and institutions that can handle it. Tall trees do catch a lot of wind and rightly so. 

It's a little tough to get through the day and I am glad when I near the end of it. I find t hard to fill the hours and don't do anything that is worth mentioning. The most sensible thing I do is take the dog for walks. I am not that interested in the usual things that keep me occupied and care less about them also. They don't seem very important right now. A lot of things seem pretty senseless and not worth getting excited about and I wonder why I ever did. 

I do seem to like the evenings and enjoy the fact that the sun sets and the darkness comes and covers the land. I feel that all is at peace then and can't wait to put on my pajamas and bathrobe so I can feel safe. It's ridiculous, of course, because those things shouldn't matter at all, but somehow they make a difference. And more than anything I want to be warm because I feel cold so quickly. I could wear layers of clothes and still not be warm enough. 

I've still got a bit of a headache, but it is not so bad that I keep taking paracetamol for it. I don't know if it is a good idea to keep taking it. I think it may not be good for my stomach so I try to do without. I've got a dull ache in the right side of my head that sometimes feels like a stabbing pain depending on what I do with my head. I'm sure that one of these days it will disappear. I've almost gotten used to it. It's been five days now. 

I think I've gone on long enough now and will knit an end to this epistle.

I hope you'll all have a good evening.

Ciao,

Irene

The year of the dragon...

I'm very happily sat here with my second cup of coffee and it's still a decent time of the night. It's not even midnight yet and that's also surprisng to me. For a change I'm up at a more normal time. I don't know what's wrong with me. I may even turn into a quite ordinary person and start keeping quite ordinary hours. Miracles never cease. 

I've had an enervating day. I spent some time redecorating the living room because I was not finished with it and I had to add some of the almost final touches. The real final touches I will add on Wednesday when I have been to Ikea and have picked up the things I want to get there. Then the metamorphosis will be complete. 

I also got ambitious and cleaned up my bedroom which had become a catch all for everything that I had no space for in the living room. I got a big trash bag and started tossing things out and reorganizing. I rearranged the whole bookcase and emptied out drawers of obsolete items. Such a mess I had. I purged the whole room and did a bit of decorating there too. 

Luckily, the domestic help was here also, so she could clean as I purged and between the two of us, we got the place looking spiffy. We were both very pleased with ourselves. And just think, I got all of that done just because of two new paintings. They were my inspiration. 

I quit smoking this morning. I'm hesitant to say this in case I don't make it and start up again, but I have the best of intentions. I was thinking about what I could do with all the money that I spend on tobacco every month and suddenly was disgusted with the whole thing. In a flash I knew I would stop the foolishness. I said a prayer, put on a nicotine patch and quit. 

Tomorrow afternoon I have an appointment with the counselor at the doctor's office who helps you stay quit. I don't know yet how she does that, but I'm going to get her help as much as I can. Whatever it takes, I will do. I can't tell you that it's not frustrating at times, but I'm surviving. I have rubber bands around my wrist that I fiddle with when the urge to smoke becomes too bad. It does pass after a while.The urge to smoke comes in waves. It's not a constant pressure. 

I must go back to bed. The urge to smoke is less when I'm lying down and the time passes more quickly when you're asleep. Also when you are keeping yourself busy. That is why I am getting so much done. I have to paint the living room and the hallway next. Yippee! 

Ciao,

Nora

Blue Monday...

It was Blue Monday day before yesterday, but I didn't know that until after I had my own version of it. I have a tendency not to believe in those kinds of things if I know about them beforehand, but this time I didn't. 

It's supposed to be the worst day of the year for whatever reason I don't know. The logic of it escapes me. I can testify to the fact that it is true because I had my own horrible day. After having felt good for months, and especially good the last few weeks, I tumbled down into the pit of despair and wanted to be dead. 

Now luckily, this feeling didn't last longer than the Blue Monday was long and I did crawl out of that pit again and by the nighttime I was on my way back up. I didn't end up in a long lasting depression which very easily could have been the case too. Somehow my optimism came shining through and I could not stay long in that misreable place. 

I was bound to stumble and fall after having been in a elevated mood for so long. I could not keep up the pace. Throw in a couple of minor complications and I ran out of steam. Suddenly everything became too much for me and I couldn't see the forest for the trees anymore. I felt completely lost and lonely. It was all in a reaction to what had come before. 

At my lowest point, I wished myself dead, but I soon got over that and started thinking of reasons to live. I didn't reach for extra pills to make myself feel better. That notion didn't even enter my head. I did have a talk with my Higher Being and decided to not to try to force the issue but to leave it up to fate. Then I took a nap because sleep solves a lot.

The next day I was at ease with myself and peaceful again. I was ready to climb back into the saddle with a more realistic point of view. I'm not ready to go on an adventurous rde, I will just move along at a steady pace. Easy does it. I won't go battling windmills. 

Now I'm sitting here with a glass of cold milk enjoying the solitude of the night. I just let the dog out back and outside it's freezing. There's a star filled sky. 

I try to be efficient and self reliable. It's what got me here. 

Ciao,

Nora

Peacefulness...

I'm having a quiet and peacful time despite the fact that I'm not in bed sleeping and having tranquil dreams. Instead, I'm sitting here with a glass of ice cold milk and a cigarette, in my warm bathrobe, enjoying the wee hours of the night. It will be time to go to bed shortly because I'm starting to yawn, but I will try to write a sensible post before I go. 

I didn't change the sheets on the bed like I had planned to tonight lacking the energy to do it and promising myself that I would do it first thing in the morning. The plan is to get up early enough to do it and to not stay in bed until noon after which I would get side tracked by other things. I do want to have the dirty sheets in the washing machine at a decent time and feel like I'm seizing the day. 

Sunday is not a day to be wasted on frivolous activities. It may be a day of rest, but I try to fill it with useful things to keep me busy and out of trouble. I admit, there isn't a heck of a lot of trouble for a middle aged woman to get into on a Sunday in a town in the Netherlands, but I always pretend there could be to give my life that dangerous edge. I do have an extensive fantasy life. 

The cat and the dog chased a mouse around the apartment for two days and nights and finally this evening the cat got a hold of it. That hold didn't last long and the mouse escaped in the living room where the dog grabbed it. That soon was the end of its little life. It gave one final squeek and then it was over. The dog carried it around with him for a while until he finally dropped it and I could dispose of it. It was a field mouse that the cat had brought in from outside. No wildlife is safe around here. The cat has turned out to be quite a hunter. 

That was the excitement for the evening and now at least that mouse is not hiding under my bed anymore. I did have some trouble sleeping one night with the animals trying to get to it. Only when they gave up on it could I go to sleep knowing that the mouse was behind the headboard. I'm getting used to a lot. 

I've got to go to sleep now. I must get a certain amount of sleep if I want to get up early in the morning and get the show on the road on time. 

Sleep tight and have a good weekend.

Ciao,

Nora

. 

How to spend the night...

The one thing you do is to not spend all of it sleeping. That's a complete waste of time. You may think that sleeping is a useful activity, but I tend to disagree with that if it's in the middle of the night. I can't think of a better way to spend that time than to spend it being awake and up and about. That. of course, is just my own personal vision and you may disagree. 

Maybe you get a good night's sleep and you have no complicated dreams and you feel very refreshed in the morning when you wake up. That's not my own experience and I'm always glad that I wake up after I've been asleep for a few hours so that I can get up and spend some time behind the computer with a few cups of coffee and my cigarettes. It's when I'm most alert and in charge of all of my faculties. 

But I tell you no new stories when I tell you that. It's a well known fact by now that this is what I do. I also can't force myself to write the kind of drivel that I write here during the night in the daytime. I'm not in the proper frame of mind then.  During the day, I would be too embarrassed to write some of the things down that I write here during the night. I think I bare my soul better at night or after I just wake up from a nap.. 

That maybe sounds contradictory, but for me is not to reason why. I'll accept both my statements as given facts. I'd hate to have to explain everything I state here. If I'm unclear than that's just so. It can't be helped. 

Last night I was in a terribly grumpy mood that only disappeared slowly. I didn't analyze it too much, but in the back of my mind I had some clues as to the origins of it. I ended up eating some dinner and watching some TV before I went to bed and found my solace under the warm duvet. 

I think you subconsciously run into frustrations all the time in your contacts with the people you care about and sometimes it's better to take a little breather from everybody and spend some time on your own.

Quality time with yourself and other people is still what it all revolves around. It's not about quantity. A little bit goes a long way. You've got to appreciate the little bits and not repeat them too often. Repetition leads to irritation and takes away from the specialness of the occasion. You fall into a rut.

I'm afraid I'm preaching. I do have a tendency to do that sometimes. It's when I'm trying to convince myself most. 

It's time to go back to bed. I've been philosophical enough, although I've really put the brakes on my thoughts. I've censored myself quite a bit. 

Sleep tight everyone. 

Ciao,

Nora

At the danger of writing another dull post...

I'm a person who does learn her lessons the hard way and after writing a very dull post yesterday, I put myself in danger of writing another by trying to improve on it tonight. There are, of course, no guarantees and it is possible that I will hopelessly fail in my mission. That will be a double whammy then and I will never live it down. But I've got to take the chance because I can't live with the thought of failure. 

I'm working on my second cup of coffee and it is giving me, you could say, Dutch courage, although there is no alcohol in it. I'm not so foolish as to try that because, although it would loosen me up tremendously, it would also make me drunk and I certainly don't feel like being it. By all rights I should have a couple of beers, but I don't happen to have any and that's probably for the best. I don't like the after effects. 

I woke up with my T-shirt drenched in sweat and stood outside by the back door on the patio in order to cool off. The cold night air quickly did that while the dog went about his business. I could have stayed out there a while longer and really have gotten chilled to the point that I would have needed my bathrobe, but I'm still sitting here without it now. I'm radiating warmth and it's not cold in the apartment either. I must be having post menopausal hot flashes. 

The best thing to do now is have a glass of ice cold milk because it will not only freeze my frontal lobes, but also cool down my body. It's guaranteed to work. The coffee has straightened out my mind sufficiently and I can think clearly. It's nice to mess with my head and muddle it up with the coldness of the milk. It never ceases to effect me and give me a different experience. 

I wore two different outfits yesterday because I was not satisfied with what I was wearing initially. I delved into my closet and found something completely different, although I don't know why I bother because hardly anyone sees me. I must be practicing for a very active social life. The second outfit was put together of old and new elements and pleased me very much. I could have gone out on a date if I had wanted to, but I looked good enough to make myself happy. 

I'm waiting for my hair to grow back in so I can go to the hairdresser. I think I cut my bangs a little bit too short. I will have to wait a couple of weeks for them to catch up with the rest of my hair. It's very easy hair that I've got now and I hardly have to do anything to it when I get up. Isn't that what every woman wants? I just look a little bit too much like a hedgehog and I didn't want to look quite that cute. I do want to be taken seriously. I am, after all, a grown woman.

I can't go on the bathroom scale and trust the result it gives me. It is much too high and then tells me that it's an error, which I totally agree with. I think the battery is low and will have to be replaced. It's one of those complicated scales that wants to tell you everything including your date of birth when all I want to know is my weight. 

I don't know that right now, so I can only go by how my clothes fit me to know how well I'm doing. My skinniest jeans are a little big. I wash them regularly to shrink them, but as I wear them, they slide down my hips again. I do have hope, but I don't want all my clothes to get too big on me because I like them well enough and I don't have the money to replace them. I must make do with what I have. Does that seem like an odd sort of reasoning? 

I'm sufficiently cooled off now and have put on my bathrobe. I stood out by the back door again because the dog imagined that he had to go out again. I don't think he actually did anything there. I'm having another glass of cold milk because the first one tasted so good. The night can last a long time for all I care. It's very cozy here by the light of the desk lamp.

I will have to go to bed shortly because I do need more sleep, but I can sleep late in the morning. It's Saturday, after all. It's not going to be a warm day and I may not have the proper outfit for the cold, but I'll be tough and withstand it anyway. I do have to be a tough Northern European. At least I'm not in Scandinavia where it's snowing. 

I don't now if I've achieved my goal and managed not to write a dull post, but there you have it. It is a long one anyway. I've thoroughly enjoyed writing it. There has to be some satisfaction in that also. 

Ciao,

Nora

It takes a while...

I didn't really appreciate the dog barking at me tonight. I was sound asleep in my bed, after all. It was a wake up call. He had to go out back to do a piddle. 

I think he could have waited a few more hours to do that and have let me sleep a while longer, but apparently he doesn't think in such terms. When he has an urge, it has to be satisfied immediately.

Standing outside by the back door wasn't such a bad thing because it was nice and cool out there. It was a clear night, although rain had been predicted. I let the dog take his time and enjoyed the pleasant night air on my warm and sleepy body. This woke me up a bit more. 

When the dog came in, I reluctantly went inside and locked the door. I was sufficiently cooled off anyway.

I turned on the computer and made a pot of coffee. Having learned my lesson last night, I have been making the coffee less strong and this has been a success. It still is strong enough to wake me up properly and get me in a functioning mode. It's not so strong that it upsets my stomach, which has been known to happen. 

I have also been making less coffee all at once, so I'm pouring less down the kitchen drain and I feel very economically sensible. 

That's the terminology you use nowadays instead of saying that you're frugal. Frugality is an old fashioned concept and something our grandparents practiced. We could all draw a lesson from them and learn how to live sensibly. It was waste not, want not in those days. 

All we need to do is go back and have the mindset of those days. We'd be satisfied quicker and learn to get by with less.

The wind has picked up and is blowing the fallen, dried leaves through the street. We may be in for a change of weather. Rain was predicted for the night and possibly it will arrive now. I'm looking forward to it and I hope it will gently fall soon. There's nothing better to listen to while I'm lying in bed.

Except for the gentle snoring of the dog, of course. 

I hope you'll all have a nice Friday. 

Ciao,

Nora

Intelligent life...

Tonight I was smart and made coffee immediately instead of waiting until the need became unbearable. I wasn't about to assume that I could function without a cup or two. I do have to add that I was in a good mood the moment I opened my eyes. I ever so cheerfully stepped out of bed and almost as cheerfully made a pot of coffee. 

Doing any kind of a chore is always a bit of a bother because of the potential frustration factor. I did it flawlessly, however. Maybe the problem is that I do want to do it flawlessly. I must worry too much about the potential mishaps, such as spilled ground coffee and too much water in the machine. Aha, the psychology of making coffee. It does need some looking into. 

Then, of course, the dog had to go out back. Not once, but twice. I stood out in the very cold night air by the back door and looked at the stars and tried to find the Big Dipper. I think I may have seen it, but I can't be sure. I'm not well informed enough. It could have been the Little Dipper. When I went out the second time, it had moved behind the roof line. 

I found out yesterday that my therapist had had the same stomach bug I have been battling, so at least I know the source of my illness. She had it a week before I did. She also reported on the long stubborn nature of it. I feel that I'm getting back to normal, although I'm saying that with some hesitation because every time I make that claim, my stomach acts up again. 

I've been sleeping a lot and can't seem to get enough of it. My bed is one of my favorite places to be, especially when I have the heater on and the apartment is nice and warm. My excuse is that I'm getting over being sick, but I just may be hibernating in the cold weather. I'm warmly dressed when I take the dog for a walk and don't stay out there too long. Yesterday on my bike, I should have worn gloves. 

I'm going back to bed to sleep under the warm duvet. I've got many hours left to sleep. No doubt the animals will join me to get their share of the warmth and comfort. 

Have a good night.

Ciao,

Nora

The starry sky...

I stood outside by the back door in the cold night air and looked at the starry sky and it made me wish I was in the countryside where I would have been able to see many more stars. That made me wish I was camping in the desert by a campfire, drinking a cup of hot coffee and looking up at that sky. I would have worn very warm clothes and had a very warm sleeping bag for the cold desert night. 

Isn't it nice to have a fantasy like that? I can pretend it really happened having spent time in the deserts in New Mexico and California and having seen the night skies there. Thank goodness that I do have those experiences to fall back on. All I have to do is retrieve some of my memories and I'm there. They are the film fragments in my mind. They are stored there for the rest of my life. Even if I get demented I will remember them.

I hope to never get demented and lose my memories, although if I could selectively eliminate a few, I would gladly do that. There are some memories I have that seem to have no other function than to cause me heartache and I can do without them completely. I wish I could pick those out of my memory bank and delete them. Those are the ones that rear their ugly heads when I get depressed and when I have the least use for them. But I mustn't think about that now. I'm feeling good and it is time to only think of the better memories. 

Because of the open windows, there's a draft in the apartment and I think it's rather pleasant. I feel the cool air moving around me ever so gently. I think it's very refreshing because, as usual, I like to feel just a little bit on the cool side in the middle of the night, as long as I'm wearing my warm bathrobe. My hands and feet are cold, but my nose is warm and I'm still drinking hot coffee. Outside there's a cold wind blowing. Because of the wind chill factor, it feels like it's 37F out there. Brrr...

I didn't get around to reading yesterday morning, so I haven't picked out a new book yet. I will have to do that today. I went back to bed and slept late because it was going to be an empty day pretty much. I managed to amuse myself doing nothing important at all and that's a real art too. It takes a certain amount of finesse. I've got to put some thought into choosing a book lest I get stuck with another boring one. I will not regain my love for reading in that case. I do leave bookmarks in the books that I leave unfinished in case I get in the mood for reading them again. 

I've got to decide what I'm going to do now. I'm either going back to bed or staying up to read. I do need the sleep, but I'm not quite ready for it yet. If I had cows to milk, I would go milk them now. And chickens to feed. I'll go look on the bookcase for an interesting book. Maybe it will jump out at me and grab me. 

Have a nice Friday all of you. 

Ciao,

Nora

The quietude of the night...

At this moment of the night, I'm blissfully unaware of everything that goes on in the world, as opposed to the daytime when I'm regularly watching the news and staying up to date. There's something to be said for blissful unawareness, though I wouldn't want to be permanently stuck in this state. After a while, it would make me feel highly uncomfortable. 

I always want to know what those dratted politicians are up to. And the movers and shakers of this world that I'm part of. I may not be able to do much about it, but I will be well informed. I feel that I can guard myself against any calamity that hangs over our collective heads. More than one calamity hangs there now, so I feel I must be well guarded. I must not be caught unawares. 

For now I can relax and enjoy the uncomplicated nighttime. That's what the quiet solitude is good for. The darkness encapsulates me and makes me feel safe. No political monsters can get to me. All the Dutch ones ought to be asleep. As for the other ones, they are beyond my control. You will have to vote all of them out of office if you so please. Or start a revolution, as is being done in so many places around the world right now. 

I slept well enough for a long enough time. I went to bed early and was asleep in no time. This has to do with the fact that I'm mostly not interested in what's on TV at night. I couldn't care less about most of it. It absolutely makes no difference if I watch those programs or not. It won't make me a better person if I do. I won't be better educated or better informed. It might help if I switched channels more, but I'm too incurious to do that. Let's face it, I'm just not a good TV watcher and nobody should depend on me for the ratings. 

It was a nice enough day yesterday. The weather was still warm, although I'm more than ready for it not to be and look forward to it cooling off, which it will start to today. Then it will be possible to wear some decent clothes again and to dress properly. I do look forward to wearing warmer clothes and can't wait to pull something substantial out of my closet. I do have all these clothes to choose from and I don't want them to go to waste. Although doubtlessly they won't once it is cold enough for a longer time.

The leaves on the trees are changing colors rapidly and they are dropping off quickly too. The sidewalks and gutters are covered in them. It's a lot of fun to walk through them with as much noise as possible. The dog likes the piles of leaves too. He thinks something is hidden in them. I have the hardest time pulling him away from them. 

I've decided not to go to Specsavers for my new glasses, but to go to the optician that my sister went to. I think they have a better selection of frames to choose from and I want something that's not so ordinary. I called my health insurance company to find out how much they reimbursed and it turned out to be a pittance and that is even with the additional package of insurance that I have. I was much disappointed and sorry to find out that everything is costing more money now no matter how well insured you think you are. Needless to say, I'm dropping the additional package at the first opportunity I get. I've got better uses for my money. 

I made an appointment to have the dog's fur trimmed because it is getting a bit long and I do want to get it done before it gets too cold. He always shivers afterwards and I want him to be able to grow some of it back before it becomes winter. I won't have him trimmed again until it's springtime. I don't want the poor thing to suffer from the cold.

That about sums it up for me. I've got to think about going back to bed for a while. I'm expecting the Exfactor later this morning who will do the groceries for me. I've run out of cheese and I'm definitely getting some more of that. It was a nice addition to my diet. The dog and I enjoyed it both. He gets the last bite. 

I hope you'll all have a good day.

Ciao,

Nora

Waiting for inspiration...

I'm sitting here in the middle of the night with my cup of coffee and my cigarettes waiting for inspiration to hit me so I can write a brilliant post. So far all I can come up with is that my pajama bottoms are so big that they fall down whenever I stand up or walk around. But that's just trivial information and it's not going to keep you enthralled for a long time. I'll have to do better than that. Besides, I mostly sit or lie down in bed when I wear them so it's not much of a problem at all. 

The dog woke me up because he was obviously bored being by himself in the dark. He is now sound asleep on the coffee table and I haven't done a thing for him but get up. All he wanted was my company. He didn't even have to go out back for a piddle. I wouldn't have minded standing by the back door in the cool night air and maybe I'll get the opportunity later. It is always nice to cool off and look at the starry sky. The little piece of it I see anyway. 

The cat is the cat. She doesn't care much what I do as long as she gets to lie on top of me or in my vicinity. All I have to make sure of is that her bowls are filled with kibbles and milk. That's easily done because they stand on the kitchen counter and are not quickly overlooked. A cat is the easiest animal to look after. I do have to handle her with care. She's delicate.

It's going to be another warm day today. There will be nothing but bright sunshine. It won't get cooler until the middle of next week. We'll have more normal temperatures for the time of year then. I've enjoyed the sunshine, but I haven't enjoyed the heat all that much. It's wasted on me. I'm a cool weather person. A true Northern European.

I've got a new domestic help for Fridays and she's going to be permanent. Luckily, she's a very nice woman and she's thorough. We got along well and enjoyed each other's company. Now I won't have to deal with having a different person here every time I turn around which was bothersome and stressful. Especially if it was a man who didn't do his job well. Men don't know how to clean and like to talk a lot. They are a haphazard bunch. Spare me a man as a domestic help. 

I suppose that's all I've got to blog about really. The brilliance of this post is not that clear. In fact, it's hard to find. I won't worry about it if you won't. 

I hope you're all having a good night or a good day, whichever applies to you. 

Ciao,

Nora

Blog hopping...

I've been up for quite a while and have been doing what comes natural and that has been blogging over at Wordpress,. I started another blog there and I'm not going to give you the link to it but leave it completely up to chance for you to discover me there and maybe one day you will. I don't know how hard that is. I just thought I would fall back into anonymity. 

I don't know what I'm doing with all these blogs, but it seems like a good idea to have all of them to keep me writing and to keep me out of trouble, because that's what I seem to have been getting into lately. Maybe I am mad and don't know it and nobody has told me that I am and I'm living under the delusion that I'm quite sane and normal. Anything is possible. 

It's early in the morning now and I'm drinking coffee and having my cigarettes. I feel quite cozy here and am very much at peace with the world and my surroundings. I have not one bit of sleep in my body and I'm looking forward to taking a shower later and washing my hair which badly needs it. I will use my lightener shampoo and have perfectly blond hair. 

I've got my clothes picked out, in sofar that I've got it down to 2 outfits and I have to make a final instinctual decision when I look at them this morning, but I think I already know which way I'm leaning. I feel cheerful and that calls for red and a minidress. It's not going to be so awfully cold today, so I don't have to dress extra warm.

Rainclouds have moved in and are trapping what little warmer air there is and are keeping frost from developing. It's now 43F and much warmer than it was yesterday morning and it's going to be 54F today, which is much better. I won't be freezing my buns off when I go to see my psychiatrist on my bike this morning. That is, if it's not raining, otherwise I will have to walk under the umbrella. I don't mind either way. I prefer not to get wet, though. 

I had every intention to have a good long sleep last night, but it didn't happen. I laid in bed being bored and waiting for it to be time to get up until I couldn't stand it anymore. Sometimes I think that sleeping is such a waste of time, until I get a shortage of it and need to be be put under and rest for 12 hours straight. Other than that, I think it is highly overrated and I don't see why I have to get all of it at night when I feel so good and there are such interesting things to do. The nighttime is infinitely better to be awake in than the daytime. I haven't figured out yet why that is, I only have hypotheses. 

I've still got the heater on against the cold and in spite of it I feel the draft from the cat flap, even though all the windows are closed. It is actually very well sealed, but somehow it still lets in the cold air. The bedrooms are colder anyway because they are always in the shade and they have single glass windows, which I think is a crime. I do wish they would replace those. There's always a lot of condensation on them that you get rid of by having the radiators on. Those rooms are wet and cold and need to be wallpapered and painted. I'm ignoring that as much as possible. It's too big a job for me. 

Tyke's been surprisingly well behaved all night, which goes to show you that he's only bad when I'm asleep. I think he resents me being asleep as he gets bored or something. He doesn't do anything destructive when I'm gone from home. He's only mischievous when I'm asleep. 

The problem is, that when I'm asleep, I'm sound asleep and nothing wakes me up. I don't hear any noises of him ripping things apart. He could tear the whole bedroom apart and I wouldn't notice it. It's only when I have to go to the toilet that I find out what he's been doing and by that time it's too late. The damage has been done and he always thinks of something to get into that I've not thought of. The most unusual things aren't safe. He never ceases to surprise me. Well, of course he couldn't get away with anything during this night because I was awake. He does know when he's being bad. He's not a dumb dog.

I think I will take my medicines now and take my shower. I'm ready for squeaky clean hair and a good outfit. It will be a pleasure to put on something different and cheerful. Something to match my mood and my rosy cheeks. I will see if the laundry is dry and get ready to put another load in the machine, There's nothing so nice as clean clothes. You can't beat those. 

Have a good day!

Ciao,
Nora

In the evening...

There are whole periods of time when I forget about cigarettes and I don't think about them at all. When I'm so preoccupied that the fact that I used to smoke does not even register on my memory. It's very pleasant when it doesn't and kind of bothersome when I do remember it, although I think that I can easily forget cigarettes again if I can keep them off my mind for such a long time. I push the thought of them back into oblivion and concentrate on something else. Every time I do that successfully and manage to distract myself, I figure that I have the winning hand and that I will get better at not smoking with every day that passes, although right now I'm happy with every hour of the day that I pass without smoking.

I divide my day up in sections and each section knows its difficult time that I have to get through and somehow I find a way to cope with it. I find that keeping my mind occupied is a very good way to deal with the desire to smoke, because one of the reasons I want to smoke is because I get bored and sit and stare at the walls. That's a definite thing not to do and I must always make sure that I'm actively engaged in something with my head. I must either be reading or blogging or emailing, if I'm not doing that, I lie in bed and listen to the radio and take a nap.

Another thing to do is chores, although I don't have that many, because the apartment seems to stay so clean and there's hardly anything to do. I'm a much neater person now that I don't spend so much of my time smoking and making a mess with my ashes and tobacco. I'm constantly picking up fuzzy bits and things from the carpet and putting them in the unused ashtray that's very clean. The desk and table surfaces aren't getting dirty. I don't waste half of my life inhaling smoke.

No, keeping my mind occupied is the best thing to do. It also helps if I drink coffee and you would think that the opposite would be true, but I find that it calms my mind and distracts me from wanting to have a cigarette. If I just sip coffee I do fine and feel no need to smoke.

I've been to bed, although it's not late at night yet, but I found it impossible to sleep. I was lying there with a crowded mind, thinking of a hundred things all at once and not being distracted by the radio enough. That's because it's Saturday night and sports are on and I'm not interested in sports persé. I don't care about the football matches and about handball and gymnastics on talk radio without the pictures. I can think of more exciting things to listen to. Surely there are more interesting discussions to be held than these sports reports.

There's a big difference in radio interviewers too. Some of them are very good and well informed and the discussions are very rewarding and informative. Some of them don't know what the heck they are talking about and don't take advantage of the knowledge of the person that sits across from them. It's very frustrating, because I'm talking back to the radio and saying, ask them this or that, please, that's what I want to know. A good interviewer does, a bad interviewer makes a mess of it. Sometimes the potentially interesting guest turns out to be very boring and shallow and is a lost cause, but the program needs to be filled with him anyway. Those are hard times.

Anyway, I was lying there thinking about a hundred different things and none of them were really important as they were all silly 'what if situations' that I imagined myself getting into and what I would do to get out of them. It was a case of doomsday thinking with one scenario being worse than the other and totally unnecessary to waste my time on.That's why I got up. It was useless to lie there and do it any longer. I had to stop that train of thought. It's a kind of obsessive way of thinking that gets a hold of you and you get deeper into it before you know it and start to think it is really pertinent to your life that you solve these problems that don't exist. I'm glad I'm now realizing that these are exercises in futility before they lead me down the road to madness too much. It's like seeing a murderer behind every tree and imagining what your tactic will be to deal with him when he decides to strike. Sometimes I have an overdose of imagination.

Tomorrow will be the true day of rest, if today already wasn't. Today was a rehearsal for tomorrow, let's put it that way. It will be the most quiet day of the week, although church bells will ring all day long, jubilantly. That's part of the Sunday pleasure, as long as you ignore the implications behind the ringing of the bells. It's all so tainted now, but probably has been for a long time. Still Sundays are sacred days and are the most peaceful days of the week and I do appreciate that. It's alright for the world to fall silent and for there not to be a rush on the stores and downtown, except to stroll through the nearly empty streets from one café to the other. It's a shame I don't have a partner anymore to do that with, husbands are good to have around to do those kinds of things with. Husbands do have their merits on occasion. If they are the least bit interesting and loyal.

I'm looking at the night ahead. It's nearly midnight now and I'll have to go to bed shortly. There's no other way about it, I must go to sleep. I'm full of life and not really ready to go to bed, but neither do I have a reason to stay up. I think I've read all the blogs there are to read and I've commented on them. There's no other recourse but to call it a night and hope that once I go to bed, I stay in bed and don't get it in my head to get up again in the middle of the night. I can always read my book now that I've put a light bulb into the lamp in the corner of the living room behind my other armchair and I can see what I'm doing. It does make a difference and makes the room so much brighter. That was a fairly simple solution.

Well, I'll try to see if there is any kind of other mischief I can get into before I crawl under the duvet. Doubtlessly there is something I can find to do for the next twenty minutes or so. I'm only postponing the inevitable.

Have a good night.

Ciao,
Nora