If you're happy, clap you hands...

I'm up much earlier than I was planing to be, but that does mean that I'll get enough sleep still before I have to get up to get ready for my appointment with my therapist. I'll be able to get up on time to drink coffee, get dressed and walk the dog leisurely before I have to leave. I'll not have to rush and that's my kind of planning. 

I do hate having to do things at the very last minute without having a chance to contemplate my navel. There always has to be some time for contemplation. I need to pull my thoughts together and remember who I am. And most importantly, to find out what mood I'm in, although it's usually the same one each morning. I do like to double check. 

Last week my appointment was canceled. I was in the bathroom getting ready when the secretary called to say that the therapist was sick. And I almost didn't answer that phone call. That was to have been my first official appointment, so now today's will be. I'm more than ready for it, but basically I feel good and have nothing to complain about. That's nice for a change too. It will get us off to a good start. 

Yesterday morning my sister came and picked me up to go to the optician downtown. We parked the car at the garage and walked to the optician in the little street it was in. It wasn't very busy downtown like it can be sometimes. That was kind of a relief. It was a joy to walk through the streets on the cobblestones and have room to move. 

Once at the shop, it took me only a short time to pick out the glasses that I wanted with the help of my sister and the optician. I only tried on a few before I found them. They are a nice modern looking pair, but I do have to say that there was a good selection to choose from. 

Then I had to have my eyes checked and it seems that this wasn't done properly in the past because the optician came out with different values than I had before. The last time my eyes were checked, they weren't checked by an optician, but by a co-worker who had a college education and a diploma. He wasn't a true optician. 

I had my eyes checked for both far away and up close and my astigmatism. We tried the lenses out for close by and I will be able to read very well. It will make quite a bit of difference compared to those cheap reading glasses I had been getting at the drugstore. 

The lenses for my new glasses have to be specially ordered and they should be ready within two weeks, so that's how long I have to be patient. From that point on I will be wearing them all the time and not once in a great while. Vanity will not get the better of me. Besides, I look good with these on.

My sister and I did a little bit of shopping afterwards and much window shopping. We saw all sorts of clothes and boots that we would liked to have had. We were good and didn't spend any crazy money. 

I did buy the vitamins and minerals that I need to augment my diet and started taking those yesterday. I think the vitamin B-complex is especially important because it's good for your nervous system. I think I can use some help there.

I've been faithfully applying baby lotion to my face every day and it is making my skin softer and less wrinkly. I've been sitting in front of the magnifying mirror when I apply it and it is ruthless. I may as well face the truth. 

It's time for me to go back to bed. I've got hours left to sleep. It will be oh so warm under the duvet. I've got the radio off now and sleep in silence. At least my dreams are not influenced by it anymore. They are all my own. It does make a difference. They are not so confused like they were. 

I hope you're all having a good night.

Ciao,

Nora

It's not too bad outside...

I just walked Tyke in the not too cold evening air. It just started to get dark outside and I noticed that the days are lasting longer all the time. The wind had stopped blowing and it was pleasant out there. I hardly needed my scarf, but wore it anyway just in case. There were birds chirping their evening song and, although I can't identify them, it sounded pretty anyway. It made you feel like spring was on its way, especially since it was relatively warm and you could almost imagine everything shrouded in a green haze. 

Tyke is sound asleep by my feet now. He always thinks he needs a little nap after his walk. He will come around again in the shortest amount of time because he'll want to play or bother Gandhi. She's taking advantage of the peace and quiet by taking a nap herself on the back of the armchair behind me. That's where the yellow fleece blanket lies folded and she's lying on top of it. Luckily, she's stopped shedding all that hair, so I'm not in danger of getting cat hair all over me when I lie down under it on the sofa for a nap. 

The domestic help has been here and cleaned up the place. It's a load off my mind. I had been keeping up with the chores as well as possible, but everything needed a good cleaning. Because of the holidays, it had not been done in eleven days, so it was about time that somebody showed up. 

I've decided not to watch any television tonight. I watched the news about the earthquake and the tsunami in Japan all day long and listened to it on the radio too. I think I got an overdose of it now. I will wait until tomorrow to hear the rest. No, I won't. I'll hear it tonight when I go to bed and listen to the news bulletins on the radio. I'm sure they'll pay lots of attention to it. It isn't every day that an 8.9 earthquake hits with a tsunami as a result. 

Tyke has woken up and wants all sorts of attention. He doesn't really know what he wants, he just wants attention. He's already had a belly rub as part of the bonding ritual. I'll play ball with him next. 

Have a good night.

Ciao,

Nora

No complaints...

I can't complain about the weather. It's cold and foggy right now, but at least it's not raining. Today it's only going to be partially cloudy and there will be sunshine and it's about time after all those gray skies. So, that's not something to be grumpy about. I would be grumpy if it were raining again because, although I like the rain, I don't like it non stop for a week. I crave some sunshine and so does the eczema on my head. It has been bothering me especially with the damp and cold weather.

I'm drinking coffee with artificial creamer because the milk is all gone. It only tastes somewhat bad. It would be worse if I had no creamer at all and had to drink it black, so I have to count my blessings. I can't wait to have milk in the refrigerator, but the Exfactor will be here today to do the grocery shopping and there will be lots of milk soon. I can then indulge in it to my heart's content. I have the Exfactor buy as much milk as he can carry and as his arm and leg muscles can handle on the bike without falling over. He is a very strong and wiry man, so he can carry a lot of milk.

I still have lemonade left so when I'm thirsty, I drink that, though it is not nearly as good as a glass of cold milk. Still, it quenches my thirst and has a decent enough taste and it's better than drinking coffee all the time, although I do enough of that too. I think I drink the coffee to offset the somewhat sedating effects of the medicines that I still take and I will be very happy when I've completely cut down on them and I know what is just me needing sleep and what was the effect of the medication. I very often need naps and I think I'm too young to start that kind of nonsense. I'm not an old lady yet.

I have to go see both my SPN and my psychiatrist today. I hope I make a good enough impression on my psychiatrist so that he will agree to cut down the anti-depressives some more. I've only got to reduce them two more times before I'm off them completely and today would be one of those times. I think I can convince him to give it a try. I'm doing well, so there's no reason not to.

I will go back to bed now for a few more hours of sleep. I will listen to the radio until I drift off. It's always very cozy in bed when I go back for the second time. It's when I get my best rest and my most interesting dreams.

Have a good day.

Ciao,

Nora

Just be unruly...

It's early in the morning and I'm having my third cup of coffee, soon to be followed by a tall glass of cold milk. I can only drink so much coffee before I'm completely satiated with it and don't want another drop of it. It does mean that I'm wide awake for now and that all the marbles in my head are in their proper place. There aren't any rolling around unguardedly creating bumps and dents. Everything is pretty solid up there and when I tilt my head, I hear no alarming noises, nor do I suffer from vertigo.

Having established that, I think I can safely write a blog post and try to make some sense of it without making it too complicated so early in the morning when the world hasn't even woken up yet. It is Sunday and things will stay quiet for a long time until the church bells ring for the first mass. I will be sound asleep again by that time, as it is usual for me to go back to bed and get the rest of my beauty sleep in, not that it's helping a heck of a lot. Whatever beauty I had has faded with age and is irretrievable. I don't mourn for it and age gracefully. There aren't any other options. 

I very obediently had a quiet night at home as is befitting of a middle aged woman, and I spent it watching harmless programs on television.  They're the sort of programs made for people who don't have anything better to do on a Saturday night, but who need to be entertained anyway, without being taxed too much. It's called amusement and what would I do without it? I pretend to be more interested than I really am, but it's really a good way to pass the time and sometimes I am mildly amused. Sometimes I even care. I'm glad I get to decide for myself what nonsense I get to watch and that there's no one here to critique my choice of programs, because it doesn't all have to be very challenging. I can imagine that if I lived with someone else, I wouldn't watch half the drivel that I do, and honestly, sometimes drivel is good.

I did watch the news twice. One time in the condensed form and one time in the more expanded form. I do try to be well informed. Between it and what I hear on the radio, I think I am. I like watching the news, as I'm very interested to know what's going on around the world and politically in my own country. Not that I feel that I have that much power over it, but I don't like to be caught unawares. I'd like to think that just knowing about it makes me a better person and in the end, because everything is connected, better able to vote when it comes down to it, because we are so internationally oriented. I do like to hear the backgrounds and that is why I like the political discussions on the radio. 

I'm drinking cold milk now and very good it tastes too after all that coffee. I think coffee does make you thirsty as it has the tendency to dehydrate you. It is great if you're retaining water.

I think I'm ready to get back into my warm bed. I haven't had the heater on the whole time I've been up. It has been warm enough in here still. For some reason it didn't cool off that much during the night, even though it's freezing outside. It's going to be another cold, sunny day. I will walk Tyke in my warm winter coat with my gloves on. That's for later, first I'm going to sleep some more. 

Have a good morning.

Ciao,

Nora

By Moonlight...

Four hours of sleep is not a lot, but that's all I've had so far. This means that I will have to go back to bed later and sleep some more, but I can't sleep late, because my Belgian personal helper is coming at eleven o'clock this morning. I also still have to clean up the kitchen, which is a bit of a mess. I'm not about to let her see how much of a mess it is, so I do have to get it organized. I suppose I'll do that before I go back to bed.

If I'm going to do that, I may as well stay up and take a shower and get that out of the way and get dressed and when I get to that point, I may as well forget about going to sleep again. I may take a short nap on the sofa, but that will be it. 

I've got no one to blame for it but myself, as I could have cleaned up the kitchen this weekend, but was too preoccupied. I was having too good a time to do it and I do like putting things off until the last minute, feeling that I'm better able to do them then. I work well under the pressure of time. It motivates me. 

I was in an excellent mood yesterday, despite the fact that it was the second day that I had so radically reduced my medicines. It didn't seem to bother me at all, after I thought that it had on Saturday. That must have been a figment of my imagination. I feel better than I have in a long time and it is noticeable in my whole demeanor. Even I can observe myself and see that I function better. I'm not a slow slug anymore.

As Sundays go, it was a good day. I never have very high expectations of that day, so anything that goes well is icing on the cake. It was a sunshiny day and not too cold and it was a pleasure to take Tyke out in my not so heavy leather jacket and winter scarf. We walked a little bit of a different route and Tyke had many opportunities to be very macho and assert himself with typical young male dog behavior. It included a lot of general growling and posing. He does have a busy life once he gets outside. It's a lot of fun to watch him. 

I visited my sister and her friend in the afternoon and rode my bike over there. It is finally possible to ride my bike again, but I do notice that I'm a little bit out of shape after not riding it all that time that there was snow and ice. I have to build up my stamina again. My sister's friend had gone to the bakery in the morning and had gotten delicious cakes, one of which was almost solid chocolate, a slice of which I had with a cafe latte and it was truly decadent. The coffee was not bad either and packed a real punch, just the way I like it. 

We had a nice time speaking in our best possible English, interspersed with Italian when the conversation got stuck and I'm now to the point that I'm even starting to get the drift of that. My sister is in her third year of Italian lessons and will do three more years.

When I got home, the critters where waiting for me and I had to abundantly greet them, though I had the feeling that they both had been asleep the whole time I had been away.  I made sure that Gandhi got equal attention after Tyke hogged all of his. That's best done when she hops on the kitchen counter and I can pet her there, away from him. Of course, they had to be fed and ate their food with great appetite. Tyke always acts like I starve him. He's an eating machine.

It was good to sit down in my armchair and smoke a cigarette and contemplate my navel for a while. I hadn't done so all day. Some solitude is nice. I could be a Buddhist on a part time basis. I'm not disciplined enough to be one full time. Besides, I don't think they're allowed to smoke.

I don't remember what I watched on television. That's how little impression it made on me. I went to bed early and listened to the radio. It's a little bit colder at night now and it felt great to get under the duvet. I have to make sure that I get enough of it, because Tyke gets on the bed and pulls it away from me. Gandhi gets on the bed too, but sleeps beside my pillows very ladylike. 

The subject on the radio was North Korea and how the government there opens restaurants all over the world named Pyongyang, which really maybe spy safe houses and places to whitewash false hundred dollar bills. How true this is I don't know. It's all a hypothesis. The food is supposed to be very good. There's supposed to be one restaurant in Amsterdam. 

With that intriguing bit of information I'm going to leave you. I think I will take a shower.  I still have my head on straight, so now is as good a time as ever.

Have a great day!

Ciao,

Nora

 

Where was I?

I've put the radio/CD player back in the bedroom. I decided that I missed it too much at night when I went to bed. It was too silent when I was laying there waiting to fall asleep. I thought that maybe it was too much of a stimulus, but I was wrong. The radio keeps me company and I fall asleep with it on easily. It distracts me and keeps me from thinking complicated thoughts. That's very important. 

I'm not here by myself in the living room. The domestic help is washing the windows. She does a very good job at them, better than I could. She knows how to wash them without getting streaks. That's why she is the domestic help. She's got a lot of experience. Tyke is watching her do her work. He likes her very much and is always very interested in what she does.

It's noontime and I've just taken my medicines, all except my afternoon anti-psychotic tablet. I'm not supposed to take that now. This is in an effort to further reduce them. I think I'm doing okay, except that I'm a little bit grumpy. It's not such a horrible thing to be grumpy, of course, and I'm sure I'll get over it. I don't think that it's anything important. I'll mention it to my psychiatrist when he calls me later. I mustn't make a mountain out of a molehill.

My psychiatrist just called me and I told him that I was a bit grumpy. He asked me if I thought it was a sign that I was entering a different mood. I told him that I didn't think so and that I really wasn't too worried. I don't think that I'm going to get hypo-manic or depressed right now. At least, I assume I won't. He wants me to reduce my anti-depressives also starting today. We're doing this very carefully and I'm seeing him next week. It's good to have the extra control while I do this.

I shouldn't really worry about a thing and just assume that all will be well. I'm tougher than the absence of a pill anyway. I will not be defeated. 

It has started to rain again and as far as I can see, the street is completely clear of snow and ice. What a relief that is. It had stopped being fun quite some time ago. Now the river is very full and almost at the highest level. All sorts of precautions are beings taken. There's a lot of melt water from upstream that is finding its way into it from Belgium and France, but also from the smaller rivers here. Some land is being allowed to flood, it is designated for that. That's better than having some of the villages flood. 

It's 11 degrees Celsius (50F), that's quite warm for us. I have the bedroom windows open to air out the apartment. I had to go sit in my bedroom with the animals while the domestic help vacuumed the front of the apartment and mopped it. Neither Tyke nor Gandhi likes the vacuum cleaner and we don't want them walking on the wet floors. They do leave behind paw prints. That's really not that awful, but I pretend it is for the sake of the domestic help. 

I'm done being grumpy now and feel quite alright. I'm ready for the remainder of this Friday. I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet, but I'm sure I'll find some way to stay out of trouble. I usually do. I just mustn't show any kind of extreme behavior. I mustn't be too happy or too sad. That's a tall order. I think I'm up to it, though. I took a little nap on the sofa this morning and would be more than happy to take another one, but I think I'll go watch the speed skating championships on television. 

Have a nice day!

Ciao,

Nora

On my way to bed...

If I write that I'm on my way to bed, I'll feel that there is a reward for me waiting at the end of this post. What I really should do, is put on my pajamas and bathrobe now and really be ready for bed. I still may do that after I've finished my cup of coffee. I'm awfully tired at the end of this day and look forward to going to sleep. I can't wait to get under the duvet and put my head down on my pillows and fall asleep by the sound of the radio.

It all started off this morning with me picking out the clothes I was going to wear. I had some idea before I looked into the closet and did end up picking out that outfit, which consisted of two pairs of legging, a black long sleeved stretch T-shirt and a black and white tunic. The top pair of leggings was black also and I needed two pairs to keep me warm. 

I took a shower then and shivered, because I can't get the thermos faucet hot enough, no matter how hard I turn it, and washed my hair. I quickly dried myself off with Tyke's help (he likes to lick the water of my lower legs) and got into my clothes as fast as I could and doused myself with perfume.

Then I did chores and waited for my personal helper to get here, which she did a half hour early, on foot, bundled up against the cold, trying not to break her neck on the ice that was in the streets and on the sidewalks. So we had a hot cup of coffee first before we put our brave boots on and went and took Tyke for a much needed walk. Tyke was very happy and eager to go when he saw me put my boots on. He was sitting pretty while I put his leash on and was ready by the front door before I even had my gloves on. We walked very carefully and moved to the grass as soon as we could, because there things were soft and crunchy. We sank into the icy patches.

When we came home, I talked about all the things I was so nervous about and that were worrying.me, which were just the ordinary every day details of the life of a human being who functions in the world, but which I find very difficult. It's why I have to take tranquilizers. This personal helper, whom I'll call my Belgian personal helper, is very good to talk to and gives me lots of good feedback and I always feel better after I've talked about these details of ordinary life. It's like she holds up a mirror in which I see myself and my problems and things seem less complicated. 

She suggested that she comes more often than once a week and starting next week she will be here on Thursday mornings as well. I'm very grateful for that and can't believe my luck. The other personal helper will come on Wednesday mornings, so I will have someone three times a week. I can discuss all my problems with them. Whatever sort of trouble I run into I can discuss with them and they will help me. If that isn't a very good deal, I don't know what is. 

Soon after she left, the domestic help got here and cleaned up the apartment very nicely and it is such a joy to have the place look spic and span. I never have to be embarrassed about having anyone over here, because it always looks good in here. 

Because it was my sister's birthday today, she came and picked me up and took me to her house for coffee and pie. Her Italian friend was there and he had bought her a dishwasher and was finishing installing it. It looked very good when it was done and worked like a charm. He's a very handy man to have around the house. We had delicious pie and I would have liked to have eaten two pieces, but alas... the gastric band! Because I can't speak Italian like they do and I didn't want to speak English, I went on strike and spoke French. I thought about speaking German, but my German is rusty. 

I finally made it home after six where my loyal animals were waiting for me and needed lots of cuddling and food. And then I was tired, because it had been an eventful day for me. I normally don't have such busy days. Tomorrow the Exfactor is coming in the morning to do the groceries and in the afternoon I have an appointment with my SPN. I need a good night's sleep and that's what I'm going to get right now. I'm going to put my pajamas on. 

Have a good night!

Ciao,

Nora

Through the night...

It is now in the middle of the night and it is 23F degrees outside and the sky is clear. No wonder the heater was coming on. I have the thermostat set low, but the radiators felt warm when I got up. The Heater comes on every once in a while. It's not on continuously. Apparently the apartment is well enough insulated to keep out the worst of the cold.

I went to bed very early last night, because I was completely bored with what was on TV, which is never interesting on Saturday nights, and I wasn't in the mood for blogging either. I laid in bed and listened to the football game on the radio until I dozed off.A football game is also boring enough to drift away by. Who can keep track of all the different players when there are no pictures to look at?

I woke up in a sweat and had to go to the toilet in a hurry and then Tyke had to go out back. I stood by the back door in the cold night air and completely cooled off, which was nice. When you're having a hot flash there's nothing better than the freezing cold on your body. It would have been different if a strong northern wind had been blowing. I might not have enjoyed it as much then.

Since it's the weekend, I decided to stay up and enjoy the silence of the night and catch up on my sleep in the morning. I started a pot of coffee and turned on the computer and answered emails. I can usually do that before I've had my coffee, though I function better mentally after I've had a cup. I probably would write better emails if I waited, but I'm impatient to get them done.

It's going to be cold like this for a while and on Wednesday and the next few days we are expecting snow. So it is predicted. If it will actually come about is another matter all together, because we are promised all sorts of weather that never really happens. Sunshine that doesn't appear and rain that doesn't fall. Weather forecasters do their best, but it still isn't an exact science and they can only make broad predictions and not really pinpoint them all that locally. At least for our area they don't seem to be able to do it. We will see.

I have to make a list of things that I have to take care of. I don't think it's actually going to be that long, but they are things that keep escaping my attention and that I think of when I can't do anything about them. They keep nagging me at the back of my mind and then I start to worry about them at the most inappropriate times. It will be better to get each item down on paper and check it off as I get it done. That seems to be the most sensible thing to do. I'm not a great maker of lists, but I do see the sense of them now. It's a great way to organize your mind and to actually accomplish things. That's one resolution I have to keep. I'm starting mine before it's actually New year's. 

All you other single people out there are my great example. You are all managing your lives and taking care of the details  and problems of it with whatever degree of success, and although I don't know how difficult this is for you, you do seem to pull it off. I never hear any big complains and stories of woe. You all seem to cope and do well. I must remember that I'm not the only middle aged woman on her own who has to figure out her own stuff. Sometimes I get a lot overwhelmed and I don't want to cope at all, but be like an ostrich and put my head in the sand. I wonder if you have the same problem too and how do you overcome that? Do you ever get intimidated by life? 

It's early in the morning now and I'll move on to other things. This has been a nice way way to spend the night. I've taken my time writing this, but I did have to take a tranquilizer and wait for it to work halfway through. I had too much free floating anxiety and worries. 

Have a good morning and enjoy your Sunday. 

Ciao,

Nora

Have another cup, please.

It's early in the morning and I'm very contentedly sitting here drinking my coffee and smoking my cigarettes. In other words, I'm going through my regular morning ritual. I've read blogs and commented on them and had a good time doing that. It's always very interesting to see what pictures and stories people come up with. It's a comfortable routine and a good way to start the day. 

I'm sitting here with my bathrobe on and my comfortable slippers that Aims made for me. They are very soft and warm and the best things to wear when you have cold and sore feet. Tyke is fascinated by them and can't figure out what happened to my feet when I wear them. He follows me around and tries to bite them as if my feet are trapped in there. When I don't wear them, I put them away very carefully in a high spot. I don't want any surprises. 

The rain has stopped for now and they say that the river is not going to flood, despite the amount of water that went into it here and in Belgium. There's supposed to be more rain today, but tomorrow the weather is getting better and we'll even get some sunshine. There was a lot of rain yesterday and it was almost impossible to take Tyke for a walk. My hair has dried up funny and I'll have to wash it, because it sticks up in unexpected places and is completely flat in others. 

The day went by quickly yesterday, despite the fact that I didn't do anything special, except for hang up a load of laundry to dry and wash one load. Of course, I slept very late and I went to bed early. As a matter of fact, I couldn't wait for it to be late enough to go to bed and I watched TV until it was. 

I do think lying in bed, listening to the radio until I fall asleep, is one of my favorite things to do. I don't care much about what I watch on TV. There's not that much on at night that I really care about. It doesn't matter if I miss a program, I'm not addicted to one. Listening to the radio while lying in bed is very cozy and I don't even mind if it's a report of a football game. I do learn to recognize the names of the players and their teams. 

I don't have anything on the program today, except that I'm supposed to go to my sister this afternoon at three o'clock. If the weather is bad, she's going to come and get me. I assume it will rain. I'm not willing to take the chance to get soaked on my bike. I do hate getting really wet. A little bit is okay, but soaked to the skin is another matter. Despite the fact that I live in a wet country, I don't have any rain clothes. That is something I need to rectify one of these days. I think I've said that before already. 

I do miss having a clothes dryer now. I very much would like to have one and not have to wait for things to get dry on the clothing rack. Some day, when I have the money, I would like to buy a combination washer/dryer. It must be possible to buy those second hand. There is man in town who deals in these things, maybe he has something like this at times. I'll have to get in contact with him and ask him if he ever does. 

I'm going back to bed in a little while to get the rest of my sleep. It's too early to stay up and, besides, it is Sunday and there's nothing better to do. It won't be light for a while yet and even then it will be gloomy and there will be no action outside whatsoever. It will be a good day to stay in bed and sleep late. If I were a farmer, I'd go milk the cows now and feed the chickens. Alas, I have no such luck. 

I'm starting to yawn, so it is time to go. I don't want my jaw to get stuck. It did again the other day, but I got it unstuck very quickly. It's a bit of a shock every time it happens. 

Have a nice Sunday. I hope your weather treats you right. 

Ciao,

Nora

Back at it again...

I just got called by someone from the clinic to tell me that I can start my creative class Wednesday afternoon. I could also go on Monday afternoon, but I explained that I have my domestic help here then. I was told to try and make a different arrangement with the person who leads the class. At any rate, they are trying to give me two afternoons, so that's not bad. I asked for two classes and they are willing to give them to me if there is space.

I am worried about going to the class, because I'm in that kind of a mood again. I feel very insecure and rather depressed. I'm frankly not doing so well and what I want to do more than anything is crawl away in a corner and never come out. That won't do, though, and I do try to function up to some point. I worry about having to take care of things and not being able to and I find myself postponing what I think is unpleasant and difficult. My courage is lacking.

Needless to say, I'm smoking again. All I was doing anymore is lie in bed and sleep. It was a depressing existence, but I knew no other way to survive. Any time I was up, all I could think about were cigarettes and how much I wanted to smoke. I fled to bed to escape the thoughts of them. I thought I was going to manage that way, but I was wrong.

What I really need is for someone to come and take care of some of the more difficult things now, but I'm afraid that I have to take care of them myself. I'll give myself today to recuperate, but I hope that tomorrow I have my act together better.

I'm going to lie down now and listen to the radio. It's the least uncomplicated thing I can think of. It's safe too.

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

Rites of passage.

It's officially Saturday, although you can't really speak of morning yet. It's still in the middle of the night, but by the time I finish writing this, it will be so close to dawn that it will be almost morning. I'm glad that it's officially Saturday, because I feel that I can go back to bed at any time and sleep until I'm done sleeping and ready to get up again, although it may not actually take me that long.

Since I've quit smoking, I've started taking short naps during the day and they help me get through the occasional craving I may have for a cigarette, so I'm never really super tired and I'm done sleeping quickly. I also spend a lot of time reading to take my mind of cigarettes, so I don't exactly get exhausted from physical activity. Reading is my main activity and it works very well to keep me occupied, but it's not very tiring.

I think I take naps to relieve my mind of the thoughts of smoking and because it's a distraction to lie in bed and listen to the radio and doze off for a short time. I just as easily get up again and move to my armchair to continue reading.

I think the period of quitting smoking is a huge time out from regular life and it is a period during which nothing is quite as normal as it usually is. It is a time of coping and waiting. You wait for your body to forget the actual habit of cigarette smoking. I still have the tendency to want to light up a cigarette and I'm waiting for that to dissipate and disappear altogether. I don't want that to be part of my second nature anymore. I don't want it to be an automatic reaction to any given situation, innocent as it is, rewarding as it might have been.

I know that in time my body and my mind will forget about this habit and it will not be second nature anymore. I will get used to not subconsciously wanting to reach for a cigarette and my lighter. I can already drink a cup of coffee without associating it with the need to smoke. Which is good, because I need my cups of coffee.

Every once in a while, though, a very strong urge to smoke hits me and I'm ready to go to my neighbor and beg for a cigarette. Pride and a dislike for my neighbor withhold me from doing so. They are nosy enough as it is. Besides, that would be one cigarette and I would still have to do without the rest of the time and it wouldn't help me one bit. It would just be a very temporary satisfaction.

I finished reading 'When We Were Orphans' last night and was very much impressed with it. The ending was especially exciting and very surprising and not at all what I was expecting. It was such a well written book and so very much believable that you started to think it had really happened, but of course it was impossible, but it is the hallmark of a great book and I wonder about the author's research for it. This is the kind of novel that will stay in my memory for a long time.

I started reading 'Man Walks Into Room' by Nicole Krauss. I've read this book before, but it was in a muddled past and I have forgotten nearly all of it, so it's like reading a new book. I'm looking forward very much to finishing it, because I remember enjoying it very much before and being impressed with it and I will read it all day today, unless I get distracted by the television. There are some cultural programs on this morning, so maybe...

My apartment is very clean, as the domestic help was here yesterday and it also seems to stay cleaner since I've quit smoking. There's less dust and no ashes and tobacco and the whole place looks better. I told the domestic help that whatever she cleaned well now would stay clean and there would not be that brown film on everything. She's been cleaning with ammoniac to get that off everything. She's a smoker herself and that's how she cleans at home. The one that comes on Monday also did a good job and that's the day I quit, so it made a difference from that day onward.

I think I will go back to bed for a little while and listen to the radio and see if I have any sleep left in me. I will find out soon enough if I'm done sleeping and if I should start the day officially now. According to Tyke it's not time yet, because he's sound asleep on the sofa. Gandhi is sound asleep in the armchair. It's still early in the morning and I haven't heard a sound yet outside. It's even too early for the paper delivery person.

I hope you all have a good day.

Ciao,
Nora

Wednesday night and all is well...

I've already been asleep for awhile, but as is usual, I woke up and am wide awake again. I had a cup of coffee, but now I'm drinking cold milk and it is tasting very good. It fills my stomach and quenches my thirst. I don't feel like eating. For some reason my stomach feels very full and all I've had today was a peanut butter sandwich.

I didn't go back to sleep last night, but read my book until it was morning. I did doze off in the armchair a couple of times. I should have gone back to bed and set the alarm clock for 8 am, but I was stubborn and decided to stay up. It's a mistake I won't make quickly again because it bothered me for the rest of the day. I'm just now recuperated from it.

The men with the sofa got here at 10 am. The sofa easily fit through the front door and the hallway into the living room where it was unpacked and put in place. It's a nice sofa, very modern in a pretty gray color, but I should not have gotten the throw pillows with the lime green covers for it. That doesn't look good. I definitely need red covers for them to tie in with the color of one of the arm chairs, and the curtain in front of the door that I don't use, and the red window shades. The colors in the living room need to be red and black and gray. I didn't figure all of that out until way later in the day.

I have to get new shades for the living room windows tomorrow morning to replace the rather discolored ones that are there now, and I'm going to get a brighter shade of red than I have now. It's going to match the other shades of red in the living room better. I have ordered new covers for the pillows and they will be here in the afternoon. That will tie the whole thing together.

I mounted different collages in the frames above the sofa and put a different movie poster in the frame by the living room windows. I just wanted a change. I don't know if I'm happy with it yet. I have to think about it. I may change it still.

I was actually too tired to be making decisions about changes and needed to go to sleep. I canceled my appointment with my psychiatrist and asked the secretary for him to call me later in the afternoon, after I had slept. We could make a new appointment then.

I slept for a couple of hours, but not nearly long enough and I felt like a wrung out dishcloth when I got up. I had no energy for anything, but I did realize what was wrong with the living room and was bound and determined to set it to rights.

I finished the autobiography that I was reading and will start on 'When We Were Orphans' next. That will be shortly as I'm not nearly ready to go to bed yet, though I don't want to stay up all night like I did last night. I did learn my lesson. I don't want to read in bed, though, because there's the danger that Tyke will get a hold of my book and shred it to pieces. Besides, when I'm in bed, I like to listen to the radio and let my thoughts wander.

Have a good night you all.

Ciao,
Nora

Completely...

It's in the middle of the night and I'm completely wide awake, smoking the last of my cigarettes until I go to the pharmacy first thing in the morning to pick up my nicotine patches. When I first got up I was miserable and grumpy and out of sorts and chain smoking, until I had my cup of coffee and then I was okay and a more reasonable human being. Coffee does set me to rights and I can never do without it. It's like a medicine to me. I sorts out my brain. I'm convinced of the healing powers of caffeine in my case. I don't know what it does for you, but for me it is a very positive experience.

I read blogs, which I was behind on, and left comments on most of them. Some of them I had not read in three days, so I was shamefully behind. I had not been in the proper mood and could not bring myself to read them, let alone comment on them. I am caught up now and can relax again. I feel I've had my enjoyment and done my duty. I read some blogs that I hardly ever comment on, because I feel a little bit like a stranger there, but I'm a faithful follower. I hope the fact that I show up counts for enough.

I had not planned to stay up, but now that I am, I am going to make the most of it and enjoy myself. I'm in such a good mood now that I want to take advantage of that and let the situation last as long as possible. I'm not going to spoil it by going to bed. There's not a hair on my head that's thinking about it anyway. I'm too excited to go to bed just now.

I do have very interesting dreams when I sleep and I wonder how much they are influenced by what I hear on the radio while I'm asleep. I have elements in my dreams that were not there before, so I'm sure they are coming from outside, but I give my own twist to them and incorporate them into my own fantasies. Music is part of it and I do dream about that regularly, but have people play it whom I know very well. Or have them sing songs. Still, although I listen to a Dutch radio station, all my dreams take place in the English language, of that I'm sure, and I find that interesting. My dreams are all very dramatic and look like large screen movie productions with special effects and a music score and everything. Like a filmed opera, I suppose. There's wailing going on too, sometimes. Lord only knows what I listen to at night.

I talked to my sister yesterday and she told me that her party went on until 2:30 in the morning. Can you imagine lasting that long? I would have called it quits by midnight. I'm so obviously not a party animal and my sister so obviously is. She always has a lot of fun in a crowd of people. I do better in small intimate groups. She's a very outgoing person, a real extrovert and shares herself with anyone and everybody. I'm more introverted and private and share myself sparingly. Except on my blog, that's the exception. I share myself here because I can be contemplative and choose my words carefully and show what I want to show, although I'm not that secretive about myself. For the most part, I'm pretty open and tell it like it is in a mostly rational way.

For the past few days I've felt a bit down and I thought that maybe I was getting depressed, but it seems to have lifted now and I feel better. I suppose those are just the natural cycles that people go through that I have to get used to. Not every mood has to have a significant meaning, except for the last one I had, which was distinctly hypomanic and could have gotten me into a lot of trouble. As it is, the damage was relatively small and I didn't do anything too crazy, except for buying a new sofa and coffee table and area rug. That's still within reason, just about. I'm going to pay them off with the money I save on the tobacco I won't be buying anymore. That adds up to a large amount of money.

I'm afraid of the black dog that's always stalking me in the background, but maybe he will stay in the background this season. I've had years when he didn't appear at all, and maybe this will be one of them. I'm as prepared as I can be and have all systems in place. I know I can count on the light therapy lamp to elevate my mood, there's no doubt about that. It's a shame that I had lost faith in it and didn't use it last year. It would have saved me a lot of bother.

Yesterday afternoon I didn't have an Internet connection. I reset the modem four times, unsuccessfully. I finally called the help desk and they talked me through the procedure and it turned out in the end that the cable in the hard drive wasn't plugged in properly. Duh! I think Tyke must have pulled it loose when he went to retrieve his ball. It sure puzzled me and I hadn't thought of that solution, but I will from now on. It will be the first place I look if and when it happens again. You learn a new lesson every day. It makes you appear a little dumb, but I don't care about that. Let them think what they want, as long as I have my connection back.

Well, I'm going to enjoy the last hours of my smoking life. I have to stock up on some air freshener and Febrèze. I'm going to treat the whole apartment and do lots of laundry. I will have the place smelling good in no time.

Have a good day!

Ciao,
Nora

Nothing like it...

There's nothing like a cold glass of milk when you're quenching your thirst, except that you then want a second and third one and I do have to draw the line somewhere, don't I? I'll run out of milk before it's shopping day if I don't. And it does make your body cold all over if you have more than one ice cold glass, which makes you want to put on your bathrobe for warmth. I just did that, because I couldn't resist temptation. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak.

I was asleep already, but was awakened by my neighbors a few houses down who are having a cocktail party in their back garden. There's a cacophony of laughing and shouting voices, no doubt helped along by some alcohol. I'll have to close my window when I go to sleep next or they will have stopped their party by that time. Maybe all the people will be driven inside by the cold. It's only 11C outside, after all. They must all be out there with jackets on. Maybe these are all the guests that smoke cigarettes. If so, there are many of them.

The day went by fine. I walked Tyke three times and all three times he acted like a runaway elephant from the circus. He hopped, skipped and jumped all over the place, he was that happy to be outside. He was 18 months old yesterday and still acts and looks like a puppy. He is endearing when you see him and everybody wants to pet him, especially old ladies.

I read my novel, which I now realize is a "feel good" novel. I'll finish it nevertheless, because it is interesting enough and I'm far enough into it to stop reading it. I do want to know how it ends, but it's not the sort of novel I would normally read. It's a little bit too simple for that. I like one with more darker aspects to it. In this one someone is either a good guy or a bad guy, and the good guys are really good. Unconditionally so. It seems a movie has been made of this book, but I don't know how well it did in the theaters.

I watched a program about Alma Mahler, the wife of Gustav Mahler, who married two Jews in a time when it was not so popular to and she made her escape with her second husband to California and later to New York. When she went back after the war to reclaim her property in Austria, she was asked by the judge why she as a nice Christian woman had married two Jewish men, at which point she left Austria and never returned. She composed music of her own, but gave it all up when she married Mahler, who could not stand a wife who also composed. He thought she had to live in service of him. Her second husband was more broadminded and gave her all sorts of room to develop herself. His name was Franz Werzel who wrote the book The Song of Bernadette. It was a promise he made if they were to escape the Nazis.

This program was part of the cultural programming that's on television on Saturdays, which is very rewarding and deals with art and literature and architecture. I do get my fill on Saturdays and so appreciate that. Especially since I get to do so very few cultural things myself. I do hunger for these things and am very curious about them. I took two classes in art history in California and I'm fascinated by the subject, so anything like it is fine with me, but I also like modern art, although it doesn't always make sense to me and expressionism gives me a headache. And that's not even modern anymore. I like Karel Appel very much. His are very happy and lively paintings with lots of primary colors. They are like bursts of energy. If I could paint like that, I would be very happy.

For some reason, there are sports commentaries on talk radio on the weekends and I'm not too thrilled about that. I'd rather listen to something more interesting than a rehash on some football game that was played that afternoon. I suppose on the weekends sports are all that count, at least at the time that I go to bed and want to listen to the radio. I fall asleep anyway, because it's so darn boring, but I'd rather listen to a subject that I really care about and that is somewhat enriching to my intellect. Last night there was a piece on about a very good gymnast who had been caught using cocaine and I say, that's plain stupid, but why waste 30 minutes on it, as it happened some time ago. I'm sure we're not all going to run out and use cocaine now unless we're warned off by the example. Sometimes the public is thought to be simple.

Sundays are a day of rest, but I'm going to change my bed and do a load of laundry. I'm also washing the fleece blankets that I have on the sofa and armchair. The yellow and red one. I also have to remember to water the plants again. The spider plant is taking quite a beating from the animals. They both want to chew on it. For some reason it is a very fascinating plant to them with its spiky leaves. They chew all the babies off. I'll have to get another less attractive plant to put on the dining table and move this one to a less vulnerable spot, wherever that is. Somewhere safe from Gandhi, on the bookcase probably. She can't get in there and it will be safe from Tyke too. It will give the spider plant a proper chance to grow like it should and become abundant.

I had to stop using my light therapy lamp, as it was making me hypomanic, or had I already mentioned that? It seems that when you use it when you're not depressed, this happens. I went up and up and up and then came down with a crash and then returned to normal, but I haven't used the lamp since. I didn't realize that could happen and used it as a preventive measure, which turned out to be not a good idea. You only should use it when you're really depressed and not when you think you may become so down the line. I suppose I'm still getting enough hours of daylight for this not to be the case. It's not nice to fool mother nature. Another lesson learned.

I need to make an appointment to get my hair cut as it is now becoming unmanageable. It's too long to brush it into the proper shape and I look funny. I also ran out of hairspray and now I can't do a thing with it because it is fly away hair. If I sleep on it wrong it sticks out in a funky direction. I thought about letting it grow, but I don't like that awkward in between stage and I would rather have it cut short again. Besides, I need the pampering that a visit to the hair salon brings with it. I'm looking forward to it. I deserve it. I am woman hear me roar...

I've been wearing my multi colored floral dress, but I think I will change into my burgundy colored India cotton dress with pockets today. I have a nice silky scarf that goes with it. I can make myself happy in anticipation about which clothes I'm going to wear. It is a treat to myself, even if I don't share it with anybody else. I do it for my own satisfaction and to look good when I walk Tyke. I am a city woman, after all. I can't walk around in grungy clothes. I dress up always, even for unimportant things. Besides, I don't have grungy clothes. I don't have old clothes to wear for dirty jobs either. I just don't do dirty jobs.

It's in the very wee hours of the morning now, optimistically speaking. There's some time to go until dawn. I think the neighbors' party is over, it's quiet out there now and I did hear a bunch of people leave some time ago. Tyke's sound asleep in the armchair and Gandhi is asleep on the sofa. I've got to clean the kitchen up a little bit and I'll do that before I go to bed again. I'm not sleepy, but for the heck of it I'll go back to bed. A person does have to be sensible and I did just now yawn.

I hope you all have a nice day.

Ciao,
Nora

Thank goodness it is Saturday...

Isn't it wonderful that it's the weekend again? The week flew by and I don't know where the time went. It just disappeared in a the blink of an eye, or several of them, and now I get to relax in the luxury of two days of spare time. I will enjoy it very much. The only thing I have to do is make a trip to the tobacconist to replenish my supply of tobacco and to buy another lighter, because Tyke demolished one of them again the other night. That is just a short outing, though, and that's the only obligation I have, besides walking Tyke a couple of times a day.

I can't tell you what a relief it is to have no outside pressure on me at all and to really know that nothing is expected of me for two whole days. Subconsciously, during the week, I always live with the idea that there will be expectations made of me that I can't live up to and I don't have that on the weekends. They really are an enormous break for me. But then again, I'm sure you must all feel that way and I'm sure it is a universal feeling and the weekends must be a big break for everybody, even the people with the most "uncomplicated" lives.

I'm repeating myself, I'm sure I have written this down before.

I finished my novel yesterday afternoon while I was sitting in my armchair with a big pillow in my side to lean against. The ending was fantastic, but you really feel so sad, because you think that all the agony and pain and madness could have been avoided if the truth had been told at the very beginning. If there had not been this attempt at this huge cover up. It really shows a lot about human nature and not the prettiest sides of it either, but rather how we might behave under the hardest pressure and when we make assumptions based on what people might think of us and how much we let that bother us. Some barely to be forgiven acts are committed and you have to somehow come to grips with them. Or not and have them be unresolved in your own mind. The novel was Drowning Ruth by Cristina Schwartz.

I've now started reading Where The Heart Is by Billie Letts and it's a completely different novel with a lot of dark humor in it. I'm not sure if I should call it dark humor, because I have a tendency to take things seriously and someone else may call it light humor, but the main character finds herself in quite a pickle, though it is treated with a certain amount of lightness and gaiety, as much as that is possible. You most definitely feel compassion for her. There are good guys and bad guys, that much is clear. I'm only up to page 65, so I can't say too much about it yet. A lot needs to develop yet.

I've now made it a habit to sit in my armchair for a few hours every afternoon to read, because I don't read at night before I go to sleep anymore. It's rather comfortable and very often Tyke or Gandhi climbs on my lap. They do want to get as close as they can get. I have my glass of milk and my cigarettes and settle in and have a good old read and concentrate completely on the book. The world is at a standstill. At night I listen to the radio and last night I fell asleep listening to the commentary to a football game of the Netherlands playing against San Marino. I was asleep in the shortest amount of time because I was not that fascinated by it. It was a rather dull game and the Dutch had 90% ball possession and made all the goals. It was a little bit too easy.

It was cold in the bedroom last night because I still had the window open and I put on warm pajamas and socks and crawled way under the duvet to get warm. Tyke laid down almost on top of me. I must get him a pair of pajamas too.

It's foggy outside right now and 9C, but we're supposed to have sunshine today and 19C. It will be a nice fall day and tomorrow too. No rain anyway. Even I got tired of that.

I must take my medicines and get dressed. It's time to walk Tyke and breathe in the cold morning air.

Have a nice day!

Ciao,
Nora

Before the morning starts...

I'm up before it's even dawn and no doubt this will necessitate me going back to bed sometime today to sleep some more, but never mind. I do have the time to do that. I have no appointments and no one coming over. It's a free day. I will go back to bed when I feel that I can't stand on my two legs anymore and that I will fall asleep while I'm doing whatever chores I find to do. In the bedroom the radio is softly playing, so I can go back to it whenever I please.

I didn't sleep for a long time. I had to go to the toilet and let Tyke out back and then I was so wide awake that I stayed up. I'm always so full of curiosity and action when I get up at that time. It's like I can't wait to start the day and wait for the sun to come up to shed light on it. I'm too impatient to stay in bed, no matter how nice and comfortable it was in there. I'm definitely an early morning person.

If I had a garden, I would be out there first thing with my cup of coffee and do whatever I could to make it look better. Pinch off dead flowers, remove dead leaves, pick out snails, admire my handiwork. I'm going to fertilize the soil of my flowerbeds next spring and plant shade loving plants there, never mind that Tyke will probably pee on them. I'm an optimist and assume that most of them will survive. I will pick hardy plants that can take a beating.

The peanut butter sandwiches worked out well. I can eat one if I cut off all the crusts and feed those to Tyke who gladly eats them up. One is just enough and then I'm full, but I savor each bite and I can eat again a couple of hours later. I forgot how good peanut butter tastes and how well fresh wheat bread tastes. It's a pure luxury to eat those things and I'm in 7th heaven when I do. I have a glass of cold milk to go with it and it is very good, though I can hardly finish it. The gastric band does restrict me and that's a good thing, because I would have many peanut butter sandwiches if it didn't. I do have a tendency to find my solace in food and now I can't. I just have to be creative with the foods that I can eat and find ways to get full and get my nutrition.

Yesterday afternoon I sat in my armchair by the light of the reading lamp with a tall glass of milk and read my novel. To make myself more comfortable, I had the armrest pillow of the sofa at my side so I could lean against it. I had put a pillowcase around it that fit it perfectly and matched the decor. The pillow is always picking up cat hair and Tyke likes to toss it to the ground so it gets dirty easily. I have to find the matching pillowcase for the other pillow. I'll have to dig into the closet where I'm sure it is. My complimentary colors are red and yellow.

I read my novel and I'm sure caught up in it. There is a terrible secret in it that's bound to be revealed in the end and we are slowly being led to the revelation, but not without there growing a terrible misunderstanding. This evolves out of a sense of shame and madness. Actually, you get the sense that one of the main characters of the book is really a terrible woman and that she must be very mad indeed, but I suppose I will understand it better in the end. I don't feel a lot of compassion for her as yet. She irritates me terribly and I find little excuse for her behavior. But that's me looking at it with my 21st century eyes. The novel takes place in the early part of the 20th century when norms and peoples' motivations were different.

The formation of our government is at risk. That's a good thing because the coalition that's trying to be formed is a very faulty one in my eyes and in the eyes of many other people as well. It would be a coalition to the right with the support of an extreme right party. Now there is some serious backlash from the members of one of the coalition partners who say that you can't seriously govern with that extreme right party and stick to the principles of the constitution. There is a crisis. It seems that nobody, including the queen, ever took the attempt at this coalition seriously and didn't think it would go as far as it did. Unfortunately, power hungry people did and are very eager to rule the country and be prime minister. A dangerous game was played and now we have the almost disastrous results. These are grown up boys playing at politics and seeing themselves as very important people. I think it is very risky and they need to be stopped. I hope and pray for a good outcome.

I seem to have pulled a muscle in my shoulder and it won't stop hurting. I think I need a good massage, but I don't know anybody close by who could give me one. I may try some pain medication and see if that will relax it some, because it tightens up the muscles in my neck too. There's always some ache or pain somewhere in my body. Well no, I shouldn't say that. Sometimes there is. I'm sure everybody else has the same problem. It's just a result of living and being a human being. My back recovered well and I can sit behind the computer again without any problem. I took some pain medication for it and that cleared it up in no time. I will try to do the same thing for my shoulder.

I hope you all have a terrific day with beautiful weather, but rain for those of you who need it badly.

Ciao,
Nora

A very new day...

I'm sure my dip that I had yesterday was of a temporary nature, because today is a brand new day and I feel much better. I was up early in the morning for a little while, but clearly had not slept enough and went back to bed and slept until 11 am. I felt very good when I woke up and I was ready to face the day. I had none of the negative feelings that I had yesterday and my outlook was much brighter.

Listening to talk radio when I go to sleep is working out very well. I leave the radio on while I sleep and wake up to it as well. I fall asleep quickly listening to it and find it very soothing. All sorts of subjects are discussed and I learn a lot if I'm not asleep, but I wonder if subconsciously I don't also pick things up while I'm asleep, because I dream some very interesting things that I normally don't. I think the things I hear on the radio penetrate my mind while I´m asleep and get mixed up with what I'm dreaming at night and early in the morning.

I do have a greater desire for sleep, but I think that´s not necessarily a bad thing. I´m not as hyper as I was or I should say, as over excited, and I think that is good, because it was a bit worrisome. I felt the slightest bit hypomanic, although I would have denied it if you had asked me about it. I am now speaking after the fact, when I´m calmed down. This is a much better sort of mood to be in.

I´m very appreciative of my present mood, which is much more settled and serene and doesn´t require me to have to think of ways to keep myself constantly occupied. I can be at rest and be okay with that too. I´m not going around thinking of ways to stay out of trouble and to fill every moment of the day. It is alright to have long empty pauses too. Those are just restful moments. I can sit and do nothing at all and have peace with that and stare into the middle distance and think of nothing important at all. That´s a preferable state of mind. When nothing is really very urgent and all can be taken care of in its own good time.

The Exfactor was here this afternoon and did the very necessary groceries. I was out of all sorts of things and it was a good thing that he went to the supermarket. I plan the groceries to last me exactly one week and had run out of things. I was even out of coffee and was drinking tea, which I luckily still had enough of. I do have all sorts of tea and had the Exfactor buy me some more just in case. I fixed coffee for us when he came back from the store and it tasted mighty good, but I did make a strong pot. It met with the Exfactor´s approval anyway, so I know my coffee is good. He´s a picky person.

This particular brand of coffee has points that you can save on the packages and I´m cutting them out and saving them in the kitchen drawer. Because the Exfactor drinks the same coffee. I´ve made him promise to save his points too. I don´t really know what sort of useless things you can get with them, but if they´re free, I want to get them. I just have to find the booklet to paste the points in. I think you can get silver teaspoons and other decadent items like that. I´ll have to do some research. I´m getting real greedy. I´m a typical housewife after all, but that´s not why I drink this coffee. It is just plain good. They don´t even need to give away the points.

I had the Exfactor buy me some wheat bread and peanut butter. The wheat bread is good for me and the peanut butter I like and has protein. I haven´t been eating bread for a long time, but I think it´s a good addition to my diet. I´ll be eating it instead of the porridge, because I think it has just a bit more fiber and vitamins. I know that peanut butter is more fattening, but I don´t plan to eat the whole jar all at once. I do need more protein in my diet than I´m getting from dairy products alone. I thought about getting eggs, but then I remembered that I really don´t like them all that much and that I always forget to eat them. I would like to eat some fish one of these days, but I prefer a piece of salmon from the open air market and I never go there on the right day. There´s the problem with eating fish also, because salmon is a cultivated fish and there some question about it being a healthy to eat fish. I have to find out more about this.

We finally have nice weather today. It isn´t raining for a change and although there are clouds in the sky, the sun is shining a lot. It isn´t very warm, but you get a little bit of a sense of a nice early day in fall. Meteorologically it is fall already. It has been since yesterday. I do like the month of September because we usually have nice weather. It´s like a breather before autumn really starts.

I have to make it a point to sit in my armchair this afternoon and read my novel for a while now that I don´t read before I fall asleep. I so much prefer listening to the radio and I fall asleep quicker too. I do want to spend time reading, though, and I have plenty of books left to read. I don´t want to neglect my mind. These novels I read always give me lots of food for thought, especially the ones in which relationships and their different aspects are the focus. I learn a lot about human behavior and stop being surprised and what situations bring out what sides of a person´s character. Anything at all is possible.

What I´m looking forward to most is a peanut butter sandwich and a tall glass of milk. I think that will be my special treat for today.

Have a nice day!

Ciao,
Nora