No profoundness...

Today I will mention the fact that I'm waiting for the coffeemaker to get done brewing my two cups of coffee which I am sorely in need of. It is at the end of the afternoon and I am having just a little bit of a dip so I need the caffeine to climb out of it again. There's no question of taking a nap now. It is too late in the day for that. 

My bed doesn't look all that appealing anyway because those sheets have been on there for at least five days and I really want clean ones. I'm waiting for my favorite duvet cover to get dry and then I'll change the bed. The apartment is clean and I want my bed to be also. But first I've got to have those cups of coffee. 

I will not be very profound today and tell you all sorts of wise things about myself and my life. I'll take a day off and resume that again tomorrow. I don't feel like being very profound right now. I just want to be an ordinary, every day sort of person who doesn't impress anyone with her wisdom.

It has been a most excellent day and I've spent it pleasantly in the company of the Exfactor and the domestic help like I do every Friday. I think Friday is one of my most favorite days and that is also because it is the day before the weekend. 

Friday gives me the opportunity to straighten out my life without having to go far afield to look for the answers. I've usually got them close at hand and then I've got the weekend to put them to the test. I can try out any theory I have and see if it fits before I have to apply it during the week. 

I can tell the caffeine is working because I'm suddenly better capable of reasoning. I'm climbing out of my dip and becoming a human being again. I'll be sitting on top of the world in a moment. 

I guess some days you're more thoughtful about your life than other days. More pensive, I suppose. Not so outwardly shouting and loud about it. I am considering my attitude, although my outlook hasn't changed. I'm as comfortable with myself as I was yesterday and very sure of myself too. 

A cloak of restrictions and general anxiety has fallen off my shoulders and I have been set free. I am closer to how I used to be which is good. I hoped to be this way again. I'm not afraid of this person. She's a good human being and I trust her.

Ciao,
Irene

Being in possession of my good fortune...

The mission that I was on yesterday was a big success. This was because I was well prepared and in the right frame of mind. I also felt very strong and sure of myself and I was pretty convinced that it was going to have a good outcome. The person I was doing it all for also turned out to be more than ready to receive help and was very co-operative and open to all I had to say. She was further along in the process of discovering herself than I had anticipated. It was a pleasant surprise. 

I now feel that I've succeeded at something very important and that a huge step has been made. It is another great beginning to the new year which is looking good so far. I have a very good feeling about 2012 and I think compared to last year, this is going to be a much better one. And I don't mean just for me personally, but for the world as a whole generally. I think women especially are going to play a big role in bringing about change. It started off with the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prizes at the end of last year and will continue into this year.

If I can be accused of anything it's optimism, but I refuse to see the glass nearly empty. That's not at all the state of mind I'm in. 

I'm sitting here with a glass of milk in the middle of the night and I have to think about going back to bed soon because my personal helper is going to be here early in the morning. I do have to get up on time if I want to have a cup of coffee leisurely and get dressed properly. After she's been here, the Exfactor will come to do the groceries. 

I can't think of another thing to add.

I hope you're all sleeping soundly.

Ciao,

Nora

Getting my two cents worth in...

I feel a great sense of liberation and I don't know eaxactly why that is. I've had the feeling since yesterday evening when I had a sense of lightness fall over me and suddenly everything became very uncomplicated. It's just a shift of mood inside myself and doesn't have much to do with reality because nothing has shifted there. There's not suddenly been a change in my circumstances and nothing has been altered. It's my own attitude that's changed. 

I do welcome this and will not complain about it. I'd be a fool to. I very much enjoy this lighthearted, uncomplicated feeling. My heart really does feel light and fluttery. As if there are butterflies caught in it. And there is freedom in my mind. I'm not bogged down by negative thoughts and dark notions. The sun may not be shining outside, but it's bright inside my head, even now in the darkness of the night. I must have done something especially right and the planets must be ligned up correctly.. I can't explain it any other way. 

It may have something to do with the size 10 skinny jeans that I ordered and that arrived yesterday and that fit me perfectly. My other skinny jeans had gotten too big on me and were sliding down my hips and were too big around my butt. I took the chance and assumed that size 10 would be the size that would fit me next and I was right. They fit like a glove and I'm much pleased. 

On top of that, my sister had a cardigan that she bought that was just a bit too big on her, but that fit me well and that matches my jeans really well also, so I've got a totally new outfit. I like nothing better than new clothes, especially unexpected ones, so I was a happy camper. The cardigan is dark blue which is a color I don't often buy, but which matches me well and makes my blue eyes look bluer. What more could I want?

I redid my nails after three of them had gotten chipped again and I figured they were so vulnerable because I applied two layers. So when I reapplied the nail polish, I only put on one layer and assume it will stay on better. It will be easier to fix anyway if they do get chipped. It doesn't nearly take as much work to apply and dries quickly. 

I also think my nails are getting stronger and that may be because of the calcium tablets I've been taking every day. It would be wonderful if they worked and kept my nials from splitting. I do have to get a decent nail file as that is something I don't have in my possession. That shows you my shortcomings in the femininity department. I never before saw the sense of one because I always cut my nails short. Now, of course, I want longer nails to show off the polish.

Silver hairs are starting to show up all over my head and sparkle at me when I stand in the bathroom in front of the mirror. They twinkle at me like bright little stars. I don't mind one bit because it makes my blond hair look lighter. I'm not vain enough to want to cover them up with hair color. Maybe if I were a brunette I would care more. I'm sure it's more of a shock to your system then. I do apply make up to my very light eyebrows and eyelashes. That gives my face just a little more expression. 

Lest you think I'm totally self centered, I have to tell you that I possibly am. I think the world does revolve around me. At least on this blog I do. It's not like that in real life, of course. I do play second fiddle on most occasions. I'm not anybody of real importance and really don't count in the larger scheme of things. That's why it's so nice to be the center of attention here. I can't tell you all the times when I'm not. 

Today is going to be a very relaxed day. Outside it's going to storm and be a wet and cold day. I'm not planning on going anywhere except to walk the dog. I'll be inside most of the day where it will be warm. 

And now I'm going back to bed to finish sleeping, hopefully until late in the morning. 

Have a nice day you all. 

Ciao,

Nora

Clean hair and lose jeans...

The skinny jeans that I washed in hot water and tried to shrink down to a size 12 are still too big and I can slide them down without unbuttoning or unzipping them. That's handy when you have to go to the toilet in a hurry.

They look alright, it's my secret that they are a little bit too big. Only I know. They don't fall down all by themselves. It's not as bad as that. And they are comfortable to wear, that's important. They don't scrunch my intestines together.

I walked the dog in them and they stayed up alright, even when I bent over to pick up the poop. That was my biggest worry. I didn't want to have to stand there on the sidewalk and have to hitch up my jeans.

And I have incredibly clean hair. After I washed it, I dried it with the towel just to the point that I could get it into a good do that was flattering and that I sprayed with some hairspray to stay in position.

I have such fine flyaway hair that even applying the hairspray makes it alter the do, so I have to be very careful and not spray it on directly but at an angle. I have clean hair more often, but I don't always get it to look right like I did now.

I should be oohed and aahed over.Since there's no one here to do that, I'll have to do it myself when I look in the mirror.

I'm wearing a perfectly clean summer cardigan straight from the drying rack. It smells like washing powder and I'm being very careful not to get it dirty. The dog climbed on me earlier and he had wet paws. Luckily, he left no evidence on my clothes. He does still think that he's a lap dog.

The cat left a dead bird in the bedroom this morning and I stepped on it with my bare feet. I didn't screech, but it was an unpleasant surprise. I disposed of it under the jasmine bush on the patio where it will decompose naturally. I've seen the process before.

Neither animal shows any interest in it now and it just lies there being a dead bird. I'm getting used to this and no longer feel much emotion with it. There are numerous birds in the trees that grace the patio and I hear them chirping all day long. A casualty is bound to fall every now and then. That does not mean that I'm not sorry.

It's time for me to eat dinner. My stomach is starting to growl. I've also got to see if there's anything special on TV until 'Wallander' comes on later on tonight. I think the dog wants to go out one more time. He sure acts as though he does. He's pacing very impatiently.

I hope you will all have a good Saturday night.

Ciao,
Nora

A middle of the night update.

Last night Jesker followed me to the bedroom and even asked to be petted. I thought that was a major improvement. He went to sleep on his pillow, but when I got up, he was no longer there and I found him lying on the linoleum right by the living room door, which must be a very uncomfortable place for him to sleep, but I guess that's all the energy he had. Now he's not really reacting again and lying there as if he's miserable. He makes little sounds of discomfort every once in a while. I don't know what to make of it and there's not much I can do. I petted him, but he is sound asleep.

For those of you worrying that I'm up in the middle of the night, please don't, because I'll go back to bed shortly and sleep some more. I do get more than enough sleep as it is, napping during the day as I do.

Oh, Jesker just got up to be petted by me and has gone to sleep right beside me.

It's funny how little inventory you take of yourself when you are worried about something else. It's like I've suspended all that takes place inside of me and there is only room for my concern for Jesker. I have no idea how I am doing myself, except that I think I'm doing okay. I just don't pay attention much to myself and what goes on with me. I take care of what is necessary, but that's about it. I'm not worried if I feel up or down or happy or sad. Everything has been put on hold. I'm not even concerned about my health.

I just got sidetracked by LibraryThing. I started doing one simple thing there and before I knew it I was doing multiple things, such as adding favorite authors and favorite novels. It does get addictive over there, because there are all kinds of things I haven't done yet there, such as make a wish list of books I want to read. That may not be necessary, though. I know what I want to read still, but if you click on an authors names, you get a list of all the books they've written and it is mighty tempting to want all of them. Greediness gets a hold of me.

Well, I have to go back to bed now. First I have to eat some breakfast and take my medicines. The usual ritual in the morning, and then sleep. Blessed sleep from which not to wake up for a long time. I hope Jesker follows me again. I will feel better if he's lying beside me.

Have a good morning.

Ciao,
Nora

At times...

At times you have nothing to say at all, or rather, nothing you can say, but you feel that you need to reach out and communicate anyway through putting down words, any words, insignificant words even, as long as you reach out and say something to somebody who is reading you. Tonight is one of those night when I could tell you many things, but am unable to for various reasons, and yet I so very much need to feel that I am in touch with all of you who read me and that this somehow is going to help me feel better and like not such a lonely, sore person.

I feel very alone tonight and am in desperate need of company, yet there is no company to be found anywhere beside the dog and the cats. My sister is in Tokyo and the Exfactor is at home a half an hour away from here. I have to get through this night on my own and I´m not doing that so gracefully up to now. I´m afraid I´ve cut myself in my arm in an effort to get rid of the bad feelings I was having and was unable to get rid off. I have carefully cleaned the wound and taped it closed and put an bandage around it and for now that will do. I hope that will do.

I don´t write that down to shock you or to get you to feel sorry for me, but to give you an idea of my state of mind, which is not good, of course. I´m in an awful place and you don´t want to follow me there. I promise not to lure you there, but to try and come out of it. To talk myself out of it. To help get me in a better mood I have turned on some music and I´m listening to Bjork now. There is drum music in it and its rhythm is like the rhythm of a fluttering heart beat and very strong. I have the base turned up high so it sounds extra nice.

I have let down my guard this weekend, which is something I should never do and had not planned on doing. It happened quite unexpectedly and by accident. Once I had let it down, I kept it down, despite a little nagging voice in the back of my head that was warning me of the potential danger. That voice became louder today and I listened to it and came to a conclusion and acted on it and made a decision. I am dealing with the fall out of it now and I hope I will be okay again tomorrow morning after I have seen my SPN at 9 am. God forbid that I should sleep late and not make it to that appointment.

I didn´t sleep well last night and as a result slept until noon this afternoon. I tried to get up a few times before that, but I was unsuccessful. Every time I got up, I was still stuck in quicksand until the final time when I felt good and able to face the world. I got deeply wounded between then and now. I will not allow myself to be hurt. I can not afford it. I will not fall into the trap again. I have built up my life so carefully to be self sufficient and autonomous and free of entanglements and I almost threw it away.

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I've slept on the sofa for a few hours and feel less melodramatic now, although equally sore. I mean sore on the inside. I accidentally closed this without saving it and I thought that if it was still here, I would continue writing it. If not, I wouldn't bother with the whole thing and as you can see, it was still here. That's fate for you. Fate determines whether or not you get to read this. I'm s great believer in fate and how it determines the course of your life. That doesn't mean I take it lying down, because I do protest, but in the end there is a reason for everything, I suppose, a cause for why things happen and a lesson to be learned from them, no matter how obscure it may look at first.

So I must draw my lessons out of this current episode. After I have gone through all the pain of it. Buddhism is a handy religion and I let it be my guide. There is no punishing God and revengeful Father. There is only the desire for insight and understanding and the search for peace and tranquility. Those are the states of mind I wish to find. It's too bad I need to go through the motions of the old religion first to get to the newer one. Everything in life is a journey through your old habits in a reaction to what happens to you, and you need to make the journey quicker and in a straighter line every time something happens, until you skip certain things altogether and not bother with them anymore.

And now I need to go to bed, because I'm awfully tired. My thoughts are becoming sluggish and my mind is slowing down. It will be good to lie down and go to sleep, I'm ready for it.

Have a good night.

Ciao,
Nora

At the end of the afternoon on Friday.

The dishes are soaking in hot sudsy water in the kitchen sink. I hope all the dirt soaks off so I'll hardly need to scrub them. I'm going to change the water in the sink before I wash them. It will be necessary, because it will be lukewarm by the time I get around to doing them. I do so enjoy doing the dishes if the food particles come off easily and I'm left with sparkling glasses and shiny silverware. Now, these are a week's worth of dishes, so hardly a cup or a glass is clean and I really have to do them now. I'm all for toss out cups and plates, but I think that nowadays I can't get away with that. It would be highly wasteful and ecologically unsound. But if I could get away with it, I would do it. I'm lazy enough for it.

After I got up this morning and got myself all dressed and dolled up and shiny new and ready to go, and it was just about time to get on my bike, I realized that I needed to sleep, so I undressed and crawled into bed and was asleep in no time at all and slept for three more hours. Then, when I got up, I felt good and had a cup of coffee and was ready to face the day. I was incapable of it the first time. My somberness got in the way of me, and when it does, I need to go to sleep. There's no other solution for it.

I'm so glad that I know this about myself and that I am in a position to do something about it immediately, because I have no other people depending on me. Imagine if I had children now that needed taking care of, what would I do? Or I had a job to go to? I would sit there in pure misery and have a little nervous breakdown and be unable to do my work properly. Of course, I have been in those situations in the past and have known plenty of misery when I was unable to figure out what was wrong and I was absolutely miserable and completely depressed or stressed out and unable to function. I always blamed it on my situation and not on something that was the matter with me. That was before I knew myself as well as I do now.

So anyway, I made a shopping list, because I knew the Exfactor was coming and I had a lot of groceries to get and knew he would do them for me so I would not have to take my life in my own hands by trying to bring them all home on my bicycle. No matter how long I live in this country, I will not become a natural bicyclist. I am, in my heart, a car driver. I feel insecure on my bike and always feel that if I don't have perfect control over it, something will go terribly wrong and I will have an accident. That's how I feel when my bike is loaded down with groceries, so I'm always very happy to let the Exfactor do them.

I've gotten to the point now, where I don't mind doing the actual shopping. As a matter of fact, that's kind of enjoyable, especially if I have the money to spend and I can buy something extra that is not on the list. That was not the case today, of course. Today was the day for frugal shopping and watching every penny. It comes down to nickels and dimes. I don't mind that, as long as there is enough to go around and we don't go hungry. But shopping itself is not a bad thing to do. It can be fun to walk around the store and look at all the things that you're not going to buy, or that you would have bought if you didn't have that darn gastric band. And you may have noticed that I'm completely over my appetite for French cheese. I don't long for it anymore at all.

So, the Exfactor did the groceries and I walked the dog and together we unloaded the groceries when he got back, while the dog serenaded us, because that's a tradition he thinks we can't do without. The Exfactor had a beer and I had a cup of coffee and we talked about cows and calves as we say here, meaning, we talked about nothing important and everything in general. Not all of our conversations can be deep and meaningful, after all. Sometimes he mentions his girlfriend and it causes just the tiniest pinprick of discomfort with me. Nothing serious, really. It is a reality that I can't get around and I'd rather that he just talks about her in a normal way than that he is silent about her. That would make me more uncomfortable, as if she were a deep dark secret.

Now I'm just sitting here writing this post, but in reality postponing doing those dishes. I'm very good at procrastinating. I work well under pressure and the apartment needs to be cleaned up by tomorrow afternoon at 2 pm, because that's when my friend J. is going to be here. So you would think I would be running around like a chicken with its head cut off, but I am not. Everything will get done and there will be more than enough time.

Well, that's a short story, but that's all I have to report. I am not very long winded today. It wasn't a day of great adventure and I'm sure nothing very exciting is going to happen this evening. I'll tell you about it tomorrow if it does.

So, I wish you all the best of evenings and the best of days and I hope something good crosses your path.

Ciao,
Nora