Pete and repeat...

I'm in an extremely warm and fuzzy mood because I've just woken up from a life renewing nap and I'm now having a cup of coffee and a cigarette. The circumstances couldn't get much better than this. For just a little while anyway, I can let myself believe that everything is perfect and that I've landed in heaven. It isn't every day that I can say that. I do have to treasure the moment and share it with you. 

The sun is shining into the living room and, because I also had the heater on for a while, it's nice and warm in here. That was a pleasure to wake up to. I feel warm all the way through my bones and that doesn't happen all the time. It's good because my bathrobe is in the washing machine and I'm not able to wear it right now. 

I did finally remember to stick it in there and wash it after emptying the pockets. That was a crucial factor because there were all sorts of things in there that wouldn't have survived the wash cycle. It would have been a right mess if I hadn't taken them out. Especially the paper tissues would have created a disaster. 

After I put together the bed for the guest room yesterday, I had all the carton packing material that I didn't know what to do with stacked up in the hallway. The animals and I kept having to step on top of it if we wanted to go anywhere and it really was in the way. I was a little puzzled as to what to do with the very large pieces but today I got it sorted out.

I got a box and folded everything into as small as possible enough pieces so they would fit into the box. It really turned out to be fairly simple and not that much work and I was done in no time at all. The dog helped me by standing on every piece of carton that I wanted to fold. He was very thoughtful that way. I did appreciate it very much. Now the box can be put out by the sidewalk for the people of the recycle truck to pick it up. 

I didn't put together the dresser but have decided to let the Exfactor do that with my able help. I'm a little bit intimidated by the heaviness of the flatpacks it comes in and I think putting it together will be more work than I anticipated. The bed turned out to be. The Exfactor may be just a little more technical than I am when it comes to putting together complicated pieces of furniture. 

I mustn't say that because I'm sure I'm quite capable of it, but I'm letting myself be intimidated. I would do it if left to my own devices. Circumstances dictate that I'm more helpless now.

I must get back to my Zen moment that I was in at the start of this post. The dog is telling me it's time to go for a walk, however, and I suppose I will take him out now. I do hate to make him wait. He's such a well mannered animal. 

I hope you're all having a good day.

Ciao,

Irene

Can't make up my mind...

I was already in bed but found it impossible to go to sleep. I got up again and now I'm drinking coffee because I didn't know what else to do. It's such a ritual that I automatically made a pot. I normally sleep first though, but I don't mind, every new experience is one to be savored.

It's not quite coherently that I sit here. I'm under the influence of my sleeping pill and I'm waiting for the effect of it to wear off. I don't quite like the way it's making me feel. I'm hoping the coffee will do the trick, but it's making me burp something awful. The sound effects are out of this world.

Sooner or later I'll end up going to bed. I will get tired enough in the end and get the sleep I need. I've already set the alarm clock for 7 am. That's when I'm planning on being up again. I have some things to do and the day is going to start early. I'm getting up an hour earlier so I can drink my coffee contemplatively. 

I lightly decorated myself with make up today and was pleased with the effect. I didn't overdo it, so it was not too much of a shock to my system after having had a bare face all this time. The most fun was trying out the lipsticks to see which one would last the longest. I kept having to reapply them after having had something to drink.

Luckily, I still had a face wash to remove the make up with when I got ready to go to bed. I used that with a warm wet washcloth. I applied a night creme afterwards and now have a soft skin. I'm actually starting to care again and making a fuss over myself. They're good deeds I do for myself. My skin deserves it. Wearing make up makes me pay more attention to my face and its care.

It's good to be a woman and indulge in taking care of yourself and paying attention to the little things. They are all small ways to pamper yourself and give yourself the tokens of affection that you need. They are things that nobody else is going to do for you. They're little rituals that you perform for yourself and can be very nurturing and restful. If you end up looking especially nice, then that's a bonus. It's icing on the cake. 

I'm already making my resolution for the next year and that is that I'm going to take good care of my appearance and I don't mean my clothes because those are alright. My whole self image is going to change and improve and that includes my hair and the perfume I will wear. I'm going to give myself an overhaul and it will be a long term project. I will give myself a whole year to achieve it. I do have the patience for that.

I will go to bed now. I do need to get some sleep before it's morning. I have sat here and dawdled quite a bit and I've gotten sidetracked a few times. I have to take good care of myself because if I don't, who else will? 

Ciao,

Nora

Feeling groovy...

I got up after having gone to bed early and Tyke thought that was a sign of action and started to get all excited. I had to ignore him and wait for him to settle down again, which he has now done and he is asleep on the sofa. I don't know why he thinks all sorts of things are going to happen in the middle of the night, because they never do. All I do is give him a rawhide chewy and hope he settles down again. He's a darn stubborn dog with a one track mind. It's stuck on having fun.

I was asleep under my nice clean sheets, but woke up nevertheless and had to get up. There was no sense in lying in bed waiting for sleep to come again. It will take a while for it to return. I don't mind and gladly get up for this middle of the night interlude. I will do my real sleeping when I go back to bed. What I've done now is take a long nap.

I've given it some thought and have decided to stop smoking. It's taking too much of my budget every month and I can use the money for other things. I will order nicotine patches at the pharmacy and finish up my tobacco that I still have and then quit smoking. For some reason I'm not at all fazed by this and I think that I can do it. I have a tremendous amount of confidence in myself and think that I will succeed.

It will mean that I and my apartment will no longer smell of smoke and that things will no longer get grimy because of it. I will be able to launder everything and have it smell fresh and apply air freshener to everything else. I'll get rid of the ashtrays that are always so smelly and I will be able to paint the living room and the hallway without having them turn brown again. And in the wintertime I will be able to close the windows without having the place smell bad. There are so many pros to quitting and there are so many cons to smoking, but the money is a big motivating factor. It's wasted now and that is a shame. It's going up in smoke, quite literally.

So that is my big resolution.

I had a quiet day yesterday. I didn't do anything exciting but change the bed and do a load of laundry that I forgot to hang up to dry, because there was till laundry hanging to dry on the rack in the bathroom. I have to take that down first and may do that in a while. There will be nice clean clothes there as well that will be tempting to put on in the morning. I can't wait.

I spent the afternoon watching a boring baseball game and reading my novel. The baseball game was truly boring and doesn't match up to American baseball and seems kind of amateurish in comparison. These guys could not play in the big league. I also watched some of La Vuelta, and that was a little bit more exciting. At least you get to see the scenery come by as the racers climb the mountains.

My book is good. There are some very dicey parts in it that I was not expecting and make it more than a feel good novel. I don't quite know how to deal with these elements in this book. They seem out of place and interfere with the happy ending that I assumed there would be. It's a bit more complicated than that and for some people life seems awfully unfair and very traumatic. I need to keep on reading to see how this resolves itself. If it does.

I walked Tyke in the fall sunshine and the somewhat chilly wind. I did wear a jacket, although it was a pretty day. Walking with Tyke is a hurry up and stop exercise, just like it used to be with Jesker. Tyke's always finding interesting places to examine for a long time and then suddenly runs off to the next place. He has unbounded energy and I have to keep up with him.

I just realized that I forgot to put the trash out and I wonder if I will do it now that it is in the middle of the night. It's kind of scary to go out there. I don't really have a full bag and it can wait until next week, I suppose. I won't be awake on time in the morning before they come to pick it up at 6 am.

I have to mail three books tomorrow for Bookmooch. I want to do that in the morning before the domestic help gets here, so I can't sleep too late. I do have to get up at a decent time. I'm sure I will not have to set my alarm clock but wake up on my own and get out of bed if I'm motivated enough. I'm going to have tea in the morning, because I'm almost out of coffee and the Exfactor is not going grocery shopping until Tuesday. He'll also come bearing gifts for my birthday. I asked for tennis balls for Tyke to play with. We've misplaced the one he had and he misses it a lot.

The try at the formation of the right wing coalition has failed and a lot of us are very much relieved. Now we start all over again and another sort of coalition will be attempted. All sorts are possible, but it will not be a right wing one, those chances are gone. Parties to the left will have to be involved and that will be much healthier and truer to the outcome of the elections. We can only keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best possible outcome. The government agreement has to be fair to the greatest amount of people and not just to an elite few at the top. It's not the little people who should pay the price for the economic situation, which is how the right wing coalition would have wanted it. It smacked of American republicanism, to tell you the truth. I don't think we want that kind of situation in this country. I'm more bound and determined to always vote socialistic as I see it as the fairest system for everyone in general.

Enough politics. I don't want to alienate anyone with my personal opinions. This is supposed to be a lighthearted blog.

I'm sitting in my bathrobe, drinking a glass of milk. It's 21C in here and the windows are still open at the top, although it is 11C outside. Isn't it amazing how warm it stays in here? I haven't had the heater on yet and will not for a long time. We're not expecting rain until Tuesday and today it is going to be 21C and sunshiny. I've got the perfect outfit for that kind of weather.

I love to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the kind of clothes I'm going to wear because it makes me happy. I do so because I think I will look pretty, assuming somewhere along the line that I'm not this middle aged woman with this less than perfect body, but a tall woman who looks good in her well chosen clothes. I have all sorts of illusions that I'm more than happy to live with and that don't need to be burst like bubbles or pretty colored balloons. I'm happy to live with my self image, which is good and which I never test to reality, because there's no such thing. There's only the concept of self and that's all that counts.

I'm not nearly ready to go to bed and I think I will hang up the laundry. I'm afraid my schedule is turned upside down. I'm awake for the better part of the night and getting sleepy towards the morning. I feel alive during the night and enjoy myself too much. My mind is keener and I feel better. Possibly my ancestors were nocturnal. Maybe they were pub crawlers and didn't come home until the wee hours of the morning.

Have a good day!

Ciao,
Nora

Post 777.

I'm afraid I went through a horrible dip yesterday during which I saw nothing but the bottom of the pit and I thought that I would never be happy again. Then I realized that I had not taken my 6 pm medicines and that it was probably the cause of my grief. It took me a while to get back to normal, but I did eventually and stopped crying and got involved in watching a tv program and then an exciting series and I forgot all about being miserable and soon wasn't anymore. I think the medicine had started to work and I think that my effexor needs to be increased as I seem to need that most. I was near suicidal at one point and certainly didn't feel that way later on and haven't since then.

I think when I get that low I forget everything else that I've ever felt and only know the feelings of that moment and they are all black and I don't see any sparks of light anymore. You could say to me quite logically that I did not feel that way in the morning, but it would not make the least bit of sense to me, as I could only tell you of my despair at the moment and my wish to end it all, however short and intense that feeling might be. Once my medicine starts to work, the sun comes up again and I start to feel other things besides despair and the heavy load gets lightened and I feel relieved and relaxed again. You could say that is nothing but addiction, but I remember having those feelings before I took medicines and being very crippled by them. I hid them very well from the world around me, I thought, but maybe this is not true. I'm sure it's not true and it made a large impact on the upbringing of my children, who turned out well in spite of me.

You see that in reality I lack a certain amount of self assurance and that my self image isn't much to write home about either. I can act tough, but not be it. The tougher I act, the uneasier I stand. If I have a big mouth, it is only to outshout myself.

Well, so much for philosophising. I do get deep sometimes, don't I? It's to calm the waters inside of me that are in turmoil. I have a lot of that going on sometimes.

I'm going to lie on the sofa for a while longer. I took my medicines fifteen minutes ago, half an hour too late. No doubt we're going to get the now famous sadness effect in a while and I want to be asleep when that hits. My duvet should be dry now and I can sleep in my bed tonight.

Have a splendid day all of you.

Ciao,

Nora

Yawning!

Although I'm sitting here with tears running down my face from all the yawning that I'm doing, I don't want the evening to end yet, because it is quite early still, so I have made myself a cup of coffee and I'm drinking that to keep myself going for a little while longer, although it's possible that it's not going to work at all and that I will be forced to go to bed anyway.

In the meantime I'm helping Gandhi escape from the enthusiasm of Tyke and getting her to jump on the dining table, where I had put a folded up blanket, which Tyke has pulled off and is now in the process of "killing." It is Jesker's old blanket, but I have a better one for Gandhi to lie on and we will get the better of Tyke yet. I do have to pick sides and Gandhi needs more help. Tyke is quite capable of looking after himself.

I was rudely interrupted while writing this by many emails that needed answering, and as usual I took my time doing that, so now it's much later and I've gotten my second wind. I'm suddenly awake again and ready for an intellectual challenge. I don't know if that includes writing this post, but I guess I can make it as challenging for myself as I want. Notwithstanding the fact that I'm typing this without the spell check and I can't use any really difficult words, because I would have to look them up in the dictionary and that would stop the natural flow of words.

I do try to write as quickly as the sentences enter my head and sometimes I'm on a roll, although I do have periods of non-activity when nothing comes and I'm distracted. I've been that way my whole life and it caused me some trouble in primary school when I was distracted a lot, in other words, I day dreamed and I still have the tendency to do that now. I call it constructive day dreaming, because I think of things that matter and come up with solutions to odd little problems I'm faced with. It seems that being occupied in one activity stimulates my brain to be active in other areas as well. I suppose I am a multiple use appliance, handy to have around the house.

I did my taxes this afternoon on line and it turned out to be quite painless, because part of the information was already filled in and what I had to fill in was very simple and each question that I had to answer came with an explanation so I would understand the question and if it applied to me. Luckily, my financial situation is very simple and clear cut. There were no complications. It's probably the easiest tax form that I ever filled out, because I was unmarried for all of last year. I'm going to remember how simple this was, so I won't procrastinate next year.

I had Iron Nora do the taxes, she's much more capable than I am and not the least bit intimidated. That woman is handy to have around and my blogging friend Babaloo reminded me to pull her out of the closet for jobs like this that are tougher than the ordinary daily tasks that I'm normally faced with, but I think I can pull her out of the closet whenever I get timid. I'm regularly intimidated by something and I can use a tough woman at moments like that. Especially now that I'm wearing cowboy boots that strengthen my image a great deal.

I have been wearing my brown leather jacket for warmth, but the weather is getting better now and I think I can start wearing my black leather jacket with the zippers and the buttons, which is very cool. It was the first leather jacket I bought and I felt like quite a hip chick when I wore it out of the store. I can wear my green scarf with it, which is an upgrade from the blue and black scarf I've been wearing with my brown leather jacket and that used to belong to my mother, so it is very old and it also needs to go into the laundry. The black leather jacket is best worn open, but it's not quite warm enough for that yet, although tomorrow it's going to be an incredible 17 degrees Celsius. That's practically balmy and real spring weather. I can hardly believe my eyes reading that forecast. I'll wear my jacket open with my green scarf around my neck.

I had three chores to do today and I did them all, except that I didn't quite finish the last one and then, as it got later in the day, I excused myself from that one and will add it to the chores I will have to do tomorrow. I will have to do three of them tomorrow and maybe four if I'm really gutsy and honest. I don't write them down, as I know exactly what they are and I don't forget them. They are lasered into my brain. Three chores aren't that many to remember. Carrying them out is, because I reach a certain time of the day when I excuse myself from doing work and I only get to play, as if I have a regular paid job.

Actually, my excuse is that I try to keep the stress out of my life, but I think I should test that theory and see if it still applies. If I start doing more than three chores, I will have to start making lists or make the stuff up as I go along. There are always things to do here. I will have must do and can do chores and do the must do chores first. I will have to forego some time on the computer, because it distracts me hugely and is always beckoning me to turn it on.

I reinstalled Windows Vista the other day, because it was acting funny, and as a result I got more space on my hard disk and it also kept all the things I had installed and downloaded myself, even though it said it would put those things separately on the hard disk. I did a complete reinstallment, not an upgrade. I thought it was wonderful and apparently it got rid of some unnecessary junk. Windows Vista is okay, but very often it is murmuring to itself, doing unknown things on line that aren't apparent and it has many updates. I don't know why such a big deal was made out of it. The email program is good, but it should be. Would you expect anything less?

It's late now and I should go to bed, but I'm enjoying myself here. I'll run out of things to do, though, and be forced to close shop. I'll go put the clean sheets on the bed. That was the part of the third job that I had not finished. I want to sleep in a clean, good smelling bed tonight. That will be a treat to me.

Goodnight, dear all. I'll see you all tomorrow, very late in the morning.

Ciao,
Nora

Oh, let's go again, one more time...

My dear ex-husband was here this afternoon to do the groceries for me. It was his own idea, I did not even so much as whisper the question into his ear. He was really two days too early, but I did not turn him down. I'd rather have too many groceries in the house than not enough. A shopping list was quickly made and off he went in my leather jacket, because he could not wear his motorcycle gear. He has a pair of shoes here for when he has to do these jobs for me. Luckily, he is slender enough to wear my jackets and they fit him perfectly. He looked quite dashing in my leather jacket, but I won't give it up. I may give it up if he gives me his motorcycle jacker, or one like it. I do need a tough broad jacket like that. It will give me the right attitude. Right, sure it will! That, along with my shit kicking boots.

If you're wondering where I get this "tough broad" idea from, it is from admiring women who I think are very independent and who stand very solidly on their own two feet and who don't need a man to help them live their lives. Women who can earn their own living and make their own way in life and make their own choices, regardless of public opinion. I guess they all don't have to wear tough broad leather jackets and shit kicking boots, but that is how I would reinforce my image of being one. I'm not such a tough broad by nature, so I have to fake it a little bit. I suppose I'm still looking for my imago. What do I want to show me as to the world?

When it comes down to it, I'm just a very regular middle of the road woman. I don't stand out one way or the other, much as I would like to. So we're back to yesterday's theme and what it all comes down to is not the outside, but character that counts, and personality, and you can make that visible enough after someone has been around you for a while, if they take the time that is. I've never stopped and thought about this as consciously as I think about it now, though I have on some level been aware of it and paid lip service to it, as any modern thinking human being does. We all say that the inside counts, but we're all busy making sure the outside looks darn good.

Now is the time to test that out. I'm going to dress myself as nicely as I always do, and wear my hair the same way, but always wear my glasses and go without make up and see how people react to me. I'll have no eyebrows, because they are blond and invisible, and no eyeshadow and no eyeliner. Just a touch of mascara on my blond eyelashes, otherwise I'll feel so naked. Only on the top. Then I wonder what sort of impact I will make, or if it will make no difference at all. That's quite a thing to do for someone who is as vain as I am. Let's face it, I do like to think that everything I do makes me look better. Although just lately I'm having my doubts.

Of course, it will mean that I'll have to let my personality shine through a little bit better and not be such a silent onlooker. I'll have to be present. Make more noise, talk more, be more spontaneous. I'll have to practice that. Maybe I'll dare more if I'm more myself and not a painted up version who has to worry about the state of her make up and the condition of her hairdo. Maybe I'll learn to be a tough broad on the inside and I won't need the outside accouterments. Or...maybe I'll learn that I don't need to be a tough broad at all, but a gentle, sensitive one who has a heart and sensitivities and soft spots. Maybe that will be the real me and I'm artificially trying to be someone I'm not. I may just allow myself to find out. I may have to give up my membership in The Tough Broad Society.

How do you like all this mesmerizing? Isn't it fascinating? How to make yourself the most interesting subject of your own post.

One thing that was on the shopping list, was dog kibbles for little dogs, because Toby is hooked on the dried dog food from a particular brand and asks for it if the bowl is empty. However, I had the large kibbles for big dogs and this time I had the Exfactor get the kibbles for little dogs. I think they will be easier to eat and the dog may like them better also. We'll see. It is funny to see Toby chow down on that food. I've never seen him eat with so much appetite. You'd think it was candy I put in front of him. He has gained a little weight, which is good, because he was too skinny for some reason and now he looks normal. He's a big cat and can stand the weight. I'm hoping Jesker is going to lose weight, but I can't tell, because I can't get on the scale with him and see how much he weighs at the same time. It's a two people job. I'll have to weigh him the next time we're at the vet.

I'm expecting the pharmacy to make a delivery of some pills that are the lighter dose of the Temazepam. My psychiatrist is allowing me one a day until he sees me on Monday so we can discuss the need for them. He is being a cautious man. I still had some and took one this afternoon and ended up taking a nice nap and feeling better the rest of the day. I have no qualms about taking pills and I am not worried about becoming hooked on them, as I've always been able to decrease the doses when that was necessary. My medication is my best friend and it helps me think straight when I can't do it on my own.My life has never been easier than when I started taking the right medication in the right dose and the right combination and I've become an expert at tweaking it. I always know what I need and when something works. I would like to eliminate one of my anti depressives, but I need to discuss that with my psychiatrist and it will have to be done slowly. I think I can do without one of them, but that may be wishful thinking. I will just have to try.

It's still early in the evening. The apartment is nice and warm, but the heater hasn't gone on at all yet. Still, with the windows closed it is 21C in here, so the neighbors must have their heaters on. I don't like to have the windows closed, but it does make a difference in how warm it stays in here and there's no draft now. I'm still in my clothes and haven't changed into my pajamas, but I will do so shortly. There's nothing cozier than sitting around in my bathrobe and slippers and watching the news on television. The long political drama and the endless human one. That part is not quite so cozy. You do get immune to some degree, though. Hardened, almost, under the onslaught of misery.

I hope you all have a good night or that you are still having a good day. We had a partly rainy and partly sunny one here ourselves. Real Autumn weather.

Ciao,
Nora

Another day dome...

I'm keeping a close eye on the thermometer inside the apartment. The moment it drops below 19 degrees Celsius, I'm closing the windows in the bedrooms. It is now exactly 19 degrees and it's 2 degrees outside. I'm sitting here in my bathrobe and slippers and I'm actually more then warm enough, so it could even drop down below 19 degrees before I take action. I simply refuse to turn on the heater, though. I think all of my neighbors must be heating their places well for my apartment to stay so warm. I'm not going to give them a clue and keep my energy bill as small as possible, but I've already said that, so let me not be repetitive.

Today has been an absolutely forgettable day, but you mustn't really say that about any day, must you? It's a god given day after all and you must make of it what you can. Regardless, nothing the least bit exciting happened. It was as dull and flat as the Kansas plains (except that in the springtime those can be real pretty with all the prairie flowers).

The highlights of the day were the two long naps I took, one in the morning and one in the evening. That's why I'm up at this ungodly hour. I fell asleep, as usual, watching the news and woke up at 11 pm with a huge thirst for a cup of coffee and a computer session. Why I have these stubborn notions late at night I have no idea, but there you go. Instead of being soundly asleep in bed, I'm sitting here thinking that now I will start drinking fruit juice or hot milk. Of course, hot milk has the added benefit that it makes you sleepy and then I could take my sleeping pill at the same time. Decisions, decisions!

I got dressed and walked the dog this morning and then ate some nice warm porridge for breakfast, which made me sleepy, and fully dressed, I laid down on the sofa and in the shortest amount of time I was asleep and slept for 3 hours. So you see how I wasted the whole morning doing absolutely nothing but walk the dog. Of course, when I woke up, I had to have a cup of coffee and check my emails and answer those and when I was done with that, it was time to walk the dog again. My whole day revolves around walking the dog. He makes sure I get enough fresh air and rosy cheeks.

I had tea with my sister in the afternoon. She always forgets that I put sugar in my tea and I have stopped reminding her and drink it without. She also forgot to give me a cookie, so I got my own. It's handy if you know where those are kept. They happened to be really good ones with chocolate on them. Because my sister lives in a big 2.5 story house on a corner, she had the heater on and needless to say, her energy bill is more than 3 times higher than mine. That's in a new, well insulated house with double glazing everywhere. A big house is expensive in the upkeep.

I've lived in big houses and know the responsibility of ownership, that's why I'm so happy to live in this relatively small apartment now. I have rent control and a cheap service contract and no worries about the upkeep. I can paint it green and purple on the inside if I want and have the most hideous carpet, as long as I take it out when I move, but I'm never going to move. I'm in a perfect location in a nice middle class neighborhood. Oh yes, I care about those things. Crime rate and all that. I wouldn't want to live in the next neighborhood over. There are some very strange people living there. Generations of families that all stick together and have feuds and lives of crime. Not all of them, of course, but you do have to live with them.

It's taking me forever to write this, because I'm constantly distracted by my own thoughts and go into a reverie every few sentences and smoke a cigarette. This way the whole night is passing by rather quickly. I could be on a long journey staring out the window gazing at the scenery. It is of great interest as I pass by it. Large portions of my life pass through my mind and I am reminded of so many things while I write this. It's not with displeasure that I look at them, I just remember them and observe them and think about how it was to be alive then and what a difference it is from today.

I never thought I would have ended up as a single 55 year old woman in the Netherlands, living on my own with a dog and two cats and being creative, though in a way it is close to the picture that I secretly had of myself when I thought about me in the future. I often thought of myself as a solitary human being on her own, in her own life, somewhere in the Netherlands, brewing coffee on an Autumn morning and being free to think her own thoughts. The surroundings are different, but the basic premise is right. I just thought that was an imaginary me I was dreaming about. I didn't know it would come about like this. So, in the end I've become the person I imagined myself to be one day. I better live up to that now.

I've added a collage to my art blog here. Please go have a look and become a follower. The more, the merrier.

I'll go have that glass of warm milk now. I've taken my sleeping pill, but it's not working yet. That means sleeping late in the morning.

Ciao,
Nora

Another one for posterity...

This afternoon, after I took the dog for a walk and took my noontime medications, I also took a sleeping pill and settled down on the sofa and took a nap of nearly three hours. It was wonderful and when I woke up, I felt all warm and fuzzy and sleepy headed, but contend. After I had been up for about ten minutes, there was a struggle between me and the force that wants me to feel self hatred and self contempt and loathing, but I cut it off at the pass and didn't give it any room to step over its boundaries and sent it back to where it came from, into the deep dark recesses of my soul. Every time it rears its ugly head, I will continue to do this, until it gets tired of showing up and sees it is futile to.

The Exfactor was here this morning, after I came back from my SPN, and he had brought a clear plastic cat flap that he screwed in place over the cat door opening, because Toby had broken the one that was there last winter when it had gotten frozen shut. The problem is that the cats are used to there just being an opening and they can't seem to get used to this cat flap. They eye it with much suspicion and haven't gone out yet. It's a little bit thicker and heavier than what used to be there, which is good for the draft, but the cats seem to think it is unmovable and I may have to help them through it the first couple of times. Those daft cats! They're normally so smart. I can't believe they can't figure this one out.

When I went to see my SPN this morning, I didn't really have a clear subject in my head that I wanted to discuss, except for the panic attack on Friday. I think I very often live in denial, because how could I not want to discuss those episodes of self hatred and self contempt and loathing? Yet I approached them as if they were a side issue and not the most important one, but once I started talking about them, a whole barrage of grief came pouring out of me and I cried something awful and smeared my make up all over my face.

It all has to do with my childhood and the awful messages I got about myself and everything I did, and how I heard them constantly and started to believe them, and internalized them and made them mine, so they became a belief system in my own head that I've carried with me my whole life. And although I say the opposite, deep down inside I believe those messages still and every once in a while, when I am vulnerable, they get the upper hand and I start believing them very much, to the point that I want to self destruct.

Now that I know this, and who is behind it, I know who my enemy is and who I am fighting. Now I can do something about it and at the very moment those thoughts start popping up in my mind, I can crush them with all my might and send them back to where they came from. I dispel them completely and take the truth out of them. Of course, subconsciously, I have believed these things always and have been fighting them all along, I have just not been so aware of it, but I know that its true and that it lies in my nature to think this way about myself. I just have a big mouth and outshout them a lot of times, but I didn't always have a big mouth and I had to overcome a lot of insecurities.

I won't share with you the journey I had to make to become a human being. It is too long and arduous. I will tell you that I started out with almost nothing and a lot in the negative balance and that I had to work my way up from scratch. That's enough.

I mustn't become bitter. I must look at where I am now and what I have achieved. I'll be damned if I am going to let a ghost that haunts me take that away from me.

Okay, that's enough of that! I will end on a positive note. The church bells are ringing and that is good. That's always a joyful sound. I must go and walk the dog again and eat some dinner. Then I'm going to wait for the 8 pm news to come on and see what sort of hideous things my government has come up with to fight the economic crisis. Something's rotten in Denmark.

Have a good evening.

Ciao,
Nora.

A cup of coffee...

I had another good night's sleep and didn't even read my book ahead of time, but just turned the light off and pushed my head into the pillow and pulled the duvet over me and went to sleep. It's the loveliest thing in the world when that happens, when I'm so tired that I fall asleep the moment I lie down in bed. I don't remember getting up in the middle of the night, though doubtlessly I did, but I must not have registered it very well. I do remember seeing Gandhi and the dog lying on his pillow together, with Gandhi taking up more than her equal share of it. The dog tolerates her reluctantly. He hasn't figured out a way to get her off his pillow yet and growling doesn't work. She's not the least bit intimidated by that and just stays put. When I woke up this morning, the situation was unchanged and Toby was lying beside me on the bed, huddled like a warm little stove against my body. Thus we celebrate togetherness here.

Yesterday afternoon I fell asleep on the sofa and when I woke up in the early evening, I felt very bad. I felt self hatred and a loathing that was so strong that I wanted to self destruct. I fought very hard not to give in to those feelings, but it was very difficult and I thought about harming myself and taking many pills to make the feelings go away. I was trying to remind myself that the feelings were temporary and that they would be gone again in the morning after a good night's sleep, but somehow that didn't want to penetrate my thick skull and I was only one big bunch of negative emotions that didn't know what to do with herself.

I sat unable to make up my mind about what to do. I thought about writing about it, but realized it would make for a very dramatic and negative piece of writing that would upset all of you. I wanted to share my feelings, but I didn't know who to share them with. I wanted to divert my attention, but didn't know how. All I could think was how very much I hated myself at that moment and how very much I wanted to somehow reflect that hatred. Nevertheless, I kept myself from committing any desperate deeds, and that was a struggle inside myself.

Right then, I got an email from Maggie May with a list of books that I had asked for, that she had enjoyed very much and that I could look up at Bookmooch and at Bol.com. Somehow this came like rain on a desert plain and my mind latched onto it as something useful to do and to take it off the negative thoughts and onto something more productive. Do you believe in providence? It was meant to be, so I busied myself with looking up books and that got my mind on a completely different track. By the time I was done, my medication was working and I no longer felt self hatred and loathing. I was saved by Maggie's list of books.

I wonder what in the world the function is of feeling self hatred and loathing? I can't for the life of me figure out any sort of useful purpose for it. It is only plain and darn right dangerous. Why would you, when you are at your most vulnerable, have these god awful thoughts play in your head, that will lead you on a self destructive path? I can only think it must be a glitch in the system that messes up your thinking so badly. I think sleep resets your thought processes to a more normal basis and certainly the medication does. It is unbelievable that your own mind turns itself against you and wants to harm you in any way and that you have to fight those thoughts and somehow persevere in spite of them, when the easiest thing is to give in to them and go along with the self destruction.

I have to remember to go to sleep when I have feelings like these. I have misplaced my sign that tells me so. I must try to find it, but I have no idea what happened to it. I will will rummage around some of my papers today. It's a well known fact by now that sleep saves me from my worst feelings and that if I get enough of it, I will do well and not fall apart as easily. The worst thing that can happen is to be woken up in the middle of a deep sleep and to try and function, like what happened yesterday when I woke up from the alarm clock that went off to tell me it was time for me to take my medication. I was befuddled when I woke up and unable to place myself in the right context.

Well, I lived through another experience of how not to take care of myself with the timely intervention, however, of the email from Maggie. She's the one who told me to read The Secret Scripture, so you can imagine that any book she recommends is bound to be a good one. I think I'll try The God Squad next, by Paddy Doyle. It's bound to tear my heart apart, but that's what great literature is all about. It makes you want to read it, no matter how painful it is, if in the end there is hope.

That's the story of my life, you know. No matter how downright frustrating it gets, in the end there's always hope, every time, over and over again. Each day is a new day full of possibilities and the day before is left behind as a tale to tell, to no longer dwell over, but to move on from. A lesson learned, hopefully.

Now I will go and read some blogs, but most importantly, eat some brunch. I've had my glasses of fruit juice and now I'm ready for something solid.

Have a good day. The sun is shining here and the sky is blue. An Indian summer day after all. Tomorrow there will be rain.

Ciao,
Nora

Early Sunday Morning...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ciao...

To wake up well...

In order to wake up well, and get the day started properly, I always feel that I have to write a post, even if I have nothing to report but my most mundane thoughts. I think, well that will do, at least it will organize my thoughts and get my mind set in the right order and I will have reached out and made a tiny effort at contact, but the latter is not necessarily the most important thing, because judging by the reactions, not that many people read these early morning missives. That's okay, this occupies my mind and keeps me busy while I drink my coffee and smoke my cigarettes and try to ignore the dog who just ate his bowl of food.

I woke up early this morning and thought terrible things about myself. I thought, this is awful, you're not allowed to do this, it is unacceptable, where in the world is this coming from? It was like somebody had dumped a whole bunch of garbage over me and I was struggling to get free of it.

Luckily, I was able to go back to sleep and when I woke up the second time, all that garbage was gone and I could think good thoughts about myself again. I had counted on that happening, but imagine if I had gotten up the first time with those feelings and had started the day that way. It would have been a very painful business and I would be sitting here with quite a different attitude.

Waking up that way, covered in garbage, hasn't happened to me in a long time, but it used to be the story of my life. I always used to wake up with a certain amount of self loathing, sometimes pure self hatred, yet I never let anyone know that I felt this way. I covered it up and did not let on how bad it was.

Due to my childhood, I'm a master at covering up my feelings and very often am not in touch with them myself. I can be in total denial about a state of mind that I am in. That's because I did it for such a long time, it became my second nature. I totally don't have a grip on my current mood and have no idea what to think of it. Am I depressed or just tired? I act like a depressed person, does that make me depressed? If it looks like a duck and it acts like a duck, must it be a duck?

I am planning on doing some cleaning today. Luckily, in Ubuntu the computer has a sleep mode, so I don't have to feel bad about leaving it turned on. It didn't have it in Windows XP, it just kept running and running, causing my electric bill to go up.

I must do at least three chores today, if not six. I must try to get that feeling of accomplishment. You do honestly feel better if you've made an improvement in your environment. I feel extreme discomfort at having things so disheveled. I barely dare walk around on my bare feet anymore.

Jesker has given up on me and has gone to sleep on his blanket, but I will make him happy and get dressed and take him for a walk. It is storming outside and we've already had rain and thunder and more is expected. The rains of England finally reached us.

I have an appointment at 2 pm with the head therapist and we will decide what I will do about my therapies. It will be good to get some feedback instead of thinking inside the box all by myself. Well, with all of your input, of course. Which I appreciate. Don't underestimate that!

I've babbled enough and must get going now, I feel some energy that must be spent wisely. Remember, chores of threes and walking the dog is not a chore, so it doesn't count.

Have a good day!

Ciao...

Playing Hooky...

Instead of being at creative therapy, I'm sitting here behind the computer wasting my time, while I should be at the supermarket doing the grocery shopping now that I have the chance. I haven't made a list yet, but most of it is ready in my head and I just need to get a pen and a piece of paper and start jotting it down.

The reason that I'm not at therapy is, that the Exfactor was here this morning and we had so much talking to do and so many cups of coffee to drink and so many cigarettes to smoke, that the time got away from me and then it was too late and I thought, "Oh, what the heck," and it was raining too, so I didn't feel like going out in it.

So I called in sick, which was a little white lie, but it does give me more time today to do the groceries and sweep the floors and go see my SPN and go to the pharmacy and maybe do another three chores while I'm at it. I'm more than willing and able.

The weather is blustery, it is windy and cloudy and it keeps looking like it will rain and it is supposed to also. I'm hoping to keep it dry, but with my luck, I'll be hit with a shower just as I am halfway to somewhere and I don't have any rain gear. Can you believe that? A Dutch woman who doesn't even have a raincoat? I have two leather jackets but no raincoat. Tsk!

I got up at 7 am, but I didn't have enough sleep and fell asleep again on the sofa for an hour, after I had unsuccessfully tried to wake up with a mug of coffee. I was peeping at the world through my eyelashes and I sat around like a wrung out dish cloth. I felt better after I woke up the second time and got myself ready in a jiffy. Even my hair did what it was supposed to and I didn't poke my eye out with the mascara brush.

In my bag of "too small to wear" clothes, I found a leopard print top that I had only worn once, because I had not tried it on when I bought it and it had really been too small. I pulled it out and tried it on and it fits perfectly and I like it, because it's like I've been shopping without spending the money. I have to have another look in that bag and also in my very full closet and see what else I can find there.

I'm not going to the store to buy anything, but luckily, I'm now the size that most of my clothes are, if not a little smaller, but everything fits comfortably. Some of the bigger clothes I can take out of my closet and put in another bag for the recycle store. I'll trade them for a bike, yeah!

I'm not losing any weight. I think I've hit a plateau and that my body wants to stay at this weight that I am now, which is kind of convenient, because all my clothes fit me and I do look decent. I can't go out and buy new clothes, so maybe it is just as well. I'm not eating too much, which is impossible, but I'm eating enough to stay healthy. I'm going to add yogurt to my diet starting today, because I do miss eating something like that and I do want a little bit of variety.

The trick is not to despair and to accept yourself the way you are, if that's the way it works out. I'm completely at ease with myself and can live with myself the way I am now. It's true, I'd like to lose some more weight, but if I don't then that's okay too. I'm not pudgy and I don't dislike seeing myself in the mirror. That has been different.

Well, now I have to go and walk Jesker and make my shopping list and go to the store and buy many healthy things to eat. The hard part is getting them all home on my wacky bike.

Have a great day, don't get wet and cold, or maybe you'd prefer that in this hot summer.

Ciao...

In my pajamas.

It was already past 1 pm and I was sitting here in my pajamas reading blogs and drinking glasses of multi vitamin juice, being a woman of leisure with nothing better to do but smoke numerous cigarettes and leave astute comments behind, when finally Jesker decided that he had digested his food well enough and that it was time to go out and do his business and leave his mark on the various bushes and lamp posts in the neighborhood.

This meant I had to get dressed and get my unruly, 'sticking up all over the place hair' in order. I did this by rubbing a damp washcloth over it and that worked just fine and I ended up with exactly the right hairdo so, as they say, you learn something new every day. Now I have washcloth hair that you apply hairspray to and that is extremely fashionable and wouldn't look out of place on the catwalk. I just need the body to go with it, but in my upbeat mind, I already have it and can't be persuaded to think anything else, so I act like I do.

Honestly, I have such a high opinion of myself, that I regularly need to be scraped off the ceiling and when I go outside, I should be weighed down by a ball and chain or I would escape gravity. Just now Jesker served that purpose. At the moment, I don't have a humble bone in my body and they are all light as air.

It can't be the weather that is making me feel this way, because we started the day off with showers, some of them pretty hefty. Jesker didn't even want to go out back in them and did a piddle on a weed that was growing in a crack by the wall of the apartment just outside the door. He has no sense of decorum whatsoever. Maybe it will kill the weed and I won't have to pull it out, but it's a pretty tall one and well established.

That goes to show you how much I let nature take its course out back. All growing things go their own way. I have some very pretty flowering weeds in the flowerbeds that I refuse to pull out. The flowers are dainty and pink and it looks like someone planted them there. Nothing can kill them, because Jesker piddles on them too. Besides, who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth. We walk in nature to see these things grow in their natural habitat.

I'm wearing a sun dress with a short cardigan over it and leggings and my boots that I like the best. The shrinkage of my stomach encourages me to try on some different clothes and to walk prouder. I imagine everyone can see that there are 6 kilos missing, but that may be my own assumption.

I assume a lot nowadays. Like knowing what's best for the world and how to solve all of its problems. I'd have firing squads for all corrupt government officials all over the world. Especially those leading African countries and I would put women in charge there and imprison any man who would try to rise to the political top. God, I would be a despot.

I suppose I feel like a despot right now in the sense that I think I'm always right and that I can't give a wrong answer to a problem. A sort of omnipotence has entered my being. I feel like a small god, small being very relative, of course. Small in the sense of the universe, but not in the sense of the human scale. Maybe I have 'world leader madness' and you are supposed to have this when you have high political ambitions. Maybe Obama has it and maybe even the Pope.

But look at me, I'm not even a big fish in a little pond, although secretly I think differently and I think I am God's gift to the world. A well hidden treasure like the Grail and some day my true purpose will be revealed. All mad people must have a special destiny, don't you think? They are the oracles for their generation. Maybe they are the prophets. I better start to speak very sagely now and in parables.

I have to keep my wits about me in this hypomanic mood and not get derailed. I am going to try and be a good observer of myself and see how I handle various situations and various people. Contrary to what I thought in the past, that a hypomanic mood had to be suppressed as quickly as possible, I'm allowing myself to have this one and to learn from it what I can.

My experiences and interpretations will be different than when I am in another mood and I want to take advantage of that and integrate these lessons into my thoughts about myself and the world around me. I don't want to waste the opportunity to see things from a different angle and from a way more secure and upbeat point of view. I am not going to suppress it with medication.

Saturday's mail is laying unopened on the dining table. It was late yesterday when I got it out of my mailbox and I excused myself from opening it. Today my excuse is that it is Sunday and that I don't do any work on the day of rest, as nobody else is doing any either. There is an official looking envelop from the Tax Office and I hardly dare open it. I don't know what sort of news it will bring me as it's coming quite unexpected.

I know curiosity will get the better of me and that I will open it later today and deal with whatever is inside. I just hope they don't want money, because I don't have any to go around. I am already thinking about not spending the money on the grasses for the pots and the frames for the collages.

I am such a penny pincher, I sit on my money and make every dime last. It's a sport to only spend a certain amount of money on groceries and tobacco each week and I'm doing great. Last year I was in constant danger of breaking the bank, but I have a completely different attitude now. I guard my money like a mother lioness guards her cubs. Even now when I'm hypomanic. Wild horses can't drag me to the stores to spend money on clothes and other items that I don't need. Besides, I'm shrinking into some clothes again.

My glasses? Well, I needed them. I look good and can see well and I wear them from the moment I get up until I go to sleep at night.

I bought a 2 kilo bag of cat food for 2 Euros and the cats like it better than the more expensive Gourmet and Felix cat food. They eat it and ignore what's in the other dish. Well, they are welcome to. As long as they eat with a good appetite and don't sit there and mope in front of their dishes I am happy. That's what they were doing, moping, like, "Do we have to eat this awfully expensive food?"

I also bought some different dried dog food for Jesker, because he also eats that, but just like his other dried food, it's only partially successful. He eats it with reluctance. Halfheartedly to tie him over until he gets his real food. He looks at me as if to say, "Woman, what have you wrought now?" You see how I have many telepathic dialogs with the animals. Well, it's silent from their side, I actually talk out loud to them.

Alright then, not because I'm running out of things to say, but because it's a long enough post, I will end it here. It's a true pleasure to sit here and just ramble on to my heart's contend. I could do this all afternoon and start a novelette.

I hope you're all having a good Sunday and something better than the gray rainy one we're having here, although personally it doesn't bother me, there's something cozy about it.

Ciao...

Warmer Leggings Weather.

I've just been out to walk the Überhund and it wasn't really cold out, but not the nice day it was Friday, so I decided not to wear the lacy leggings, but the warmer ones that I've been wearing all winter. I want to save the lacy leggings for really sunny springtime days, when going bare legged is still too risky and I still want to wear my boots. At this point, I can't imagine wearing my boots with bare legs, but don't put it past me. You never now, I may be one of those cowgirls.

Speaking of boots, my toe is getting a little bit better and it now hurts only half as much as it did, which is quite an improvement. I haven't done anything to it but wear my two pairs of new boots and I think they fit well and make the toe heal better. That darn toe! Isn't it amazing how such a little digit can cause you so much discomfort? I thought at times of chopping it off, but then that seemed so drastic.

I have been sleeping so well lately. I didn't wake up this morning until 9:30 and that was only because the dog woke me as he was trying to be petted by me. My hand was hanging over the edge of the sofa and he decided that hand needed to pet him. When that hand didn't cooperate, he complained about it.

The real issue was that he wanted to eat, as both his dishes were empty, so I fed him his Butcher's and then he went into a coma for a while to digest it all. That always gives me some extra time to wake up and have enough coffee so that I can become functional and coherent.

But then again, who's to say when I really have my bright moments of the day? It's all a question of how you interpret my words and actions and they can be quite different depending on when you talk to me and how much of my medication I have had. Will the real Irene please stand up? She keeps standing up all day, but which one is the real one? I think at any given moment of the day, part of me is real, but it is never the complete picture. Maybe that is true for all of us and I am just finding that out.

I don't know about you, but I spent a long time of my life searching for the real me and it is only in these past several years that I have found her. It has been a surprising discovery, because much of what I turn out to be I like, and is completely appositive to how I had been living my life before, and that was so cramped and claustrophobic that it drove me crazy. The way I always thought I ought to live my life, turned out to be completely against my nature and I needed something completely different.

The way I thought I ought to live my life, was hammered into me by the people who raised me and by the environment I was brought up in, which was very narrow minded and bourgeois. It seemed there were no other options and I dutifully followed the expectations. Get married to a promising man, buy a washing machine and a dryer and have babies and live happily ever after, or not, but pretend that you do. Don't escape your fate!

There is nothing worse then being a round peg being forced to fit into a square hole. It just doesn't work, no matter how hard you try. You will be most miserable from being hammered on and seeing yourself fail and not finding the exit sign. Needless to say, once you do and escape, you feel like a miscreant.

Anyway, after all those years, I've figured myself out and I'm not unhappy with the outcome. It needs a little tweaking here and there, but for the most part it is okay. I could have done a lot worse. The fact that I am just a little bit eccentric is not bad, I believe everybody should be to make it an interesting world. I come with an instruction booklet, but I can tell you about it all personally, down to the smallest detail.

One thing I may never figure out, is how to have a successful relationship with a member of the opposite sex, but I think it has a very low priority on my list of things I want right now. I can think of ten things I want to do badly before I would come to that one. So, it is not a major headache. As a matter of fact, the issue is as tiny as an ant, you'd need a microscope to appreciate it. There are relationships in my life that are more important that I want to invest energy in.

Well, talk about wasting time, not that we were, but I am wasting it, but then again it is Sunday and a day of rest, although I just realized that it is the first Sunday of the month and all the shops are open. Mmm...is that something I can resist?

Have yourself a wonderful day. The sun has come out here for some strange reason, but I will not question it and merely accept it.

Some of the Exfactor's photographs as a treat. I have them stored in my folders.





Ciao...

Fast Wednesday.

I didn't wake up until 8 o'clock this morning, which was late, because I had to be at ergo therapy at 9:15. First, of course, I had to have my coffee and my cigarettes and I spent a half an hour sitting in my pajamas, with the dog, just waking up. Then it was, feed the dog and the cats, take my medicines, get dressed, do my hair and my make up, walk the dog, make some cigarettes, have a cup of coffee and leave the house 15 minutes late, race my bike to ergo therapy, walk the long distance from where I park my bike to where the therapy is held and got there 10 minutes late. So, I gained 5 minutes somewhere along the line.

Actually, they had started late and were just beginning with the discussion , so I didn't miss much.The subject was the recurrence of depressions and why they kept on doing that and if there could possibly be something in your environment that kept triggering them. Now, I'm a firm believer in that, so I put my two cents worth in and could only see that these women kept on being stuck in the same roles that they had been in year after year and that here was no change in them. It was as though they were all frozen in place and afraid to do anything differently. So it seemed to me that if you kept getting depressions, and your medication wasn't clearing them up, there must be something else at play. Maybe a life style issue.

The therapist agreed with that, but could not be as blunt about it and tackled the problem more diplomatically. That's why she's the therapist and I'm not. You can't tell these people to suddenly make drastic changes in their relationships and life styles. We do everything in little steps, which are often too small for me, but that's just me. Everyone is treated with tender loving care and we don't upset the boat too much.

Well, anyway, then we had to draw a picture with pastel crayons and not give it any thought, but just let something happen, and I drew myself as a great big fat blob that was pulled down to the ground by gravity and was unmovable, and out of my mouth came the words, "Blah, blah, blah,..." and on top of me was a big black cloud that rained all over me and that is how I felt this morning. I didn't think it was a very pessimistic picture, I thought it was very realistic, because it depicted my feelings exactly.

I have been feeling so tired these past weeks and I feel like gravity is pulling me down to the ground and all I want to do is lay down and go to sleep. Now, I'm pretty sure that this is a side effect of the higher dose of my antipsychotic, so I am going to lower the dose tonight and see if that will help me any. I can't discuss this with my SPN, because she won't be in until Friday, and I don't want to call the psychiatrist, because he is not going to know any better than I am on what to do. I am making an executive decision. I am absolutely not hypomanic anymore. I am practically comatose half of the time.

Well, when ergo therapy was over, I had to rush home and walk the dog and vacuum the kitchen and the living room and the furniture and just when I was done with that, the doorbell rang and it was my friend Lucien whom I had not seen in a few months. So I made us some coffee and brought out the cookies, and the Überhund thought Lucien was just the best thing since sliced cheese and made eyes at her and wanted to be petted by her very much. He is a true social being. He also kept a close eye on the cookies and guarded them carefully from any cat that happened to get too close. He did this until he got too tired and had to take a nap.

Lucien and I had a nice visit and talked up a storm. You get around to talking about different things than when you talk on the phone. Face to face is better and I said she should come by more often. She is often in the neighborhood and it is a small effort for her to drop by and it is a good motivator for me to get the vacuum cleaner out. I like having company and having a good reason to clean up the apartment well. It's always fun to show it at its best to other people.

Tomorrow I'm going to do some more serious cleaning. The somewhat tougher jobs that I have not got around to doing yet. I just hope I have the energy for it. I am actually hoping to be inspired by the springtime madness when the cleaning bug hits. It should happen any day now.

Well, that's all I wrote for today. I think I am going to change my bed and do a load of laundry. I feel like clean sheets tonight. That will be pleasant to sleep in. I must keep busy tonight and postpone falling asleep until the last moment to get a normal night's sleep.

Ciao...

Obviously...

Obviously, it has dawned on me that the small container of senior food is way to little for one meal for the Überhund and that he is left hungry after eating one, because he is getting less than half of what he was getting before.

Tonight I had to give him two containers before he was satisfied and curled up very cosily in a ball to got to sleep and digest his food. So, that is a problem, because I can't afford to give him two containers of food at each meal and it would still be less food than what he was getting originally.

So, it is back to the drawing board, in other words, the supermarket, to see what other brands of good dog food there are for him for reasonable prices that don't make me broke halfway through the month. I am not going back to the original food, because it was junk and made him gain weight. I have to find something very nutritious that's good for him and will not make him gain weight and is good for senior dogs.

Late this afternoon I knew he was hungry, because he was scrounging around in the street again looking for edibles and he has not done that for a while. He was trying to eat unmentionables and I had to pull him away from them, I don't know what they were, but they did not look appetizing.

You see I've changed my header image. It was time for a change I felt, so I looked around on Pixdaus, where there are thousands to choose from. With a little luck, you run into something that appeals to you. Every once in a while I need for something to be different to keep me interested in what I am doing and make it appealing to me, so that I will open up the page with renewed excitement. It's no good if I keep seeing the same image. It starts to bore me and little details start to bother me and it all becomes too familiar.

I realize that I'm writing an awful lot of posts. I have the constant urge to write, it is almost like talking and if you were in the room with me right now, I would be talking your head off. Every time I see the words 'create new post' I click on them. It's an automatism and completely self indulgent. You can blame it on the fact that I am alone a lot and don't have many conversation partners and that when I am in company, I am usually not the talker, but the listener. I don't unload my words very much with anybody, except here.

I don't know if that's because of the company I keep or because of me. I seem to surround myself with people who have the urge to talk a lot and do so freely, regardless of the fact if I may have something to say or not. I admit I am a silent water, but I do sometimes have the urge to share my own self and always feel hindered in my ability to do so, as it seems that people don't expect this aspect of me.

The hard part is that I have a very funny sense of humor and that it very rarely gets the chance to come to the surface. I am always embroiled in serious discussions that are matters of great concern to other people and I feel that I can't do any sort of slapstick routine when I talk to them. Apparently, I have that serious effect on people and they see me more as a listening post than as someone to have fun with.

I'm sure these are also my own vibrations I send out and I need to look at my own self and see what precisely my role is in the lives of other people. I am sure that I have had some of my spontaneity knocked out of me and I may not get that back with everybody. I'm not half as carefree as I used to be. I may actually be a very boring person in real life, who knows?

I suppose that's why I like the animals so much, because they don't expect me to be any other then who I am, which is for them a constantly cheerful person with a lot of patience. I'm always in a good mood when I see the animals. Even when I'm in a bad mood, which doesn't happen very often, I'm in a good mood with them.

I am, what you may call an introvert, while my sister is an extrovert. In this we differ as night and day. My older sister is also an extrovert, which leaves me kind of by myself in the middle. I am, however, the binding factor, I keep one informed about the other and I serve as listening post to both. Sometimes I feel like a good shepherd who tends to his flock. I would be good as a care giver, someone who takes care of people's mental well being. I always know the right thing to say, believe it or not. I have diplomacy and tact. Even if I don't always show that here.

But here is a different world, isn't it? Here we can be our true selves without our facades on. We stand here in all our nakedness without any make up on and without pretty costumes. I think you people know me better than anyone in the world. I choose to show my real self here. Thank goodness that I can and that I'm not embarrassed to. I know none of you will take advantage of it. You will only know someone named Irene very well.

Alright, very quickly. My mother was an extrovert, my father was an introvert, my daughter is an extrovert and my son was an introvert. I think children should be as little exposed as possible to the quirks and foibles of the personalities of the parents. We have no business messing with their innate potentials. Sadly, I don't see a way around this, except by having them live in a kibbutz and that's a whole other story.

So, that was my long insightful ramble for this evening. I'm not nearly done yet, but I'll leave it at this for now. I am wide awake and not nearly ready to go to bed, which is a problem. I will take my medicines and put on my pajamas and see if that will help.

Ciao...

If I don't...

If I don't write every day, I hardly recall what I have been up to and I have to scratch the inside of my brain to try and remember what I did the day before yesterday. I don't know if that is because my days all look alike or because my memory is bad. I will do my best anyway.

I guess in reality it doesn't matter that I went grocery shopping on Tuesday afternoon. What do you care anyway, right? Just me on my bike in the cold with my bags full of groceries trying to get home without causing an accident when turning left into my street between oncoming traffic. That's always real tricky. Sometimes I don't quite make it in the timing and almost topple over, or hit the sidewalk where I'm not supposed to get on it. That's real good for my tires.

Grocery shopping is always great, because sometimes I make a list that I can deviate from when I put a question mark beside an item. That is so much fun. That means instead of that item, I can look around on the shelves and see if I can find anything better. Something better tasting or better in quality or cheaper in price. The possibilities are almost endless. On Tuesday I found an instant porridge with fiber and fruit in it that was on sale. I tell you! Just what I desired. When you get to be my age, you need all the help you can get.

All kidding aside. It does satisfy me when I can get a lot of groceries for the least amount of money and really make them last. I am as cheap as they come. Still, I do have to think about my nutrition and I do read the labels. I look for vitamins and minerals and pay attention to how much fat and salt and sugar there is in something. The plainer the food, the better it is. Some things are naturally good for you, so I buy those.

I now have a sort of muesli that has 4 different kinds of grains in it and 2 sorts of porridges that each have different kinds of minerals and vitamins in them. I measure my health by the strength of my nails and my hair. If my nails grow well, I think I am doing okay. I chew vitamin C tablets as if they are candy. I just grab a small handful and eat those and I eat a lot of dairy products.

Yesterday was ergo therapy. Well, what can I say about that? It was hefty, because we talked about social contacts and how every psychiatric patient seems to have trouble with them. We all got quite excited about this subject, including me, and it was a very emotional half hour for me especially, because I know why I have such a hard time making friends and being comfortable around new people and strangers.

I am very insecure and constantly afraid of being rejected. To prevent this from happening, I don't let anyone get close and literally physically back off when confronted with other people. This fear of rejection runs deep and the origin of it goes back to my childhood, but was reinforced when I became a full time psychiatric patient and I was rejected by people whom I cared about very deeply. To this day, I protect myself from rejection, but the therapist said that I also reject myself and that is even worse. I believe that I am worth being rejected.

I talked about it with my SPN who I had an appointment with in the afternoon. There is so much emotion there and so much old pain. It seems that my whole life long I have fought a battle against the believe that I am worth being rejected and every time the evidence proves that it is true, except that this time I had embraced the idea that I was worthy of rejection and decided to accept it as a given. I was not willing to prove the opposite, because I no longer believed it.

Imagine that. I had accepted the fact that I was not worthy of being accepted by my fellow human beings, but most of all not by the people whom I love. That's how little I think of myself. That's how denigrating my opinion of myself is. I don't think I am worthy of being liked or loved and I suspect anyone who does.

It is probably the biggest thing I need to work on. It may take me quite a while to get this straightened out. I can't bullshit my way through this.

Anyway. Today is a whole brand new day and thank goodness for that. Thank goodness for brand new days that haven't been lived yet and in which you get a chance to shine.

I took the Überhund to the vet yesterday evening. His ointment was all used up, but his eyes weren't quite better yet, so the vet gave me a new tube of ointment and wants us to come back next week. The left eye is looking a lot better, but the right eye looks cloudy and red and it is possible that there is permanent damage. All we can do is wait and see. The poor Überhund is still scared to be there, but he is very good about being examined. Poor guy.

Oh yes, it snowed yesterday morning, big beautiful snowflakes and I rode my bike in it. The snowflakes stuck to my eyelashes and melted there. Luckily, I have waterproof mascara and it withstood the test. It was cold, but so very nice looking and everything was white until it melted in the afternoon sun. I am secretly happy that it doesn't get so cold anymore that the snow stays on the ground and the pond freezes over. I don't like for it to be quite that cold. Temperatures right around freezing are cold enough for me, but I am less bothered by the snow than I thought I would be and it is pretty.

Okay, it's time to hang up. I have to get going and not make this too long. I mustn't bore my readership. Have a great day, you all. I hope you get the kind of weather you wish for.

Ciao...