The reward system...

I had a busy day and want to reward myself for it. Of course, my mind thinks of a cigarette as if that is the only way I can reward myself for a day well spent. Why in the world would I even need a reward for it? Would it be to congratulate myself because it all went well? That's possibly the reason, but I've got to think of a better way to make myself feel good. 

I had to go to Specsavers at 10 am to pick up my varifocal glasses, so I rode my bike into town very leisurely and did that. They had to be adjusted to fit my head properly and I had to take one of the eye tests over again because I had not received the letter from the eye doctor and they were afraid that I had got lost in the system.

These varifaocals are well made and I have no problems with them like I did with the other ones. I had to tilt my head with the other ones because the lenses hadn't been put in the frame right. Since I hardly ever wore them, this was not much of a problem, but it's nice to have a pair of properly fit ones. I do wear these constantly now and have been complimented on them already. 

I ate a sausage roll at the Hema department store and made it just on time for my appointment with my therapist at 11 am. There we discussed my regular forrays into hypomania and how to best get through them and my acceptance of my illness which is not complete. I do feel embarrassment about it and try to make everything look better to the outside world than it is. 

Next, I had an appointment with my psychistrist about my medication, but I told him to leave everything just the way it is now, please. If we were to start juggling with my pills, I could really get into trouble because I'm already rapid cycling and that would make it worse. Luckily, he agreed with me and we made another appointment for two weeks from now to keep a finger on the pulse. 

After that, I had to go to the pharmacy to get a prescription filled and to try and return an unused box of nicotine patches, but I was unsuccessful with that. They don't buy back any medication that you've had at home and can't sell it either. It's a law apparently. So, I'm stuck with them, much to my disgust. 

When I got home, I realized that the dog had the beginning of an eye infection, so I took him to the vet and he did some tests and gave me some ointment for his eye. I have to put some in twice a day and the dog is really good about it.

Then I took a nap. 

In a little while I have to call my older sister whose blood tests results came back abnormal and who very suddenly had to have an echo made of her liver and the rest of her stomach. I do worry about her. She's been having physical complaints for some time. Because she has so much stress in her life, she thought that this was the cause of them. I wish I was there with her and could go to the doctor with her. 

I've got to get a lot of sleep. I have to catch up on what I didn't get when I was hypomanic.I feel like sleeping a lot and would like nothing better than get into bed and sleep some more. I have to put it off for a while, though. I still have to eat dinner too. 

I've discovered a new way to get the dog to stop bothering the cat. It works full proof. One day when I'm not so tired, I'll tell you about it. 

Ciao,

Irene

Irene's Dutch Diva Blog

No blues for the happy few...

Well, it's not as if I ever have the blues when I get up in the middle of the night, but I'm also not planning on having them for the rest of the day. They are the remotest thing from my mind. I'm sitting here quite contentedly with a cup of coffee and a cigarette and my mood is somewhere in the middle range where it belongs. I'm not having a terrific high from which I will tumble down to a terrific low. 

Having established that, I can now get on with writing the rest of this post, which may not be as easy as it seems. It does require some thinking capacity and I don't know how capable I am of that right now. I'm enormously distracted by the cat and the dog who are racing through the apartment hell bent on making as much racket as they can. I do hope that they settle down soon. 

Yesterday was a lovely day as Sundays go. Because it's a day I don't have any expectations of, it usually turns out well. I leave some chores to do to prevent boredom on that day and that works out well. I changed the bed and did laundry and washed the dishes and generally picked up the place so it looked tidy. It always has to look clean enough for the queen to be able to drop by unexpectedly.

This was after I had slept late in the morning and had taken my time getting my act together with a few cups of coffee. And after I had walked the dog in the sunshiny day. It's getting awfully boring to have nothing but sunshiny days. Oh, just wait and see, I'll come to regret those words.

Later in the afternoon I hopped on my bike and saw my sister and her friend and had a cold beer and Italian cookies that were made with Amaretto. Delicious! I had a cappuccino later to sober up again. 

My sister had gotten her first pair of reading glasses with a correction in one lens for her astigmatism. We made a date to go to Specsavers to get my glasses fitted and she will help me pick out a nice frame. I can trust her to do that. I will have to get varifocal glasses with also a correction for my astigmatism. My sister and I both have that in the same eye.

The dog was happy to see me return home and I took him for a walk and then had my dinner. I had mackerel in green pepper sauce and cheese. It was nice and warm inside and I didn't have to change my clothes, although I was skimpily dressed and stayed so for the rest of the evening. Enough sunshine still gets in through the living room windows in the afternoon to warm up the place.

It was great to get into a clean bed, but the duvet cover I have on there now is just a little thick and I was too warm at first. I had to cool down sufficiently first before I could pull the duvet over me. Then it was nice to get warm and I was asleep in no time. 

I woke up because the dog was gently barking at me for no reason that I could figure out. It must have been boredom that made him do it. It's never the cat that wakes me up, it's always the dog. He's like a spoiled toddler. 

Because today is Monday, I can't sleep late. As a matter of fact, I'll have to set the alarm clock. But it's that way for anybody, I'm no exception. I'm already yawning now, so that's a good sign. I'll be asleep again in no time.

I hope you'll all have a great day.

Ciao,

Nora

In the evening...

I actually have two pairs of glasses. The ones that I have been wearing, which are a modern rectangular design and are made of a thin bronze colored metal. I chose these in a hurry, because I thought I wanted something different and more youthful. I ended up never liking them very much, but wearing them anyway, because the woman in Specsavers had said that they looked good on me and I believed her.

I also have my original pair of glasses, which have a minimal frame that is made of hypo allergenic titanium and they were very expensive. Because the frame is so minimal, it makes much less of an impact on my face and it is so lightweight that I hardly notice wearing it.

I had put this last pair of glasses away in their case in the drawer of my nightstand and pretty much forgotten about them until tonight. I got them out and cleaned them up and had a good look at them and saw how nice they really were and what better quality than the glasses I had been wearing.

I stood in front of the mirror and took one pair of glasses off and put the other ones on and couldn't believe the difference. I liked the old pair so much better. My whole face showed up again. I kept them on and have been wearing them since and have put the other glasses away. This is the pair that I really want to wear. So, when I get my eyes checked and it turns out that I need new glasses, I'm going to have them put into this frame and not bother picking out another one.

I instinctively picked out this frame the first time I got glasses. I zoomed in on it and said, "That's the one I want!"  I put it on and was pleased right away. I don't know why I thought it wasn't nice enough anymore. Well yes, I wanted to be  more modern.

So, that's the story on the glasses. Don't be led by fashion. Let your own common sense prevail and your own taste. If you look ridiculous, hopefully somebody will tell you.

Have a good night!

Ciao,

Nora

Imagining...

Because I may need new glasses in the near future, I went to the Specsavers website and had a look at what was available in frames at a reasonable price. They have a really neat feature. You can choose an image of a face that closely matches yours, or download your own image, and try out frames on it to see how they look and in the color of your choice too. 

It's a fun thing to do and you can get real serious about it, though there are a lot of frames to choose from and you do get a bit confused after a while. It does give you an idea of what sort of frame you ought to be looking for and what colors look good. I know for sure now that the glasses I have are the wrong ones for me and that I need to get another pair. 

But like I said, that's in the future when I have the money for them. It's fun to look around and fantasize about them. It keeps you busy and off the streets. You know how much I hang out on street corners making a nuisance of myself. 

I have a sharp pain in my upper back where that curve is and I know I'm going to have to take a painkiller for it. Otherwise my muscles are going to tighten up and I will be in even more trouble. I'm trying to sit up as straight as I possibly can, but it requires a lot of effort. Slumping behind the computer is probably what got me into this problem.  Walking with Tyke makes it worse when he pulls at the leash. 

It's not nice when your body lets you down. Age is probably a contributor. Things wear out. I imagine my worn out spine trying to stand up straight after all these years and not quite making it. God, that makes me sound like somebody's old great grandmother, bent over with a cane, constantly looking at the ground slightly ahead of her. It's actually because of a mild form of scoliosis that my back hurts. I've taken a painkiller and I hope it works soon.

I've taken Tyke for his last walk for the day and he's sound asleep now underneath the dining table. It's time that his new pillow arrives, because he picks odd places to sleep in. Not the most comfortable ones. Hopefully it will get here by tomorrow. It's strange that it wasn't delivered at the same time with his toys, but I did order it on a different day, so maybe that was too complicated for them. 

I've just had a big bowl of Cup a Soup. I mixed three pouches of asparagus flavor in a bowl of hot water and it was very thick and nice and warm. It's done my stomach a world of good. I feel full and comfortable now. It was better than a cup of hot chocolate and that's saying a lot. I've still got a couple of other flavors left, under which broccoli and leek. Cup a Soup is a good invention. I wish I had thought of it. Hey, I should be a spokeswoman for them and for Specsavers too.

I'm tired even though I slept so well last night. I could go to bed right now and fall asleep, but I won't do that because it's way to early for that. I will go and put my pajamas on so I will at least be at that stage. 

Have a good evening, you all. 

Ciao,

Nora

What is it anyway?

After I had that bowl of porridge this afternoon, I couldn't resist the temptation and laid down on the sofa for just a little while with my book and, of course, I fell asleep for an hour and a half, but it was very pleasant and I don't feel at all like I've ruined it for tonight, because I still feel that I've got plenty of sleep left in me. As a matter of fact, I'm yawning as I write this and tears are running down my face and I'm yawning so hard, that I'm in danger of dislocating my jaw, which I will have to push back in place myself if it does. Everything is crackling and popping every time I yawn. It will have to be part of my self sufficiency, how to relocate my jaw after yawning. Just like changing light bulbs and reconnecting the computer.

The Exfactor always thought that I didn't know how to do those things. He assumed I was helpless. He didn't know I had 22 years experience at being not helpless, at being competent. He was a rescuing knight on a white horse whether you wanted to be rescued or not. He pulled your survival tools right out of your hands and made you unskilled and all thumbs. Some people are that way. They are Super Good Samaritans and don't let other people figure things out for themselves. There are Mother Theresas all over the world in all guises. They are so eager to do good deeds, that they are constantly looking for victims and if they can't find them, they create them.

It feels like it is very late at night already, but is isn't. I've got my pajamas and my bathrobe on. The pharmacy delivered my medication. I just told them to do it and didn't give them a reason why. I very easily could have picked it up myself, but I didn't feel like going out at the end of the afternoon when my prescriptions were being faxed. There's always a lot of traffic then and I do so hate crossing those two intersections at that time of the day.

I've never gotten quite competent at riding my bike again when I came back to the Netherlands. I do a good job, but I always worry about the traffic. I feel very vulnerable after all those years of always driving a car. I feel especially so when my bike is loaded with groceries and I'm glad I live so close to the grocery store, because I worry even over that short distance. I still yell at pedestrians downtown that step of the sidewalk in front of my bike. They are suicidal, but I will have the biggest injuries and when you live alone, you don't want a broken arm. It's hard to go to the toilet on your own with only one arm functioning. I yell, "Watch out, watch out!" I can't ring my bell fast enough. Or at people who walk on the cobblestoned streets, "Will you please go walk on the sidewalk?" Those cobblestoned streets make you rattle and shake as it is. It's hard to keep control over your bike. You just hobble all over the place.

It's all an effort by the city to make the streets downtown look as authentic as possible, but those cobbletones are murder on your bike, or your ankles when you walk on them. Sturdy shoe wear is advised. Ladies with high heels shouldn't go there, you see evidence of them stuck in the cracks. Not the ladies, but the high heels.

I'm having a terrifically tall glass of fruit juice to quench my thirst. Drinking coffee makes you thirsty and this fruit juice is the greatest stuff. It is freshly squeezed and kept in the cooler at the store. I could drink glasses of it, but I do want to make it last and it is high in calories, but it has all kinds of vitamins in it. I drink two glasses of it a day and that gives me a bunch of the vitamins I need. I also drink a lot of milk and as a result my nails grow very quickly and so does my hair. The porridge I eat is high in vitamin B and iron.

Specsavers called this evening and said that the lenses for my glasses were there, so I'm going in tomorrow afternoon to have them put into the frame. It shouldn't take long to do it and I'm seeing my friend Von at the same time. I haven't seen Von in a while and it will be good to hang out with her. No doubt we will sit by our usual café, but hopefully under the awning where there is heating, although it hasn't been that cold outside the last few days and there has been no rain. The leaves are dropping very quickly off the trees, though. It's going very rapidly right now, but some of the trees look spectacular still. Not all of them are equally pretty and only the imported maples are really awesome. Some trees just turn brown and that is it. Some turn yellow and that is much better.

I found the glasses that I had lost. They were in a box in my bedroom that had photos and photo frames in it. I don't know how they got in there and I found them quite by accident, but now that I have them again, I must say that I don't really like them and that I like my old glasses better and that I'm glad that I'm getting the proper lenses put into those. I've tried them out, of course, and I can't wear them behind the computer and do better with them off. It seems the worse my vision gets for far away, the better it gets for close by. I don't know why I thought these new glasses were better for me, because they are not at all attractive. At least, I don't think so. I think I look like a very stern school mistress who should have her hair in a bun and a pencil behind her ear. I look much kinder in my old glasses.

I have creative therapy in the morning and I will be looking at that last painting I made and try to figure out what's missing in it, because something is. It is too stilted as it is now. There's not enough life in it. It needs more abundance, more joie de vivre. I'll either fix it or ruin it. It's a 50/50 chance that I take. That's what skill is all about. Next I need to do a painting that brings me back to the basics. Just the original elements that I started out with, but very well combined. I'm futzing too much now with other little details and I don't want to do that. It distracts me from my main design. That's what I need to get back to.

Why is it that I get oodles of energy the later the night gets? I really enjoy myself late at night, that's when I feel best. I'm complete in my satisfaction and contentment. I will take my medications now and maybe that will slow me down. I need to get sleepy now and not excited about being up.

Alright, I think I have made this post long enough. I don't want the length to be overwhelming. I hope you all have a good night's sleep and I will "see" you all in the morning, fit as a fiddle.

Ciao,
Nora