On the second Christmas day....

Because my daughter and her father will be going to Italy with my sister and her friend for a few days in the morning, I will have some time to myself and no need to get up early and to be dressed on time. I can be lazy and go as slow as I want. Once I finally get the show on the road, I will have to find a place for all the Christmas presents I got because I haven't had a chance to do that yet. 

The apartment is not that big and whenever new things come into it, a place has to be found for them and some rearranging has to be done. I got a lot of personal care products, so I need to empty a shelf in the bathroom to put them on. I always have to try to get things down to the very basics and not waste any space. Choices need to be made about what is obsolete and can be thrown out. And it can never be regretfully so. 

I got four new books and those need a place on the bookcase. Needless to say, they have a high priority to get read and I will do my utmost best to do that as soon as possible because they were all chosen with care. I will have to make it a point to sit down and read for a while every day in my armchair and do nothing else. It will be good training for my mind and my attention span. It will prevent my thoughts from drifting and that's something that definitely needs to happen. 

I got some anklet socks that are very soft and infused with some kind of lotion and I'm supposed to put them on after I have given myself a proper wellness treatment with all my personal care products, which I will do today. I've also gotten a nice set of lounge wear which I will wear tonight. I will treat myself nicely today and make it as special as I can. It will be my day off as far as that is possible with the dog. It's too bad that he needs to get walked or I would wear the lounge wear all day long.

Yesterday we went to Aachen, in Germany, and walked around downtown and visited Charlemagne's beautiful cathedral. The weather wasn't all that great, it was drizzling and cold, and we found a safe haven in a cozy cafe where we had something hot to drink. There was no sitting out on a heated terrace. Apparently the Germans don't do that kind of thing. I had a cappuccino with whipped cream and felt very decadent. That's not on the menu in the Netherlands. 

I should go back to bed now but I find myself wide awake. That is a bit of a problem. I doubt that I'd fall asleep now. I seem to be in the wrong time zone again. I'll have to find some way to keep myself busy until I get tired enough to go to bed. I will go find a place for all the Christmas presents.

Have a good day you all. 

Ciao,

Nora

Gently making it through the night...

I'm too excited to sleep, of course, because today is the day that my daughter and her father arrive. That is a big occasion and one I have been looking forward to. I've spent the last few days doing chores and wrapping the last presents for Christmas and generally preparing myself mentally for the big day. 

This morning I have to get myself in spiffy condition and make sure I look my best because first impressions count and I want to make a good first impression. I've picked out my outfit and have to redo my nails and make sure my hair looks good. Then I've got to face the day with a cheerful face that's well made up. Not too much make up so as to not look artificial. 

My daughter posted photos of herself and her father on the airplane on Facebook. Her father had upgraded their flight to first class so they're traveling in style and comfort. As far as I'm concerned, that's the only way to travel intercontinental. It's ever so much better than being crammed like a sardine into economy class on such a long flight. I always like it when exonomy class is overbooked and I get upgraded to business class. I think that's a real luxury. 

In the meantime, I'm sitting here drinking a glass of cold milk and I've just taken my morning dose of medicines. I'm really taking my time writing this because my thoughts keep drifting off to other subjects. I'm doing an awful lot of daydreaming. It's amazing how one thought will trigger a whole series of memories to come to the surface. Before I know it, I'm all caught up in them. That's a bad habit. I mustn't live in the past. 

I think I will go take a shower and slowly get the show on the road. There's lots of time to do all the things I want to do. I may even get some sleep later on. The sun's not up yet so the day hasn't officially started yet.

Have a great day.

Ciao,

Nora

Feeling better...

I've been in the most god awful mood for the past three days, but this afternoon I got smart and took an extra pill and since then I've started feeling a lot better. I was about to call my psychiatrist or the crisis line because I was feeling so bad. I was being my own worst enemy and thought that everyone and everything else was too. How terribly frustrating that was, and so exhausting too. 

Now I feel like I am more myself again and that I'm capable of handling life as it happens. As long as nothing too complicated comes along, I should be okay. Luckily, the day is almost over and I don't expect anything out of the ordinary to happen. The evening should be pretty predictable and there is even going to be a thriller on TV. 

I've already walked the dog in the coolness of the late afternoon. It wasn't very warm today and it even looked like it was going to rain. That's how overcast and gloomy the sky got. Still, I only needed to wear my cardigan and I wasn't in the least uncomfortable. 

Tomorrow we're going to have some showers, but we've been having a lot of those lately and it's nothing new. Actually, we're all getting a little tired of them. I think we're all in need of more sunshine than we are getting now and many people are changing their minds and are booking last minute holidays to Spain anyway. 

You'd have to pay me a lot of money to get me to go there and sit on the beach with all those other sunburned bodies. That's not my idea of a perfect vacation. I do dislike crowds and would hate to hang out on the beach at the Costas or in a swimming pool at some overpopulated hotel. I would rather go to the countryside and to museums and churches and small towns in Italy, for instance. 

I can't go on vacation at all due to lack of money, but in my head and imagination I travel a lot. I've already been to a lot of places in the past, so I can remember them. I do have that. I don't know if I will ever travel again in the future, but I always have the vague assumption that I will. Maybe I will win the lottery one day.

It's nice if you don't confront reality too hard and leave something to the imagination, otherwise you get so desperate. It's better not to get too super realistic about things and leave them a little bit vague and not too sharply outlined in your mind. You always want to have a little bit of hope. 

I choose not to think too intently about the future. I like to leave it a little bit unknown and unclear, although I must say that at this rate it's pretty much predictable. The future is practically written out for me and I expect no real surprises. 

I get the distinct impression that the dog wants to go out again. He is sitting here beside me very impatiently. I think I'd better pay attention to his needs. 

Have a good evening.

Ciao,

Nora

Reinvention...

I try to have something sensible to say every night that I sit here, but I think I fail every time that I do. More often than not I repeat myself and tell you what a delicious cup of coffee I am having. I've just had another one and that's the best I can do.

Coffee tastes great, but I'm convinced that it makes you very thirsty and causes you to want to drink many glasses of cold milk, which is what I'm going to do next, like I do every night. There's never any surprise.

I am a person of routines, there's no doubt about that, and I will not suddenly do something out of the ordinary like run around the block half naked in the middle of the night in a rain shower, although it is not raining right now. I'm limited in the crazy things I can do, partly due to the lack in my imagination and partly due to the shortage of means to carry them out. I can't suddenly drive to Paris and park my car under the Arc de Triomphe. I think I need a similarly minded person to do those things with and who has the means to do them.

When I say I am a person of routines, I think that is only partially true. I think I have enough adventurous blood in me to go out and look for interesting things to do. They are just not within my means to do so. I'm very limited on my budget and by transport and very rarely can do anything truly out of the ordinary. I would very much like to take on a big adventure, but I simply don't have the independent means.

Which takes me right back to this night here and my actual situation of sitting here behind my computer by my desk lamp with my glass of milk and my cigarette. I travel long distances in my mind and through the help of the books I read. In my imagination I go everywhere.I've read so many descriptions of so many places, and of course, I've seen a lot too. I have been places in my lifetime, so I'm not a stranger to the world.

I finished "Here on Earth" and started reading "The Drowning Season" also by Alice Hoffman. I'm just at the beginning, so I can't say much about it yet, but I think I'm going to like it, just as I liked the former book. It ended up not happy so much, but the main character ended up being safe in the end and that was the most important thing, and she was ever so much wiser, although she learned a hard lesson. Isn't that the way we all learn them, though?

I'm not happy with the design of my blog and I'm going to have to do something about it. The links are unreadable and I don't like the background of it. I may go back to the simple template and maybe choose a different background. I'll have to see. I can spend some time on it tonight.

Have a happy morning.

Ciao,
Nora