Neither here nor there...

An infinitesimal amount of people visited my blog today. I will not for one minute worry about being well known enough and start thinking of marketing strategies or popularity campaigns, though I'm sure that all such schemes exist. I've noticed that the most simple and insignificant blogs pull in the most followers and that long winded ramblers like me seldom get high up there in the ratings. There's too much to read and people just want something quick and not a treatise on life at my house. However, I always have much to say, and since it's my blog and I will keep saying it, I won't start worrying until the numbers start to really dwindle. Until I'm a lone voice in the desert.

I know that when I write a post about suicide attempts, or self harm, or a total nervous breakdown, with all the drama and tears to go with it, my readership suddenly goes up and I don't know why that is. So, I'm thinking that I must start making things up and have one of those events happen regularly and have lots of drama happen in my life, just as things are slowing down to a dull roar.

I also should post lots of pictures, because people seem to like them, so I'll have to start taking lot's of photographs of Tyke and the cats, which reminds me that I have to put batteries in my camera.

There, I took a bunch of pictures and then had to edit or delete them and locate them on the computer and stick them in a map where I could find them and it was all a little bit tiresome on a new computer. It didn't quite work the same way it did on my old computer, so I had to cheat a bit. A lot of my photographs are stored in Documents, because I could not get them into Images, and I had to store these in Documents also.

I just had to take my medicines and make myself a cup of coffee, because I had a complete sinking in moment. Suddenly life didn't seem all that wonderful and I hope to get over it quickly as soon as I've had my cup of coffee. I know, they are only fleeting feelings.

I bought a cigarette holder today that had a sticker on it that said, "Push here to open," and of course the first thing I did was remove the sticker, so now nobody will know how to open it but me. I also found an old watch with an adjustable metal band in my jewelry box and managed to get it off and attach it to the watch that was still working, but had a broken band. So, I solved that problem. Now the Exfactor doesn't need to go get a new battery for the other watch that stil has a band. The watch I have on is prettier and I bought it myself. It was one of my first purchases as a single woman.


I´m done writing this post now. I´m not all that satisfied with it, but I´m going to publish it anyway. Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don´t. think I started out feeling like a nut when I first began this one. You know what you do when you write an unsatisfactory post, don´t you? You immediately start writing another one. I have the feeling that I´m staying up late tonight. It is Saturday after all and I must have my wild night too.

Have a good evening.

Ciao,
Nora

Saturday morning...

I seem to be averaging about 7.5 hours of sleep a night now and when I wake up, I feel good and not groggy and confused and in need of lots of coffee to get my act together. I'm pretty perky and ready to cuddle Tyke at first sight. He gets into bed with me and thinks we're going to settle down for some more sleep. I only leave him under that illusion for a short time.

The only thing I don't like, is that I have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and I have no idea what time it is, because of no functioning alarm clock, so I have to go into the living room to see what time it is. I'm trying to replace the battery in one of my watches now, but I can't get the back off, which is very frustrating and which I hope the Exfactor will do for me when he gets here this morning. I'm sure there's a trick to it that I don't know about. At least that way I will know what time it is in the middle of the night, but I do need to get a new alarm clock, unless I keep waking up a 5:30 am.

So, I get up and first I feed Tyke and the cats and give them their milk, and then I make myself a cup of coffee. Like a regular human being who functions normally from the moment she gets up. It's nice to know that this is possible too. Sleeping 12 hours and waking up from a comatose situation wasn't all that great either. It took me so long to get my brain in functioning order.

That was sleeping like a teenager does and you can't talk to them when they get up after sleeping so long. I know I was not coherent when I was a teenager and I got up in the weekends, called out of bed by my mother to come partake of our communal coffee hour. My mother could not comprehend that I was not able to have a conversation. She expected us to say "Goodmorning" in our most cheerful voices. I grunted in my pajamas. "Don't mumble so," she would say and I grunted, "Goodmorning," in a foul mood.

The Exfactor was here and didn't know how to get the back off the watch either, but knows of a cheap place where they can and is going to take it there for me next week. He is a handy man to have around to do these kinds of jobs for me. It means again that I don't have to go downtown to take care of it. I still do have to get a new watchband for my other watch, but there's no real rush. I can do that when I am back to my old self and casually ride my bike into town.

Oh, I rode my bike to my SPN's office yesterday, It had been many months since I had been on it and it took me a while to get used to it. I kept wanting to ride it into the gutter and over debris in the road and over the sidewalk. That was on the way over there. I did much better on the way back, because I sang a song to myself, as my SPN had suggested I do, and that way I was more relaxed. It's just a matter of getting used to it again and feeling comfortable with it, like riding a car, which you never forget how. I could get in a car now and drive away with it comfortably, although I have not driven one for 16 years. It would have to be an automatic, though, I would have a little bit more problems with a stick shift.

I just cleaned the Senseo coffee maker with a bottle of vinear. It had been so long since I had done it, that it only gave 3/4 of a cup instead of a full one and it made a lot of protesting noises while it did so. It moaned and groaned and grumbled and sounded like it was going to fall apart in 20 different pieces. It has stopped making those noises now and is making full cups of coffee again. It's no longer dangerous to stand in the vicinity of it.

Allez, I have to pay bills. I think my money is in the bank now and I have to pay the vet bill amongst other things. Then I have to go to the tobacconist because I'm not sure I'm going to make it through the weekend with my supply. It's drizzling outside and 14C, so that's not too bad, but not warm enough to turn off the heater and open the windows. It's very comfortable in here now. I don't like being stoic and cold.

Have a nice day!

Ciao,
Nora

The O.K. Corral.

Well, everything is okay at the O.K. Corral. The critters have been fed and watered and the head critter has been walked and took the opportunity to take a dump three times, which makes my habit of carrying many baggies a very fortunate one. I don't know what he has been eating to cause such an overproduction, or maybe he simply had been saving it up, because I didn't take him out late last night. I find that he doesn't urge me on to go once I've got my pajamas on and that he very happily trudges off to the bedroom with me to go to sleep.

He does, however, wake me up at 7 AM, for no good reason that I know off, because when I let him out back, he really doesn't do anything and if I give him food, he doesn't want to eat. I think that he thinks it is a good time to wake up and it actually is during the week, so I can count on him to waken me on time. I have a radio controlled alarm clock with two alarm times, but they are set for times during the day when I have to remember to take my medicines. So, it's a good thing that he wakes me up when he does, I just wish that he could differentiate between weekdays and weekends. He is not quite that clever.

The weather is gorgeous outside. The sun is shining and it is 8 degrees Celsius, that's 46 degrees Fahrenheit. It's paractically summer. Still, I am dressed in layers as attractively as I can, because it is a little bit cold inside.

Every morning I have the joy of picking out what I am going to wear, but I think about it ahead of time and am full of anticipation. It's like getting into the 'dress up box' and inventing a new costume every day. Actually, it's like I'm reinventing myself every day in a costume play and I participate in a real life movie production. Oh wait, I forgot the soundtrack.

I filled a new MP3 stick with Jazz albums and then transferred all the songs to a map called Jazz under My Music in my PC. From there I was able to transfer the whole map all at once to my iTune Player, which is something I was unable to do with the Real Player. So, yes, I recommend the iTune player from Apple. As I sit behind my PC, I listen to the music and when the PC is shut off, I listen to the MP3 stick that is connected to my sound system. That way I have a soundtrack to my life. It's fun to listen to the new music, as I don't hear all of it when I download it, of course. I think I made good choices this time.

Did I tell you I got a new watch? I had been wearing a very cheap, but functional watch for many years now, but it was very plain and unassuming and the stretch band had become much too big for me when I lost all the weight and I had to push it up practically to my elbow. I decided that I deserved a new watch and I got a very nice one from the brand Elle. It's got a unique shape and I am quite happy with it and keep looking at it. I am so glad that it is I who is spoiling me. That I can do these things for myself, because I'm worth it, as the commercial goes. I got it at a discount store so I only paid a little money for it, but you can't tell by looking at it. It comes with a warranty also, so I am happy.

You know, I never feel guilty when I spend money on myself and that is something new for me, because when my kids were growing up, I spent very little money on myself. I remember having a very small wardrobe and it not being very fashionable. Jeans and T-shirts mostly with the odd sun dress. For some reason, I thought I didn't deserve having money spent on me.

That all changed when I hit my late 30's and I developed a real love for clothes and I started to trust my own instincts about them. When I gained a lot of weight for a while there, due to the medications, I lost my interest in clothes, but now that I've lost so much weight, all the interest is back with a force and I find nothing more satisfying and fun than to shop for an item of clothing and to match it to something I already have in my closet. There is sheer joy in that. I used to love buying new books with the same amount of passion. I also like to buy necklaces and right now I am wearing two of them that click against each other when I move and I like that sound.

My mother loved clothes and used to dress like Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances. She looked very much like her. It wasn't until my mother's death, that I felt the freedom to start dressing like a real female and become more than casually interested in what I wore. It's like I finally had the room and the gumption to do that, now that her critical eye would no longer linger on me and find fault and she could no longer comment on how I dressed, whether that was negatively or not. I just didn't want to be noticed by her physically at all. You can't imagine what liberty I felt, especially when soon after I left my first husband and I could be the complete female I wanted to be. The more skirts and dresses I am wearing, the better things are going with me. Which doesn't mean that I don't want to get a pair of skinny jeans.

I have two pairs of bell bottom pants that are frayed at the edges from dragging over the pavement and I think I am going to get rid of them, because I think they are not at all flattering, but they were the style when I bought them. Sometimes you can make such fashion mistakes. You think you want the latest in jeans, when those are not at all right for you. It's really great when you make the right choice immediately and many times I have bought an item of clothing that I know will be a keeper for more than one season. Sometimes I buy a total dud and take it back. Well, your closet is like an art collection and sometimes you have to take something out and add something else in.

Well, I am sure it's all been very fascinating to you, this talk about clothes. There is more to it than meets the eye. There is the whole psychology of clothes.

Okay, I've got to clean up the kitchen, duty calls me now. Have yourselves a terrific Sunday.

Ciao...