Happiness.

As of Sunday last week, after that long nap in the afternoon, I started coming out of my depression and climbed the hill back to the top until I got there. As of this morning, when I woke up at 5:30 am, I am standing on the highest peak and looking at the world all around me and finding much happiness in it. I am alive again. I speak, I laugh, I am animated, I am interested, I am full of fun, I am wonderfully present and I could go on and tell you how good I feel, but you'll have to take my word for it.

It's a most precious and exciting thing to be this alive. Everything about me seems to shine and I feel like a new person in a new skin with a new outlook. I could embrace the world and let everybody know how happy I am with them. Well, I do my best to convey that message and I radiate positivism and it bounces back to me. You are a mirror to the world and what people see in you gets reflected back to you. People cheer up, because I'm cheered up. I actually have conversations with people, because I am awake and alert and on the ball.

So, I had a very early morning to start with and that suited me just fine, because I was alert from the start and didn't sit around trying to figure out who I was and what day it was. I very cheerfully made myself a mug of coffee and even got a little bit of computer time in, which was a nice way to waste an hour or so. And then I very quickly got dressed and while I was doing so, at eight am, my upstairs neighbor rang the doorbell and wanted to spend a whole hour with me while she waited for her taxi. Well, of course I wasn't about to, so I told her that I was getting ready and that I would be leaving soon. Can you imagine, at eight am?

I finished getting ready and walked the dog and hopped on my bike in the sunshine and got to the clinic early, where I sat on the deck with an espresso and had a lovely conversation with a man who is in two of my creative classes, but who I never had a good talk with. So that was nice and let me tell you, first impressions don't mean a thing, because that man is ever so nice and I didn't think he was when I first met him. He is ever so much smarter and interesting than he gave the first impression of.

Pretty soon the rest of the people started showing up and it got busy on the deck and there was a lot of joking around going on. Joviality all over the place, at least that's how I experienced it. I am seeing everything through rose tinted glasses, so my view of the world is very benign. I am like the kindly mother looking with great fondness at all her dear children.

I hollowed out my sculpture that I made last Friday and got as much clay out of it as I could without ruining it, Then I had a long hard look at the picture of the next sculpture I was going to make and tried to figure out all the different shapes and angles and what was there that I couldn't see. I was gathering my courage and then got a big block of clay and thought, "Oh my God, where do I start?" Well, you dig in at one point and just start with one section and hope for the best. Slowly things begin to make sense after you've made all kinds of mistakes that you correct along the way. Clay is very forgiving that way.

Soon it was break time and we all took our coffees into the stinking smoker's room and because we were all women we talked about boobs and diets and bums, which was cause for great hilarity, because some of us had too much of them and some of us not enough. There was only one person there with a nearly perfect figure and she wouldn't have believed it if you had told her.

Then it was back to the clay again and we worked like regular artists, with high concentration and hardly a word between us, except to say help if we got stuck. The morning goes by too quickly and before you know it, it is time to clean up and get all the clay dust of your clothes.

I pedaled my bike home very merrily, although it looked like it was going to rain, but that never manifested itself. I came home and fed the Überhund and took him for a walk, wearing a jacket against the chill wind. It's cooled of quite a bit now and it's not very warm outside and it is overcast. I'm wearing an extra cardigan, because I have the windows open on a crack to air the apartment.

The Exfactor was here for 15 minutes having a cup of coffee and he is going to pick up Nouri on Thursday or Friday afternoon and take her home with him. Officially he is not supposed to have any pets, but since he has all linoleum, he is going to take a chance and see if he can get away with it. I'll be glad when she's gone, because I can't live with the pressure of her doing her business in the neighbor's flowerbed. The Exfactor has already informed the neighbor.

There are many birds chirping outside and I wonder if that has to do with the change in the weather. Of course, it sounds like they are making many happy sounds, but maybe they are saying, "Hey, get in your nest, it's going to rain." Or, "There will be nice rain worms out in a while."

I've made a change to my other blog. I no longer show different images with a randomly generated title there. I now show Altered Images and that is the name of the blog too. So far, I have altered the Exfactor's images, because I have so many of them, but I will do my own too. You can go there here. I hope you enjoy them and notice the difference between the originals. I will do one a day. Bookmark this page.

I looked especially spiffy today with my gray toned empress dress and my gray leggings and my gray bolero, all just different shades of gray with a green necklace. I got complimented on it by a good dresser herself. It does my heart good. Ton sur ton. It works if you do it right.

Here are some pictures I just took:





Have a super splendid rest of the day with sugar on top and whipped cream on the side.

Ciao...

Wasting my time again, what am I to do?

I went to bed very late last night and I blame the diet Coke I was drinking, being very thirsty and not thinking of the caffeine that was in it. It was super delicious and very thirst quenching, but of course, it made me wide awake for some time. It was nearly morning before I fell asleep.

I was woken up at ten AM by the doorbell and ran to answer it in my pajamas, because I thought it was the Exfactor who was supposed to come over. Well, not. It was my neighbor who asked me what I was going to do about those cats of mine. Since I was in my pajamas and not awake yet, I had no answer and I told him to give me half an hour and I would be with him.

I got dressed and had a mug of coffee and took my medicines and went over to see him and he was quite upset. He had a raised flowerbed that he had covered with a glass plate in which he grew seedlings for his vegetable garden. He had left a gap between the glass plate and the edge of the flowerbed and a cat had gotten in there and shat in there and ruined all his seedlings.

We had quite a discussion, but what came out of it, was that it probably is Nouri, the white cat, who is doing this, so a solution needs to be found as soon as possible. I told him that I would discuss the problem with my ex husband and that we would come up with something.

Then the neighbor got very upset on behalf of me for the Exfactor taking off and leaving me to deal with the problem, while he still comes back here on a regular basis to use the shed as his workshop.

Anyway, the Exfactor came and I told him Nouri had to go and I offered him several options that he could take advantage of and he is going to look into all three of them and have Nouri gone from here within a week, so I can tell our neighbor that and he will be happy to hear that because he was threatening to call the police.

So far that's the end of this chapter on that subject as far as I'm concerned and I brought home a whole bag of cat shit this morning.

It wasn't the most fun way to wake up, but when you have cats, you get these sorts of complaints and I think that when you live in a small space, it is better not to have any cats at all, at least not when your neighbor insists on having a flowerbed that looks like a big litter box.

Now I'm supposed to be cleaning house and going to the store and I will do all these things as soon as I have gotten the need to write out of my system and I have finished this diet Coke.

The weather outside is beautiful, the sun is shining and it is warm.

--------------------

My upstairs neighbor was just here and she thinks I'm the best thing since the invention of the wheel. She tells me so many confusing stories, but little by little I am getting a picture of her life and it ain't pretty. Some people are bound to lead tragic unhappy lives. They attract it. There must be some kindness in me that's attractive to her, because she tells me intimate details, but not excessive enough for me to quite understand them all. It's a puzzlement. I even had to give her some tobacco, because she was all out of hers. That's pretty gutsy, asking someone for tobacco. I don't know if I would have the audacity to do that.

My sister is on vacation in Italy and I have to take care of her mail and the fish. She has an alarm that I have to turn off with a code and turn on again when I leave. I hope I don't screw that up. I have visions of the alarm going off endlessly and me not being able to stop it.

Well, now I have to feed and walk the dog and go to the store. Hurray! Such happy things to do on a bright and sunny day. It's been a completely screwed up day so far, with everything happening at the wrong time. Somehow I must put some order back into it. It will probably happen right around bed time, if I'm lucky.


Have a wonderful day, even if it is raining on you. Remember, Mother Nature needs that too.

Ciao...

Contrary.

Contrary to my best intentions, it is the middle of the day and I have the computer on and am active on it. So, why is that?

Well, I felt like being stubborn and going my own way today and do things just a little bit different. I have cleaned up the apartment a bit and if you run fast, you don't notice what needs to be done yet. For all appearances it looks good enough, if you run fast. You can also roller skate through. Or drive by in a fast car and have a quick peek through the windows.

Frankly, my dear...let's just pretend that today doesn't have to be a very productive day and that it is mental health day. To celebrate this day, I have arranged my books on the bookcase by color. It came over me as I sat by the dining table and suddenly I got up and started putting all the red books together. Once I had that done, the rest was easy. The blue ones followed and then the greens and so on. The black books outnumber all of them.

Some of them were still arranged by color from an earlier attempt, so it was pretty easy. I should have dusted right away, but I was too impatient for it and will have to go back and do it when spring fever hits. Maybe this was a heralding of it. Get ready, it is about to start.

I saw my SPN this morning and shared my feelings about the therapies with her, but then fell into such a funk, that I didn't really know how to communicate any further and it was kind of a futile discussion, because I was not cooperative. Not because I didn't want to be, but because I just slammed shut and didn't know what to say anymore.

I did say, that if the situation continued as it was, I would quit the therapies and make my own way in life. She thought that was just my emotions speaking and that I would regret that later.

If anybody dares to say to me again that it is going to end soon, I'm going to challenge them and tell them to name me a date so that I can prepare myself properly. I'm not going to hang in limbo for the rest of the time that I'm there.

I have tried to call my main therapist there, but she was out for the day, so I left a message with the head of the department to call me back. I am going to get down to the basics with this and get this sorted out.

So, here I have been sitting getting myself out of my funk back to normal again. Slowly but surely I am. I felt like I was at the bottom of a well looking up at a little bit of blue sky. I knew I would get there, I just didn't know how long it would take me. A funk is not like having the blues, it doesn't last as long. I have a funk every time I go to my therapies now. I get over it when I get home.

I've put the Überhund on a diet. I think he was eating very healthy, but I also think he was still getting too much food, so I've cut that back quite a bit and he's not complaining yet, which makes me think he is getting enough. He needs to loose a few kilos and always has. Maybe we can achieve that now. I'm still putting ointment in his eye and it looks better, but it isn't cleared up yet. The ointment is very expensive, so I hope I don't have to keep buying it.

Toby's allergies are back. He is sneezing again and has runny eyes. He didn't have that all winter, but it just started again. He's not suffering, so I'm not going to worry about it and have another expensive vet bill. I clean his eyes every day and say, "Bless you," when he sneezes. That's about all I can do. I'm keeping an eye on his eyes to make sure they don't become infected, because I sure as heck don't want that to happen. Imagine two animals with eye infections.

Gandhi and Nouri are fine. They hang out on the dining table and watch the world go by through the windows there. We still get people who walk by and say, "Oh, look at the cats!" And then Nouri becomes scared of all the faces at the window and takes off, while Gandhi just sits there. Nouri is a little paranoid and gets scared of leaves falling off trees, or me walking through the apartment too quickly.

The sun is shining and it is 11 degrees Celsius outside. That is 52 degrees Fahrenheit. Not bad for a day in March. The fact that the sun is shining makes up for a lot. I saw the first dandelions in the field today. And some unknown little bush had pink blossoms on it. Some of the shrubbery has little buds of green, but you have to look very carefully. It's going to be so exciting when the trees show their first green buds. It's not going to be long now before that happens. Every day we are getting a little bit closer. All you have to do is watch the changes happen very closely.

Living with the seasons makes you appreciate the springtime so very much. There is very little about the winter that I like and I just sort of endure it and wait for the spring to come. But when it comes, it comes in a hurry and you really have to pay attention, because before you know it, everything is lush and green around you and you really ought to savor every moment. That's why I'm going for an extra walk with the dog right now. To see what is happening in everybody's gardens.

Have a good day, everybody.

Ciao...

An ordinary Tuesday.

I called the supermarket to find out if they were open for business again as usual and they were. I wanted to make sure, because today is the last day of Carnival and even that is mournfully celebrated with a ritual, which is very unclear to me, except that it involves people mourning and crying, because it is over, and other emotional outbursts. I am not conversant in all the details of the various Carnival rituals and just pick thing up here and there, making them all the more mysterious.

So I went to the store and picked up supplies, including good cookies, and for a change it wasn't real busy, so there was no manhandling of the shopping cart in the aisles and pushing around for position at the check out lane. Listen to me, I make it sound like we're uncivilized barbarians.

After I checked out, I remembered that I had not bought an energy saving light bulb for the hallway, so I'll have to move around in the dark there another couple of days. Or steal a light bulb from someplace else, but I think I have already done that once and it won't work again for a second time.

When I got home, I put the first bag of groceries down on the ground and the Überhund stuck his nose deep into it to see what I had gotten. He saw many goodies and wagged his stubby tail extra hard. After that, Nouri climbed into the bag, but couldn't make any sense of it. It was the same way when I got the second bag of groceries and the Überhund barked at me in frustration, so we shared three cookies. I think we showed a lot of self restraint.

I sat down on the sofa with a mug of coffee and a cigarette, but realized that I was so tired that I started to nod off and I laid myself down and took a tree hour nap. I don't know if you can call that a nap anymore. That's a regular sleep. I must have needed it though, because when I woke up, I felt ever so much better and not all discombobulated anymore. Sometimes I work on half a cylinder and I don't even realize it until I lay down and go to sleep. It's like before I do things in a half dream state, but I don't catch onto that until I have had some more sleep and am really properly awake.

I was supposed to have cleaned the apartment, because my friend Lucien is coming over tomorrow afternoon and I have ergo therapy in the morning, but I think I can clean the kitchen and the bathroom tonight. She'll have to excuse the rest of it, I'm not too bothered about that. She's coming to see me and not how clean my apartment is. Besides, a bucket of suds will do a lot of good. That and a little elbow grease.

I've just fed the animals. It's a real trick to keep the cats of the counter until I'm done filling their dishes. I keep telling them, "No, off you go," and pushing them off the kitchen counter. Slowly they are catching on. They are stubborn animals, because they jump up as quickly as I push them off, but the persister wins and that is I. I guess I'm more stubborn and I will have it my way.

The Überhund loves his food so much and it is doing wonders for his digestive and intestinal tract, that's as detailed as I'll get, you can imagine the rest. Let's just say that things are very easy to pick up. Now he is laying by my feet being perfectly satiated and waiting for me to take him out in a while. I always wait a bit for mother nature to take her course, although he watches my every move.

Right, I'll go take him out then.

The last couple of days the temperatures have been mild and you almost start to believe that springtime is around the bend. Weeds are popping up in the flowerbeds. Soon I'll have to weed my own little patch. I'll keep laying the weeds down as compost and as a place for the cats to do their business. Anything to keep them out of the neighbor's garden.

I'm curious to see when the three trees will start to show their little buds, they are barren still and so is the bush that shot up in the jasmine, that I have no idea of what it is. The jasmine needs to be cut way back, because it is so invasive. I'll have to go at it with the garden clippers. I'd like to dig it up and be rid of it completely. I wanted a climbing jasmine vine and the Exfactor came home with this bush. That's been a major regret ever since. Maybe I'll ask him to dig it up for me.

Okay, I have some house cleaning to do and I better do it now.

Have a great evening.

Ciao...

202nd post.

I didn't realize that since I've been back with Blogger, I had already written 200 posts as of yesterday. That is after I left Wordpress and not counting all the posts I wrote on Blogger before that. So, happy anniversary to me for a little milestone. 't Is but a blip on the radar, a minor happening, but I should have celebrated it with a pastry had I been aware of it, because any excuse will do to eat a pastry with chocolate frosting and whipped cream on top. Oh, I can taste it now, booger.

Due to the lack of sleeping pills, I also took extra tranquilizers before I went to sleep last night and I have to tell you that I slept like a baby until 7 AM, which was a perfect time to get up because I had to go to creative therapy. I made an extremely slow start and had two mugs of coffee before I could even think of functioning.

I have decided not to worry about getting some place a bit late anymore, as long as I can gather myself together at my own pace and do the things I need to do in my own rhythm. It's important that I don't rush, lest I forget something crucial like taking my medicines, which I have done in the past when in a hurry. I got dressed and made up and did my hair and walked the dog and had another mug of coffee before I left and was 10 minutes late, which was not too bad. There are people who walk in later than that.

I finished another collage and I will post it right here:

I was a bit in a rush when I finished this and it has multiple layers of acrylic paint on it, as I kept being unhappy with the outcome of the combinations. I started with red and finally ended up going back to red with some green in the background.

I see now that I needed brighter images to go with this and that will be my next quest, to find brighter images, I am sure I will find them in all the magazines that are still laying around.

There is some yellow in there too that does not show up well in the photograph, but trust me, it is there.

I have three collages that I want to frame now, so I am on a quest to find the right sizes at the most affordable price. Ikea doesn't have the right sizes, I already looked on line. So, I'll have to go back to that store downtown where I bought two other frames, but I secretly hope that have something cheaper than what I got then.

When I got home, I went to the convenience store to buy the dog some food, instead of going to the supermarket, which I just was not in the mood for, and I bought him some food that had 5 kinds of meat in it, in the proper portions. Then I went to the pharmacy to pick up my sleeping pills. Oh boy, what a relief that was, to finally get them after having been so stubborn about them all week. I don't know what came over me about that.

The dog loved his food and I gave some of it to Nouri who was crying pitifully for something to eat and I made sure the other cats left her in peace while she ate it. I don't think it's going to harm her to eat some dog food now and then along with her kibbles. She won't start barking or anything or lifting her leg to pee on bushes.

Then I very quickly did some jobs in the apartment in the time that remained and with the energy I had left to spare and walked the dog for the third time that day. Now it seems that he wants to go out again, so I will have to take him in a while.

I realize that this is just a dry summing up of my day, without much humor in it. I'll owe you that in the next post. Right now I'm just tired and hungry and I am going to walk the dog and then eat something and put my pajamas on. How lucky can a girl get?

Have a good evening. I'll talk to you all in the morning.

Ciao...

The best ever...

I went to the grocery store and bought the best ever senior dog food I could find for my beloved Überhund, because nothing is too good for him and I will get his weight down while he dines in style. This stuff is more expensive, comes in smaller portions, and is made with real chunks of meat and rice and vegetables and when I gave it to him, he almost could not believe his luck and ate it all with a great big healthy appetite and then looked around to see if there was more.

There is more, but I had to disappoint him and not give him another batch of it, because it will break the bank. I am already looking at the cash register receipt to see what I can save money on so that he can enjoy this quality food. I tell you, the stuff looked great, there was definitely no mystery meat in there and the vegetables were recognizable as well. It's called Cesar, fit for kings. I don't mind spending the money on it, because, let's face it, the Überhund is getting old and is overweight and needs the best food I can find for him. Supplemented with the Bonzo bones for his teeth, that should do him fine.

I got chocolate pudding for myself as a treat for having done the groceries so well and everything just barely fit in the bike bags and the shopping bag, but it wasn't too heavy, just bulky.

I bought a small container of Sheba for Nouri, who has not been eating well enough and I gave it to her while I kept the other cats and the dog at a distance. I sat beside her on the kitchen floor while she ate it very gratefully and I think I will buy it for her more often to supplement the dry food that she eats. She is such a shy and demure cat and I think maybe she is not getting enough nutrition. Don't you love animals that should come with instruction booklets?

Since it is Saturday, I had to water all my plants and that means taking them all into the kitchen and taking them out of their outer pots and setting them into the kitchen sink for a good drench and drain. I tried to water them in the spots where they are with the watering can, but end up with puddles of water beside the pots and a huge mess on my hands that I have to sop up with a towel. This way is easier. They get enough water and are well drained and don't sit in a layer of water with their bottoms. They always perk up instantly, as if they react to the cool water right away. I feel like I'm doing them a big favor.

The little hardy fern seems to be doing well. I have it sitting in a darker corner of the living room and I worried about it being too dark there, but very often I have a lamp burning in that spot, so maybe that helps. I's got new shoots in the heart of it and I am willing them to evolve and grow into new leaves.

I have just applied the ointments to the dog's eyes again and I must say that he is very cooperative. More than you would expect a human being to be. I think they would mope around and complain a bit first, because it's not that much fun. I am hoping to slowly see improvement over a week's time, as the right eye is very obviously red when I lift his upper eyelid. The left eye actually looks pretty good.

My sister and I took the dogs for a long walk at noontime. I didn't know how well the Überhund would do without his pain medication, but he did fine and sauntered around without any problems. His legs weren't trembling when we got home. That means the glucosamine tabets are doing their job in strengthening his joints. He hops and skips when the mood hits him and he digs in when he wants to inspect a spot a little further and I really have to pull hard to get him to come, because my sister waits for no man.

The weather has been beautiful today. Blue skies all around and sunshine, although it wasn't all that warm. The sunshine was a blessing though, and it felt good to walk in it and we avoided all the shady sides of the streets.

We were too busy talking to really notice anyone's gardens and to see if there was anything popping out of the ground yet. I think not, because possibly we would have spotted it, being eagle eyed as we are. Not much gets past us. People don't seem to have snowdrops, I haven't seen any. Nor have I seen any crocuses. Even the grass of the fields is very bare looking still and it is impossible to imagine how lush it will be in a few months.

Now I have to go and walk the dog and then eat something, which I always forget to do during the day. I live on coffee and forget to eat.

Have a wonderful evening, don't forget it's Valentine's Day and your beloved may have expectations.

Ciao...