At the Pondorosa.

It's been an easy going day at the Pondorosa. I woke up from the alarm clock, which was good, because you'll remember that I hardly slept the night before. I was somewhat disgruntled having been woken up this way and not entirely being ready to be awake, and when I sat on the sofa and drank my coffee, I started to nod off again. So I did some stretches to wake my body up properly and made myself another mug of coffee, thinking the caffeine would kick in and really wake me up.

I did the whole morning ritual of getting the animals and myself ready and when I was done with everything, I still had to make cigarettes, so that gave me the opportunity to have half a mug of coffee before I left with just minutes to spare. I had ergo therapy this morning and I was only half looking forward to it, because I knew I would have to talk about he last couple of days and I was right about that and as I told the story, the stress of it crept back into my voice and my hands and I nervously started to find a point in the room to focus on as I related what happened.

One thing that did become very clear though, was that I don't realize that I go off into an extreme mood and don't recognize it as such. To me it just seems the end of the world and not a rapid cycling. I don't even think of that, while I very clearly should. That is because I can be very out of touch with my emotions, because I want to approach everything rationally. A mood gets triggered and off I go running into the abyss with my head cut off, totally senseless in a panic.

We're going to work on that and already started today by coloring in in two shapes of people in two sets on circumstances, happy and sad.We were supposed to do this on a purely emotional level and only use colors, but I was unable to do this and approached it totally rationally and colored them in based on that. Later, when asked to interpret the colors emotionally, I went in a panic and froze up and was unable to do it. I felt extreme discomfort when asked to do this, so we're going back to this exercise next week and I have to try and color them in based on my emotions once again.

I think my ergo therapist is very good and I trust her.

When I came home, the Exfactor was already there with a cup of coffee and a cigarette waiting for me. We have an understanding that when I am not home, he can let himself inside with his set of keys. I do trust him enough to do that and see no problem with it. The Überhund was equally happy to see me even though he did have the company.

I told the Exfactor my plans about turning the spare bedroom into a work room for me and he was more than willing to help me create the space. He is also going to drill the holes in the walls to hang up the collages as soon as I have the money to buy the frames. I already know where I want to hang them. I have decided not to sell them for now, until I have so many of them, that I feel that I can part with some of them. They are too precious to me now.

After the Exfactor left, I did the dishes and picked up the living room and then took a long nap on the sofa, which was very refreshing and rejuvenating. I felt like a million bucks when I got up. I turned on the computer and checked into 6S's and read many blog entries which are really writing exercises, and commented on those and wrote an entry myself. Nowadays, it the first site I go to, before I go to my Google reader and before I write a post. I hardly ever go to Facebook anymore and that account is pretty much dormant. One of these days...

I have deleted a lot of blogs from my Google reader. They were blogs that I pretty much skipped over anyway, unless I had a lot of time on my hands. I seem to be short of time lately and don't even get around to do everything I want to do. There need to be two of me, one to do the chores and one to walk the dog and sit behind the computer. I'd have a very clean apartment.

Take good care of yourselfs, be good for goodness sake and have a nice evening.

Ciao...

As I write this...

As I write this, I am waiting for the men to come to install my new hot water heater. They should be here any minute now. I heard a van pull up, but since then all has been silence. I think a hot water heater is called a boiler in England and I am not sure what it is called in the States, but it is the thing that gives me hot water throughout the apartment, including the radiators for the central heating, so getting a new one is a big deal. I hope this one is even more efficient than the old one, so more cost effective and ecologically sound.

I forgot to tell you about the great cardigan that I bought on Wednesday afternoon at a textiles shop. It is black with a big collar and two big buttons and it is almost as long as my skirt. I got it for 10 Euros and, although I did not want to spend any money on myself this month, I could not resist getting it at that price. It looks very classy and more expensive and it is very warm.

I also had to get a present for my sister whose birthday it is tomorrow. I got her a pretty necklace with beads that shimmer in any kind of light and look like crystals. They are threaded with very thin wire and seem to float in the air and there are three strings of them at unequal lengths. My sister loves necklaces as much as I do, so I know she will be happy with this one.

Well, the men with the boiler are here now and they've started the job. I am curious as to how long it will take them too install it. This is the first time in my life that I've ever gotten a new boiler, so it's quite an event. The cats and the Überhund are quite curious as well.

I'll try and not be too distracted by all of this and get on with writing.

Yesterday wasn't a very eventful day, it being Thursday and so far a day off for me, although it may not be much longer. I have an appointment next week with someone to see if I can fill up either my Thursday or my Friday mornings with a useful activity. It will be in the same building where I have my creative and ergo therapies now, but in a different kind of program and a special request needed to be made for it. It is possible that I will do another creative class on Thursdays, but anything is possible. We'll see. I am glad that I'm getting the opportunity.

I swept the apartment with a broom, because I didn't want to be bothered by the noise of the vacuum cleaner, but now, of course, I still have to vacuum the furniture, there's no way around it. The Überhund is shedding much less, but there still is an amazing amount of hair after a few days that all hides under the furniture. It is very satisfactory to sweep it all up into the dustpan.

The Überhund is having a wonderful time. Full of interest he is watching the men at work and commenting on their every move and when they go out to their van, he trots along behind them to see what they do there. He is so alert and in between this, he comes back to me and lies at my feet as if to reassure himself that everything is okay. The cats are climbing over the boxes and the equipment and are very curious. We don't often have such entertainment here.

At the end of the afternoon yesterday, I fell asleep on the sofa and was out cold for a while until the phone rang. It was someone who wanted to know if I wanted a subscription to a newspaper and I would, except that it is so expensive and I really can't afford it. If I could only get the Saturday newspaper, I would do that and I have to look into the possibility of getting that kind of subscription for my favorite newspaper, which was, believe it or not, originally a Christian newspaper, but it is a very informative one with excellent opinion pages and very interesting articles. I miss reading it.

The google reader keeps me updated on the blogs I read, but lately I have decided that I read too many and I have eliminated a few of them. There were just too many I was trying to keep track off and, although they all had their appeal, some of them had to go. Some were new to me and I had to make the decision if I wanted to invest my energy into really getting to know them better or to stop reading them. If they were more than fascinating, I kept them. It is really bad if you don't get around to reading your very favorites, you can't have that. I really do have my favorites, but I'm not going to tell you here who those are. That's for you to figure out.

All of the shops are open one night a week until 9 PM once a week on Thursdays. I purposely forget that this is so, because it is very tempting to go downtown then and walk through the festively decorated streets and sit in a café and watch all the people go by and maybe pop into a store and buy something very appealing. The café terraces are even pleasant to sit on, if you keep your coat on, because they are heated by space heaters that are quite efficient.

You can bet that it is very busy downtown now, because there is Winter Wonderland on the big square with an ice skating rink and the Christmas market with many stalls. Since I am not in that kind of mood, I try to ignore that bit of it and only incidentally try to catch glimpses of the festivities, which, I admit, is difficult.

I suppose that this weekend, I should write some Christmas cards and get in the mood a little bit. I am feeling some resistance, but I suppose it must be done. This will be the first time that I'll sign the cards with my maiden name. I have never done so before and it will be quite an experience. Some people I will have to inform and I will have to add a little note.

The guys that are installing the boiler are quite funny. They want to know everything about me and the animals, so in between all the activities, they are getting to hear my life story and are entertained. They also saw my young, divorced neighbor and wanted to know all about her, so I told them what I could. They are hoping to install a new boiler there soon.

Well, everything must come to an end and so must this. It has become a rambling sort of thing, but that's okay.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Ciao...

The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get.

I don't know exactly how many post there are waiting to be read in the google reader for me, but I know there are many and later today some time I will wrap my mind around them and try to get caught up. Of course, it's possible that I never will and that I will be forever running behind or that I will have to delete some unread, oh horror.

I just got up and am working on my first cup of coffee, Yes, I know it's so daring of me to type with so little caffeine in my system, but somehow I'm capable of it. I guess it must mean that I've had enough sleep and that I don't neat to artificially chase it away with large mugs of coffee.

I slept on the sofa, of course, as Joost is asleep in my bed. We stayed up talking late. Toby and Nouri became quite attached to him and especially Toby had to be peeled off his lap when it was time to go to bed. I have never seen a cat as happy and contend as Toby. Jesker was only a little bit jealous and asked to be petted every now and then when he really could not contain himself any longer. For some reason, Gandhi wanted nothing to do with the whole scenario and spent the whole evening sleeping on my pillows in the bedroom.

I always forget how nice it is to have Joost here and how easy it is to talk to him. I had a terrible dip at 3 o'clock in the afternoon that lasted until 8 PM and I was not very sociable, but I needed not to have worried about Joost, who is not in the least put out when I suddenly fall silent. I try very hard to act as if nothing is wrong, but it is difficult for me to fake it and I usually can't. I told him about it afterwards, while I may as well have told him about it during, it would have been okay.

I just noticed on the computer and on the radio controlled alarm clock, that it's an hour earlier than it says on my watch and on the clock on the wall. That means we've gone into daylight savings time over here. I didn't even know it was coming up already. That's nice, that means that I've got a little bit of extra time in the mornings. Somehow, that makes me happy. The daylight makes me happy.

Jesker has gone and done a huge piddle out back, so I can sit here in my pajamas a little while longer. It is nice when he is so accommodating like that. I'm not quite ready to get dressed yet and go out into the chilly day, although it is supposed to be 10 degrees Celsius outside now. That's 50 degrees Fahrenheit, that's not bad at all, is it? It's supposed to rain today, but that also means that it won't be so cold, so there is always a trade off.

Well, I have to get breakfast started and be a good hostess, so I will talk at you all later.

Ciao...

Trying hard.

I have been trying very hard to get caught up on everybody's posts through the Google reader, but it seems to be an impossible task that I can never finish and every time I go to read some more, more posts have been added and I do feel ever so overwhelmed, so if you don't find a comment from me, it is either because I have not read you yet, or I have read you, but I did not have the time or energy to comment. I do get so discouraged by it.

There is of course the very distinct possibility that I read to many blogs, but I can not make a choice between which I should stop reading, because I think they all require my interest and curiosity. They all have something to add. I try to stay loyal to the oldest ones, but get side tracked by newer ones, and there is just no end to my list of reading.

On top of that, I have a tendency to get very sleepy when I sit behind the PC reading blogs and I have to watch out that I don't fall out of my chair in a semi coma. Not because the material is dull, but because I'm prone to take naps during the day and my body wants me to move to the sofa for a nice lie down. Another sleep inducing element is the Überhund who snores right by my feet and who makes you want to curl up and sleep too.

I have changed clothes three times today, because I could not get happy with what I was wearing. It either was too cold or too bright or to revealing, until I found the perfect outfit which is just right in all areas, I will try and take a picture of it later so you can see it and I will post it here, if my arm is long enough to show you enough of it.

I am so vain now, that the main subject of my photo taking is me. I try to take pictures of myself at the cutest angles with the nicest smile. You should see all the pictures I delete in which I look like the wicked witch of the east, was it the east? Anyway, they are the ones that are most unflattering, in which all my features come together as being those of a woman whose face was put together under most unfortunate circumstances. I am sort of like Lady Di, I am not really good looking, but on some occasions, I give the appearance of.

My sister is back from her trip to Greece and I saw her just as she came home and her suitcase was laying half unpacked on the living room floor. She said she had mixed feelings about going on the trip by herself and would go on an organized trip the next time. I am sure I will get to hear the whole story some time next week when she has a spare moment.

Her dog was very happy to see her and did not move from her side and wherever she sat down, he laid down and rested his head on her feet and sort of mumbled with happiness. He expressed his happiness more than the children did. That's what dogs are really good at, unconditional love.

I am cooking rice in bouillon for the dog and me and I added a bunch of different spices to go with it to give it some special flavor. I am going for as much eastern flavor as I can and I hope it turns out okay. I can't add meat and I don't have any vegetables in the house, so it is just rice. I could have added fried eggs, but the last egg I have is a fossil and very badly needs to be tossed out.

Somehow I need to expand the variety of foods that I eat and that I can share with the dog if it turns out to be too much for me to eat. I need to take my time one of these days and walk through the store leisurely and see what sort of things I can come up with. It has to be all vegetarian and the vegetables have to be very soft. Onions would do and canned tomato chunks. I am getting pretty tired of eating the same things every day and I want some changes in my diet. If I base it on rice, that would be good, because rice is easy to digest.

They sell good ragouts at the store that I could mix with rice and they sell ready made Indonesian rice. That may all be worth a try. I must have a closer inspection of these things.

Thank goodness tomorrow is creative therapy, I do look forward to that so much. Nothing nicer than spending the whole morning being artistically challenged. In the afternoon, I and the ergo therapist have an appointment with my SPN to see how things are going and the option of me taking extra classes is going to be discussed then also. I know my SPN is trying to get me ready for the real world and I think my ergo therapist wants me to do a bit more therapy.

In the end, it all depends on what the expectations of social services are of me. I see people in therapy on disability incomes who are not worse of than I am mentally and I do have a double diagnosis and it is still unknown how well I will perform in the real world. I do fine in a safe and sheltered and predictable environment, but how will I handle the pressures of a job? That seems like an unreal and unimaginable situation to me and I don't know how to prepare myself for it.

The rice was very good. Both the Überhund and I enjoyed it very much and it is all gone and it had a very nice flavor, so I blended the spices well. No doubt he'll have to go for a walk next to unload all that food.

Well, those are all the kindly and good words I had to direct to you today. Oh yes, I didn't tell you about those forms I was upset about and now I don't feel like it. I will tell you tomorrow. I am less upset about them now, after the explanation of the Exfactor.

I hope you all paid attention to my profile picture, because I am about to change it again, I think.

Ciao...

Twitter.

On a whim I’ve signed up with Twitter, because I read about someone else doing it. The problem is that I don’t personally know of anyone else who is signed up also, so it is kind of lonely out there. If you want to sign up and you are looking for me, my user name is ‘brightandsunny’. You know how impulsive I get and how I always want to try something new and hope that I will get some sort of thrill out of it. You didn’t know that about me maybe? That I am secretly a thrill seeker? In the very small sense of the word, of course. i only do it if the outcome is safe. That’s something I have learned as i’ve gotten older, to not take the really big risks.

Something is going on with my mood and it has been happening since Wednesday morning. I feel a decided slant of disagreeability sneaking in. I feel like arguing and there is an amount of negativity in there also. I am not so thrilled anymore with things and maybe that is why I joined Twitter, but who knows? I am negative about things that I was positive about before and doubtful about things I was sure of before and the thing is, that I know that I am not having a change of mind, but a change of mood and I have to be careful not to confuse the two and I have to not make any important decisions when my mood is negative like this, that’s the main thing to remember.

I think I am getting a bit dysphoric, meaning: a state of dissatisfaction, anxiety, restlessness, or fidgeting.

You will remember that I have had these sort of moods in the past, though I must emphasize that the restlessnes and fidgeting play no role here at all and the anxiety is at a minimum. I am just disagreeable to the point of being rude. I feel like being rude and disagreeable and not giving a damn. Like that is perfectly okay. Can you think of a better place to exhibit such behavior than on the Internet? Instantaneous gratification.

I have not heard anything from my daughetr yet, but assume that all is well. She had told me that if possible, she would get hold of her father, who lives in Oregon, but it turns out that I don’t have the correct phone numbers for him. So I am going to call her again later today, although I have not much hope of getting hold of her. I wil watch the live broadcast again later this afternoon, even though it is pretty meaningless and doesn’t help me a lot personally. It does give me a general idea of how things are there.

The sun is shining today, but it is very deceptive, because it is cold outside and fall has really begun now. I were a sweater under my jeans jacket and I am postponing wearing my wintercoat, which is not much thicker. I may have to invest in a warmer winter coat with good pockets for all the stuff I always carry with me. House and bike keys, kleenexes, poop baggies, odd change, mobile phone, my wallet if it will fit. I’d like to go through life without a purse, if at all possible, but sometimes I don’t manage that. My purse always slides off my shoulder and I feel like such an old lady clutching it in my hands.

There must have been some mix up somewhere and I got an invitation from the center for work and income to apply for a job as hostess at a healthclub answering phones, receiving customers, serving drinks, and answering questions about memberships. I am sure they were thinking of the wrong person and, besides, I am not to apply for any kind of job until January, when I enter into some sort of program to get back into the labor force after having been out of it for a very long time and also with special aid as a psychiatric patient entering the labor force again. I emailed back stating as much and have not heard anything since then.

When In Babylon, do not act like the Babylonians and do confusing and irrational things.

My dear and most true Überhund is bored and he translates this into meaning that he must want to go out, although it is not time to, but to make his life bearable, I will now take him for a short spin around the block, so I will see you in a while.

Well, it turned into a long spin around the blog and I am always secretly proud that the Überhund stays on the narrow sidewalk by the busy street and never wanders into the traffic, even though I don’t shorten his leash. He does know where the sidewalk ends. Also, some gentle tugs and one command from me get him going in the right direction, so he is full of goodwill. I think that tug of war that we had at the beginning, when the Exfactor had just moved out, was won by me.

I am now using the Google reader again to stay updated on the latest blogs, after I had developed a problem with it, which is now solved. It does save you a lot of senseless clicking around. I am going to add some new blogs to my blogroll, I will try and remember to do that after I have finished this. I find blogs of note does not always give you such very good blogs, but sometimes there is something there that is interesting. I am still waiting to show up there myself one of these days. I am not humble, am I?

I have put a bandage around my arm where I had those two scabs that I kept bothering and even now it’s hard not to mess with them. I want to scratch them when I exchange the bandage, but the little wounds are healing. The Exfactor had an enormous scab on his knee that had to be dissolved with some special plaster, because there was an infection underneath it. I would have had a field day with that one. I don’t know how he could stand not picking it off.

Well, now I am going to try once again to figure out that famous widget of the Black Box that everyone is so lyrical about. I could not get it to work on WordPress, but maybe there is a way I can do it after all. I am nothing else if not stubborn. WordPress does have it’s limitations, which makes me sometimes long for blogger and I have to give it a long hard think about what I want to do, maybe switch back again? We”ll see.

Have yourself a good Sunday.

Ciao…