Crop Circles?

Spot-bot leaves these lovely spots of clean on an otherwise un-vacuumed, dirty carpet

Feeling Invisible

I keep hearing a wooshing sound.  It sounds like a vacuum cleaner- oh, no, I know what it is, it's the SpotBot.

 Be still my heart.

 I thought someone was actually cleaning the house. Nope, just cleaning the spots on the carpet.  What would anyone want to actually clean anything but the spots?    Everyone knows how much I love crap on the floors.

 Insanity rears it's ugly head again.

Maybe I will go and see if the grocery store has the right kind of toothpaste.  You know, the kind that doesn't burn my mouth and give me blisters on my tongue.  yeah, that sounds like fun.  If they don't have it, I will go on a quest until I find the right kind.

Maybe I will buy myself some gluten free foods to have in the freezer.   Yeah, that would be nice.  And maybe some vegetables.

I am hard to please, I know.  I just have to take care of myself I guess

Tired

Tired.  Going to bed soon.  I was tired all day. Last night I couldn’t sleep and was up until close to 4:00am.  Hence the tiredness today.

I went to the chiropractor this morning which helped my sciatica.   Then I spent the day collapsed on the sofa watching TV and occasionally shifting laundry from washer to dryer to said sofa for folding.

It was cool outside today- in the 50s, which was absolutely wonderful.  I went out back a few times with the puppy.

I was too tired to go to my women’s group.   I am rarely that tired.  In fact, I came upstairs and took a nap until Nick said diner was ready.

I love it when I am writing at my computer as I am now, and I get tired and I lean back.   I close my eyes and maybe I sleep some.  I don’t know.  I just know that I will often open my eyes and wonder for a nanosecond where I am.

Depression and stress and sadness can contribute to fatigue.   I have all of those things.  I think I am pretty good about keeping them all in a balance that allows me to function and enjoy my life.

I am going to the gym in the morning.  I know that will make me feel better.  I am meeting new moms at a Breastfeeding Café at Starbucks tomorrow.  That will make me happier too.

Now I am going to bed to sleep.  That will give me energy to get through tomorrow.

Insanity, they say, is doing the same thing over and expecting different results.   I guess that I am insane.  I expect (hope for?)  flowers and accolades and I get dirty dishes and a lawn with no grass.     Am I am optimist, or just insane.  I doubt I will ever know

5 Wishes

1.      Be happier

2.     Be healthier; lose weight and get exercise

3.      Get more sleep- get to bed earlier

4.     Find time (make time) to do the things I enjoy such as sewing, knitting, photography and writing

5.      Do away with debt/ money worries

October 6, 2012

Today was a day of ups and downs.  I am not totally sure why, but I was feeling pretty bitchy for parts of the day.  Actually, I do know some of why.  I just don’t know why it is that the things that I just ignore some days really get to me on other days.

I am afraid that I feel that I am not being treated with the respect I should be.  I could say, “deserve”, but that sounds more combative than I want.  

I would love to have a spotless house and a beautiful yard.  I feel overwhelmed by how much needs to be done and by how little anyone else in the house seems to care.  And I don’t live alone.  And I often felt that I am the only one who notices the messes or cares.  

We have had many homes over the years.  Houses that we made into our home.  By bringing our personal effects into these dwellings, and then by actually living there, they have become our homes.  Every time we moved to a new place, it was so hard to adjust.  Nick had his work and his role already there, defined and waiting for him.  I didn’t.   I had to learn about the neighborhood, shopping, transportation, customs, new money as well as make friends with people I had never met before and might not ever meet again after out time or theirs’ was up. 

We both suffered from homesickness and wondering what we had gotten ourselves into.  I wish I had been able to look at the bright side of every move and the wonder of the places we were living.  Of course, after the first six months or so, the places do become home.   But I can sure remember saying “I look forward to being nostalgic about this place”!

In many of the places we lived I had household help.  It’s a mixed blessing.  Yes, the burden of the routine chores is lifted.   But the presence of outsiders into your every day life is not easy.  It is impossible not to get caught up in the lives of the people who work for you and become attached.  But they are not people with whom you socialize.

Having another woman to help with the housework, a maid is a sort of bonding/ female energy that gets you through the days.  It means having company without having to go looking for it.  I never thought of our servants as subservient, but rather as helpers.   My best friend in Bangkok from 1976-78 was also my maid.   More than 30 years later we are still friends.    But, she is back in Thailand and I am here.   She now has maids of her own, and I feel pretty much on my own.

I am not sure how I got started on this vein.   I guess I am just feeling so much like I would love to have help.  I would love to have a friend who I could just hang out with and with whom I could share and swap chores.  Someone who would come and have coffee with me while I sweep the kitchen and fold the laundry.  

Instead I live with two men, one my husband and one my son, who don’t seem to even see me.  Or so I feel.  Yes, we engage in conversation. But when I see something that needs doing such as raking the leaves or vacuuming the carpet, unless I specifically ask for these things to be done, I am ignored.  

I do have to say that Nick has done a good job of taking over the cooking most days.  I have cooked so many meals for a family of seven over so much of my life that I am just tired.   I feel like I would like to be done.  I am a good cook.  Maybe even a great cook.  But when there’s only the two or three of us to cook for I just have a hard time caring a whole lot.

Today was my sister’s 65^th birthday.  We spent a very nice evening with her and her grandchildren, son and daughter in law and Nick and myself.   My sister is my best friend here, and has been my best real, permanent friend all of my life.  When we lived overseas, before the Internet, she and I were the best pen pals.  We each wrote to one another at least once a week.  Sometimes more.  I hope that we have many more happy, healthy years together.

I want winter to come!

I am so ready for the cold weather to come.  Bring it on!  Today got up to 81 and was really humid.   I hate it.  Hot and dry I can take- though people joke about the expression “it’s a dry heat”.  But it really does feel better than humidity.

It is so strange having Nick at home every day.  I cannot tell what day of the week it is.  It feels like a perpetual weekend.   Honestly, if I didn’t have things scheduled I am not sure I would ever get off the couch.  I can sit and watch TV and knit for hours.

One of the differences between Nick and myself is that when he sits there, he just does it.  I don’t think the carpet that needs to be vacuumed stresses him out.  I don’t think he feels like he is wasting time.  I do.  I always have had that guilt thing going. 

When the kids were at home, I used to have a snack for them pretty much every afternoon when they got home from school.  Sometimes I made cookies or banana bread.  Most often I would have a plate full of cut up raw veggies or cut up apples.  When I was in the process of cutting, of course I would eat some of the food I was cutting up.  Even then I felt guilty for eating the kids’ snack.  A carrot or cucumber slice would make me feel like I was stealing from them how silly is that?

I am getting to enjoy the puppy a lot.  His name is Buddy.  He is a funny little fellow, full of energy and silliness.  Then, after running all over the place he will crash and sleep like a baby.  I guess that’s because he is a baby!

In the morning I am going to the post office for a passport appointment.  I cannot believe that I don’t have a valid, current passport.  The original plan was that I might go on a cruise with my sister this January.  I am not sure if that plan will play out.  But it will be nice to have a passport again.

My sciatica is killing me.  Maybe I sit too much.  I cannot go out for walks a whole lot right now because the bugs eat me alive.  Even when I am covered in bug spray they find me and chew on me.   Going to the gym helps.  I am going to the gym tomorrow.  That will be so good.  I need to start swimming again too.

Ok, that’s all the words I can come up with tonight.  

Nite nite.

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

Nick and I went to fiber fair today.  We saw all types of yarn and tools for knitting, spinning, weaving and all sorts of other things.  Yarn-producing animals were there too.  The llamas are so strange and mystical looking.  They have eyes like you would expect to see on a Disney character.   There were lots of sheet and goats as well as a few huge rabbits that produce angora wool.

Oh my oh my.  I felt like a kid in a candy show (so what if it’s trite, it works for me).  I want it all.  I want all of the beautiful yarn.  I want to spin and to weave- even though I don’t know how.   The colors, weights, textures and even the smells of the various yarns were intoxicating.  There were even soaps made from sheep and goats milk.

Nick commented on how “nice” the alpacas smelled.  They have a sort of sweet smell.   He speculated that a farmer might actually get to know his animals by the scent.  He might be able to tell if something is “off”, and the animal is sick.   I suspect there is some of this although I think that it is most likely not something that the farmer is conscious of.

I know that all of my kids smell different.  Now I am just sounding like a weirdo.   But it is true.  I am sure on some primal level we know our child’s scent as a survival thing.

I will always remember the first time I held Morgan after he was born.  He had this wonderful smell.  I held his head near mine and breathed him in.  I am sure he knew me by my scent too.  And then this magical thing happened.  We both started to sort of “hum” in tune with each other.

Ok, so now, back to the subject of what I am writing here.  Dreams.   As we were driving home from the fair, Nick and I spoke about our dreams.   The dream of owning a farm where Nick builds things and I weave and knit and sew and act out all of my creative, artists fantasies.  I am overwhelmed by how much I want to do in my life.  I feel such that a huge part of me is this creative self that is trying to jump out of my skin and do it all.  I need more time.  I need to live and be healthy for at least another hundred years.  I feel that I will never, ever be done.

But, I told Nick, I feel that it is too late and I am not realistically going to realize many of my dreams.  Nick said he doesn’t feel that way at all.  I am not sure what that means.  Am I a pessimist and he an optimist.  Or is he a dreamer and while I am more practical and realistic.  I don’t know.

Nick asked me what my dreams are.  I already wrote about the some of my artistic dreams; knitting, weaving, sewing, quilting.  (I haven’t even started on my passion for photography).   But the dreams that I am pretty sure I will not realize are more on the professional level.  I have wanted to be a doctor since I was 9 years old.  My Uncle Ralph was an orthopedic surgeon and the coolest guy alive.   He was handsome and kind.  He had a cabin and a boathouse and he took us fishing and water skiing.  And he saved peoples lives.   I wanted to be like that.  Not the fishing part, but the helping people and saving lives.  I was passionate about it. 

 

In high school I read about women who became my heroes like Marie Curie and Elizabeth Blackwell and Susan B Anthony.  Even my own pediatrician was a woman- unusual in the 60s.

When I started college at the University of Maryland in 1972, I signed up for an 18-credit load in pre-med courses.   And I failed at most of them miserably.   I was overwhelmed.  I was lost in the crowd.   I went from being a star student in high school in a very small class, to one of the masses in a huge school.  There were 300 people in my lectures.  There were only 55 students in my whole high school.  I was in way over my head.

On top of that, I was living out of my mom’s home for the first time in my life, and, I was an 18-year-old newlywed.   I thought I was such a grown up, but I didn’t even know how to be a kid.   The other “girls” my age were patronizing when they found out I was married.  They would ask, “Oh do you have to ask your husband permission” for whatever we were doing.   Poop, and shame on them all.

Ok, so I am not a doctor.  Several times over the years I have thought of trying again.  But first I had to graduate from college, which I did just after my 50^th birthday.   

My other dream/ fantasy was that, since I was a young hippie, I would grow older as an older hippie.  I envisioned myself as a gray haired woman with long braids and wearing worn out overalls while raising goats.  I had romanticized it so much; I figured it must at least be a possibility.  Until I tasted goat milk for the first time.  Yuck.  I hate the stuff.  Oh well.

So here I am, 58 years old still wondering what I want to do when I grow up.  I suspect this is not uncommon among baby boomers.

So now I sit and dream about cleaning the house (a very Zen thing to do by the way) and maintaining a beautiful garden and yard.  Well, the cleaning thing is going pretty well.  It would be even better if I were the only one making the house dirty.  But I share the house with a husband, son, three cats and now a puppy.

As for the garden, well, I still love the idea of a garden.  I have grown small vegetable gardens with the kids.   I love fresh food grown by my own hand in dirt that I have dug.  But wait.  I hate the bugs.  I am not crazy about heat.  I am allergic to poison ivy.   So, in the spring, I put a few plants in the ground and I care for them.  I make sure they are watered and fertilized.   Then the days get hotter and buggier and I surrender the garden to the elements.

So this brings me back to the question.  What are my dreams?  Will I ever get to accomplish them?  Have I already accomplished much of what I need to in order to be the whole person I am, or should feel I am?   What else do I want to do?  What will I put my efforts into doing?   

Maybe I should write a bucket list.  I have a bit of a bucket list that rattles around in my head.   I really want to go back to every place we have lived overseas and when possibly, go back to the houses we lived in and knock on the door.  I want to see and feel my presence there.  Not to relive the time there as much as acknowledge that I have been in these places and spaces.  That my hand has touched the front door, or that I have walked and breathed in these spaces.  It is a sort of time travel/ spiritual journey I want to go on.

After my mom died, I went to visit Portland, Oregon (and Courtney who lives there).  I went to the house my family lived in when I was born.  I knocked on the door and introduced myself.   Nick and Courtney were with me.  They wanted nothing to do with it and went off for a walk.  I felt my mother and father in that house.  My mother looked out that kitchen window into that back yard.  She was there.  I was there though I was a baby and I cannot remember. 

I have written way more than I expected to tonight.  I have probably done a bit of rambling, but that’s a good thing.  I hope that when I read this one day in the future I will know and understand it all.

Good night moon- there’s a full moon!

To sleep, perchance to dream....