Doctor appointment

I don't know anyone who loves to go to the doctor.  At its best it is a nuisance and time consuming thing.  At its worst it could be the beginning of a really bad trip.

For over twenty years I went knowing I was over weight and out of shape.  I chalked that off to having children and getting older.  My body was not aging gracefully and I assumed it was part of my birthright.  Most of the women in our family got heftier and slower and more sedentary as they grew older.

Then last year my doctor said I had type two diabetes, high cholesterol, and would have to go on medicine for both.  I hated that idea!

At the same time a good friend had similar information and decided to change his eating and exercising habits.  It was a collaborative effort, but not like the suffocating ones of the past.  We live far enough apart that each of us began (and continue to be) totally independent and still rely on each other for encouragement and support.

So there it was.  A need to change.  A desire to change.  Support for change.  Could I do it?  I hadn't been able to in the past, but this time I began small.  Small eating changes and tiny bits of exercise in the very beginning.

Today I went to the doctor, one year later than that terrible, horrible, awful visit that precipitated this change.  All my blood work was within normal ranges!  I have lost eighty pounds. I eat three meals a day and have snacks.  I exercise 75 minutes a day (in three increments most of the time.) I feel thirty years younger!

This trip to the doctor was well worth it!

The knob

Who would ever think a knob would become a piece of art, or a mode of transportation?

I have a beautiful little knob that lies on a bottom shelf of a small table in my living room.  It symbolizes all the possibilities that lie just beyond my sight.

Some of them are simply dreams and some of them actually occurred when I opened myself to an experience I could never have dreamed of.

This tiny knob, as elegant as it is, really reminds me that the simplest things in life are some of the most miraculous and I should never take anything for granted, nor should I ever assume anything is impossible, because the impossible has already happened...

at least once.

Never settle

All the theories in the world don't mean a thing sometimes.

Living takes a lot more than theories, or even tons of experience, unless that experience happens to be mine.  I am always the unknown factor in my life.

I realize most of us are just average people, but even average takes a while to mature.  All of us know people who are pretty mature at sixteen and all of us know people we don't think ever grew up. I try to keep my mind open, but there are things that I would have sworn I knew and understood as well as anyone and maybe better than many.  Imagine my surprise when I discover I am wrong.

I can tell you I never really understood love until I became a mother.  Loving my children is the most all encompassing, incredibly amazing experience of my life.  I never knew that kind of thing existed until I held my first baby in my arms.  From that point on I knew they would be the focal point of my existence.  I felt like I could do anything if it was in their best interests.  Whether or not that is actually true is a matter I am not qualified to decide, but it was how I felt.

I thought love was all about giving.  I thought it was always doing what was best for the other person, but mature love, the grown up version of what I feel for my children, has to be balanced.  That feeling has to come from both sides or it's no good.  There must be mutual respect, really caring and really wanting what is in the best interests of the other, otherwise it is still immature love and that never lasts.

Relationships can last, but love mutates into less savory things when it isn't balanced.  Faith becomes fear.  Fear that you don't really love me, or you don't love me enough or the same, or that I deserve better, or any of a million other little insecurities that eat up love like ants at a picnic.

I think deep enduring real love is pretty rare, but once it is experienced, no one would settle for less.

Having a bad day?

Sometimes it is better to just go back to bed and start again!

Honestly.

I got up one day last week.  My knee hurt.  My back ached.  My eyes were itching.  I had gained a half pound in spite of all the exercise and dieting. I crawled back into bed.

When I woke up the second time I felt great, had lost that half pound and began my day in earnest.

Sometimes it is wiser to just start over.

George Kober

Sometimes I don't know what to say.

Simple common sense says that is the time to say nothing, but there are times when something must be said.

George passed away Friday.  He was 96 1/2 years old, a father, grandfather and great grandfather whose great grandchildren adored him.  That says a lot right there.

I met him when I was 23 and he helped me plant the flowers in my yard.  He knew everything about growing flowers!  Or so it seemed to me.  Gardening was his hobby.  He worked hard as a tool and die maker for General Electric for a living.

Most of what I know about George I learned from his daughter, my friend, and I know he will be missed.  There is probably a lot more I could say, but what is more important than being a good man, respected by all and loved by those who knew him?

Rest in peace George.  May light perpetual shine upon you.

Up all night

I grew up in the north, but in the country.  My people had what others called a twang, but more than that they had little sayings and stories and ways that defined them as country. 

When I read books I read at the speed I am accustomed to and any unique accents come straight out of my own mind.  I make it my language.  I see the scenes through my understanding.  Popular writers write with this thought in mind.  It makes it easy for me to read.  It is clean and simple.  I slide through the pages lost in the idea of the story and that makes it entertaining and relaxing, so it is easy to prefer these books.

Then I read someone like Faulkner!  He takes me in and introduces me to the family like I should know them because we have lived together for two hundred years!  It is like I dropped over for coffee and am simply included in the conversation. 

The cadence is different.  The words and references are not familiar.  In the beginning it is like going from Dick, Jane and Sally, to advanced physics, I am lost.  I used to hate that.  It's worse than trying to read it in French because I assume I should understand everything that is said right off the bat and I don't.  That changes if I don't give up, though.

As I slip into the jargon and begin to get to know the characters they take on a wholeness that Dick and Jane never had.  I find myself slowly assimilated into the family, becoming more and more enmeshed in what is going on, developing real feelings for the people and animals and situations.  There is a depth and reality that begins to weave itself into my being until I am not just moved by it, I am deeply affected.

It can keep me up all night, make me need to stifle tears in the laundromat while I'm reading, leave an after taste that lingers long after I put the book down.  I am shocked that what I disdainfully called boring and dull when I gave it a cursory look can be so rich.

I cannot say that I love Faulkner, but I have to say that no other author ever kept me up all night because I was so entangled in feelings.

Talk about time travel!

I used to live so far in the future that by the time I got there it was all old hat.  I'd solved all the problems that never happened and worried about all the things that never came about. 

Like a joy seeking vampire I sucked all the life out of what was to come long before it ever arrived.

There were no pleasant surprises, or really even unpleasant ones.  It was all yesterday's news.  I had worried it into oblivion, cried out all the tears, worn myself ragged living out the possibilities.

It's a wonder I ever got there I was so worn out.

The good news was that I really wasn't there.  I was already way ahead of myself somewhere down that time line called life, nipping at the heels of another future, worrying it to death before I actually got there.

Now, as an experienced time traveler, I highly recommend living in the present. I find that preparing for the future in concrete ways and leaving all the ifs, ands, and buts to those who go before, leaves me fresh and in top notch shape when I finally arrive.

Total Recall

Memory is a strange thing.  It plays just as clearly as an old rerun on TV except it may not really be accurate. 

It must not be completely accurate.  I remember events very clearly one way and my sister remembers them very clearly another.  Sometimes my brother remembers them a third way!

Part of that is the way each of us perceive things, but part of it has to be faulty memory, or enhanced memory!  Events become colored by other experiences and feelings and are somehow edited by accommodating brains.

It is easy to say that my brother and sister are wrong, but what about literature?  I remember reading something and when I reread it now, it is totally different.  Obviously I am the faulty one here.

Whatever changes things for me, the reality of now is so much better than anything in the past.  Perhaps I have grown wiser and more patient, or perhaps I am just more open to the truth.  Either way my life feels richer than it ever has.

The real deal

Everyone has some kind of belief that what they believe is right and the more powerful we are the more we tend to try to force that belief on other people.  Often truly believing it is for their own good.

Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't, but I find it hopeful that our country seems to be making progress.  It may only be in tiny increments, but I do see hope.

The color of my skin, who I love, how I worship, or don't, should not be anyone's concern except mine and it seems we are headed in that direction.

There are so many things that human beings can do for each other.  We need to make sure people have enough to eat, access to good health care, a chance for a good education, and enough amenities to make life livable if not enjoyable.

It is easier to keep people stirred up about inconsequential things, hoping they will forget about the real problems.

The train whistle

There is nothing lonelier than the wail of a train whistle at five o'clock in the morning.

To the rising man it signifies the start of another long day.

To the one still up from the night before it is the same, only a longer one and more hopeless one.  If there is to be surcease from sorrow it is yet to come and may not come at all.

The world that slept and rested during the long dark hours begins to rise and those who sat the silent watch of endless minutes, watching the seconds creep by, face even more seconds, more minutes and hours of time creeping by, slower and slower and slower.

It is when the mind speeds up that the world becomes unbearable.  That must be how it is on speed, but what about the mind that never needs speed?  The mind that races on its own through tunnels of dreams and thoughts and places in between?

Like the train it is stuck on a track not of its own choosing, a risen rut where it zooms along to somewhere inconceivable.  Totally unprepared.  Worn out with getting there only to race on to some other unknown place.

There is nothing lonelier than the wail of a train at five o'clock in the morning.

Nosy or curious

Curious or nosy?

One sounds possibly noble and even laudable.  The other a little sordid.

I suppose it depends on the subject and motive.

If I am interested in my neighbor's private affairs because I want to gossip about them, that is nosy.  If I am interested in my friend's research topic because I want to enrich myself intellectually, that is curious.

I remember reading about Agee snooping through the dresser of one of the families in his book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and wondering two things.  One:  wouldn't I have been tempted to do the same thing.  Two:  was it simple intellectual curiosity that drove him to do things like that?

I am always interested in the details.  If I write a book about it does that make it legitimately curious?  If I don't, does it simply make me nosy?

I probably don't really want to know!

Go down thoughts

It was nice enough to get out and walk today and walking is where I either listen to music, or think.  I read the first chapter of a new book last night, so today was a day to think.

My first thoughts were about humor.  I often find myself on the outside looking in when it comes to humor.  I don't find the same things funny that many people seem to.  I don't find chaos funny.  Slapstick and madcap movement are disturbing to me.  Incongruity can strike me as funny, but the more laid back and subtle it is the funnier I tend to find it.  I guess I don't like things that look obviously manufactured.  In my mind that is not authentic humor.

Then I thought about what I find appealing.  This started because I always find myself thinking about how much I love trees on one side of the park. I think ultimately what I find appealing is intelligence, strength of character and compassion.  The more each one is present, the more I like something.  So where do trees figure into this?  For me the idea of a tree standing stock still, growing silently with gnarled roots curling into the earth while it's upper branches provide shade and house birds and squirrels speaks to a sort of natural serenity and balance, a sort of natural compassion and strength.

Annoyance and frustration are triggered mostly by willful ignorance or stupidity, doing something that both experience and knowledge have proven wrong and expecting it to turn out right.   

Of course I am a little more complicated than these things, but these were my thoughts today.

All moments are the last one

It would be easy to hand over the care of my body to my doctor.  Just do what she says, blindly follow directions and let it go at that.

It would also be a huge mistake and a cop out.

A doctor learns what works for most people, what the general rules are.  She knows what works for her and what appears to work for her patients.  Unfortunately she also has to cover herself against law suits so she cannot afford to stray from the straight and narrow. Exercise gurus are the same. 

No one else has the time, the information, or the interest in me that I have.  It is my job to take the information these experts give me and tailor it to my body and life style.

I have often done it badly.  It isn't easy for me to eat healthy, exercise enough, brush my teeth long enough, wear enough sun block, sleep just enough, keep my mind on an upwards trek and try to continue contributing to the world in some useful way.  When I had family to take care of I seldom accomplished much more than the bare basics.

Now I have more time.  Unfortunately I need it!  Aging bodies require a lot more work and it has to be a lot gentler.  No more rushing in at the last moment with extreme measures.  All moments are the last one.

I get lazy, make excuses, try to blame outside influences, but the bottom line is that I am an intelligent adult who is responsible for my own life.

I want to keep it that way.

Serenity

I spent my senior year in high school in a small mid-western town where most of the people were Italian, many, old world first generation American Italian.

Families were big and close and loud!  People lived, loved and worked with family.  They sang opera while they stocked the shelves at the local grocery store.

Walking down the street was better than a soap opera!

My family tended to be a little more like our English ancestors, very dry when not drinking tea.  I wanted to suck the juice out of life back then!  I wanted emotion, excitement, drama!

So, off I went to college, searching for all these things, more than knowledge.  And I found them, but nobody told me that with drama comes sorrow... and anxiety....and all sorts of other less enjoyable things.  And nobody told me that drama is like a snowball rolling downhill.  It just keeps coming and getting bigger.

In the end peace has turned out to be more difficult to find.  Searching for serenity requires an awful lot more focus.  Serene moments bracket drama like ear muffs on giant speakers.  In that small space I am now often able to find the real joy I thought was in the racket before.

There is a drama to peace that super-cedes the slippery surface smiles of simple chaos, but like everything else I had to develop a taste for it.

Magic Mirror

Oh to see myself as others see me!

I know that might mean seeing things that are painful, but it would also allow me a chance to see what others value in me.

I thought about using a magic mirror, but I have a tendency to see what I expect or want to see rather than what is right there in front of me.  And the truth is that much of what I want to see is not physical. 

I want a picture of my soul, a picture of my mind, of my personality.  I want to see the person inside, the one that others see.

I want to read my work with your eyes, hear my voice with your ears and be able to accept it for just what it is.

Magic mirrors can't do that, but you can.

Be my mirror.  Be the reflection I can trust and turn to when everything else fails me.

Balance and symmetry

In kindergarten today we talked about the line of symmetry.  These little guys got it!  Using a stick, or a line on the white board they demonstrated how one thing after another was either symmetrical or not symmetrical and that can get pretty complicated when you look at something that is symmetrical in up to four different ways.

It's not a concept I remember learning in school and yet I think it might be one of the biggest ones to grasp when talking about beauty.

Someone once did a scientific test using human faces.  They showed the same faces to people from different cultures all over the world, asking them which faces they thought were beautiful.  Symmetry was the common denominator across the board.  Those faces that were the most symmetrical were considered the most beautiful.

We like things to be balanced.  It makes us comfortable.  We feel more secure.

Why?

I don't know.  Maybe because we are bipedal creatures.  We have two of almost everything.  It takes two of us to have a child.  We like it when there are two of us to rear a child.  Two children is a nice number.  After that there aren't enough arms to go around and life gets complicated!

Children love to fold paper in half and cut out things like butterflies, or hearts, or snowflakes!  As long as they are symmetrical they are appealing.  They like stories with good guys and bad guys, white hats and black hats, day and night. They like balanced rhymes and songs.  Marching is a big thing when you are small.  One  foot follows the other foot, balance, symmetry....

Most of us never really outgrow the comfort of it.

One

One thought dancing around the way.

One dream floating along the way.

One hope.

One love.

One way.

Expressed in an infinite number of ways

Manifested as many ways.

One core.

One seed.

One.

Ice on the wings

I stepped out my door yesterday morning expecting it to be cold, but totally unprepared for what met me.  Thank goodness I saw the sparkle of the front steps before I dashed down them!  That diamond like sheen was pure ice!

I made it down the steps and carefully made my way around back to where my car was parked to see something that resembled a dark green igloo!  There was probably a quarter inch, or more, of ice encasing my entire automobile.

I could unlock it with the remote, but I could not open the door.  If I had not been committed to taking a group of thirty scouts on a tour of the museum I would have just gone back inside, but it was necessary to get in that car!

Using my key I ran it around the entire driver's door and tugged on the handle again.  It didn't even occur to me that I might rip the rubber seal between the door and the car, but that didn't happen.  It took about fifteen minutes of pulling on that door, running the key back around it and then trying to get my fingers into the crack to pry it open before I got inside.

That was just the beginning.  After starting the engine, ramping up the back window heater and turning on the front defroster, I got out to start clearing the outside only to discover I couldn't get to my snow scraper!  It was on the floor of the back seat and the back door was frozen too.  I had to climb over the front seat far enough to reach the scraper and then the real fun began.

I scraped and chiseled, hacked and chipped away with very little success.  Finally I was so cold it felt like my fingers were falling off so I got back in the car, but the heater still wasn't putting out hot air. Another twenty minutes and the car was drivable.  Barely.

I eased out into traffic and drove to the airport.  Once there I parked my car and walked across the grass rather than the sheet of ice we call a parking lot.  The grass was frozen.  I could hear it cracking and breaking with every step and I felt bad because a lot of it is new and will probably not survive this kind of treatment.

The other tour guides arrived.  The scouts and their parents arrived and we did the tour.  Each of us took ten girls and their families around the inside of the museum and then out into the Air Park.  The Huey helicopter was hopelessly covered in ice.  We couldn't open it, so there went one of our prime attractions.  It would have been a good day to sit inside a helicopter.  Instead I led my little group quickly through the frigid air with the north-pole version of a tour.  Tail hooks, folding wings, Sea Cobra's, all pale at these temperatures.

I pointed out the hose one of our planes uses to refuel up in the air, led my little troop as we walked under the F-14 and let them all holler into the jets at the back to hear, "Daisy Scouts Rock!" come echoing back at us and then we hurried back.

Not one child was sorry to go back inside!

Why am I here

God is truly the most creative power in existence.  Who would ever have thought there could be so many possible combinations?  Out of this big building box of atoms came rocks, water, trees -- me!

Designed not merely to be seen, or exist, but to function and evolve, I am the most miraculous engineering feat I could never have imagined. All my parts move.

Not only do they move they work in unison.  I become aware of other atoms by sight, smell, hearing, touch and perhaps the most unfathomable -- intellect.

I am designed with built in protective mechanisms too.  I feel fear, joy, curiosity, pain.

Fear keeps me away from things I know will hurt me, or things I don't understand.  That can be a two edged sword because sometimes it is necessary to get closer to things in order to understand them.

Joy is probably the most powerful teacher.  She leads me into places with god-like potential.

Curiosity helps me continue to grow and evolve, bringing me so much new information it is almost impossible to imagine the capacity that exists inside of me.

Pain is the ultimate warning system.

As a group we have gone through lots of learning curves, but I think the most dangerous one is the feeling that pain is good.  Pain is here to warn me so I can find a way to circumvent whatever is causing it.  I am more complicated than steel that has been annealed.  It is possible to make me stronger with methods that are less destructive. 

I am so beautifully designed, so magnificently engineered I can not believe I was put here to suffer.  I think I am here to try and become more like my creator, to grow and expand and flourish!

The lost footprint

I hear a lot about carbon footprints, but there are other footprints that are even harder to measure.

I don't know what you would call it, but maybe there should be a humanity footprint, or kindness one, maybe even a good person footprint!

Imagine what a place would be like if you lifted a person right out of that picture?

The losses would be almost unimaginable across the board.

If he was a teacher, his students would lose his knowledge and innovative methods.  His companions would lose tennis partners.  Friends would lose their movie pal and children their playmate and big brother. Coworkers would lose an advocate, the community an avid speaker and entertainer.

Sometimes we don't realize who a person is until they move on.

Beauty

I was brought up with a sort of snobbery that said physical things are for those who can't use their mind.  There was a lot of "joking" about hitting little balls, or walking madly in circles like a hamster.

A common defense mechanism was to go out and over do something, like walk in the hot summer sun until a misstep caused a broken collar bone.

We said beauty came from within, but we all really knew it came from without!  Skin was tanned until it was a soft buttery leather.  Hair was rolled, colored, teased and tortured until it looked like Farmer Dan's straw on a windy day. Feet were crammed into too short pointy shoes until they turned back in on themselves in agony.

Ears were pierced, nails colored, bottoms and waists compressed in sweltering spandex hidden under clothes that required a contortionist to get into.

We snickered at those people in National Geographic.

Sophisticated people rose above the base ways of the past, eating pills to keep their appetites at bay and replacing coarse food with chemicals that mimicked the taste -- sort of-- of their counterparts with more calories.

It was all based on the idea that if I could fool man I could fool mother nature.

Except nature isn't as gullible as man.

Innocence

Innocence is always beautiful.

Not feigned innocence, that is artifice and usually pretty annoying, but real, honest to goodness, innocence.

Very young children have it and once in a while I meet an older child, or adult who has managed to avoid the tarnish that creeps up on most of us as time goes on.

There is an almost magical charm to true innocence.

Smiles are sweeter.  Eyes more sparkly.  And even their nature is generally gentler.

If there was a way to recapture that, or box it up and save it, I would do it in a minute, because in spite of the fact that these rare creatures are probably more at risk, they are still the best hope I've seen for a better world.

Ripples

I go to sleep completely surrounded by stars.  Sometimes they are green or yellow.  Mostly they are blue and they go from floor to ceiling, even reflecting off the curtains, but you can't see them from outside.  I know.  I went out to look tonight.

I find an inexpressible comfort in these stars.

They come from a child's toy, a little turtle I call Tortamer.  I like the feeling that I am floating in a sea of stars.  Somehow that makes me feel grounded!  Connected to the whole universe!

Every time I roll over in bed all those stars shift and shimmer because Tortamer sits on the pillows beside mine and leans up against the wall so I can get the most stars possible.  It reminds me that in real life, every single thing that exists ripples out across everything else.  That bears remembering.

The idea that you and I are connected is nice.  Sometimes I try to see if I can feel you.

I suppose grown ups aren't supposed to wonder about things like this.

But I do.

On the road

I was awakened this morning from a dream that could have been a major motion picture!  It is almost as if I have two lives, one waking and one dreaming.  Both are filled with drama and feelings that seem very real and yet the waking one is the real dream.

I began thinking about life and how businesses cut off their noses to spite their faces.  They want to make money.  That seems to be the bottom line in everything from hospitals to universities, so they treat their employees like chattel and what happens?  The brightest and the best move on!  Not good business sense in my opinion, but a fact for places that should know better.

There was a poem I read long ago about bargaining with life for a penny when you could have had so much more!  I think that is true.  It is necessary to not sell myself short.

I don't have tons of money.  I am far from beautiful.  I don't have a fantastic education.  I am getting up into what even I must call the later years.  And still, I am pretty much living my dream.  Don't misunderstand, there are still lots of things I would like to do, but this road is good!

I'm glad I'm on it.

I am the momma

I can be a ten man cheering squad if the need arises.  I can stand beside you, or behind you, anywhere but in front of you!  But I won't think twice about standing between you and danger.

My arms never get tired holding you, whether it is up, or out, or just cuddling you in the quiet.

I am not afraid to tell you the truth, but it breaks my heart when you are sad.

I want to lead you in the right direction, but I never want to lead you wrong.  I want you to be strong and independent.  I want the whole wide world to know just how wonderful you are!

When you step out on your own I am confident of your abilities.  My job then is only to step out of the way and let you go.  That's what love does.

And if mommas are anything, it is mostly love.

In the end

Christmas vacation is over!  Tomorrow morning I am back at school and glad of it.

I did a lot of traveling this year between Thanksgiving and New Year's.  All of it was wonderful even if I did completely lose track of the eating program due to good company and the exercise program due to icy sidewalks.  I am confident those can both be recovered.

What I didn't count on was the devastation wreaked the moment I began to bake Christmas cookies.  I put on the music and set out to make my famous vanilla butter cookies.  I had not made them for years and just as soon as I creamed the butter and sugar, a shelf in my kitchen crashed down destroying all my good cups and most of my glassware.  Even worse.  It shattered the face of my brand new phone.  This was the beginning.

As the vacation progressed I have lost a computer, a printer, and two knitting projects, one of which had to be totally re-knitted.  Twice baked potatoes are good.  Twice knit hats not so good.

I had a flat tire on my car and a bathroom that began leaking on my head at very inconvenient times.  The downstairs washer began unbalancing itself every time it was used and I cooked my new red shirt in the dryer.

I can't afford vacations like this.  It is going to take my credit card months to recuperate and I haven't even bought a new phone or computer.  But tonight this little travel computer began acting up!

The good news is that my health is holding, my friends are all safe and sound and life does go on.  In the end those are what really count.

Let me remember this!

The greatest gift of all

I know some of the most brilliant creative people around.  They are the stars in my sky that light my way when I feel sad or weighed down. 

Lost in awe, I never tire of listening to them, or looking at their work, or reading their creations.  I can't imagine why I have been so lucky, but I never take it for granted.

It is rare that I don't get a phone call, or text, or note at just the right moment. It is like someone throwing me a lifeline before I reach the darkness any more.

That line sometimes comes in the form of a small request.  Knowing there is some small part that I play in the life of these people raises my spirit more than you might imagine.

Being needed is probably the greatest gift of all.

Southern Charm

Ethereal and real
Mirage in a cold world
Rising before my eyes
From the depths of tradition.

Wrapping around me
Secure and warm
Truth and tact
In an earthly foundation.

Nothing shallow here
Hard work and brilliance
Burnished patina
Historic excavation.

Continual striving
Against all odds
Excellence rising
In the search for perfection.

Southern charm
Born and bred
Impossible chimera
In constant resurrection.

Energy efficient

Imagine a day when the computer gives up its ghost as I am using it.  It just gently fades away and refuses to ever boot up again.  No matter how long I wait, or how many times I unplug it and plug it back in, it is gone.

I pull out my travel computer and frantically begin searching for lost photos, which I wisely, way too late wisely, save to flash drives.  But my word processing program is so old the registration number is no longer valid!  And my printer refuses to recognize this computer!

Tons of stuff is gone for good.

I spend most of the day and night dealing with all of this and then sit down to finish knitting a hat when my knitting needle breaks and not only does the hat slide off, stitches continue to drop like slippery little eels as I attempt to recover them.  Never in all my life has a knitting needle broken while I was using it!

In one month I have managed to break a smart phone, computer, printer, and lose a knitting project!  Not even mentioning the new elliptical machine sitting in my living room waiting for spacers!  Some might say I'm having a spate of bad luck.

I suspect I am experiencing that along with a burst of tension that is probably quantifiable.  I once had a watch that was run by a battery, but it would gain time and then lose time.  The repair man said he could fix it if it did one or the other, but watches simply did not do both.  Mine did.  I realized that this watch ran on my time.  If I was nervous and racing around, it did too!  If I was depressed it was as if I sucked the energy right out of that watch.  I will never really know what happened, but I finally gave up wearing a watch all the time.  Every since then I only wear one when I really need it.

We are amazing creatures and I'm sure are only aware of a few of the things we influence in life.  It certainly bears thinking about.  Imagine all the good purposes I could put my energy into if I could harness this.

 

Dream worlds

Dreams reflect my biggest fears and my dearest desires.  I have a huge imagination and it seldom sleeps, even when I do.  In fact, my imagination often goes to work terrifying me or leaving me in awe.  It's hard to remember it is all really me.

As a child I had lots of nightmares and night terrors where I would wake up running and screaming for my parents.  I out grew those in my late twenties, or so I thought.  This past week I have had two of those!  Dreams that didn't end when I got out of bed but persisted in some way that terrified me for a few more minutes.  I hate those.

This morning I had the beginning of one of those, but it morphed into the most delightful solution, all built around a house.  I often dream of houses.  As a younger person I drew floor plans all the time, while watching television, or talking to people, or just sitting in my room.  Then I got to build my own house and that stopped, but I still love architecture and design so these dreams usually are great ones.

My father dreamed of building a city most of his life, then in his fifties that city began to crumble.  My houses used to be immense, intricate places with lots of hidden hallways and rooms and I would often be running through them, lost and scared.  Now I dream of airy, light modern places with simple comforts.  I think that is a step up.

It's just in this cold, icy, cloudy weather, I don't want to get up from these dreams.  It's a good thing school starts next week.

Once upon another time

Time to reassess.  The past month has been really hard on my new eating plan since I have been gone so much.  I haven't walked, or worked out at all and it shows! 

I made a good faith effort to get back into it in spite of the icy cold weather that is keeping me off the sidewalks.  I bought an elliptical machine.  The price was right and just getting it home and up into my apartment was a day's worth of exercise.

Putting it together is turning out to be a test of patience and spirit.  The thing is heavy.  Just getting it out of the box was a challenge.  I think they pay the packing man by the inch. I don't think it would have been possible to use any more tape if he had tried.  I used scissors to separate the pieces and pry them out of the box.  It was like pulling entrails from a large cardboard beast whose bones are dense and still connected with impenetrable sinews.

Finally, after tipping it back and forth several times I managed to open both the top and the bottom and was able to push the thing through to the floor!  Then I sat down to peruse the three billion screws, bolts, and washers.  I could not believe they make so many kinds.

A person of true faith I began with step one.  Looking for button screws and split washers and unsplit washers, I was grateful everything was numbered.  Well almost everything.  They assume I know the difference between uprights and arms and legs, which all really just look like pieces of tubing. But I was doing good until I came to spacers. 

Careful searching through all the parts did not turn up anything that could possibly be those, so I resurrected all the packing and went back through to be sure I hadn't thrown anything away.  Then I began the process of getting the part. 

I registered on line and called the company.  They finally let me know, after umpteen million choices that I really couldn't talk to anyone until this morning.  So I went to bed and began again this morning.

After forty minutes on hold the man told me they will send my parts in 7 to 10 days.  He sounded tired and young.  Very young.  I hope he can count to 26 and read words.

I, on the other hand, am aging rapidly.

Happy New Year

Every breath is an opportunity to begin a new. 

That is not an excuse to be irresponsible.  It is a promise that things are always changing and much of life is what I choose to make of it.

I cannot change the past and so I choose to take the parts worth keeping and let the rest slip away.

Tomorrow I will open my eyes to new possibilities and remember that happily ever after is a never ending story in the quest for myself.  Life is an adventure and if I am not blinded by great expectations I will seldom be disappointed for very long.

Great things happen in every moment if only I have the eyes to see them and a heart to understand.

I hope your New Year is full of love and light and bursting with possibilities!