Making lemonade

Lately the universe seems to want to teach me a lesson about making myself happy, reminding me that my happiness is my own business and my own  responsibility.  This force is devious, I must say.  I have had lots of chronic, nagging discontent all around the edges of my existence lately, and I finally realize that even when other people are involved with it, the blame for my reaction to the events that befall me is completely my own.  I know, big d’oh.  Sometimes I forget this.

Yesterday, at the end of another week like many before it, and probably many more to come, I was feeling on the edge of something teetery.  I drove home with tears hovering at the edges of my eyes, for no reason I could have verbalized even if there had been anyone around to notice them.  I thought of going home, and what I would do with myself other than lay down and dissolve, and it occurred to me, not for the first time, but with some force, that I’m tired of feeling this way and it’s time I do something about it.

The first thing that came to mind was re-creating the feeling of safe haven that I need in my home, and which I have been feeling too dilapidated to make for many months now.  In times of feeling battered by the world around me, the most important thing I can do is create a sanctuary for myself, someplace from which to step forth refreshed each morning.

A few months ago I made the resolve that I would accept any and all invitations that come my way this year.  I tend to hermit up and go nowhere, and this year I decided to change that paradigm.  Today I realized that not only must I accept invitations, I need to issue some.  So that’s my next step, after I reconnect with my safety, inviting friends to do something fun. Mixed in all this is the need for creativity (my photography outings make me ridiculously happy!), and for recentering myself on a regular basis through meditation or prayer.  Something like that.

Hmm, this is sounding curiously like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, isn’t it?  Physical safety, nutritional and exercise needs met, check. Moving up, satisfy creativity, check.  Making connections with other people, check.  Honoring my spirituality, check.  It really is all in my hands.  That is nice to know.  A little scary too.

Suddenly so much to do

I chose this shot of all the crystals because it seems like I have a lot of things hanging all of a sudden, each with lots of little pieces to do before I reach completion.  I have several time-sensitive projects to do for school as well as for the Writing Project.  For some reason it all has come together now.  I look forward to each project, but realize I will need to be very orderly in my planning and execution of them all.  Especially if I’m to maintain my life beyond all that.  I should have known something like this was coming when the unread books began to mount up in my bookshelf.  I keep adding one or two or four more books until now I have over a dozen that are clamoring to be read.  I do that sometimes. It always seems to contribute to the general feeling of overwhelm, even though there is nothing urgent about reading a novel or two or ten.  Something is going on, even if I can’t put my finger on it.  It is also reflected in an overabundance of clutter in the house and car.  I’ve never really thought about it like this, but there it is.  Something is definitely building up.  It seems to me that I need to drink some water and get some exercise.  Shift the energy so it flows more easily.  We’ll see how it goes…

Mice in the Bedsprings

It is Christmas night, actually early morning of the next day, and you are in that fitful sleep that comes after once waking up and deciding that 4:15 is too early to get up when you are on vacation.  Suddenly you hear a gnawing sound.  You quickly realize it is the fan on your nightstand, except the washer is not on spin cycle, it is not even on, so there is no reason for the fan to jiggle.  So it must be gnawing, and Oh Shit!! it must be a mouse.  You jiggle the bed a little and finally it stops.  Then you know for certain it was a mouse, because it responded to your movement.  It is scared now, and being quiet.  So you  go back to sleep, hoping it will stay scared until you wake up at a more reasonable time, when you will poke around and see if you can find its nest.  What you will do then is not something you think about at this moment.

You go back to sleep and you dream of mice.  You dream you have woken up and are shining a flashlight around and under your bed, and sure enough, you see them.  They are scampering in and out of your box springs, hanging over the edge of the bed frame, chewing on the beautiful pinewood.  Teeth marks are everywhere, and there are numerous raggedy holes in the side of your box spring.  You wonder why the electronic rat repellers that have been plugged in to the outlets in your bedroom for the past year and a half, ever since a roof rat wandered in and set up camp one hot summer night, are not working.  Have they run out of vibes, or whatever makes them work?  Or are mice not tall enough to feel them?  In and out of this sleep you move, always sleeping but feeling intermittently awake.  Once a thought passes through your head that the only thing it could have been besides a mouse is an earthquake, but that is so unlikely it is gone before it is even fully formed.  You keep dreaming, alternating between the mice dream and another about someone who has rearranged your classroom in a distasteful way until finally, exhausted, you wake up.

You go downstairs and make a cup of coffee and check in with the cyber world.  You write a blog post about having spent too much money – again – at Christmas, and then go to the local newspaper, which you read online every morning.  You read the headline, “East Quincy quake felt as far as Butte County”  and in a moment of clarity you realize that there are probably no mice in your bed at all.  It was indeed an earthquake, and your little fan felt it.  And in spite of the happy surprise you feel, you still go upstairs and check your bed for raggedy holes and gnaw marks.  Only when you find everything intact do you truly feel relieved.  There are no mice.  That frantic dreaming was unnecessary.  Whew.

Recriminations on the day after

Whew.  As much as I enjoy Christmas, I like the day after almost as much.  I like that I got through it, and I like that things are so messy I can’t procrastinate about cleaning up.  I have recriminations for myself in how I dealt with money in the last week or so; that is, when I finally give myself permission to spend some because it is CHRISTMAS, I lose control and spend way too much.  And every year I feel mildly icky for having done so, and I promise myself I’ll do better next year, and every year I do the same thing.  So, here I am, getting ready to clean up the big mess and promising myself that a.) I won’t let myself get out of spending control next year and/or b.) I will save a few dollars a month this year so I have some money earmarked for the annual overspending. Do banks still have “Christmas Clubs?”  Where you put aside a certain a mount each month and you can’t get at the money until a certain date?  Or did they go the route of lay-away, (which was actually resurrected this year)?

This year we drew names, and had only one person plus the little person for whom to buy or make gifts.  That was easier, but my person got more gifts than others and I felt embarrassed by my inability to control myself.  The little one got way more than was necessary even in her own wishes, which makes all of the gifts a little insignificant.  I’d think that by now I”d have this figured out, but I seem to bumble along the same as always.  Except now I don’t have nightmares about not having gifts for the in-laws like I used to.  Wait – is that because I no longer have in-laws?  Or would I be calmer about it anyway?

Guess I don’t have to know the answer to that.  Merry day-after and Happy week leading up to the New Year.  I plan to be ready for that.  Spic and span, no clutter anywhere, ready for art projects and lesson planning!  Oh yeah, and with a light glow of just having returned from the gym for the fourth time in a week.  Hot tub cleaned and ready for the rest of the winter.  Whatever else will make me feel calm and energetic lined up and done.  Merry and Happy to all.

My Break List

Tomorrow begins a three week break from school.  I am giddy with anticipation.  Since I love making lists, I am making one especially for my break plans.  Sort of so I don’t forget, but mostly so I can enjoy thinking about it (not all of it, but most of it) right now.  Let’s see…

1.  Clean up and declutter.  My office and spare room are piled with stuff.  Somehow I will get it under control.

2.  Doctor stuff.  I just (finally)  got a new doctor, so have to catch up on some deferred maintenance.

3.  One day of NCWP work in Yreka.  One long day!  But it’ll be fun to be part of it.  I just have to figure out how to present something to P.E., Special Ed, Freshman Reqs, etc.  The Etc. group – I have to make something useful and interesting to such a diverse group.

4.  Write and write.  Maybe someplace other than my blogs, but I’m not sure.  I’m pretty partial to writing here.  And there.  And there.

5.  Early morning coffee at Peets every day.  Well, not Sunday.  Every day I want to.  I love to get there at 6:00 when it’s still dark and stay until about 7:30.  I especially like it when friends come in and we can sit around and talk a little.  But I’m good with solitary coffee too.  I write then.

6.  Re-novate my annual NY Eve state of the person collage.  I used to make a collage every year on NY Eve, but have lapsed because lately I’ve been at my mom’s place each year.  But this year I can’t afford to go, so I’ll make a collage.  Probably with a nine-year-old at my side.  Fun.  I might make this year’s collage in the form of a beautiful new strand of prayer beads.  Two things in one!

7. Remind myself that I like to work out.  Often.  And do it.  Maybe build a little energy running in to this category.  Not because it is about the gym or making my body healthier.  Because it is about making my spirit healthier, and it’s all part of the same package.

8.  Try a break from sugar.  See if I can.  Today I was thinking that if every time I ate sugar I smoked a cigarette or had a drink of alcohol or a shot of a drug instead, I’d be a rampant addict.  It’s not that I’m above or immune to addiction.  Mine is just to sugar and thus more socially acceptable.  Still, it’s unhealthy and as such worthy of my attention.

9.  Read and read.  After lazy dunks in the hot tub.  Chats with Orion while I sit in hot water.  (The constellation, not a new boyfriend.  Hm…)

10.  Figure out how to teach seventh grade.  Plan my new attack.

I figure that ten is enough. If the list gets any longer it’ll become a life list. Twenty-one days off,  ten things, some of them compound items.  Enough ambition for now.    I’m counting the hours…

Wait!  I forgot one more thing that I’ll definitely do.  Take photos.  I do that a lot, and will definitely fit in a safotari (photo safari) or two.  There is always PhotoFridays to attend to!

So now, what is on your list?

Going festive

Today Mayaoel suggested that we do a few things to make my house more festive this year.  I haven’t had a Christmas tree in her living memory, so it won’t take too much effort to be more festive.  (The key word is “more.”)  She’s okay with doing a secret Santa sort of thing to reduce how much junk we buy at Christmas time, (not that it will include her, because she’s a kid and kids don’t count in the limitation effort), but wants things to look a little more festive at my  house.  Her mom has already told her she is not interested in decorating the outside of their house. What Mayaoel would really like is about 20 strings of lights on my house and a reindeer in the front yard.  Maybe some music and a choo-choo-train running around the eaves.  Something like that.  I’m thinking an icicle border around my porch and a batch of caramels and sugar cookies.  We will arrive at a compromise.  She’s already decided where the little tree will go in my living room and has assured me that she is the perfect one to know how to put the lights on it and decorate it, because they have a big huge tree every year.  She says maybe I can even put a few ornaments on it.  She doesn’t know about the big box of ornaments that has been languishing in my closet ever since she was born and her mother insisted on a huge tree at her own house.

Yeah.  So this year I guess we’re going festive.  Woo Hoo!

Taking it all on

Today is a day of preparation.  Preparing for Melissa’s bachelorette party tonight: making pozole, buying prizes for a game, buying a pair of green underpants for my friend to give her in a game because my friend doesn’t have time to do so.  Preparing for Thanksgiving: making cranberry sauce, pumpkin pies and precooking the yams.  Also, picking up the turkey, buying shoes for the wedding on Saturday, preparing a basket of goodies for the wedding couple’s hotel suite on Saturday, going to visit the hotel suite this morning to see what we might do to prepare it for a luxurious night apart from its being itself (the Executive Suite at the Hotel Diamond is no sniffing matter!), making the concentration game for the bachelorette party in which the prizes are candy with names like Hot Tamales, Big Hunk, Nerds and Airheads and buying said candy.

Breathe.  Did I say making pozole?  Yeah.  Okay, did I say writing 30,000 words to a novel I’ve begun and want to finish by Sunday?  Oh, I forgot that.  Yet it runs around in my head nearly every minute.  I’m onto an idea that I like, but I’m too busy preparing to write.  And it will get worse before it gets better.  All must be purchased before Friday because I wouldn’t dare be in a store on Friday.  Black Friday.  All hell breaks loose in the shopping world Friday.  No stopping to pick up something I forgot Friday.  Today is the day.  That’s why I went to Safeway at 6:00 A.M. and at 7:00 A.M. am already cooking pozole.  It’s also why I went to Walgreen’s at 6:48 A.M. to buy the candy with goofy names for the game.  Because I couldn’t sleep and those stores were already open.

The thing is, no matter how much advance planning and shopping I do, it’s the last minute stuff that’ll sink me.  Send me out into the fray at the worst possible hour.  Happens every time.