With a purpose...

I'm having a cup of freshly brewed coffee, although I'm wide awake and doubt if I really need it. It's force of habit that's making me have it more than anything. It's possible that it will do something for my thinking capacities and in that case, I'll gladly drink it. Maybe it will make me especially sharp witted and that would be a welcome thing. I've written enough dull posts to last me a lifetime, although I can only blame that on my exceptionally dull life.

I can blame nobody for my dull life but myself because I choose to have it very uneventful. I can make it as interesting as I want it to be myself. I choose to have it very low key and predictable without any big highlights in it. There is hardly any blog fodder in it and I have to write about the tiniest, most insignificant details to give the posts any body at all. I fall into repetition a lot.

Right now I can tell you that the early birds have started to sing, but I always do that. This morning they are ten minutes late, but that must be because of the bad weather. It has rained and thundered during the night throughout the country and a lot of damage was expected of it. The trains aren't supposed to run on time because of it. Apparently the strong winds and the lightening strikes did a lot of damage to the overhead cables. 

We're all done with the hot weather and now we are down to more normal temperatures again, which means I can dress with more ease. I don't have to walk around half naked. I do prefer wearing some clothes. Yesterday I wore a skimpy top with spaghetti straps. I did manage to get some color on my arms and shoulders while walking the dog and going out on my bike. It was very hot and there was no breeze to speak of. My deodorant was barely working. 

Just when I was about to take the dog out in the evening, enormous hailstones started to fall rapidly from the sky. They could have knocked you unconscious had you been caught out in them. It would have been very painful to have been hit by them as some people were who were trying to get home on their bikes.

I think I will take my medicines and go back to bed for a while. I have some chores to do today, but they will wait until later. There's no rush. I also have to choose a new novel to read. That will be an interesting undertaking and I hope I get it right this time. I'll go have a look on the bookcase. 

We're expecting rain this morning, so it will be cozy to lie in bed with the window open. 

Have a good day.

Ciao,

Nora

The charm of the season...

Today it's supposed to be 34C with the occasional thunderstorm. It will feel like it is 98F. That's more than hot enough for me because it will be humid too. Tomorrow the temperatures will be normal again and it will rain. I'm kind of happy about that because I like cool weather. 

I have to go see my SPN at 1 pm today and I will have to ride my bike in the hot sun. I'm not looking forward to that and am expecting exercise induced asthma which I often get when the weather is hot. It's really not a disaster. More of an inconvenience. It makes riding my bike uphill more difficult. 

I haven't seen my SPN for 4 weeks and have done fine without her. That goes to show you that I manage quite well on my own. I'm not as dependent as I thought I was some time ago. It will be good to see her, but I don't have much to discuss. My life has been very uneventful. I choose to have it that way. 

Yesterday the Exfactor was here a day early to do the groceries. I had asked him to because I was out of milk and vanilla pudding and cat food. He was here at the same time my personal helper was and it created some diversion which was good. I don't always know what to do with my personal helper so it was good that someone else was here for a while. 

The domestic help was here in the afternoon and did a thorough job of cleaning the apartment. I laid down for my afternoon nap when she was almost finished, thus avoiding a long drawn out session with cups of coffee and cigarettes. But I was really tired too and needed to lie down. I was emotionally tired. Sometimes I think it takes a lot of effort to keep everything as normal as possible. 

The early birds have started to sing. It means I have to go back to bed for a while. 

Have a good day.

Ciao,

Nora

Blogging for insomniacs...

I've just started a pot of freshly brewed coffee and it will be done in just a few minutes. I drank a cup of heated up coffee first, but it was very unsatisfactory. I don't think it really woke me up well enough either. I think it had lost those qualities by sitting in the pot too long, if that is possible. I will be right as rain as soon as I have a cup of the freshly brewed stuff. I'm sure my brain will start functioning much better.

I woke up because he dog barked once. That was enough to get me up out of bed. I'm always immediately alert when he barks because I'm afraid that he'll do it again. It was a false alarm because there was nothing the matter and he curled up on the living room chair as soon as I turned on the computer. I think he just likes for me to be up in the middle of the night. I guess he doesn't like to be on his own when it's dark.

I've got my cup of freshly brewed coffee now and very nice it tastes too. It tastes like it will wake me up properly. I'm very eagerly drinking it anyway. I drink it like it's the elixir of life and for my mind it is. I'm sure a study has been done that shows that a certain amount of caffeine is good for a body. I think I remember hearing about it. As long as you don't overdo it. The same as a certain amount of chocolate is and red wine.

I watched a Swedish thriller last night. It was about a forensic profiler and it was the first episode in the series. It was the introduction to the character who was not immediately a likable man. You didn't feel a lot of sympathy for him, but it turned out that he had a lot of skeletons in his closet. He was very good in his job, if not unorthodox, but still it was a bit of a problem to really like him. It is not a clearcut case of him being a good guy. He is multi faceted.

It was fun to listen to the Swedish language because it had elements of English, German and Dutch in it, so some of it was very understandable. It helped to have the subtitles so I could make sense of it, but I paid close attention to what was being said. I've always liked to listen to people speak Swedish. This series is very well done, by the way. It was very believable. It's called 'Stefan Bergman.'

Yesterday went by without a hitch. It was a very low key day. I washed both my skinny jeans in very hot water and hung them outside to dry in the sun. I hope it has shrunk them. I will try them on today, but I won't wear them because it's going to be a hot day and I will have to wear skimpy clothes like I did yesterday.

I started to read a new novel, but found it absolutely uninteresting and I will have to find a new one on the bookcase. Some titles are so intriguing that you imagine the book to be also, but it can be a real let down. Or maybe it's the particular mood you're in that's just not right for that kind of book. 'Running With Scissors' sounded like a good title, but when I started reading the book, I realized I was not interested in the subject matter.

I do better reading a novel that I've already read and liked. I've got enough sorts of books to choose from and I should be able to find one that's to my liking. I may make some false starts, but eventually I will find the right one or I'll end up rereading the same one over and over again and that can't be the purpose of my reading.

The weekend went by quickly and I feel that I didn't do much with it. I took care of some chores, but time seemed to fly by. I think I had gotten used to three day weekends and these short ones go by too quickly. I need a Monday off also. Maybe some day in the future we'll always have three day weekends. I remember my father having to work on Saturdays. That was the norm back then. I do date myself, don't I?

As long as I don't have a 'sell by date' there's no problem. I see no numbers printed on my body. I don't know how to read the life line on the palm of my hand and I'm not about to go to a palm reader to find out how long my life is going to be. In my mind, I'm going to become very old. As long as I can live independently, I have no problem with that. I would always wish to be able to take care of myself. The women on both sides of my family live long and independent lives, so I have good genes.

I bonded well with the dog this weekend. We played endlessly with the tennis ball and he sat on my lap and I got my face slobbered. I do appreciate these tokens of affection. I've gotten completely used to the way he looks now, so naked in his very short fur. He does have the cutest face and his eyes are full of expression.

I think I've made this post long enough and instead of rambling on any longer, I'll knit an end to it. I don't want to bore you with my every day observations of life. A person does have to know when to stop writing.

I blame it on the very good coffee that I've written as much as I have. It's quite perked me up. It will be a real job going back to sleep. I don't think I'm going to be ready for it for a while. I'll have to find some other ways to keep me occupied.

Have a good day when you get up.

Ciao,
Nora

Upwardly middle aged blogging...

I'm so very thirsty, I could drink two liters of cold milk easily. Instead I'm having a cup of coffee which is waking me up, but is not doing much to quench my thirst. It is very good coffee, I've got that down to a science. As long as I make exactly six cups, I know precisely how much ground coffee to put in the filter. That's one formula I know. I should be able to make four cups and eight, but I haven't tried that yet. I always make six. 

I went on the bathroom scale when I got up and had lost a kilo. I wasn't expecting that and was pleasantly surprised. After all, it is in the middle of the night and that's not when I weight the least. All the signs were pointing to it, though. My clothes are roomy and I move around very easily as if I am a skinny person. Maybe I should get used to that and think of myself as one, but I still have what is so kindly called, love handles. I think they are the bane of middle age. 

I have a flat belly and no bottom and no fat on my thighs. I guess you could say I'm blessed, because at least I don't have a pear shape like so many women do. So, I very consciously count my blessings. When it comes to my hip hugging jeans, they don't have too much hip to hug. I'm the perfect candidate for them. I would have been wearing them sooner had I known this earlier, but then again, timing is everything in life and this is probably when I'm meant to wear them.

I think I've had enough coffee because I'm sufficiently awake. I couldn't be more alert than I am now. I've been drinking it from my favorite mug: the one that has my name on it. It's just big enough so that I can finish the coffee before it gets cold. I wish all my mugs were this size. A lot of them are too big and I always end up drinking cold coffee or having to toss it out. Not a lot of thought goes into the design of coffee mugs. It must be thought that bigger is better, as it is with everything in this day and age. 

Except, of course, that women are supposed to be an unobtainable size zero, which is only achieved by being anorexic and having an overindulgent exercise program. I do say this after proudly proclaiming that I've lost another kilo. 

I was supposed to have watched 'Wallander' last night, but it was on late and I didn't have the energy to stay up to watch it. I went to bed a half hour before it came on. I was only half sorry that I missed it needing my sleep so much. There's nothing I look forward to more than going to bed at night, sleeping for the few hours that I do anyway. 

The dog and the cat get on the bed with me and we have a cuddling session before everybody settles down for the night. There's sure a lot of loving going around. The dog is especially nice to pet now that all of his thick curls have been trimmed. He's a smooth dog and my fingers don't get tangled in his fur. He smells better too. 

Today it's supposed to be 24C and tomorrow and the day after that it will be 32C. It will be a regular heatwave. After that the temperatures are going down and we will have rain again. I'm going to have to dress appropriately and this will be the perfect opportunity to wash both pairs of skinny jeans on a high temperature to shrink them a bit. They are a little bit roomy. I could have done with a smaller size, but I thought that was impossible and too hard to believe.

I will now go and see what other sort of trouble I can get into. I've got to take my medicines because it has become dawn. I'm not ready yet to go back to bed. Maybe I will sit in my armchair and read my novel. I've got a tall glass of cold milk to quench my thirst.

I hope you'll all have a very good Sunday. Don't exhaust yourselves doing too many things. It is a day of rest, after all. 

Ciao,

Nora

It's good to be back.

It had been my intention to go to bed tonight just like ordinary people do at some point, but for whatever reason. it didn't work out that way and I find myself wide awake behind the computer doing all sorts of interesting things. At least, I find them interesting and they have been a source of entertainment to me this past hour or so.

Of course, I have been up much longer than that, but I have been able to fill my time with enough useful things because I have felt no desire to go to bed. It is absolutely cozy here by the light of the desk lamp and in the quiet of the night with only the company of the animals.

I know that sooner or later I will have to go to bed, but I think I can postpone it for a while longer. I'm most definitely not yawning or in any other way showing signs of sleepiness. As soon as I do, I will make the right decision and find my spot under the duvet where I will no doubt sleep like a log.

Every once in a while I have a night like this when I don't have the desire to go to sleep. It's too exciting to be up in the middle of the night and to keep going until the early morning. It's usually when the dawn is about to come that I am ready to go to bed after such a very long night. I didn't sleep last night either. I never was able to get to sleep. I laid in bed uselessly until I gave up and got up again.

I blame it on the fact that for some reason there was no good thriller on TV last night.  This was contrary to my expectations and upset my schedule. I found myself having to go to bed too early while I was not really ready to. There was nothing on TV that I wanted to watch, but it turned out that there was nothing on the radio I wanted to listen to either. So I laid in bed pretty bored.

I can always think of a sure way to entertain myself and that's behind the computer. I'm rarely bored if I'm occupied that way. There's always an email to answer or a blog post to comment on. I get around to the ones that I didn't have time for before. I reread blog posts with more attention and take my time commenting.

I'm taking my sweet old time to finish this post because I'm dawdling a lot. My mind keeps wandering off to other things. It wants to be occupied with subjects that don't matter right now. You could say that I'm easily distracted. Maybe I'm getting tired. That would not be a bad thing.

I do have a bit of a backache but that's from sitting slumped in my armchair. It is too comfortable for me and I always end up in the wrong position and have to very carefully extract myself from it at the end of the evening without putting myself through a lot of pain. Once I'm up, I'm okay again.

I think I will look at my templates and see if I'm happy with them. I may have to play around with them a bit.

Have a good morning when you get up. I will be asleep.

Ciao,
Nora