Forget about that...

Forget everything I said about my ability to quit smoking and the relative easy time I had with it because it just didn't turn out to be so. It turned out not to be easy at all and I had a hard time filling the many empty hours that I didn't smoke with activities, be they useful or not. I could not sit in my armchair and contemplate my navel anymore but I didn't know what to do instead. 

Being the dull person that I am, I could not come up with anything else. I have no hobbies to keep me occupied. So I started smoking again and I do not regret it. Well, I do because of the money but that is the only reason. 

I can spend much time sitting with a cup of coffee and my cigarettes doing nothing but letting my mind wander over various subjects. It's how I straighten things out in my head and come up with good ideas. I find it to be a very soothing activity. I suppose it's a little like meditating except that I don't empty my head. I resolve things and it calms me down. 

That's in a way how I spend my nightly hours too. I spend much of my time contemplating things but I do it when I feel best. I feel the least amount of pressure on myself in the middle of the night. It's when I have my most peaceful hours and my best thoughts. I even wake up with good ideas in my head, although they are very fleeting and I only remember them for the first few minutes. 

There was a thunder shower just now  with bright lightening. It was pretty hefty but short lived. An enormous amount of rain came down in a short time but now it is dry again. The thunder was very loud and I was afraid that the dog might start barking. Luckily, he did no such thing. I suppose if I stay calme, then he does too.

I guess I will go back to bed now. My personal helper will be here in the morning and I do want to get up on time before she gets here and have some coffee in all peace and quiet. I do appreciate that first hour or so on my own. I can't be sociable immediately. It does take a little bit of time. 

I hope you're all having a good night.

Ciao,

Irene

No, I'm not a harried housewfie...

It is now day three since I quit smoking and my most successful day so far. I don't nearly feel the frustration today that I felt the first two days. I still want to light up a cigarette all the time, but I'm less disappointed when I realize that I can't. I'm finding my peace with it, I guess. 

I don't nearly have enough things to do during the day now that I don't spend it smoking and frantically try to think of activities. It's difficult to sit and do nothing. I have to keep myself busy and I have the energy for it also. The apartment has never been so organized.

I do take the dog for walks when I'm bored and make the walks a bit longer than they used to be. We both benefit from that. I try to think of interesting routes to follow that we have not gone on before and take all sorts of side streets. The dog thinks it's great and happily follows me.

I've spent time redecorating the livingroom and all I have left to do now is make a curtain shorter and I will do that tomorrow when I have nothing else on the program. The sewing machine isn't working so I will use iron on tape to make the hem with. After the sewing machine is repaired, I will fix the hem properly.

I've got a new chair to sit in with a new cushion and a new pillow in it. I feel like I'm sitting on a throne. The problem is that the cat has decided that this is her chair as well and lies down in it whenever I get up. When I want to sit down in it, I have to disturb her and I feel bad about doing that, even though she gets to lie down on my lap. The dog thinks it's strange when I sit down on the sofa instead and chases the cat out of the chair. I don't want his loyalty to me to go quite that far, but he feels called upon to do this.

I've got to take the dog for a walk. He's sitting beside me begging to go and I can't ignore him any longer. Off we go. 

Ciao,

Nora

No such luck tonight...

I had taken an extra sleeping pill in the hope of sleeping extra well tonight, but I was not so lucky as the dog started to bark very loudly not too many hours after I had fallen asleep. Needless to say, this shocked me awake and I had to get up to settle him down. I stayed up and made myself some coffee and now I am sitting here in a half awake state which is mildly pleasant and as a matter of fact, not at all disagreeable. 

It must be because I'm slightly drugged that it agrees with me so well and it's true that I'm slightly dopey. I'm not saying no to this state of mind and I embrace it fully because what a wonderful place to be in. All my thoughts are pleasant and mellow and I don't feel one bit of anxiety. I can highly recommend this condition to anyone. 

You may want to smoke a little bit of pot to get into this frame of mind. Just a few tokes ought to do it. It's good for whatever physical aches and pains you have and in some countries it is prescribed medicinally. You could be legally smoking pot if it's not easily available like it is here. My son used it as part of his cancer treatment. It was prescribed to him. 

That's was just an aside. I got a little sidetracked. I'm easily distracted right now being not completely in charge of my full faculties. 

Of course, this mood is not going to last forever. As I drink my coffee I will sober up and become quite normal again. It is not for me  to stay in a state of oblivion for a long time. I'm too down to earth for that. I do always seek the path back to the rational state of being very quickly. Recreational drugs are probably wasted on me. All they do is make me hungry and raid the refrigerator. 

I find that the best way to sleep in bed with my bad and painful shoulder, is to lie on my back with my hands folded over my stomach. Sort of like the effigy of a knight resting over his grave. I have the least amount of pain then. It's getting up and acting like it's a normal shoulder when I get in trouble and the least amount of movement bothers me.

This does not prevent me from using it, as I don't want to act like a cripple. I figure if I can stand the pain then I can do the deed. If I don't use it, it will stiffen up and I will be even further from home. If it gets worse, I will go see my GP, but until that time I will ignore it as much as possible. I sure can't go whacking anybody over the head with that arm, but I wasn't planning on doing that anyway. 

I didn't stay up to watch that thriller last night, feeling a great desire to go to bed instead and to sleep between the clean sheets. I was not disappointed and was very comfortable. It's a loss to miss the thriller, but sometimes sleep comes first. 

It won't come first now because by this time I'm over my stupor and I'm wide awake. I will have to drink some warm milk and in the meantime find some activities to keep me occupied.  It's still very early in the night and I've got many hours to go until dawn when I'll be ready to go to sleep again. Maybe I'll surprise myself and go to sleep on time anyway. 

I hope you're having a good night and that you'll have a good morning. 

Ciao,

Nora

Refreshing my mind in the middle of the night...

I'm just the least bit sleepy, but that doesn't keep me from sitting here and merrily carrying on with my nighttime activities because I am enjoying myself. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now but planted on this chair behind the computer. The call of my bed is not alluring enough to take me there yet. It can wait for a couple more hours. I'd rather not spend my time sleeping now. That would be a terrible waste of time. I'd have to be toppling out of my chair before I did that. 

Toppling out of my chair is hard to do because it has armrests. Most likely I would fall forward with my head on the keyboard and get funny indentations on my forehead. I've also been known to end up with my head on the edge of the desk and have a ridge on my forehead that was very painful and visible and hard to explain. It's a funny way to fall asleep and I hope I don't do it tonight. Hopefully I'll crawl to my bed before that time. 

I've had three cups of coffee and am not about to fall asleep, regardless of my slight tiredness. I have enough willpower to stay up because I want to. I like sleeping in the morning ever so much better. I like being up in the middle of the night and being a night owl. It suits me to sit here in my bathrobe and to know that the world around me is asleep. I'm not the least bit scared of the bogeyman. There are no ghosts in my world. There's only the friendliness of the darkness of the night. 

I do get a sore bum from sitting in this chair, although it is a comfortable one. A soft pillow doesn't help, I've tried that. I've broken my tail bone once and it will always be a sore spot. I have to sit in a particular way to make it as easy as possible. I would like a big old executive chair to sit in and will one day acquire one. Like I am the CEO of a large company and can lord it over everybody and give myself a big bonus once a year. I can dream, can't I?

The good thing about being up in the middle of the night is that the animals are asleep the whole time and don't badger me. Nor is Tyke badgering Gandhi and she has peace and quiet. I don't have to continually rescue her from his loving embrace. He does still think that he has to show his dominance over her. Especially when he wants attention or when she gets too close to me. He can really be a pain in the neck. I've thought about getting him fixed, but the cost is prohibitive right now. Maybe this summer  when I get my vacation allowance. 

Oh, I totally forgot that today is Saturday. That's nice. All I have to do is go to the tobacco shop and hang up a load of laundry to dry. It's good that it's the weekend, although why it is I couldn't really tell you. I have no good reason for it. I have enough days during the week that feel like days off also. It's just the general idea that it's the weekend that makes it feel more festive. The weather isn't going to be all that great, although the sun is going to shine. It won't be very warm. 

One thing I have to do today is finish reading my book. That's one goal I have to set for myself. I'm halfway through it and since it's not such a big book, I ought to be able to finish it in one day. I really want to move on to the next one and I can't wait to look on my bookcase to find it. I've got two cubbyholes empty to fill up with books and when I'm done reading the ones I still have, I can start ordering new ones. I have to check out Wise Web Woman's reading list and see what interesting novels she's got on hers. She's a connoisseur of good novels.

I think I'll knit an end to this post and see what other sort of trouble I can get into. Every night I go looking for it. Frustratingly so, usually. 

Ciao,

Nora

Forgetful time...

It's early in the morning and I'm brewing a cup of coffee. I just had a glass of cold milk, but now I need some caffeine. The milk has made me feel cold and I have to turn up the thermostat to get warm again. I had it turned down low for the night. 

It is raining outside and it looks like it has been all night because almost all of the snow and the ice are gone. The streets and the sidewalks are just about clear again, which is great. There will be no slipping and sliding when I go outside today. I will be able to walk Tyke again in the usual manner and that will be a great relief to both of us. We've been cooped up inside enough and are getting cabin fever. 

I'm sure I've never appreciated rain as much as I do now. I'll be able to ride my bike to the tobacco shop and that is a lot easier than having to walk there on the slippery sidewalks in this neighborhood. Riding my bike had been an impossibility and I don't know how the Exfactor managed it when he went to get my groceries. I suppose he is more fearless than I am and not afraid to fall and break something. Maybe his male hormones make him more brave or foolhardy. Either way, he got them done. 

Today he is coming over for a cup of coffee and the domestic help will be here as well, which means I have to clean up the apartment a bit. I always have to clean up the apartment before she comes. I have to put some order into it anyway, so it will be easy for her to clean it. 

And much to my surprise it is Friday again, which seems impossible. It means I have to prepare myself for the weekend and not have it be another unstructured waste of time. I can pretend I'm sick again and spend it in my bathrobe. It did have its appeal. It made me feel safe and cloistered, as if I was hibernating in a sheltered place.. 

I can also be more engaged and get dressed and take Tyke for regular walks and fill my days with more interesting activities, but then I do have to pull the wool over my own eyes and pretend I have those. I'll just watch a lot of television and act like that matters. There will be cultural programs on and lots of sports. I'll pretend to be engaged by them. I must care about something, recluse that I am. 

I'll find some comfortable clothes to wear that are also warm and I don't have to wear my hiking boots anymore. That's a relief anyway. I can wear another pair of boots. It will be a sport to stand in front of the closet and pick out the right outfit for the weekend. I'll opt for comfort more than anything. I'm in that kind of mood. 

So okay, the weekend will be about comfort and warmth and it's starting today. A day early, I'm cheating a bit. 

Have a good day.

Ciao,

Nora