The first cup...

I'm sitting here with my first cup of coffee, soon to become my second cup, because I've almost finished it, greedily as I'm drinking it. I do want to get the cobwebs out as quickly as I can this morning, because I figure that every minute counts. Oh sure, I have hours of time before my personal helper gets here, but that time goes by quickly when you're having fun, as I'm about to have. 

I'm thoroughly going to enjoy every minute of those hours doing nothing but blog and answer emails, and yes, also do some chores. But if that is true, why am I sitting here on the edge of my seat as if I am about to take off into the 'I don't know where?'  I do have to relax in order to be able to enjoy myself. I can't sit here with a tightly folded into itself body that's about to be triggered into an explosion of uncontrolled movement. 

I've just taken my medicines and readjusted the way I sit in this chair. I have everything loose now and am very consciously trying to stay that way. I'm trying to stay grounded. I'm paying attention to the relaxation of all my muscles and my breathing. I'm becoming aware of all the little aches and pains and know that I have to pay attention to them and not ignore them. I stop sitting hunched over and straighten my back. There's so much to remember. 

At least I'm not about to take off from my chair anymore. I'm going to have a tall glass of cold milk next. 

That does necessitate putting on my bathrobe, because that cools your body off quite a bit, a glass of cold milk does. But I'm much more relaxed now and I feel a lot better. I can better enjoy writing the rest of this post now. 

I went to bed late last night, I didn't fall asleep until 1 am. At least I had enough sense to go to bed, because I really had to force myself to. I wasn't sleepy when I went and could have stayed up longer. I wanted to be sensible, though, and get some amount of normal sleep anyway. I did want to be in halfway decent shape this morning. 

When my personal helper gets here, I want to be ready to get things done. That really means that I have to take a shower before she gets here, but I do so hate taking showers and really need to be motivated for them. Somebody needs to make me take them. It's the antiquated shower system that makes me hate taking showers so much. Some things in 'cheap' apartments in the Netherlands are simply abysmal. 

Well, I've told you enough trivial things now, I think. I must move on to other things. There are other blogs not to neglect and to write trivial things in.

Have a good day. 

Ciao,

Nora 

New theme, new name...

But need I even mention it? I should get away with this without even discussing it. What's there to say? If you have me on your blog list, just refer to me as Nora and not by the name of my blog, because it changes too often. God only knows what I started out as. I don't even remember it myself, it is so many incarnations ago. 

I've been up all night, and when I'm up all night, I'm generally in the mood to change things, because I'm more adventurous then. I should always function at night, or otherwise always be under the influence of a sleeping pill, but wide awake. I seem to have my most brilliant ideas then. At least, they seem brilliant to me. Of course, they may be drug induced illusions and I won't know that until the next day after I've slept.

That reminds me that I'm not looking forward to the day and I don't want it to become dawn. I like sitting here in the dark having my little adventures and taking looks at what I have done. I don't want to go to bed either. I want to stay up and reap the rewards of my deeds and indulge in them. I want to snicker and smile and be happy.  I would rather not sleep and stay in this state of mind forever. 

I haven't had any coffee for a while and have been drinking cold milk. I never did get around to drinking a glass of warm milk to make me sleepy. I decided against that when I realized that I was having a good time. I didn't want to curtail my activities. 

From one good idea comes another and before you know it, hours have passed and it is approaching morning and it is time for another batch of medicines. The ones I am going to take are going to dampen my spirits a bit and it's a darn shame. I wish I could skip them, but I will be sensible and take them. I'm a co-operative patient who doesn't sleep at night, but does everything else right. 

I am going to make a pot of coffee in a little while to get ready for the arrival of morning. I do want to greet it with a clear mind. I don't know what I'm going to do about sleeping yet. I suppose I will wait and see what happens and when the need hits me, I will go and lie down. 

It is possible that the Exfactor is going to come by this morning and I do want to be dressed when he gets here and not greet him in my usual attire of bathrobe with my hair sticking up. I do still want to make a good impression, although I have no ulterior motives. If I did have those, I would dismiss them immediately. 

The coffee is brewing and before long I will have a nice fresh cup of it. I'm trying to not make it too strong, because I realized that I do go through my ground coffee awfully quickly. I probably make it too potent. I don't want it to put hair on my chest. I think a little bit less strong is okay too and very drinkable, as long as the flavor of the coffee is right and is not the weak brew that the Exfactor makes. 

No, the coffee is good and very welcome. It warms up my stomach. I will now go and see to the other blog, so the surprise will not be too big there. 

Have a good morning!

Ciao,
Nora

Moving around endlessly...

After not having slept all night, I did manage to sleep for a few hours on the sofa this afternoon, because I was running out of steam and my body had to catch up with my mind that was working overtime. I didn't want to go to sleep and I fought it, but I had no other option, otherwise I would have fallen asleep behind the computer with my head on the keyboard and that leaves nasty marks on your face. 

I very dutifully laid down on the sofa and made myself go to sleep and woke up about two hours later. I made myself some coffee and slowly came to my senses, though I think I may have written a post before I completely had my wits about me. That will make for interesting reading too. It may boggle your mind, as it boggled mine when I read it later. I thought, now what in the world was I talking about? Is this woman quite in her right mind? Is there a screw loose maybe? Does something need to be fastened? 

See, I make fun of myself so you can't ahead of me. We can laugh together anyway. It is better than feeling embarrassed. I've always got to make fun of myself when I think I'm in danger of having made a blunder. I read an article about that in a woman's magazine today. The best way to deal with a blunder is to laugh about it yourself and to not take it too seriously, as long as you learn a lesson from it so you won't repeat it. I think that is good advice. 

I'm try to keep all my blogs straight and update the one that I wrote in the longest time ago. I try not to repeat myself, but write something new wherever I am. God forbid someone should actually read all 5 blogs, although I think it's not possible. I don't want to write the same story in all 5 blogs so I aim for variety. I mustn't fall into repeats, though the temptation is there at times and sometimes I will and there will be overlap. It's hard to be completely original all the time. Even the greatest diarists couldn't have done it. 

It's great when your mind is full of ideas and curiosity and goodwill and words and deeds and points of view to get across. but your body has to co-operate too. I wish I was a teenager with the endless energy of one and the capacity to sleep until noon the next day. I feel that I have so much I want to say, but I'm sluggish and I really am dragging my body through the day more than I'm willing to admit. I don't want to go to sleep, though, because I would be afraid that I would miss out on something fun that I could do. Sooner or later I have to go to bed for real, in my pajamas and under the duvet. I must try to get some sleep, even if it is only for a few hours. 

It's funny, but when I opened up ' The Choppy Sunflower' blog, there were immediate comments, as if people had been waiting for me to return and it was the most normal thing in the world that I did. There was no mention really of my long absence. I thought everybody would have forgotten me by now, but apparently that is not true. I do have followers wherever I go. It's not a multitude, but there are some people out there.

Oh hallelujah, my medicines have just started to work and I feel so much better now. What a relief that is. I was wondering if I was going to notice anything in this state of mind. I did feel a certain amount of stress that I wanted to get rid off. 

I was just out walking Tyke when we ran into the Yorkshire Terrier puppy that was also being walked. He was so enthused, that within the shortest amount of time our leashes and the fringe of my scarf had become completely entangled and we couldn't get it undone. We had to let the dogs off the leashes and mess around for a good 5 minutes before we got everything disentangled. It was actually pretty hilarious and the dogs had a good time. Tyke likes being off the leash and doesn't go anywhere. He's completely fascinated with that puppy, as he likes all puppies. I'll have to let him off the leash there more often when the other dogs are out and let him have a good run around.

Well, that's it for me for now. I wonder what I'm going to do next? How will I get through the rest of the evening? What stunts can I think of? 

Ciao,
Nora

Another day like this, please...

I tell the story in sequences on different blogs and to keep it straight for you, I suggest you go here to enjoy this part of it, though it isn't absolutely necessary, but you'd do me a big favor with it if you did. I'm also comment hungry, but that's a secret that you won't tell anyone, will you? 

I'm sitting here with a lovely cup of coffee and my cigarettes and life almost couldn't get better than this, although if I use my imagination I can think of a few other things that I'd also like a lot. All of them involve a lot of money and foreign travel and expensive hotels with room service. Yes, I do have rich tastes and should have been a capitalist and power hungry and ruthless. 

Alas, it's not in my nature to be that way myself, nor was I savvy enough to marry someone like it. I couldn't stand to be married to someone like Bill Gates and I doubt he could stand to be married to me, because I would tell him what to do with his money. I would do sensible money management and since I'm a socialist, there would be a lot of sharing of the wealth. I wouldn't just build a factory in Africa, I would build a village with an infra structure, so no shanty town would develop where people would have to live in indignity while they worked in my factory. I'm sure a lot of that is going on wherever big companies set up business.

I'll get off my soapbox, but you know where I stand on these things. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's the abuse of cheap labor and dire living circumstances for anyone. I count my blessings every day. I know how lucky I am. 

My meeting with my personal helper and my SPN went well, even though I had been nervous about it at first and was worried about how well they would get on and if there would be any friction with both of them having an interest in me, but coming from two different points of view. I need not have worried at all and we had a good and enlightening talk that was clear for everybody and that was not at all stressful or difficult. My SPN handles these things so well and I'm always impressed with her professionalism, even though she is relatively young. She doesn't have an enormous ego that gets in the way of her.

I think my personal helper feels reassured now too, because a lot has been made clear to her and she understand things better now. She got a good look inside the kitchen, sort to say. It's a great relief to me that this talk has taken place and that more talks can happen in the future if there is a need. Now both sides know what's involved and know each other. 

That's boring talk and I refuse to write about it more. I'm not in the mood for it. I want to write about different things altogether. About how incredibly nice this day is turning out to be and how happy I am to be alive and how well I feel about myself right now. I wish I could hold on to this feeling always and put it in a box to take it out for use whenever it was necessary. There should be a place where you can store spare happiness, although it is nice to be overwhelmed by it all at once. That and a 50 Euro bill can make your day. 

I have the heater turned up a little high because I was shivering although it really wasn't that cold in here. If it had been this temperature in the summer, I would have thought it was nice. Now I thought it was too chilly. There must be a draft. This morning I discovered that the domestic help had left open the bedroom window yesterday. I was wondering why it was so cold in the bedroom, but I didn't notice it behind the closed shade. Her logic escapes me. She also likes to rearrange my objects as if she's playing house and I regularly have to put things back where they belong. I do think it's kind of endearing, though. She does care enough, although she likes to put everything at an angle as if that is more artistic. She would have done well in the Baroque Age.  I put everything back straight. 

Tyke is having a good old snore. He doesn't realize that it's about time for a walk. He's too busy sleeping. It's okay with me, because I'm not exactly looking forward to going out in the cold, even though I do have that very nice scarf to wrap around my throat. The rest of me is cold, no matter how many clothes I wear. It's really going to be a problem this winter on how I'm going to manage to stay warm. I've turned into a real wimp when it comes to going out in the cold. I do so appreciate my warm apartment and the warm duvet when I go to sleep at night. As a matter of fact, I still want to get an extra cover for my bed, because I'm so cold when I first get in it. I keep my socks on. I wish I had one of my grandmother's crocheted bedspreads now. 

Tyke is awake and telling me it's time to go out. He's barking at me even, because I'm not doing what he wants. That is, get up out of this chair and put my coat on. I suppose I better go do that then. He's a bossy little dog. No manners whatsoever. Somebody didn't raise him right. 

Have a good evening!

Ciao,
Nora

Obsession...

I think I'm in a bit of trouble. I can't seem to do anything but be occupied with this blog. Already I have changed the template. I can't do anything else or concentrate on anything else. All day long I sit behind the computer and contemplate the blog and what I can do with it. There's no room in my head for anything else. I think I'm going slightly mad and I'm a bit worried about myself. I seem to be possessed. 

I have just taken my medication and am waiting for it to work. Maybe it will calm me down a bit, because I surely need calming down. I feel very tightly wound up and some of this energy needs to be released. Maybe writing about it will help and put things in perspective. It is just my luck that I should get crazy like this in the weekend when there's nobody to call, except the crisis line and I don't think I'm in a crisis yet. I must be crazier than this before I call them. 

I should have known something was up with my mood yesterday when I was so awfully sleepy all day long. Very often that signals a change in my mood. I didn't pay enough attention and wasn't aware enough to realize it. It bothers me that after all this time I still don't know this stuff until after the fact, looking back on it. It's good that I realize it now, but it would have been better if I had been prepared for it. 

I feel that I can't leave the computer, because I don't know what I will do with myself if I do. I must sit here and keep myself occupied with it and keep going back to look at this new blog. I will go nuts if I try to do anything else. I can't imagine myself doing anything else. All I can hope for is that I will get really tired and that I will go to sleep and stay asleep. I must rid myself of this obsessive behavior. 

The medication has started to work and has calmed me down a lot. As a matter of fact, I feel a bit sleepy now. That is good. I will put on my pajamas and bathrobe and be ready to go to bed in an instant. I worry about the night, though, and what it will bring. Will I feel so terrifically hypomanic again? 

Ciao,
Nora

What have I done now?

I went back to bed this morning after I set up this blog and when I woke up, I thought, "Oh no, what have I done now?" Really, what possessed me to set up a completely new blog and to call it The Dueling Dutch Woman and to think that was a good idea? I felt as if I had gone temporarily mad during the night and had lost my marbles. What I felt more than anything was complete embarrassment at my impulsive deed, which had seemed like such a brilliant thing to do in the middle of the night. It seems that I am possessed sometimes and that I need to do great and unusual deeds that go beyond the 'normal' changes one would make.

The first thing I did when I got up was turn on the computer and have a look at the blog and I must say that it didn't look all that bad. It wasn't the horrible thing I had pictured it to be in my mind. The title didn't seem all that terrible and even appeared somewhat benign to me when I saw it at the top beside those tulips. I liked the template and thought it was a good choice, Maybe I could live with it and not die of embarrassment and maybe it wasn't such a horrible thing that I had done. 

Of course, I'm going to get all sorts of comments, but that comes with the territory and I have to be tough enough to take those. I got myself into this pickle and I have to live with that. I do intend to stick with it, no matter what my initial doubts are. I can't change my mind now and say, "Oops, I made a tiny error." That's not the way it works. I will write posts for this blog and hope that I will get followers. I'm stubborn enough to hang in there. 

The blog title refers to my bi-polarity. The two extremes of my moods and how they are often in conflict with each other. You mustn't imagine me having a duel of words with anyone. The only duel I have is with myself. The tulips on the template speak for themselves, because aren't tulips the very symbol of everything Dutch? 

I went and had my hair cut this afternoon. First I had to get some money out of the cash machine, but it would not give me any, saying I had insufficient funds. I knew that could not be right and I thought maybe someone had broken into my bank account and stolen all my money. I went home to check on my bank account, but all my money was still there, so I went to the hairdresser without any money. I thought they would let me pay later, because I'm such a good customer of theirs, but while I was waiting for it to be my turn, I called the Exfactor, who had arrived at my place in the meantime to trim the Golden Rain, and asked him if he could bring me some cash. So he showed up a while later with the money and stayed while I had my hair cut. 

I told the girl exactly how I wanted my hair cut and she got it exactly right. It's just the way I wanted it and it's cut so well that I don't have to mess with gel or wax or hairspray to get it to stay into place. It's probably the easiest hair I've ever had.It's not punky and spiky anymore and I don't have to worry about lying in bed and having it point in the wrong direction in the morning when I get up. I'll try to get a good picture of it and post it.

The Exfactor and I walked home and he stayed for coffee. He had trimmed quite a bit off the Golden Rain and I hope that my grumpy neighbor is happy now. He had been complaining about it for a while, but he always has something to complain about, because he is an old grumpy man with nothing better to do. That's why it was such a bother that the Exfactor kept on not showing up. 

I think I may be slightly hypomanic now, because I feel the urge to do great deeds, but the tranquilizers will be good for that condition also. Hopefully they will calm me down enough so I will not do anything too crazy. Starting a new blog is crazy enough. 

I will take Tyke for a walk. It is not raining now. As a matter of fact, the sun is temporarily shining and I have to take advantage of that.

Have a nice day!

Ciao,
Nora

A complete change of scenery and mind...

This is what I really wanted. A completely new blog with a new web address and a new template and absolutely no archives and followers as yet. It is as if I'm starting over again from scratch and it feels like a new beginning. That doesn't mean that I don't want followers, au contraire, I want as many as I can get. But I don't want all those followers I had who never came by to read me and whose presence on my follower's list was a mystery to me. I knew who my faithful readers were and I'm counting on them to become my trusty followers again. I'm not fooled by numbers that looked good on my blog. They are pretty meaningless if just a few people read you.

So, this is a new adventure and I'm more than ready for it. I will be patient and hope that people find me and read me. I hope that I can be entertaining enough for a large amount of people, but if it turns into a little group, that's okay too. As long as I get to have my say on a regular basis and get some feedback. It's always harder to speak into an empty space with no returning voices. 

As I write this, it's raining hard outside and it has been for a while. It's supposed to rain for the next couple of days, but I don't mind. It's the weekend and the only place I have to go, beside walk Tyke, is the hairdresser and I can walk there under my umbrella. It's just a few minutes away from my apartment. I'm looking forward very much to going and getting pampered and even though I've just washed my hair, I'll have it washed again and get a head massage. There's nothing better than that.

I slept well, but got up early. I find it impossible to stay in bed until a decent time in the morning. I have yet to sleep until dawn. In a way it is okay, because I am at my most productive at these early hours. I'm not distracted by life around me and get a lot of things done behind the computer. As you are now aware of. I do find all sorts of mischief to get into. Although it's true that sometimes I'm brighter and more daring than at other times.

I have to go look at templates and see if I'm really happy with the one I've got now. I didn't look at many. I just looked for tulips and came up with this one. Maybe there's a better one out there. 

Have a good morning,

Ciao,
Nora