Isn't it wonderful?

Isn't it wonderful to reward yourself regularly just for being a human being and for doing the best that you can? You don't have to perform any special deed to deserve the reward. Just living well is enough. We shouldn't feel that we always have to jump through hoops to get a pat on the head. Sometimes just making it through the day should be more than enough. 

In my case I reward myself with something nice to eat. Not something decadent and fattening but something that will agree with my stomach well and that's for the most part nutritious. But it will be a food I enjoy eating. I can find great delight in eating a banana for example and I make sure I enjoy the experience completely. 

Of course, one of the really nice things I eat is Greek yogurt with brown sugar. I really sit down well in my armchair for a bowl of that and savor every bite of it. It's one of the kindest things I can do for myself and I think I deserve the whole bowl just for being your average, every day person. Someone who does the best that she can and makes it through the day intact. 

And that's not because my life is such a battle, though you could say that it consists of many small battles, but because life in general is not a bed of roses for anyone. And, after all, roses do have their thorns, don't they?  Actually, I lie about life not being a battle, it has been a great big ugly battle at times. It's even been all out war.

All the more reason to reward myself on a regular basis. I don't mean that you should indulge yourself in every whim because that would defeat the purpose. But you should defintely create special moments for yourself that make your feel good and warm all over by whatever method that happens to be as long as it's legal. I do want to emphasize that point. If you get a kick out of shoplifting, I don't suggest you do that. 

That's the thought I woke up with this night and I realize it's armchair psychology. Anyone can come up with this philosophy and I'm sure many people have. I'm sure I'm not a lone voice calling in the desert but maybe I planted a seed. 

In the meantime I'm sitting here having a halfway decent cup of coffee and my cigarettes. That's another way of rewarding myself. They're kind deeds I do for myself but they're such ordinary, often in a day things that I almost take them for granted. I do say almost, I never take them for granted completely and I do appreciate them every time. I'm fully aware of their effect on me and I would not be the same person without them.

I've got to indulge in some other activity now and then go back to bed. I hope you're all having a good night. 

Ciao,

Irene

Friday evening...

The weekend has properly started and by all rights I should put on my party clothes now and go out to a pub or a disco. No, I should go out for dinner first and then go out for drinks and a dance. 

In my younger years I would have done so, but I'm afraid that I no longer have it in me. I wouldn't know how to party if I stumbled into one. I've forgotten completely how to do it. The noise of it would drive me mad. I'm a middle aged woman on the wrong side of the middle after all. 

I'd rather have an intimate get together over white wine and candlelight in a cozy pub by a fireplace in a small inn somewhere. That's about my speed. Somewhere in the countryside where I can look at the starry sky later in the evening. A little tipsy maybe, but feeling no pain. 

A woman can fantasize, can't she? I'll fantasize a tall, dark, handsome stranger to go with it. Someone who dissolves in the morning before breakfast so as not to spoil the illusion. I don't want him to see the saggy bits by daylight. The harsh truth, as it is so unkindly called. The one you have to face up to during the day when you're sober and sensible. 

I am, in the first place, a sensible woman. Make no mistake about it. In the end I always do the right thing and I don't let my imagination get out of hand. This leads me to live a very sedate life without any sort of wild abandon in it. I no longer live my life like it's a dramatic novel or a larger than life film. Something by Ingmar Bergman with a lot of pain in it. 

I suppose that if you get burned bad enough, you learn to live your life without any shenanigans in it. You avoid drama. You steer clear of anything that could be highly emotional and volatile. You learn to appreciate peacefulness and predictability.

Well, look at me, preaching to the probably already converted. I'm sure I don't have to tell any of you anything new. 

Have a good evening.

Ciao,

Nora

Easing toward dawn...

Actually, I just noticed that it's dawn already because the sky is starting to become light, although there are many clouds there still. I've been so preoccupied that I didn't hear the birds sing, but now that I'm paying attention, I do hear some of them chirp. I think I missed the big concert earlier when they all woke up. 

There must have been the usual cacophony, but I didn't hear it because I was too busy commenting on blog posts. That goes to show you that I can only pay proper attention to one thing at the time. I can't chew gum and walk at the same time. 

I'm sitting here with my second cup of coffee and I'm cold so it's time to put on my bathrobe. Why didn't I think of that earlier? Is that how preoccupied I was? 

The dog is sleeping soundly behind me in the armchair. I haven't heard a peep out of him yet. The cat is asleep on the sofa. She's curled up into a little ball. That's what the early morning looks like here. 

I'm trying not to think too much about the day ahead. I've still got to go to bed to sleep some more before I really start the day. It won't be until my second attempt at getting up that I will have to give serious thought to the rest of the day. 

I do know one thing, I'm going to increase my medication like I did yesterday and inform my psychiatrist of it. It helped me so much and I felt so much better when I did it yesterday that it seems senseless not to do it today and have another bad day. I've had enough of them and don't want a repeat.

I've got some chores to do today and I suppose that, despite the reluctance that I feel, I will get them done. I just need to work up some enthusiasm and I hope that when I wake up later, I will have some of that. It's very necessary that I feel up to things again and not look at them as a mountain I have to climb. 

I've been watching a program on TV called 'Baby Boom' and I'm sure that if I were in my child producing years, I would have been motivated to get pregnant now. It's all about getting pregnant and trying to stay pregnant and having babies. It tugs at my heart strings and brings back many memories and I'm sorry that those years are behind me. 

It's probably the wrong program for me to watch. I'm sure I'm in the wrong age group. I have an infertile body and no hormones screaming through my body. It's purely an emotional issue. Accepting that I've reached this stage in my life and that the other stage is over for good. I sure do miss it, though. 

'Aurelio Zen' was on last night and it was a good episode. I understand that only three of them were made and that it's not sure if more of them will be. I think that's a shame and I hope whoever is in charge will change their mind. They are so well done that you forget they are not Italian actors acting as Italian characters. 

'Inspector Frost' will be on tonight and I'm looking forward to that too. He's an old favorite, but I don't know if these will be repeats or new episodes. Either way, it's a good way to spend the evening, although I do end up going to bed late. But that's the least of my worries. 

I'm going to change the sheets on my bed and start a load of washing. It will be nice to lie down in a clean bed. I'm already yawning again so I think it's time to go. I've been drinking cold milk and am slowly getting sleepier. There's a great desire to get under the warm duvet.

Have a good day.

Ciao,

Nora

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

...and then I woke up.

It's in the middle of the night and I'm sitting here with a very nice cup of coffee, For some reason it turned out just right. Sometimes you just get lucky, I guess. That makes me wonder how much of my coffee making is still guesswork and how much of it is craftsmanship. I think the former may have a lot to do with it. It's called: eyeballing it and sometimes I get it just right. 

It's all in the hesitation of adding another spoonful of coffee to the measured amount of water. Do I or don't I? Well, yes I will, but not too much. You see how I will never get it down to a perfect formula because there's also the amount of milk in the cup to consider. I pour this in before I add the coffee so as not to have to stir it. I have to get that just right also depending on the size of the cup. The coffee does have to taste milky, but can't get lukewarm. 

I'm so nit picky.  I do have my peculiarities and some things have to be just so. I don't even like for someone else to pour me a cup of coffee because I'm afraid they won't get it just right and that will bother me. I won't enjoy the coffee as much. And enjoying a cup of coffee is important. It's just as important as having a good meal. 

I suppose the one person I would trust to get me the perfect cup of coffee would be my daughter, but I don't know why that is. For some reason I think she would get it just right. I think she would understand the importance of a good cup of coffee and would take perfect care. 

*

I just had to rescue a mouse from the claws of the cat. She was playing with it in the hallway and I heard it squeaking. Luckily, it didn't seem too badly damaged. I released it out back. Yesterday, both the cat and the dog were playing with a mouse that seemed badly damaged before I could rescue it. I set it free, but I had no high hopes for it. The dog seems to do more damage than the cat. He's much rougher with them. It seems the animal kingdom is alive and well outside, but it's not safe. Not with those two monsters I have.

*

The Exfactor is going to be here this morning to do the groceries. I've started a list on the white board, but I keep getting the idea that I'm forgetting something crucial. It will probably come to me after the groceries have been done. 

I know that I want him to buy me some cheese crackers. I want to try those instead of the plain crackers I've been eating. I crave something hearty and salty. That must be instead of the meat I'm not eating, although I crave that too. I would love to eat a pork chop.

I have to see my SPN this afternoon. It's been a month, I think, since I saw her, so it's about time. I've got a lot to discuss with her and will be able to fill the hour well.

It will be interesting to see what I'm going to wear today because it's going to be a lot cooler than it has been. I will have to find something completely different to wear. It will be my pleasure, as that has never been a problem. I do enjoy a dive into my closet. I have a vague idea already, but I don't know if it's going to work out. It all depends on if the top matches the skirt and which shoes to wear. 

Isn't it great to have that sort of minor problem? It isn't even really a problem. It's life completely simplified. Oh, and I must call the hairdresser today to make an appointment. I wish everything in my life was so easy. I suppose some people live those kinds of lives. Uncomplicated ones without worries about moods and money. 

I'm not in the least tired, although I should go back to bed and get some more sleep. Maybe if I take my medicines now I will get sleepy. It's worth a try. I wouldn't know what else to do so early in the morning. I'm not in the mood to read my book. I prefer lying in bed and listening to the radio, but it would be nice if I dozed off again.

I hope you'll all have a good day. We may have some rain and we need it. 

Ciao,

Nora

Late in the evening...

I've already dozed in bed, really planning on going to sleep early, but it didn't quite work out that way. I guess I wasn't tired enough. I was  toasty warm, though. I had on my flannel pajamas and my socks, so no part of me was cold, because it was cool in the bedroom and beneath the duvet. The warmth of the near summer weather hasn't penetrated the bedroom yet and it is still a very cool location in the apartment.

I listened to the birds twitter their evening song and thought about having a CD of that and listening to it at will and how cheerful that would make me. Or their morning song, of course. I would listen to it at whatever time in the morning I woke up and start my day that way. I think that would be mighty pleasant. Of course, if I didn't sleep so soundly and turned off the radio, I might hear them for real, especially now that I have the bedroom window open again. 

The best place to hear them would be in the middle of a forest. That would be a joy. You forsake a lot by living in suburbia, except that there's the convenience of living close to the services you need. I don't feel that I'm in touch with nature, though. I feel far removed from it here in my stone and cement and asphalt world. The gardens and the greenery only provide some relief. I often wish I lived in the countryside, but because I have no car, it would be problematic for me. It would be hard to get around. 

You must accept your fate in life and accept the situation you're in and make the best of it. Especially if your means to change it are very limited. You can't have all sorts of fantasies that you can't make come true and frustrate yourself with them. You have to find a form of acceptance and the peace inside yourself to live with it. It means you have to face up to a huge amount of realism and come to grips with it. Maybe that's a lesson I should have learned earlier in my life, although I thought at one time that I had, but circumstances change beyond your control and you become undone. 

I don't want anything to come along to upset my equilibrium and maybe that's what the presence of my ex-husband did. That's why it's taking me such a long time to settle back into my normal life. Slowly but surely I am and I want to be left alone now. I don't want any more disturbance and upset. I have to fit back into my life like I did before and I don't want anyone to come along to make me doubt my choices or my satisfaction with them. It's all very tender and fragile and made up of gossamer threads.

It's time for me to be thinking about going back to bed. Hopefully I will sleep well this time and not merely doze. At least I got some things off my mind, that's a relief. 

I hope you all had a good evening. 

Ciao,

Nora

Please, don't be...

I'm sitting here early in the morning having my coffee and cigarettes as usual. I've written emails and read blogs and I'm wide awake. It's not nearly time to start the day yet and I'm glad for it, because I don't want the day to start. For all I care, the sun doesn't have to come up for another couple of hours and we delay the day completely. I much prefer sitting here in the dark by the light of my desk lamp indefinitely. There's no pressure on me as long as I sit here under those conditions. 

I'm in a state of avoidance and yesterday I took the whole day off and didn't get out of my bathrobe. I hung out in front of the television and took a long nap. I didn't want to have to do anything that was the least bit complicated and to me everything seemed complicated, even putting away the clean laundry that is sitting in the chair in my bedroom. 

I thought I could pretend to be ill again, but then  I thought, why bother? I just wasn't able to participate in life. That's not so unusual in the weekends and especially not at this time of the year. I do better during the week because there are people here who motivate me to get dressed and do things, but in the weekends I'm a lost case. I imagine that if those people didn't come during the week, I'd be a lost case on those days as well. 

I've especially not been able to write any posts for any of my blogs. I have made several attempts, but ended up deleting everything. I thought, who wants to read this drivel? All it was, was a huge cover up job to make myself look better than I was. To make my life look more interesting than it was. I thought that if I wrote down everything into the tiniest detail, it would look like something, but you can't pull the wool over people's eyes like that. They do catch on to the fact that you're filling up empty holes. 

I've got to try and make something of today while my courage lasts. I have courage early in the morning in the dark before the day starts. When I'm not yet truly challenged. Before I fall into inertia and turn into the cowardly lion. The least thing I can do is admit that I'm hiding and avoiding things. Facing up to your own behavior is always the best thing. 

And dealing with the guilt feelings that come with it. 

Have a good day!

Ciao,

Nora

At the end of the day...

Somehow I manage not to go to bed too early, though lately I am ready to go at 7:30 pm. I do force myself to stay up, though, and watch television, no matter how silly the program and how little I really care. In between the serious programs that I do care about, like the news, I play with Tyke and cuddle him, while I also pay attention to the consumer programs and the missing persons programs and the really dumb game shows. A person does have to figure out a way to get through the evening in one piece while entertaining her dog. 

After a while Tyke's had enough and goes to sleep and I've watched enough television and shut if off and put on my pajamas. I turn on the computer for a little while to postpone going to bed until it is really the proper time to go and read blogs and comment on them. I realize how precarious life is and how I'm just a silly game show and one silly little dog away from going stark raving mad. 

Then  I pull myself through that moment and get my act together again and am a tough broad and realize I'm lucky for all the support I get to help me not go under like a sinking ship and I get courage again. I know that in a little while I will lie under my comfortable duvet and listen to the radio, while I slowly drift off to sleep and all will be forgotten. I will wake up in the morning with the same eagerness with which I wake up every morning and go about my business as usual. 

I had to take my earrings out tonight because I had a little bit of irritation. I put some ointment on my earlobes and will reapply it before I go to bed. I hope that takes care of it and that I will be able to put the earrings in again in the morning. I've gotten so used to wearing them now that I will feel naked without them, at least not completely dressed. I do like wearing them a lot and I've put an antique saucer on my bookcase in my bedroom to put them all on, so as to not lose track of them. 

I've got 3 pairs on hangers now and 4 pairs that are studs. I prefer wearing the studs as the hangers get caught in my scarves and pull on my earlobes. I don't want to do without my scarves, as I feel naked without them too. It is my trademark to wear scarves. All my necklaces are hanging on their hooks uselessly because I hardly ever wear them anymore, but maybe will again in the summertime. 

I'm not into necklaces right now, but you do go through phases like that when you like some accessories more than the others. I have periods that I'm really into my purses and change them all the time, but right now I just stick with the same one that's the most practical. I also used to like wearing rings and now I don't at all, though I saved all of them, of course, and there may come a day when I may want to wear them again. I also like bracelets, but not all the time, though I have quite a few of them. Right now I only like to wear my watch. 

I don't like much of anything at my wrists and I'm constantly pushing up the sleeves of whatever I wear, making my underarms bare. I feel I have more freedom then. I do pull them down again when I have to go outside and put my jacket on because I don't want to get cold. It's always pleasant enough inside, though, even though I only have the thermometer set at 19.5 Celsius. 

For some reason, it doesn't get cold in here and it is always at least 20C in here. I do have all the windows closed, so much cold air doesn't get in. I don't want to use much gas over the winter, so I want to use the heater frugally. I'll keep it set at the temperature it is now and see if that will suffice.

I have energy sufficient light bulbs in all the lamps now and try to keep as few burning as I can without letting it be dark and somber in here. I turn off unnecessary lights, without being neurotic about it. I don't want to live in a cave. I'm trying to leave a small carbon footprint, but it is economics that motivates me. I think in the end that's what's going to motivate everybody. Make things expensive and rare enough and everybody will do their best to live frugally. 

I think it's late enough to go to bed now. I'm looking forward to it. I'm all set to go and it will only take me a minute to get in it. I just have to take my medicines and brush my teeth. I will be in the land of comfort in no time.

Have a good night!

Ciao,
Nora