Blessings

Years ago, when I was in a deep depression, my pal R had me start writing down good things that happened to me.

Each day I was to write down anything that happened wherein I felt I had had help to get through a task or the day.

At the beginning, all I could manage to scribble down were things like "loaded the dishwasher" and "did a load of laundry." Because at that point in my life, I needed divine help to get those things done.

Within two weeks, I couldn't keep up with all the positive things that were flooding my life.

Despite still struggling with getting out of bed in the morning, still whining about having to take a shower, still at the bottom of the well in terms of my emotional reserves, I could not keep up with all the blessings I was receiving.

This was an exercise in bringing back my faith in Life. No matter how sick I was, I was still being blessed daily with numerous small miracles. I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I am still bombarded daily with divine help. Today one especially amazing item is flooding my soul to the point where I had to share it.

I'm knitting a dress for Daughter. We picked the project and color together. I'm taking a course so that I make it correctly, I'm taking all the time I need to do it properly.

As I wrote in an earlier blog, knitting is now something that soothes my soul. And this particular yarn is fit for the gods.

Extra-fine merino wool, silk, baby camel...

It floats on the air like dandelion fluff! It is the softest thing I have ever touched, and I've touched some pretty silky kitties in my time! It is as soft as eider down.

I can't believe I'm allowed to touch this stuff! I have to pinch myself when I think of how it will look on Daughter, that I will have been permitted by the universe to make something so beautiful.

I've never known anything so lovely that I had a hand in.

Decumulation

Decumulation - a word I had never heard before May of this year. It usually refers to the payout portion of one's pension savings. When you're working, you're a-cumulating. When you retire, you de-cumulate.

But decumulation has been on my mind since I learned it. I'm in the de-cumulating phase of my life, not just my pension!

I'm starting to let things go. Even lovely things that were gifts. Even things that were expensive. Even things I still cherish.

Not only is there no room here in this house for them, but I am acutely aware that in a limited amount of time I might be having to share a room with another old person and have one-half a closet and one set of drawers, and that'll be it for all my worldly belongings. Granted, I hope this won't happen for a number of (hopefully) healthy years! But, with Hubby being a hoarder, and the house being full of my Grandparents' stuff, and Stepkids' grandparents' stuff, and Daughter's stuff, and Hubby's stuff and Boyfriend's stuff...we're kind of packed to the gills, and could use a little breathing room!

But it's more than that on my mind lately. I've been decumulating some emotional baggage as well.

Some of the easiest feelings to let go involve failed relationships. Stuff I wish I had managed differently 30-50 years ago. See, with my mood disorder, the feelings stay fresh, like they just happened. I've been carrying around angst over poor choices for a long time, and I'm working very hard to let it go.

Harder than that though, is regret over harm I've caused. I always feel like I've just woken up and am pulling my head out of my arse and taking my first look at reality - the difference between what I was or was not thinking, and what I said and did.

Those are really hard to let go, because they were my fault, and no-one else's. I said and did hurtful things, no getting away from it. Grandpa used to say "word once spoken cannot be brought back with coach-and-six." For 30-40 years I've been trying to mentally make it better, replaying scenes where I caused someone pain, trying to change the ending. Nope, it doesn't work. I was a dick. And I can't undo it.

But I am trying to forgive myself and let it go. Because fretting over what I did in the past is only going to make me sicker, in which case I'll do something stupid again.

Hopefully I've learned from these mistakes. I can't fix them - lost friendships, relationships ruined - but I can manage not to make the same mistakes in the years I have left. I can be a better mother, friend, relative, wife.

It's very hard to forgive yourself when you were clearly in the wrong. But I must decumulate this baggage as well as the good stuff, or the weight of it will simply crush me.

A Generation Lost in the Kitchen

I got a good laugh out of this one. Kale was not in my supper bowl growing up. I think once we had Swiss Chard, but I didn't eat it. Beet tops once, also. Once was enough. I was over 25 before I was able to keep spinach down at all, even raw.

Beautiful Daughter, on the other hand, keeps encouraging me to eat Kale. And Arugula. And other unrecognizable leafy greens.

She eats this stuff - all the time! She calls it a "shake."

In MY day, a shake was a treat from Dairy Queen. It had ice cream in it, and if you were me, it had chocolate.

In HER day, a shake is based on a plant protein powder, leafy greens, some kind of fruit, ice cubes and water. It's green. It's thick.

It's revolting.

She drinks this for breakfast.

She loves it.

See, I like the IDEA of a shake for breakfast. As long as it's chocolate. Maybe fruity, but that's pushing it. Something packed full of protein that tastes like chocolate and coffee. Nice and thick! That would be my ideal breakfast shake!

I did confuse Daughter's Husband once, when I asked for a shake based on yogurt that included a raw egg. He couldn't get over the idea that an egg nog, which my Grandmother gave me for its nutritional value, could be anything other than the stuff we drink at Christmas. Wondered why I wanted to start getting drunk at breakfast. Couldn't see the point if no rum was involved!

But yogurt, fruit, milk, and a raw egg all blended together is nutritious, and tastes nowhere near as bad as this processed plant protein stuff they drink!

I must say though, that I am proud of Daughter and her Husband for trying to be healthy. They are trying. Working out at the gym, drinking this toxic green stuff, and pursuing their dreams.

I'm afraid my generation has a much more difficult time coming to terms with this plant-based-protein-gunpowder than hers does.

When my parents grew up, they were fed canned food, because the fashion at the time was to make sure food was "sterile."

In my childhood and adolescence, we learned about the dangers and evils of processed food. How canned veggies contained salt. How cereal contained sugar. How horrid chemicals that caused cancer, multiple sclerosis, and all sorts of dreadful ills were hidden within anything packaged. I learned to go to the market and buy fresh produce and fresh meat and prepare it all by hand, myself, because only then could I be sure of what was really in it.

This green gunk they drink is some of the most over-processed "food" on the planet! Plus, it tastes like mud to my ancient tastebuds. (Incidentally, my ancient tastebuds feel the same way about Ancient Grains. Keep your Quinoa, thank you very much.)

Yet I am confident that Daughter and her Husband will beat my life expectancy, and quality of life, by twenty years at least.

And that makes me feel good.

Safety Issue

Boyfriend: Why doesn't this gas valve underneath the trailer work?
Hubby: *gets out tools, hoses
Boyfriend: *gets out portable propane stove he wants to use outside the trailer. You know - the kind you can use on the picnic table.
Me: Just leave it the way it is. Use the portable stove on the picnic table.
Boyfriend: No - it might be a safety issue!

*much tinkering
Hubby: There's a valve under here...
Boyfriend: Yes, I know, but when you connect it, there's no "pshhhht!"
Hubby: The valve is open. Give me your patant from your stove.
Boyfriend: *gets portable propane stove connector.

*connector being attached.

Hubby: That's no good - we need a valve that will let us let some gas out. Go get the propane torch I use for plumbing and unscrew the valve from that.
Boyfriend: I don't know what you're talking about or where to find it.

Hubby *climbs up from under trailer, shambles off to get the valve off his propane torch.

Me: Just LEAVE IT! Use the stupid stove on the picnic table!

Boyfriend, Hubby: NO!

Hubby comes back with the valve from his torch and the sparker.

Neighbour, walking by with his dog: Something exciting going on?
Me: Boyfriend has just opened the gas and Hubby is trying to light a spark at the other end.
Neighbour: *keeps on walking, a little quicker

Hubby: There's gas! Did you hear that?
Me: Unfortunately
Boyfriend: No.

Hubby: *keeps trying to light the end of the valve with the sparker.
Hubby: *keeps trying
Hubby: *keeps trying
Hubby: No there doesn't seem to be any gas escaping at all. [Editorial note: I guess it wasn't a safety issue after all!]

Much clutter being picked up, coiled up, put away.

How's retirement, you ask? Well, tonight my two *smart men* tried to blow up the trailer we just bought!

How was YOUR evening?!

The Too-Much-Food Diet

Beautiful Daughter has me on a diet.

(Well, thank goodness SOMEONE put me on one!)

There are a few principles with this diet. First, you don't go more than 2 hours without shoving some kind of protein in your mouth. This apparently gets the body to understand that no, you are not starving to death, today or any day, and that it does not need to convert any part of what you are eating into fat.

Second, you eat healthy stuff. Like greens. All kinds of greens. Not as much as you want - waaaaaayyyyyy more than you want!

Complex carbohydrates. They take a lot of calories to digest! And give you practically nothing in return except vitamins.

This morning's breakfast menu read:

3-egg omelet with potato latke
3 eggs, 1/2 cup mushrooms, 1 cup spinach 1/4 onion

1 large potato grated with skin, fried

So I cheated a tiny bit. I mixed some of the beaten eggs in with the potato and added 1 tablespoon of flour and a bit of the onion. I fried it without fat in a non-stick pan and it came out beautifully.

But I think maybe my large potato is a bit larger than Daughter's potatoes! This is a full-size frying pan!

(I did NOT eat the whole thing. I cut it in four and am freezing the other 3 sections.)

Oh, and grating potato first thing in the morning lends a whole new meaning to the phrase "with skin!"

Anyway, omelet was made, and I dutifully set about trying to eat the thing. Dear god, I'm so full I could barf!

I know this is the point of this "diet," but it does seem so counter-intuitive! I cannot move, even to clean up the dishes, because I'm so stuffed, which is why I'm sitting writing a blog while my gorge goes down! Dog and I might even have a waddle, as soon as I can move without throwing up.

I don't know if I'll have enough room in 2 hours for the snack of 5oz of yogurt with 1/2 cup of blueberries!

Apparently this is going to make me lose weight.

Our Daily Bread

When I was a teenager, and a born-again, there was a small devotional pamphlet that was making the circles of christians in this part of the world, called "Our Daily Bread."

The concept being that a daily devotion would help one become a "better" christian.

I did my best, but there was always a part of me that rebelled against being ordered to do something every day of my life. It was one of the weakest links in my spirituality, which I finally worked out had been imposed on me without my consent from day one; and it was the first thing to go when I started to examine my life and beliefs.

My spirituality - my own spirituality, my own journey - the one that came from my heart, from my innermost being, and grew outwards, said "you do not have to believe any particular thing; you do not have to practice any particular thing; you do not have to associate with any particular group of people." The flip side of which is: "I can believe what grows from within; I can practice that which moves me; I can love and associate freely with those who resonate with me."

That's my kind of religion! But I digress...

Within every religious or spiritual group I have learned about, there still exists this concept, that to be a "better" whatever, one needs to "practice" something every day.

This still doesn't resonate with me. It still feels like something imposed from outside.

But then something happened that caused me to understand on a personal level where this daily practice thing probably came from, helped me to see it from a different angle.

I learned to knit. Rather strangely, actually - from a recurring dream. Every night for four nights I had a dream where I would see one knitting needle and some yarn being cast on. About five stitches would cast on, slowly enough that I could see and understand what was happening with the knot, then the dream would reset and start again.

On the fifth morning I got up, found a barbecue skewer and some string, and tried it. It worked, and now I have a whole other place to spend my money!

Hats, scarves, and now socks aside, this new passion started something of an internal process in me that went like this:

Over my morning coffee (which is absolutely sacred!) I would pick up my knitting and get some rows in, either just a couple of rows if I had a day that began early, or dozens of rows, if I had time to spare.

But in either case, it was ME TIME. Time for me to be alone, without distractions like things I was supposed to do, things people wanted of me, television on, animals to tend...This was only for ME. It was mine alone, my special time to do what moved me, to do something that gave me pleasure, and it came first. Before the day got away from me.

First thing. Every day.

And I loved it. It was nourishing my soul.

And then I made the connection. This "zen-and-the-art-of-knitting" thing was a daily practice, and it was feeding my soul, in a way that no bible study, no daily reading of any type of spiritual book, no attempt at daily prayers, had done.

So now, when my brain starts to surface after my second coffee (there's a joke somewhere in there about the "second coming...") and after a few rows, I wonder in amazement that everything in the universe has conspired to bring this yarn, this beautiful, colorful, soft, superwash yarn, to my fingers. All the animals that have been raised for their wool. All the techniques from the days of cave dwellers through to today's methods for bringing this long staple wool for me to knit something for the people I love...what an amazing process and journey! I marvel at the steel needles in my hands and how soft the wool is and this gift of such pleasure that sprang from my own dreams... I thank the lady Universe for bringing it to me, for allowing me to make something, for giving me this time to myself, where it can be just the Universe and me, having coffee, being at peace, getting ready to face the day.

This then, is the source of the concept of a daily devotion: something that resonates with the individual, that gives them inner peace, that creates a sense of gratitude, of amazement at this marvelous world, of pure pleasure at being allowed to participate in life. Whatever one's religion or spirituality is called, this is the thing we are driven to seek.

A moment alone with the universe.

The Wrinklies

The Wrinklies: Superbeings of the Aged

These Aged Avengers protect the world… well, they wander it, anyway…Using their amazing superpowers to annoy the innocent and confound evildoers everywhere they go, just going about their business! None of them asked for these powers, they simply lived long enough to obtain them! They are Evolutionaries! And they are inescapable! 

Crochetina: Your granny would be proud! Crochetina spins her webs like spiderman, wrapping her prey up in webs of doilies, with the added superpower of shoving her needles in their eyes! Beware – she has an unlimited supply and travels at lightning speed along her yarns!

The Blank When he enters a room, everybody slowly becomes confused and forgets what they were doing, why they were there, when they’re supposed to leave, where they’re supposed to be next, and how they’re getting from this place to the next – wherever that is!  Beware The Blank – he’ll make you forget everything – right down to who you are!

Ammoniac: This innocent-looking sweet old lady is anything but harmless! When deployed, her superpower is deadly! She walks into the room full of people, and the miasma from her ammonia-filled underwear creeps out into the air…Beware! One whiff of this, and you either run, or you’ll drop like a stone!

These are just a few of the worldwide wonderfolk known as The Wrinklies – and they’re coming for you – sooner than you think!

The Trailer, the Car, and the Hitch

With retirement just a few short days away, A and I embarked on an "adventure."

We decided we both enjoyed camping...but...

Neither of us enjoyed a half-mile walk to the bathrooms in the middle of the night, or its alternative, peeing one's pjs in the bushes hoping not to step in poison ivy or startle a skunk...

Neither of us enjoyed the long setup that came with the "pop-up" trailer - which, incidentally, is ANYTHING BUT pop-up! It's "lie on the ground and don't hit yourself in the head with the jack, get up again to make sure the door opens, lie down again and lower the roof, don't forget to level the trailer using pads and blocks of wood, and one leg is stuck..." sort of sweaty action done in the summer heat with the mosquitos feasting happily...

(Not that I ever did that kind of work, you understand. THAT job has "man" written all over it!)

Having to wait till everyone in the campground has had a shower...buying ice every day...hoping the roof won't leak...

Hmm. I don't seem to be painting a very pleasant picture of our only "sporting" activity here!

So we made a decision: we decided to sell the pop-up and get a real trailer.

One with a bathroom, shower, large refrigerator, double sink, three-burner stove, oven, and heated beds.

And air conditioning.

We were over the moon that we could afford it! (Well, ask me in ten years if we could afford it, anyway!)

Then all we needed was a vehicle to pull it.

And that's where everything bogged down.

See, we were focused on towing capacity. Based solely on towing capacity, we bought a beautiful car, a 2016 Kia Optima - Hybrid, no less! Heated everything, backup camera, double sun roof, new car smell. One owner. In absolutely beautiful condition.

It brought us SUCH joy! For a couple of days anyway, till we worked it out that towing capacity is meaningless with regards to hitches and trailers.

You have to have the structure in the vehicle. Not all hitches are equal. We quickly learned we'd have to give up the Optima if we wanted the trailer, and go bigger.

Which was a sad week for us, because we felt we'd made a boo-boo that would cost megabucks to put to rights, because the car the dealer now put on hold for us was older, had fewer bells and whistles, and guzzled gas like there was no tomorrow.

But last night it finally all came together, and we now have a 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe sitting in the driveway. With a class 2 hitch on it.

And we're off to talk to the trailer people today.

So it looks like it's finally going to come true!

Wish us luck!

Men and Laundry

I can hear the groaning from here...

Well, I'm certainly groaning! Once again, a "smart man" has buggered up the laundry, and I'm STILL not allowed to complain!

See, I hurt my back the other day, and wasn't able to:

1. bend down
2. lift anything
3. go up and down stairs

This mean that my Significant Other "A" was obliged to do the laundry that had accumulated for one week.

Disaster was averted in moments when I asked him about my blue wool sweater - he ran back down and took it out of the dryer and hung it up - whew!

Then I specifically asked him to look at me and said these words:

"In the washer right now is my grey sweater with the cats and rhinestones on it. Please don't put that in the dryer - the rhinestones will fall off."

My Smart Man agreed wholeheartedly that this was sensible and he would most certainly hang it to dry.

So...late last night I got this folded up with the stuff that had been dried in the dryer:

See the cats? See the rhinestones? See the color?

What I did find hanging on the line this morning was...wait for it...

A BLUE top with gold flecks on in. No rhinestones.

I mean, S E R I O U S L Y !!!!!

And I'm not allowed to complain! Because Significant Other "A" was doing me a favour! Oh yes, all his stuff got washed too, but that's beside the point.

I mean, are ALL men blind?

Grey. Cats. Rhinestones.

Sheesh.