Foot Hurts

I guess I really have to give in and go to the doctor about this silly footsie of mine.

I didn't have anything to do today but sit at home and knit! :-D It was WONDERFUL!!!

I made a really skinny long scarf out of red Sensations Bedazzle, some really cool yarn that I've had for a while, and I added about 8" on my black and fun fur thing. So, I worked on two things that don't have any recipients, and neglected the projects that people are WAITING for...

Today I want to be an Early Childhood Intervention teacher, like Penny is. And I wanted to be that since Thursday. A whole week of the same future! This is almost unheard of. We'll see where I go from here.

I need some serious motivation, FAST. Like, a swift kick in the butt or something. I feel like giving up. ONLY six months. ONLY six months. Then money.... Why aren't I motivated about all that?

If I want to do EDI, I have to take another 12 hours. But hey, then there might be something that I LIKE doing waiting for me.

Home Again, Home Again

This morning I laid in bed with Roxie for a long time, petting her. She was snuggled up next to my stomach, so that we could feel each other breathing.

This evening I made cupcakes and Carlyn made frosting.

I am tired. This blog is tired, too.

As soon as "Batman Returns" is over I'm going to bed.

Names

I love Madeleine L'Engle's name. I love how monks rename themselves for their new lives, and how at baptism you take on the name "Christian."

Just now I sat in front of my computer screen for thirty minutes trying to come up with a name for myself on yahoo chat. I can't think of a single thing that is unique enough to create a name about. Years ago, I was sh_veggie. But I can't define myself tonight. Except by Roxie, and that seems sad. Or knitting, and that seems sadder. Roxie ate my favorite shoes while I was gone, apparently. Now they're gone. Everything is gone except for her. Sometimes the only way I can define my future is through her. Her energy gives me hope. She gets me out of bed. She defines me and my life.

(I suppose I defined Roxie though. Natural ears and tail because I didn't crop or dock them. Purple collar. Attitude that I chose not to crush into scared submission. "Roxanne" because she's red and the first time I met her my friend and I sang "Roxanne" to her. How would she be different if I'd named her something plainer like "Girl" or more foofie like "Queenie"?)

But if I could brand myself, how would I do it? I couldn't just now, so I gave up chatting for the evening. I just really can't figure out how to define who I am. I want to be ordinary, but I don't feel like I'm that either.

Maybe I'm not really brandable. I wonder could brand me. I'm not really a "Tech" girl. I'm not a "vegetarian." I'm not someone's mother or someone's girlfriend. I feel like I'm everyone's daughter and sister. These are good things, I know.

It seems stupid to brand myself as an "animal lover." People laugh at that. But maybe I'm that person, too: I like to make people laugh. Why can't I define myself? I've never wanted to be a person who couldn't define who they were and what they believed and who they wanted to be. But tonight, and a lot lately, I feel a little adrift. It's just too overwhelming, all this figuring out who I am and what I'm going to be. And it's overwhelming watching everyone else define themselves. Why is life coming together around me and mine still stretches on before me like a forest full of trees, so that I can't see any path at all?

At the funeral, Mimi was named "Queen Mother."

How can I be named?

My Future Is Laid Out Before Me, & It Smells Like Dogs

I am going to be the maiden aunt. With a bunch of dogs and cats. Who never gets married but lavishes expensive gifts on her beloved nieces and nephews. And that’s OK. Really. I’m looking forward to it.

I’m so glad that everyone around me has their lives working out. I’ve been worrying about them, and things are good. People are getting married, getting good jobs and dogs and puppies and children. And I’m so happy to see things working out around me.

There’s only the teeniest part of me that wonders why things AREN’T working out for me, why I finally get enough money to pay my new house’s rent for July and then I get a speeding ticket. 52 in a 40. I don’t understand why.

I killed my virtual Chia Pet because I didn’t water it. Seriously, if I kill VIRTUAL pets, how can I keep a GARDEN alive. I don’t like plants. They’re so delicate and PICKY.

Gripe, gripe, gripe. And a sigh. And a positive thought to go to bed on: Carlyn is caring for my Roxie-pooh better than I do when I’m at home.

And by the way, there is nothing stranger than riding along as a nanny with your ex-boyfriend’s family to a funeral. Really. That deserves an entire memoir all to itself.

Another Pillow Down

And this time NOT MY FAULT!!!

I blame CARLYN for leaving her own pillow down while watching Roxie. Haha!

18 down.

King of the Hill Thoughts

Hank: Bobby, you can't be a Buddhist, we're Methodist.
Bobby: I've been meaning to ask you: what is Methodist?
Minister: Methodism is a rejection of Calvinism.
Hank: You see, Bobby, you can't be the Lama.

Some words of wisdom from "King of the Hill."

Character

It's not often that you are in a room with the two people who possibly hate you the most in the entire world. I mean, one person is rare enough. But, as a friend said, "it builds character." So I stayed in the room, and it wasn't that bad. I don't hate them. I think THAT'S the important part. As long as I am OK with myself, I am OK in the room with anybody. Like Elinor Roosevelt's over-quoted "No one can make you feel inferior without your permission."

But it's hard.

Why do I have to keep on making everything really difficult? Then, I have to push through it and "build character." I'm tired of character. I want to be a selfish rich person.

And it's raining, so I might melt if I go get a coke. Poo poo on that. I'm staying in with Roxie. No more character for me.

Dying

I've always thought that death really can't be all that bad, or it wouldn't happen to all of us. I mean, the really good ones would live forever, maybe, or float off into space, waving happily back at all of the rest of us. There are all sorts of better ways to "go" than to DIE. Rapture. Chariots of Fire. Walking with God off into the sunset.

But no. We have to die.

As an artist, I have to say that this ending doesn't show that much creativity on God's part.

And it sure hurts everyone else left behind.

I Love My Sweet Dog

We went to a friend's house tonight, and Roxie was affectionate, and gave kisses, and didn't bother the cats TOO much.

No cable until next Monday! That's the earliest they can come out. How will I survive? I'll blog a lot. And play with the dog. And knit. And paint. Hmm... no cable ever?

I called everywhere begging for them to take the cat today...apparently all of the shelters are full. I'll keep calling. I can be persistant. I really DON'T want to take her to the pound so that she gets put to sleep.

Why are people on TV so thin? I thought the camera was supposed to add ten pounds. Am I honestly going to believe that these people are ten pounds skinnier then they look? I'd like to have a gap between my thighs, too. Then I'd cut my hair very short and dye it blond. And look like my skinny mother did in college instead of the scary lump I am right now... Not for long! I'm in a great group with my friends and we're all going to be skinny women!

World's Longest Scarf!

Oh so cool:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5051546.stm

And I know that I'm not the only one who'll appreciate it. THAT'S some knitting.

And the fun blog I read it on:
http://scrubberbum.typepad.com/

Some Notes For Today

I made this logo (it will change and get better) for our new University/Youth hot spot upstairs at church: "The Parking Lot." We're starting work on it, and it's going to be GREAT, a place to come do homework, hang out between classes, and drink coffee. We're redoing the whole room. My contribution is going to be a logo and some signs... ;-)


At work, we got permission to make our full-color newsletter that I've worked so hard on. And I'm becoming a BULK MAIL expert. I've read the USPS's book pretty thoroughly... This has to be useful for something.

CAT UPDATE:
She made a break for it around 10:00 tonight, somehow getting out of the bathroom and out of the door and hiding under a chair while Roxie barked bloody murder. Caught! She didn't really want to run away anyhow. I'm calling some animal groups tomorrow since there's no bite on a home for her and she has to be gone before I go help Dad and Shirley and Zach move in this weekend. I am not attaching myself to her. She has no name. We are spending NO BONDING TIME together. 5 minutes, to get food, that's all.

A Long Day and No Place To Lay My Weary Head

I don't have a pillow to sleep on this evening. The dog ate mine. 17 pillows down. And I need to rewind a BUNCH of yarn. She wreaked total havoc while I was at Rebecca's birthday party. TOTAL HAVOC. My house looks like it imploded.

And she ate a TEA BAG. Why? Why eat a tea bag? That can't have tasted good. That is MAJOR boredom.

I need to NEVER leave my house in a hurry. I need to always spend lots of time with Roxie. Every day.

Zach's blanket is steadily growing! I'm on the SECOND stripe!!! (Luckily it was in the front house and didn't get eaten.)

Cat update: Still happy, eating a lot. A few people at church today thought that they might be able to help find her a home. Yay! I knew I wasn't being totally silly. Carlyn is majorly helping with her...she's such a good roomie! May have cat pictures tomorrow.

Here's a sign that I made a couple weeks ago for Faries and her cute little rat terrier, Otis:

(The blurriness is the bad photographer (me) and not the painting...)

Stray Cat

I am in the hole -- I have no money.

There was a stray cat on Austin's porch tonight. I tried to leave her. She wouldn't be left. She's beautiful, black and white long hair, has had kittens recently. She would NOT leave us or Austin's porch. She is only bones...

I was afraid that the cat would fall victim to blow-gun practice, as other cats on that porch have before.

So I took up donations ($8.50!) and took her home, where I had a cat carrier, cat food, and cat litter already from past strays and a house cat. She is residing in the bathroom. I haven't spent any of the money on her yet.

OH PLEASE someone reading this want a beautiful, sweet, YOUNG, female cat. I'll drive her anywhere. She probably just needs a good flea dip, a rabies shot, spaying, and lots of food and love.

I almost left her, truly, and I've left 3 cats this month, but this one WOULD NOT be left.

Mom, Dad, please don't be mad at me--neither one of you have a real cat... Want one?

A Not-So-Dark Day

SUCH A GOOD DAY!

Tonight my friends and I went out to the restaurant/winery with Rebecca and her mom. Her mother treated us to all sorts of delights in honor of Rebecca's birthday--wine, fruit and cheese, dessert. Rebecca looked beautiful. The food was delicious, the company better, and the laughter flowing.

We meet at a nursery for class tomorrow. Should be fun.

I like all these artsy-fartsy things. I was born to be an aristocrat, but unfortunately the inheritance didn't follow.

My sister and her boyfriend should be engaged soon!!! Here's a picture of them, back at Christmas. I'M SO HAPPY FOR THEM!!!

Tired, But Not Giving Up

It's so hard to remember that having depression is just like having your arm cut off, EXCEPT you can't see it...

It's so much easier to feel sorry for yourself and lie in bed and wish that life wasn't so overwhelming.

I was doing so good at being pro-active. It's just so TIRING. I'm not really a pro-active person. I'd rather wait for things to come to me.




(AND MOM, I know you're reading this because you're the only person who actually reads my blog, YES I am fine. Don't worry about me. I'm over-exaggerating because it makes me feel better.) :-)

Boys and Puppy Dogs

I was going through the photo albums from last year at work today and *BAM* there was a picture of an ex-boyfriend. Shouldn't have been a big deal--I haven't even seen him in MONTHS, but it surprised me. And what a great picture! He was standing there in his ambulance, surrounded by kids. He looked oh so happy, so much happier than he ever did in pictures with me. And how telling, how wonderful! He now can be that, can be just happy all the time. I haven't seen any pictures of him lately, but I like to imagine him happy in them, just like I see happiness in my pictures lately.

It is hard to acknowledge that you made someone you love miserable. And really hard to understand, even hard for me to understand as a member of the miserable relationship.

But it's good to have gone through it all. It is good to live through anything, and to be continually growing.

I, too, will be very happy with someone else someday.

But for now, I am very happy with my beautiful dog. She keeps me going. She comforts me. She challenges me to get out of bed every day. And coincidently, she was a gift from the man in the picture. BUT beyond that, she is MINE. She sits on my feet when my friends visit. She lays beside me, curved into me, on the outside so that she can look out the window to protect me. She tears up my junk mail and bad pictures and things that I hate. (She tears up things that I like, too, but oh well.) She jumps up beside me when I come home and rubs her nose all over me until I pet her and nuzzle her back. I've always been a cat person until I got this dog. She truly is the love of my life, and I don't feel any negative feelings at all saying that. She's saved my life. (But that's a story for another day.)

After a 12 Hour "Nap"

Everything seems SO much better! (Except my stomach hurts, but that's probably residual from the MASSIVE headache I had yesterday).

I closed my eyes at 8:00 last night, woke up at 3am and turned off all of the lights, and woke up now (7:45) to a new outlook. I'm cleaning this morning, since class A has been canceled. (And nursing my poor little tummy--perhaps 3 Ibuprofen WERE too many). THEN I'm going to call the cable company and get my cable fixed! YAY!!!

Roxie is a wonderful, sweet, affectionate, darling little thing, and I'm so glad that she puts up with me not treating her like a proper dog.

I'm going to go knit while my clothes are in the dryer.

Everything is Wilting, Including Me

Does death follow me? Is this why I work at a hospice? Is this why plants wilt when they see me coming?

My cable is dead for the second time in as many weeks. And my house is a pit, so I have to clean my house so that the cable guy can come. You know, it might be rather appalling for him to come in and see dead bugs. And what does that mean about a house when even the BUGS are dead?

The air-conditioning unit is dying, too. It keeps going off and then coming back on and then fading and then getting stronger. It's really hot in the house, but it's hotter outside, so...

Roxie is making a ruckus outside, and I don't care. OK, I do, but for personal, selfish reasons. Not because I care about the neighbors.

My Dobersaurus Strikes Again

The weekend's over. Sigh. :-)

April will be back in Lubbock in a week and a half! Yay!

See at left. While I was in the shower, Roxie tore a hole in my newest pillow (it lasted almost 2 weeks). I CAUGHT her this time, though. She seemed appropriately submissive after being yelled at...but will probably do it again. In fact, there is no doubt in my mind that she will do it again. The pillow was salvageable with a little thread and a needle, so I didn't have to spend the $5 to get another pillow.

No knitting this weekend, but I did paint two signs (photos to come). Then Roxer demolished the rest of my wood supply from Dennis, so I won't be making any more signs for a while.

If I hadn't microchipped Roxie, I could sell her to some gypsies for a profit.

"Dark Day"

I used to have these days in high school that I called "dark days" because my outlook was so dim to begin with and it only got dimmer as the day went on. Today was like that.

I have such good friends: Faries, Carlyn, Rebecca. Such a good church. Such a good, well, such a um, DOG.

A free Mary Kay pedicure today, so I have pretty toes and new flower flip flops. (If I had a camera, I'd take a picture...)

Roxie's weird bruise-pocket thing is still the same. I hope we don't have to put a drain in: $$$. At least it's not infected.

My day started with burying Nila. Which was like what burying a dog always is like. Then the day got better. We played with the darling puppies. Two are adopted! Yay! Cute Shiba Inu & Mini Schnauzer mixes (yes, it's very odd, if you know either breed). They have the funniest wirey hair. Now there's only Betony (Tony) and Raygun to be adopted. Raygun weighs 32 pounds already!!! He's a great guy, though. And Tony is so shy and yet really affectionate. Tony's the only picture I can find: They're finally all neutered so they can go as soon as they find someone to be their owner.

I really need to find a job that pays for me to play with dogs and tell the public about them...

(MY WEIGHT: 160 lbs. Oh God. I'm almost to where I was when I lost all that weight. I need to do something. Very badly.)

A Poem From the Church Newsletter

This is so good. (Except it reminds me of my entomology class, and that was rather unpleasant...) By Mary Oliver.

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean --
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down --
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thouroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through
the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?


What is it that I plan to do? I would like to have a wild and precious life.
(I have to go help dig a grave for one of the sanctuary dogs tomorrow. That's one wild and precious life. Remember Nila, the sweet, beautiful yellow lab who never got adopted into a real home.)

Thoughts on Strangenesses

Well I'm exhausted. But the first week of school is over! And the newsletter at work is almost finished (another week before we get the published 11,000 puppies and a week after than until the GIANT mail-out, but still...)--it looks pretty darn good, too. Lots of improvements this time.

I stopped by Starbucks this morning and picked up an application for a job--at this point ANY job will do, especially one that could complement Hospice at nights. The funny thing about Starbucks is that there was a guy there that I kinda dated a little bit. It's always strange to run into people out of context, and stranger to think of working with them in a different context altogether.

I spent a happy morning in class today drawing leaves. I'm going to make a flower garden in the bed in front of our house, I think. I was impressed with myself and how many plants I knew and what I knew about them. When did I learn that Central Park was a garden? Or how to identify Silverleaf Nightshade and Verbena? Or that tomatoes, too, were a Nightshade? I guess I absorbed a lot through my little farm living. Class has been at Lubbock Lake Landmark, and that's an interesting place. I wonder what people 100 years ago would have thought if they knew that we would be trying to RESTORE the prairie lands to their original shape -- the "gardeners" of this site are pulling OUT mesquite trees and planting prairie grasses and flowers. It's odd that there have to be "gardeners" to return a place to its natural shape. Odd what we've done to the earth. Lubbock Lake Landmark is the oldest continuously inhabited place in North America. Odd, too, that Lubbock would be the oldest place here. Who EVER wanted to live here? I feel connected to GENERATIONS of young adults now...

I'm off to SLEEP If I have to sleep for 12 hours starting at 8:00, I WILL. Tomorrow is a long day, too. I'm working on the newsletter all weekend.

Peas, Newsletters, and Dreams

It's newsletter crunch time at Hospice again! I'm taking the opportunity, as I set margins and fix typos and add clip art, to work on boundaries. The newsletter IS important to me, but the Art of Gardening is more important, Roxie more important still, and my mental health the MOST important. A hard lesson.

I've been having the strangest dreams during my four to five hours of sleep a night. I do a lot in them. Mostly eating. Or ordering food (after a long decision-making process), and then waking up before I get to eat it. It's all very disappointing.

My homework tonight is to draw a detailed vegetable, like a tomato or an apple. I think I'll rebel and draw a pea. They're all round, anyway.

A brief update:
Roxie walk status--fair.
Boundary at work status--fair.
Attending class status--VERY GOOD. (Hey, it's only been 2 days!)
Healthy eating status--very poor.
Homework status--incomplete.
Overall mental status--fair to good

Knitting is good for my psychological being. I think I'll finish up those booties. Maybe the pea drawing will help, too.