Clown Car

Every time I see a Smart car I think of a clown car in the circus.. how many clowns can you jam into it?  Well, only two clowns in this one.  We got a second car, a Smart ForTwo Passion (gas powered, 5 speed automatic).  It's a 2008 but only has 60,000 kilometers in excellent condition. It took a bit of getting used to but now we both love it.  Also gotta love how fuel efficient it is.

The one constant

In this ever-changing world of ours there is one thing that I can count on that makes my day feel "normal"... I hate housework... not a mamby-pamby dislike but a passionate hate!!!  I can always count on that feeling when I pick up a broom or a dish cloth.  Now, I blame it on the fact that the cyst in my spine makes it very uncomfortable for me to sweep (for some reason that particular activity causes me the most pain) but I don't know.. I think that pain is my body saying "F*ck this shit, let's sit down and put our feet up bitch."..

And since we have decided to put our house up on the market in the next year or so I realized that we are slobs, complete and utter slobs (animals included).  The real estate agent came to give us an idea what we needed to do to get the house ready and his suggestion that we "de-clutter" sent a shaft of terror right to my heart. Mind you, I got my bedroom done lickety-split because I moved the clutter from there to the room right next to it, the computer room where junk goes to die.  It doesn't help that hubby and I are both hoarders and the dog has a huge collection of stuffed toys that she has to drag, one by one, to the door whenever she needs to go and do her business.

I keep telling hubby that all the work he did on the house over the years and we finally have it the way we want it and now we're selling.  Doesn't make sense to me or my screwed up back.  It would be nice to release some of what I have been holding on to over the years but the whole moving thing is such a pain, literally and figuratively.  And I don't know how our yappy little dog will take to being around people all day, she was raised in the country where we very very seldom have company so she is very protective of her personal space.  Molly, the cat, on the other hand, is pretty laid back as cats tend to be and she could live anywhere.

Lesson Learned

I learned a lesson today that I should always have a video camera at the ready in case something surprising, cute, amazing or,
like this morning, something that is all of the above should happen.

This morning I took our dog, Tinka, for her usual walk and neglected to take my camera (I had a feeling I might regret it but didn't
go back for it because I wanted to be on my way.). We get to our neighbour's barn where they keep their horses and low and behold the
sweetest, tiniest little kitten came toddling out of the barn and over to Tinka. I know from having a cat of our own that Tinka loves
all cats although some don't like to be approached by her. So I let Tinka go over to the kitten to greet it but I kept a tight hold on
her leash in case I had to pull her away.

What happened next melted my heart and made me curse myself for not going back to get the above stated camera. The kitten was rubbing
on Tinka and pushed her face into Tinka's and Tinka was nuzzling, licking and generally pouring love all OVER that kitten. I thought
that we would have that tiny little ball of pure awesomeness following us home but she was busy eating when we left.
*note to self** never leave home without my camera!!

Self Blocking

Why is it that I always have such an active mind?  I'm always wanting to do or learn something different than what I'm doing.  Like right now I'm working on counted cross stitching of a complicated pair of wolves.  I know that it's going to take me a long time to finish and after picking it up again after Christmas this year I was able to finish one square (there are four large squares and four half sized blocks on one side of each square) .. I know it will take me as much as a year to finish so it's an on-going project but my wandering mind is wanting to do something else.  I was into beading, that has kind of went by the wayside, I did a bunch of knitting and that is by the wayside as well, and then I started using Blender to make a digital teddy bear and all of these were, I think, to take me away from my painting.. I think that the reason that I'm not sticking with one craft or art is that if I get really good I think that I will start getting commissions from people and that will make my art a job and will squash my creativity.  Ahhh the self blocking of the troubled mind.

The Sound of the Opposite of Silence

Why is it, that in day to day life, I find it hard to understand what most people are saying, but while watching TV I have to put it on mute when the commercials come on because the sound seems so blaring and unbearably loud?  Alternately, when the program comes on I have to blast the sound so that I can hear what people are saying? A riddle that is.

Denial

   I don't always go down the road into denial land, but when I do it's not a meandering short stroll, it's a headlong, full speed ahead rush. And it's not a day trip.. oh no, it's a multiple months' long journey.

  In October of last year I was at the Doctor's for my quarterly diabetes check up and was told my weight was up a bit as well as my A1C's.   So instead of putting on my big girl panties and making adjustments in my eating, etc,  I decided to get my big girl panties in a bunch and turned my back on reality and even sanity itself.  How can a relatively intelligent woman of 62 be so stupid and destructive you might ask?  Well it ain't easy but I persevered.  I went off of my diet, started eating all the wrong foods and was stupid enough to quit taking my Victoza injections.  Yeah, that stupid.  And the cherry on top is that since October I haven't been checking my blood sugars.

   Lucky for me I had the balls to keep my appointment, a few weeks ago, for my blood test and last week for my appointment.  The news wasn't good, I had gained around 5 pounds and my A1C's were bad, very bad.  Normal  blood sugars are usually between 5 and 7-8.  When I got home I checked mine, finally, and they were 16, later that day they were 17 and that night they were 20!!! I was panicked... This is serious business, not to be fooled with.  All the bread, sweets and candy were wrecking havoc with my blood sugars.

   I finally opened my eyes and am making the slow, painful journey back from the brink.  I have an appointment with the nurse from the Diabetes Association a week from Tuesday and I have started my injections again and am watching what I am eating.  I might have been stupid but a least  I didn't STAY stupid.  I'm getting some better reading, with a reading of 8.5 yesterday before supper and today I even had a 7.7 before lunch and an 8.3 after.  But now that my sugars are down so much I'm feeling like they are too low and have been feeling shaky and off.    Although I still have a ways to go I'm hoping that I didn't do any permanent damage to myself.

I have an appointment at the ophthalmologist on Monday so here's hoping that my eyes are ok.  God watches out for the insane and little children or so they say.



   

Cats.. gotta love'em

You gotta love cats.. how, when you move in for a snuggle, they make little chirping sounds in the back of their throats, and head butt you, then touch noses.  And when you go to walk away you notice, out of the corner of your eye, that they are cleaning every place on their body where your hands happened to touch them.

Enough is Never Enough

Enough is Never Enough

In this money driven world
Where happiness is supposed to come
From the accumulation of wealth, and instead
Feeds the insane hunger
Where enough is never enough.

Where the throw-away society
Strips our earth
And strips our very souls
Of the true wealth,
Our very humanity.

Where Government corruption
And Corporate greed
Drives the few
In their golden carriages
Over the many.
Where the streets are paved
With the poor.

Where enough is never enough.
Where the evil of money
Plummets us towards
The abyss of swirling destruction

Where slavery to the imaginary dollar
Drives us to an early grave
For what?

So that we can line the pockets
Of the rich, while our earth
Caves inward from the pollution?
From the oppression?
From the bone crushing debt?

The true insanity
Where the earth finally dies
And the person
With the biggest cars,
The biggest mansions
And the biggest bank account
Wins?

How can this be considered sane?
How can this be considered desirable?
Why are these people running our world?
Why aren't our voices being heard?
How did it get so out of whack?

How can we,
As a sane, caring people
Of this bountiful, beautiful
Wondrous earth
Pull ourselves upwards and
Back from the downward pull?
How can we reclaim
And reconnect with nature?

How can we disconnect
From what has become "normal"?
How can we take the blinders off
And truly see?

When will we pull back the curtain
And see money for what it really is?
A chain connected to the
Giant machine of oppression!

What would it feel like
To be free?
To have a world without money?
To respect the earth,
To let it heal itself
And continue to provide us
With what we need
Not what we want?

What would it feel like,
To feed the world easily
To return humanity
It's pride
It's joy
It's respect
It's love and light?

What would it be like,
To have a society
Where every man
Where every woman
Where every child
Feels like they belong?
Where they can contribute
To the betterment of all?
Where they count?

What would the world feel like
If the other is viewed as the insanity
And a free world would be considered
The norm?
How would that feel?

-Kathryn DesRoches