Monthly Archives: January 2012

Life’s too short to stay with someone who doesn’t cherish you

I spent an hour today talking with a friend who dearly loves his wife of 28 years and is tired of her running him ragged because nothing he does is ever good enough. She always wants more, more, more. To keep the peace he says nothing. I could not live like that.   And to stay with someone because if you divorce they will take everything you’ve worked for your whole life, why do people think they have to live like that?  I say let them take it, consider it a fair parting gift for your freedom.  I consider it an honor when someone mistreats me. Rejection is protection. There’s no clearer exit sign.  On Facebook, gal pal and artist Jane Taylor wrote: “Reminds me of the old folk tale of the fisherman who caught a magic fish that could grant wishes, and first his wife told him to ask it for a cottage, then a castle, then a kingdom...”   Her story reminds me of the wife who complained of no room in their small cottage so the husband moved in the goat and the cow and the chickens and then moved them out one by one. She loved her big place afterward. I wonder if his wife would give permission for him to go on a camping trip to the Smokies with me?

As a journalist, of course I spin the media

Givin’ it a spin

Those who write the news put their slant on the news.  They can spin their words to suit their audience. As a journalist, I recognize the hype. Journalists, by definition, put information in their own words and make it creative in their own way so it will draw attention. Personally, my attention is never drawn to doom and gloom.  My attention is drawn by the most hopeful “what if?”  My attention is drawn by demonstrations of unwavering faith in the face of adversity.  If, as a journalist, it is my choice as to what I wish to draw the reader’s attention to, then this is it: Continue reading

It feels good to pay bills off, even little by little

Free at last!

Ten days ago I wrote that I’d priced and sold my scrap gold and the amount I got for it was within $339 of the total amount needed to pay off credit cards, my new bed, and my new couch.   Days later I received an escrow refund check  from my mortgage company of almost $300.  I love it when the Universe knows exactly what I need even if I don’t. Of course, I always expect the Universe to drop windfalls in my lap, so that helps too.  Most of the expense came from renovating my rental property for new tenants and paying off office equipment.  I took the credit cards out of my wallet and put them in the file, so in case I need them, they are a safe three moves away.  I’m glad I got my lesson early on about credit cards so by the time I reached 40 I had that pretty much under control.  By then I’d also stopped shopping for recreation, which gave a huge boost to my savings account.  Last year, each time I opted to eat at home rather than out, I paid myself the difference.  I transferred that amount of money from my checking account into my savings account.  At the end of each month, I depleted the savings account paying off everything I could.  Sure, it might be only $8 one day, but it adds up, all the little things I consider buying, then ask if I’d rather have that amount in my savings account instead.  I’d psyched myself up at the idea of having a fat nest egg.  Step by step and inch by inch gets ya there, dude.   Quicker than you think.

RELATED:  Getting a handle on the credit cards and bills

“Don’t run away with Boyd from Canada”

I wrote at When Friends Tune In With Their Spidey Sense that I enjoy it and take note when friends and I tune into each other and don’t realize it until later.  I’ve been writing to a friend with no computer, and on Sunday January 22nd they wrote they’d had a dream I ran away with a deer hunter from Canada named Boyd and they saw me sitting in Boyd’s bed all day.  I got their letter today so they by now have my letter telling that I’d spent Sunday Jan 22nd afternoon next to a friend’s hospital bed in the ER, name not Boyd but similar.  Oooo eeeee ooooo

Help friends newly in recovery and on probation

Friends newly in recovery: Love em, encourage em, expect the best, but don’t believe the fibs or the cons. Know it’s part of the process. Keep yourself sane even when they aren’t. Don’t pretend to be a therapist if you’re not. This is serious stuff.  And if you have a friend who gets drug tested for probation, your second hand smoke can register them an amount high enough to get them violated — friends don’t drink or drug around pals in recovery, ok?  It’s not just good social etiquette, it can keep them from going to jail for violation of probation which adds a brand new felony to their record.

A nice festival of sleep this weekend

Ok, so my only job this weekend was to get my bookkeeping and billing done, neither of which happened.  Instead I played in my yard, moved furniture around and put the February Horizons Magazine online.  I also had a weekend festival of sleep, culminating in my last sleep segment being from 5am-9am this morning.   For me that is unusual, going to bed when it’s dark outside and then waking after sunrise to get into my day.   When I have phone appointments at night, I usually start winding down to sleep – darkening the rooms and muting the sounds – about 3pm so I can be up by 9pm.  If I don’t have calls, then I’m up at 4:00am for morning meditation and usually just go right into the office after that.  It’s remarkable how much better I think and feel when I get real sleep.  Real sleep as in not waking every 30 minutes to check the clock to see when 3-4 hours have passed so I can finally just get up and have it over with. I run myself ragged and don’t know I’ve done it. Nice to have a wake up call to it and a break from it. Continue reading

Sunday’s East Garden Clearing

I should be doing bookkeeping and billing today but instead I cleaned up the east garden a bit. It was looking shabby after the leaves were off the trees and you could see the cut bamboo stored there, all askew atop the broken fence panel and stored timber.  I began by stacking all the fallen bamboo and the oak and pine deadfall.  Then I kicked the layers of leaves off the lumber on the ground and stacked it up. Next I walked out to the street to assess the view and determine where the bare spots were.  I took the pruners and began cutting a dozen large palm fronds and sticking them into the ground as along a fence line.  I cut all the dead fronds, large and small, and stuck them in the ground as well.  As they decay they will nourish the earth and until then, I have a bit of privacy from the daily passersby.  I hand watered most of the trees and bushes.  In the back of the property, my grumpy back neighbor cuts the branches of my big oak and leaves the huge branch debris in my yard, atop the turk’s cap hedge I’ve been trying to grow for about 3 years.  If that makes him happy, so be it.  It gives more light to the turk’s cap, as I see it.  So today I dragged all the big cut down branches over to my east property line near where he cut it, and stacked it neatly.  That cuts off any back route into the property so it was good to do anyway.  All in all, grumpy neighbor did me several favors.  The last thing I did before coming inside was use duct tape to get all the splinters from the palmetto fronds out of my hands.  And my billing?  Well, tomorrow is another day.

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I Get Relief From My Acute Anxiety
I got sleep

I got sleep!

I wrote a few days ago I Get Relief From My Acute Anxiety and then yesterday  I slept for 5 hours in a row and it was a restful, refreshing and dreaming sleep. I love it when I can sleep and wake up feeling, well, like I slept. I can actually think clearly and not feel overwhelmed by all the work I think I have to do. I keep forgetting I’m the boss of me, I have to remind my mind of that sometimes.

Solar Flares Causing Our Anxiety? Or Just Life?

I”m fairly mellow, so anxiety is something I only infrequently experience. Friends say it’s related to the solar flares we’re having right now.  Call it what you will, but I figure, like that great sage Roseanne Roseannadana, said, “It’s always something.”   After a few days of personal anxiety (I wrote about it here I get relief from my acute anxiety and here Another Mother of a Shakti Crash,)  I wrote yesterday on Facebook:   “Sigh, it’s only 9:00am on Wednesday, can all my bipolar pals please stop bonking out all at once, I am of no use to you today, trust me.”  Continue reading