A Constant Blessing - Day 3

 I stopped by my daughter's house again last night after I got off from work. She was tired. I can understand it too. She has a newborn and an active three year old, so sleep is oftentimes elusive for her.

     As I was getting ready to leave, I asked if she would want me to bring the three year old home with me for the night. I have Friday's off so even if I got little sleep over night, it would be OK. She asked her daughter and we were good to go.

    The three year old immediately began packing her bag. After we got the essentials - tooth brush, Strawberry Shortcake toothpaste, underpants, pjs, movies, etc. She asked if we should bring her night light, which was a lamp sitting on her bedside table. "No" on the lamp. Kiddie sized toilet ring? "Ok, we'll bring that." Doll and several stuffed dogs to sleep with? "Ok". Then she started unplugging a DVD player to play her movies. "No, no, we have a player!"  Finally she grabbed a child sized broom from the hall closet - just in case there's cleaning to do. And of course she asked to take something with her of her mom's "to remember her by." My daughter hands her a clean pair of her (my daughter's) folded socks. We were finally ready.

    Then there comes the tearful goodbyes at the door and the long mournful walk from the house to the car. You'd of thought that I was taking her to the end of the world. Maybe to her, that's how it felt. Time without your mama is sort of like that.

   She was crying in the car on the way to my house. Real boohoos coming from the back seat. "Honey, would you rather stay home?"

   "No (long pause) I'm just a kid....a big kid ....  just a kid."

By the time we reached my house she was all calmed down and ready for adventure but not until she located her mom's folded socks and reminded her grandfather not to tease her.

And the fog set in.... Day 2

     As you may remember, I was talking yesterday about a cup of coffee (Fog Lifter) that my daughter made for me at 7PM  the night before.. That one cup of potent stuff, kept me up for 24 hours. I remember laying awake imagining that coffee bean tree or bush, deep in the mountains of South America .. or is it Africa? Those dark gnarly roots, draining energy from the earth that now surged through my veins.

     Yesterday, as I was driving home from work, the fog returned. It hit me as I came into Pendleton. Traffic everywhere and me driving through bleary vision. I yawned and couldn't stop yawning. I looked around in my car for something to distract me - to keep me awake. All I could find was a bag of Spring Mix salad fixings. I figured that eating would keep me awake. The problem was, my hands were dirty. I had noticed some trash laying in the street as I went to my car. I was carrying a bag of trash to toss too as the truck empties the dumpster between Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

     I couldn't stand the thought of touching the lettuce with dirty - trash hands. As I maneuvered through traffic I tore open the bag of salad and stuck my face into the mix. I bit a mouth full of salad and pulled it out of the bag. That one mouth full was dragging with it the second mouth full. In an instant I pictured the goats we use to own; their mouths full of hay, munching and thinking about the next bite.

     And there's the timer - 15 minutes.

This One's For JW. - Day 1

     A timer sits approximately 25 inches from me. On the screen, 15 minutes silently digits away as I write. I am beginning again. It is a recurring theme in my life but I will be the last to give up on me. I have the timer set for 15 minutes because I am starting with a new strategy. I have read and heard it said that to be a writer, a person must write. I have also heard the tip, "Set a timer."  So here we are.

     The other night, my friend JW, came by my house for a visit. She is such a fun person and a dear friend. She looked at me and asked, "Have you written on your blog lately?" I looked into her face. She meant business. And then she asked if I had written on my other blog about love and marriage. "No, I haven't done that either." For a minute I wanted to offer excuses but I stopped myself. The answer to both questions is "No."

     Anyway, beginning again. I have been listening to some great online radio shows about creativity, productivity, and getting things done. I think it's helping. I'll write about that help sometimes but most of the advice I've been getting comes from 43folders.com. Merlin Mann is the host. He's a bit of a nerd and talks too much but suddenly, the clouds will part and he'll say something earth shattering. Using a timer is one of the tips. Setting the timer for 15 minutes and writing something, anything during that time, is another one of the tips. Writing everyday for 30 days in order to establish a habit is another tip. I'm beginning with these three tips.

     I figure since today is February 1st, it's a great day to begin to establish a writing habit. My goal is to write something on this blog for the next 29 days. It might be just a sentence (The timer just went off). Or maybe I'll bliss out on a topic and it'll be a day long read.

     I don't actually want to be writing daily on my blog - I'd rather it be a couple of times a week. Or at least once weekly. And I also want to start writing some of my family stories - not necessarily for my blog - more for myself and my family. I want to develop the writing habit. So for a month, please humor me.

     Last night I was in the Meigers store. I was just wandering around looking at stuff. I don't get a chance to do that often either. Anyway, I noticed the books and magazines. I spotted a huge, 1 inch thick novel - The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. She is one of my favorite writers. It's said that you can tell a lot about a book by reading the first paragraph. Here's the first 2 sentences of the first paragraph: "In the beginning were the howlers. They always commenced their bellowing in the first hours of dawn, just as the hem of the sky began to whiten." If those two sentences don't put you there, you're a moron. I can hear those howlers (for me it's coyotes) and I can see that hem of the sky - I've seen it so many mornings. She didn't just toss that off. She takes writing seriously.

     On my way to work a few mornings ago, I got to thinking about writing and people who work from the mind. Albert Einstein did not conduct experiments in a lab when he was developing E=mc-squared. His brain was his lab and his conclusions remain unchallenged. I heard that Mark Twain moved into his guest cottage for many months to write Huck Finn. He had thinking to do and look at the result - one of the greatest books ever written. And then there is (the second 15 minutes have just ticked away on the timer) JK Rowling the author of Harry Potter. She wrote a series about a young boy with magical powers and by the end of the series, she seemed personally drained. Brain work, which is writer's work, (and much of scientist's work) is heavy lifting.

     I have rambled on here. What I am saying is that I will be doing a daily entry in this blog and in my love and marriage blog. They will mostly be posted at night. This entry would have been done tonight but I'll probably be sleeping - at least I hope so. I went by to see my daughter last night. (And of course to see the little ones). So my daughter fixes dinner for me and asks me if I'd like a cup of coffee. I say sure and she mentions a few types she has and I chose "Fog Lifter." I drank that cup of coffee at 7pm last night and true to it's name, the fog was lifted and I haven't slept a wink. I lay awake all night, yearning for fog but it was all clear skies. Tonight, there must be fog. (The timer just went off again for another 15 minutes). See ya tomorrow.

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DAISY!

     This is my dog - Daisy. She's my dog until she does something wrong, then she's my husband's dog. We named her Daisy though sometimes I think we should have named her Crazy. We got her in June from the pound in Anderson, Indiana. I've wondered often if they had her drugged and where can I get some more of that stuff for her. You see, when I went by the pound to check her out, after my husband had already put his seal of approval on her, she was calm as could be. I took her for a walk outside, around the building and she was easy as could be on the leash. There was another lady, with her child, walking a dog and Daisy barely even looked their way. When we got to the back of the building, a huge pitbull leaped with all his might into the side of his cage, wanting so badly to rip our throats out and Daisy just glanced at him with a "whatever..." look. So I figured we were good to go.

     Within a week of moving in at our house, Daisy was a hyper nut! Just like many puppies she liked nipping at everyone she came into contact with....just a little taste. Thankfully, she is losing that habit, but she still loves to jump up on people. Daisy is also a wander dog. When given a chance she will wander off. This trait was reinforced when she ran off down the road and a good neighbor of ours took her in and fed her oh so generously. After that, she wanted desperately to get away from us and head to the neighbors. Before you ask, yes we do feed her. Daisy is just a psycho nut puppy! 

 I haven't given up on her one day being a great dog. Right now, she looks through me when she looks my way. Maybe as she changes from puppy to dog, she'll gain a human side as well.

"Double, double..."

     This photo was taken by my three year old granddaughter and she's in the picture!  We were at her soccer game and she asked if she could take some pictures with my camera. I will admit that I cropped out her Dad's shirt sleeve at the left and the opposing team standing across the field. This little section of the photograph reminded me of the 3 witches from Macbeth who chanted "Double, double, toil and trouble: fire burn and cauldron bubble." In actuality, it's her very pregnant mother to the left, my granddaughter and her Uncle Barnaby in the center and me on the right. We're on the sidelines, whipping up our own chants for a win.

     Yesterday was a lazy day and it came along at the perfect time. I was at home, taking it easy and I needed a day like that. I had some dental work done last week and you all know how much I hate dental work. A shot in my jaw left me with pain in my jaw and neck. Two days of rain just added to an over all sense of misery. Now that I have a crown on the afflicted tooth, things are looking up. I am healing. 

     Last week, I saw a newscaster on television who had teeth whiter than the whites of her eyes. It was so distracting to watch her talk with those fluorescent teeth. The other day, when the dentist held up the new tooth she'd sculpted (with the aid of a fancy new 3-D computer - printing system) for my mouth, I couldn't help but think of those pearly whites giving the news. My tooth was a little lighter than a Frosty from Wendys. It had earth and coffee tones whipped into a natural tooth color. The dentist and her assistant stood there in their white coats as we three admired the wonders of modern dentistry. Then they set about making magic in my mouth.

Rainy Day

It was raining yesterday. This would actually figure because yesterday, in the rain, a team of six loaded a 45 foot shipping container with what basically remained of  the Newvo Deco Wallpaper Store.
    For those of you who are not familiar with Newvo Deco, allow me to quickly explain. 
    In the mid 90's, my husband and a buddy of his, bought a building in Indy. Their idea was to resale the building for profit. The building housed a vast collection of wallpaper - a wallpaper outlet.  And the story there is that the previous owners, collected old, industrial printers to repair and resale. In their search for old printers, they came across a wallpaper manufacturer in Massachusetts that had printers to sale with the stipulation that the buyers would need to take their entire inventory of wallpaper. So a wallpaper outlet was set up in Indianapolis. Semi after semi truck brought the paper, printers and everything involved in wallpaper manufacturing, to Indianapolis from Massachusetts. And the printer guys ran the wallpaper outlet for more than a decade until they sold the building and the outlet to my husband and his buddy.
    We ran the outlet for 6 or 7 years and the building finally sold. Just when I thought that all the paper would need to be sent to a landfill, two people showed up and bought the remaining paper. They loaded paper on trucks and hauled it to Anderson, Indiana. The kicker here is that they ended up renting space from my husband in this building, here in Anderson. When they got behind on their space rent, they gave the paper back to my husband.  
   The wallpaper has been sitting in this building for about 5 years.
     Meantime, my husband meets a young woman from Mongolia. She has lived in this country for
8 years and is basically into buying goods and reselling them.  She worked out a deal with my husband to take this wallpaper to Mongolia to resale. So now this paper and vinyl which has travelled from Massachusetts to Indianapolis to Anderson is  on it's way to Mongolia to line the concrete block walls of that nation's homes.  Bon voyage!

    Now that I've brought you this far, I'll give a quick run down of the trying times we faced yesterday.

*   The shipping container was an hour and 1/2 late getting here, so we had labor standing around ... waiting.

*    The shipping container people, expect the container to be loaded in two hours or extra charges of $75.00 per hour will be incurred....it's called detention time and we racked up 3 extra hours of detention past the two hours allowed.

*   The guy who was generous enough to provide a forklift for this project had gone to lunch when the shipping container got into position, so the crew started off hand loading the container.

*   The guy generous enough to provide a forklift for this project, returned from lunch and moved one pallet before he realized that he was out of gas... so he left to go get gas - and the laborers continued to load the container by hand.

*  The guy generous enough to provide a forklift for this project returned with more gas and started moving skid after skid into place and was half way through the process before the forklift overheated and filled the entire building full of noxious fumes. He turned the forklift off to let it cool and the laborers were once again loading the shipping container by hand.

 

*The entire project was done in the pouring rain!

Habit forming?

     I have often heard it said that it takes 30 days to form a habit. And I recently came across a website on time management that insists that part of succeeding at a task involves motivation plus habit. So obviously, habit is important in the scheme of things, especially if part of my scheme for my life includes writing regularly on my blog.

     About two months ago, I started another blog entitled museum of love and marriage at blogspot. It was my intention at that time to give the world something to ponder lovewise - everyday. And my old computer died. Not an immediate death but a slow, tedious death, where I would often wonder if maybe there was hope....but there was no hope and the two of us are done.

    I went out about 10 days ago and got another laptop and now perhaps the planets will move into a lineal position and blogging can happen.

    Maybe a habit can be established.