DARN IT!

Know that phrase 'put the cart before the horse'?

Well...

I feel like an old nag head butting an army tank through a field littered with rocks, and my bruised head is killing me.  

Logic has never been a big deal breaker when it comes to choosing my own little black hole of detention that I sometimes loving call THE JOB.

Perhaps, I should have changed that strategy a few jobs back, but I didn't. Hindsight is so useless ;(

My demons are playing with the curling irons today, and have once again fired my tired noggin to a crisp.

Three hours of lectures flying over the top of my head, and I'm ready to enter camping reservations for our park into the new system.  Ya, right!

Why wait until all is ready for direct online access by the customers - logic is so terrifically over rated.

Takes talent persuading a customer to choose a number out of thin air for their campsite location.

The cheat sheet isn't quite right, problem solving's too scarce, reports translate incorrectly to fiscal services templates; feels like Mickey Mouse is mickey mousing all over the darn place, and I need to so desperately ESCAPE!

But, hey!  It's a 24 hour 7 day a week operating system, and I'm a one person office 8 hour 5 day a week type of gal.

It's beginning to creep into my weekends a bit, cause none of my other duties have evaporated into the stratosphere like I willed them to last night. Rats!

Two weeks down, ten more to go before they THINK it will all go live online.

So...

I'm high tailing it to Frugal MacDoogal Wine & Liquor off Division Street to invest in an intoxicating case of Chateau Ste Michelle Chardonnay.

See ya...!

The Ins and Outs...

Domestic Bliss 

It's come to my attention that I have been negligent in the production of an all about me and my materialistic self post. Unlucky you :'(   My domestication has been about as blissful as stale moon pies and fizz-free RC Colas.

My teenage years were plagued by mom and dad's repeated threat that they were going to shovel through and trash all those heaps of crumbled clothes, scattered papers, books, pencils, pens, magazines, newspaper clippings, letters, cards, and last week's lunch; to see if my floor was actually still there.  Of course, they never did.  I didn't either, so I was always a messy little teenage twerp.

Moving out on my own, I blossomed overnight into a controlling domesticated freak.  My ten years younger sister proclaimed that she could eat right off my spotless floors, they were that excessively clean.  I never did catch her plopping down on the floor to lick up food she had just thrown there (I would have almost killed her), so I'm sure she was joking - wasn't she?

I did have this perfection quirk that kicked in just after I escaped all parental supervision.  I became my own worst enemy, slaving to the tune of the Dishpan-Washing Machine-Vacuum Cleaner-Dust Rags Blues.  It felt as if a piece of my mom's soul had torn itself from her disapproving heart to haunt me in my adult life.

I toiled in sacrificial compliance and meekness on the home front for decades, until I was staring at my old age impatiently waiting for me above the near horizon, and a strange thing happened - my brain finally relinquished a tidbit of wisdom.   

Mulling over my last fifty years, I had to agree I was an idiot! With this revelation, my housecleaning flipped from sweep-dust-mop to dig-retrieve-destroy.  I tried trashing the clutter from my existence - poof!  Well, not really poof!  More like pooooooooooooooof.

Years it took to go through my bargain basement menagerie, salvaging a bit here, stashing a bit there, then tossing here and there into the trash heap.  Do you really understand how hard it is to just let go of things?  It's downright near impossible!!!  

Finally free from a lifetime of clutter, a strange thing has happened once again.  My husband now calls me high-end,  high-maintenance.  Who?  Me???  My brain assures me it's just called finally getting what I really want - much less, but much better ;)

Oh...

I wouldn't advise eating right off my floors either these days, unless you relish a bit of lint and fur mixed in.

Latique Crystal Cat   
Birthday, Christmas, and everything-in-between present

from husband for 2012.

Complicated Webs Life has Woven

I love blogging.  I loved blogging.  It's complicated.  I thought I would have lots of friends.  I sort of had lots of "friends", but they dropped like flies by the wayside and now there are almost none. Not satisfied, I'm moving on - priorities are changing - I want more, not less.  

While I have those I love and animal friends that have warmed my heart over the years, if life had offered me a second chance to get it right, I would have chucked it all to travel down that path - but life's not that simple.  I live with the basic tapestry I foolishly weaved in my youth, and add extensions onto it as I try to salvage the mishmash of my experiences to create a masterpiece with flaws.

Granted I may be the only one that sees my shortcomings, but I do know what they are.  While it is hard to forgive, I find it impossible to forget.  I must choose not to fixate on this to any great extent, as I'm positive that someone up there who "loves" me would give me Alzheimer as my mode of forgetting.  Some things are better just left as they are.

While I'm not ready to flush my blog completely out of existence, a post will most likely never appear until after a long nap.  I'm a dabbler of all that is creative, but for now I'm a writer and I want to see how far I can push that concept.  As with anything I take on, I approach it with a passion to be the best, to push it to the edge to see if I fall off or miraculously sprout wings.


Off to see the Wizard

My workroom is the room that has never seen any work except that of the vacuum cleaner sucking up all that feline fur that lovingly coats everything.  We have affectionately dubbed it the "Cat's Room".  It has a four foot high gate across the entrance with one of the bars removed so the cats can freely move through it, the dog cannot.  It is their escape from a canine that acts before he thinks, and has been known during his excitement to have unintentionally trampled a feline or two.  

This room has problems.  It's always had problems.  It's not a space that feels good and collects clutter like cat fur to static electricity.  I like maxing out with my environmental consciousness, and have arranged or enhanced my home and gardens for health and happiness.

Years ago I worked out all my Feng Shui charts, but don't even ask me to explain the concept these days.  The methods of finalizing my charts is lost from memory.  I'd have to study it all again.  I'm researching divining and space purification, as this room needs the negativity traveling through it to be cured.  It's a death trap for creativity.

The complications can be overwhelming when one's money point and artistic space are in the same noxious energy filled room. Perhaps it contributes to the feline's many health issues...perhaps.  I feel that since we are part of the universe, we are to some degree attached to everything in the universe.

In younger years I studied my astrological link to the skies all the way to my houses in houses, if I remember it correctly.  I traveled farther than most would venture to complete whom I was in the realm of the entire cosmos.  All I remember of that experience is that I am totally water...totally.  Sometimes I feel as if my soul holds the sum of energy, positive and negative, of all existence. It's why I need to create; it's also why I need to push away at times and just remember to breathe deeply.

Even when uncluttered this room looks complicated.

Craft supplies are stuffed in every drawer and box.

Passions for beauty and reading, although I haven't read

a novel in years - only short stories.

Contemplation corner for feline dreams 

and roguish aspirations.

A computer of my own in the near future.

Hot Chocolate on a Cold Winter Day

Discovering my storehouse of knowledge on becoming a published writer is empty, I've had to cram my head full of reading to soak up a bit of the culture of the writer's world.  It's a battle to not let myself feel inferior; to not just walk away.  I'm tired of all the complexities of life's battles, yet here I am treading water with liquid up to my eyeballs once again.  I hope I never learn to give up.

The short story world is splitting at the seams with talent, semi-talent, no talent; it reeks of submissions past their shelf life being shoved into the trash compactor.  Dissecting my three short, short stories; I've begun patching them up to stand up to the talent out there.  I began to look at the possibility of a short story, but the determination to cough up 8,000 words of perfection seems out of my reach.  

A novel - what am I thinking - 120,000 words is a hell of a lot of words.  It's unfathomable!  Yet here I am again reading up on novel writing.  I'm mulling over my short story idea, which on paper is now 1152 words.  I cannot even figure out how to outline the events from beginning to end.  I play it over in my mind rerun after rerun, working out the conversations and scenes in my imagination and under my breath, and even speak the words out loud when husband isn't around.

Last night I wrote on paper the outline for my short story turning into a novel.  I wrote it out at 2:00 in the morning in the bathroom after brushing my teeth.  I can create this story, but how, who knows?  I'm going to tackle it right after I boot out that bad karma that's festering in the Cat's Room my workroom.  

Where is that Alternate Universe when I need one?

Blog Post about Feng Shui

...with dreams of sugar plums dancing in my head

It's that time of year
-when magic's in the air.

         The Story of the Holly Sprig

         - Arthur Upson, St. Nicholas Magazine,

                c. 1907, Words to a song)

              "I'd be the shiniest green,"

              Wished once a sprig of holly,

              "That e'er at Yule was seen,

              And deck some banquet jolly!"

              "I'd be the cheeriest red,"

              Wished once the holly-berry,

              "That e'er at board rich spread

              Helped make the feasters merry!"

              The life within them heard

              Down dark and silent courses,

              For each wish is a word

              To those fair-hidden sources.

              All Summer in the wood

              While they were riper growing,

              The deep roots understood

              And helped without their knowing.

              In a little market stall

              At Yule the sprig lay waiting,

              For fine folk one and all

              Passed by that open grating.

              The Eve of Christmas Day

              It had been passed by many,

              When one turned not away

              And bought it for a penny.

              Hers was a home of care

              Which not a wreath made jolly;

              The only Christmas there

              Was that sweet sprig of holly.

              "Oh, this is better far

              Than banquet!" thought the berry;

              The leaves glowed like a star

              And made the cottage merry!

My Christmas Letter

Throwing cares away for even a day would be delightful, but this phenomenon of sweet innocence is reserved solely for children and pets that are deeply loved.  My own personal world orbits around me warmed by my happiness or cooled in my despair.  It is nurtured by my attitude; whether it is uplifting or downtrodden, positive or oppressive.

My household reflects the heart of me.  It is the measure of who I am.  I want it to shine outward as a thousand burning suns and to glow within as a new moon starry night.  I persevere on my journey to create a quality of existence that soars to the heavens for each gift of life that enters in. It's not a passage to be taken lightly.

As a child I had others to protect me, but as an adult I am the protector, and invincibility has never found its place by my side.  I stumble, I fall down, and I get back up and move on.  I've learned that life is not forged for the faint of heart, for it thrives on the backs of those who take chances.

I feel nostalgic this holiday season, as I sit at work reflecting on whatever drifts into my thoughts.  It's hard to quiet my soul and patiently wait for the minute and hour hand to get unstuck and fly around to that 4:30 mark and freedom; freedom to go home and fry up breakfast for dinner, and remove the clutter to make way for all that glitzy holiday menagerie of decorations.

Christmas is...well it's Christmas; but each of those 24 days leading up to that 25th day we all celebrate in so many different ways, well...they're all simply magical.

Merry Christmas and love this holiday season!

Yvonne and Vic

Our feline trio: Zoe, Andee, and Lacey

and

A dog named Dustin

The Keepers of Christmas

Old iron bumper for a pick-up truck.

If life was always easy, I'm 99% sure I would have died from pure boredom decades ago.  Fortunately, I have been blessed with an uneasy life and have never been plagued with that problem.  With oncoming winter promising cold showers last Friday, and a super crisp night dropping into the twenties to follow - regrettably, my Thanksgiving found me still working in my yard, still finishing a low retaining wall to the south side of the house   That's right!  My day of official thankfulness was chained to a project that selfishly refused to go away on its own any time soon.  Bummer!  I plastered my pale cold face with a frown of Grinchatude proportions as that blustery day and my new wool socks strangling my cold tootsies in shoes with no forgiveness, refused to remind me how great it was to still be breathing.

Multi-tasking inside-the-house with outside-the-house (is that even a possibility) is not practiced in this household of aging noggins.  Any thoughts of preparing the feast were crammed into the farthest corner of my brain to vegetate until the wall was completed.  We finally sat down to a lovely dinner of bacon and cheese quiche, spicy mandarin muffins and a large tray of veggies and dip just before nine that evening.  I might have been a bit more grateful if I hadn't already nosedived into the loony bin about two hours earlier trying to tie up all the loose ends of the preparations before midnight - but the force of invincibility was sadly not on my side that day.  The pumpkin pie remained a figment of our tired imaginations until it was baked the next morning after a good night's sleep and a softening of attitudes.

New Furniture

A gift to ourselves while Vic was still working.

I'm the sole keeper of Christmas in my household of two opposite humans that are so frightfully alike, and the patter of four little paws quadrupled.  If I procrastinate, Christmas silently slips into oblivion...poof!  This has the weight of an iron anchor around my neck, a weight my heart and soul puts there all on its very own. Some years the decorations fly up in one day flat; but I'm looking at all these now only half filled boxes still cluttering my living room floor and I see drudge with a capital D.  I would like some company and a cup of spiced tea, but all I'm getting is little old me this morning at a half past three pondering where in the hell do I place this orphaned garland while rising out-of-bed time to get ready for work is just two hours away.  Rats!

And speaking of rats, or more specifically, their cute little cousins with those tiny mousey feet; the first day of my winter is always that first day at work when those furry sweet cheeked cuties leave a delicate trail of lovely turds across the top of my semi-cluttered desk.  Yesterday was officially my first day of winter, so...today I'm armed with dozens of wood traps and, any-mouse-worth-its-weight-in-cheese's downfall, a new jar of out-of-this-world super chunk peanut butter.  So there!  Bah Humbug, you little buggers! 

Drawer Knobs

A gift to myself because I love pretty things.

Collection of old glass ornaments

to remind me of my childhood.

As a child, I skipped through my world of rosy glow contented to be - well - just contented to be little old me.  I was a child, and I was allowed to grow up before I had to worry about starving mouths to feed and a huge world out there to save.  Life was hard for my parents as they sheltered me under their umbrella of care, and that shelter made my life so very easy - not materialistically easy, but easy just the same.  I never had more than two pairs of shoes - one pair for just life and one pair for dress up.  I shared a closet with two other sisters, so the changes of clothes were few.  I worked for my small allowances, allowances so minuscule that to have the buying power to purchase something like a little radio would have taken a few years.

BUT - I had Christmas, that time of year when everything I needed throughout the past year but quietly lived without, was hauled out of its hiding places to be lovingly wrapped and placed under the tree to shout out to the rooftops that Santa indeed had again been extremely generous on Christmas Eve.  Panties, bobby socks, school clothes, maybe a winter coat or a brand new pair of shoes - I'd gather them all up before sitting down to our holiday breakfast of smoked sausages, fried apple rings and Danish pastries; knowing I was completely set up for the coming New Year.  AND, if the year happened to be a prosperous one for Santa and Mrs. Claus, I'd get something totally, awesomely impractical, leaving my face double rosy glowed for the rest of the month.  Oh, how I miss all that now!

Soaking up the morning sun.