obsessions

OBSESSIONS, FIXATIONS, ENVY and OTHER VICES

Sunny Sunday. I hope it’s not a tease and stay for awhile. I’m trying to get a bead on the day and not let it run away on me. I feel like I’ve been on the last of the toilet roll and time is spinning away faster and faster. At the same time, I’m that gerbil on the treadmill to nowhere. It’s no wonder that I’m feeling a little angry and edgy. I know you’re not suppose to go to bed that way. What do you do though when you do? I tried very hard to let go last night but I’m a hanger on type of a girl. I failed and gave in and let myself be. I worried that it was going to be a restless, wakeful night. BUT it was all good. I stay put and practices relaxing each part of my body. The sandman came and took me away.

It rained overnight. Not much but it was enough. It shouldn’t have surprised me but it did. I don’t want to blame the weather for my moodiness but it is better than blaming myself. There was no good reason for it except for physical fatigue. I find gardening very rewarding physically and mentally but it is also very taxing. If I step outside, and I do, I can lose myself for hours in tending to all that is growing. It is hard to stop. I’m a bit obsessive in all things that I love to do. I’m trying to find a healthier balance in all that I do.

I find it hard to put down any book by Jodi Picoult and John Grisham. Having read Picoult’s Salem Falls and Grisham’s The Chamber, I’m hooked on courtroom drama. It’s good that I’ve finished the books now and I can tend to neglected areas I’ve been avoiding. It’s hard to overcome myself. It’s so easy to fall into the pits of least resistance. I wonder at the attraction of famous people. Why are we so curious about them? I don’t think I envy their lives or their glamour but I am guilty of wanting to know every little detail about their lives? Perhaps it is maybe I think so little of mine and myself. Could that be it?

I left to do a few things. One thing led to another. Now I find myself at the end of the day. I’m gathering my thoughts to wrap up this post. One thing for sure is I am happy that we had this time together. I took a few hours away from working on things. I took the time and trouble to sauté my first Sunburst squash for lunch. It was delicious. I watched a comedy called New in Town, starring Renee Zellweger. It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. I should do this more often. It interrupts up my obsessive thoughts and eases up my feelings of anger for awhile. It gives me an opportunity to examine the reasons for my feelings. It’s all good.

MISS MARPLE TO THE RESCUE

I still run away from things. When the tough gets going, I do, too. When it is just too damn hard, I don’t give up. I give in. There’s no use in getting my panties in a knot and my head in a temper. Though I am not hungry, the thought of a nimble or two is quite appealing. I shall not. The guy and I had decided to lose 10 pounds. Despite our ski every day this winter, we find ourselves a little overweight. The bread and the ice cream every night probably had a great deal with it. I was not an ice cream consumer before. My ice cream used to stay in the freezer forever until it got very snowy. Now it feels a bit strange to settle down in front of the TV and no ice cream and no Grey’s Anatomy. Obsessions and addictions must come to an end. The call to change has come.

I’m trying to get into a relaxed steady tap on my keyboard to settle my nerves. It is a meditation of a sort. I sit erect with my head, shoulders, hips and sit in alignment. No clenching of the jaw. I let my fingers and thoughts coordinate themselves. Sometimes I stumble and stutter a little here and there. No stress. Breathe and carry on. It is all alright. The world is still here. No one will notice your hiccough. Even heaven coughs and sneezes. A few minutes of cloud and snow. Now the sun is out. What the heck? The snow flakes are still floating down.

Oh, I feel a little better now. I did make a little dent in sorting and tidying my work spaces. Just talking about it gets my head into a nettle. I will watch a little Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. The show is remarkably entertaining and relaxing. The stories usually have so many characters that I’m kept busy trying to remember who is who. I have no time to be distracted into thinking about all the things that are troubling me. There is always a murder or two but none of the bloody and shooting violence of American shows.

It works most of the time but it’s not fail proof. Sometimes I just have to have faith in myself that this, too, shall pass. I close my eyes and picture myself in the green and humid warmth of the greenhouse. The warmth feels like God’s arms around me, holding me safe. And I surrender.

LETTUCE IN DECEMBER

Lettuce in December

I have to admit that I’m still struggling to rise above – to write, to appease myself of so many things. I have to be satisfied with just getting an earlier start. I’ve been negligent of late. It’s making me angry with myself. I feel the ferocity of its bite. I know it is not healthy for me. I’m feeling and acknowledging it and letting it go its angry way. Its energy is at least useful in giving me a start. I should read Pema Chodron’s Don’t Bite the Hook.

I know I am obsessive sometimes. It is good and bad. The bad part is when it makes you think about something or someone, or doing something, too much or all the time. I have gotten fixated about a few things/people in my life time. It’s such a time waster. I need to work on this. There’s lots of suggestions online to get started. Did I tell you I’m obsessed with self improvement? Well, there’s the good and bad in it, too. Balance is the key.

A little fury helped get the dishes done and the bathroom floor washed. Golly, why is it so hard sometimes? It is a puzzle I don’t try to solve anymore. Blame it on the weather. Blame it on barometer pressures changes. It works for me. It was cold this morning, -26 degrees Celsius at 0600 according to Environment Canada. No wonder everything was stiff and frigid in the greenhouse – the geranium, kalanchoe, aloe vera and onions. It was -12 degrees C at 8:49 am. By 10:30 it had risen to 0 degrees C. At 2:30 pm, with the sun on the roof, the temperature rose to 20 degrees. At 5 pm the sun has set. The temperature had already dropped to 2 degrees C.

It seems impossible now to have fresh home grown lettuce in December. If I had the greens well established in the greenhouse, I am sure they would have survived into December. I guess I have to be satisfied that the greenhouse is all closed in before the snow. So much for this obsession. I haven’t given up though. I was looking at the sun shining on the bougainvillea and the herbs in the sunroom. There’s no reason why I couldn’t add a few pots of greens in the mix. I might have to move things around. It’s good incentive to clean and clear. Some obsessions are wonderful. They give you reasons to bounce out of bed, get dressed and go out in the cold to check the temperature.

THE WOMAN NEXT DOOR

I’m sleepless again. After wrestling unsuccessfully with the mattress, I decided to give it up. So I’m here, sipping my Orange Pekoe tea, trying to tap myself into ease and sleepiness. It is about the enigma, the woman next door again. I tell myself that there is clearly something wrong with her. Yet she has enough wits about her to run a business out of her house and a talent to irritate the hell out of us.

The frustration comes from not finding a solution/resolution to the problem. It’s difficult to conduct a conversation, never mind to enter into a negotiation with someone who makes her own rules/laws. Who does not allow you a voice at all. Who talks/yells over what you have to say. Who lies. I guess she could be called a bully.

What has she done this time? It’s the same thing – her obsession that she has rights on our property. She doesn’t like how we do our yard.  She planted little spruce trees on our property next to the raised bed that she doesn’t like either. She ‘weeds’ and digs little trenches to ‘drain’ rain runoffs on our property.  Somethings are just too small, petty and too tiring to fight over. So I had been ignoring all this before. Then she doesn’t like that we use woodchip mulch because it is a fire hazard. We mulched  under our cedar trees adjacent to her driveway. Whatever we use, she would push, scrape back when we’re not aware. So we put up some low wire fencing along the trees to prevent her from doing that. We used black (dyed with vegetable oil) wood chip thinking that it’s the colour of dirt and she wouldn’t see. How can anyone object to that since it was on our property and with a fence to keep them from her driveway?

Of course she would see and object. Today I found the posts pulled almost out and the wire netting laying flat on the ground, the mulch pushed back. I took photos. I am not sure as what to do. I could report this to the police as this is clearly vandalism, mischief and destruction of property. But I’ve been dealing with this kind of stuff from her for years. She is ‘something else’ as one could put it. She clearly has a bead on me and knows what gets my goat. She is very clever in this way.

I’ve also been getting smarter about myself, how I let people push my buttons. I don’t like how bodily reactive I am. I don’t like how the blood and thoughts rush to my head and I can’t think anymore. I can only feel – the cortisol coursing through my system and the feeling of helplessness. I’m here taming my thoughts and adrenaline. This is not a bitch session nor a tell-all. I’m trying to find some peace. I’m trying to find some love and compassion for the woman next door. It must be terrible for her to be so obsessed about me, my yard and whatever. Don’t we all need love and compassion?

I want to end on a positive note with a video of Daniel Champagne. We saw him perform live at the Bassment the other evening. He’s travelling across Canada. If he comes to your town/city, do go and see him. His guitar picking and music are out of this world. I came away from it with total body relaxation. I suffer anxiety and high blood pressure. It’s hard to explain but I suffer a hundred deaths of fright getting my blood pressure check. It’s difficult to feel confident about how well controlled it is. I’m always high at the doctor’s (white coat syndrome). The last visit a couple of weeks ago, I registered a reading of 180/90. Eeeek! I’ve come down since then, desensitizing myself each day by taking it regularly. My reading after coming home from the concert was 108/79. Music is good therapy. I have to listen and attend live concerts more often. Forward, ho!

 

SELF ANALYSIS

It’s another Saturday. I’m still on my sabbatical from my Saturday morning swim. I’ve given in to my natural state of inertia. It’s nice to have a rest and enjoy the nothingness of a weekend morning. I was tempted to resist all physical efforts but the stiffness from yesterday’s tabata workout urged me to do my qigong routine. I was happy that I could overcome my resistance. I’m loosened and more relaxed for the rest of the day.

I want to get back into the swim next week or my inertia could go on forever. I am like that. A reminder that I have two big credit card bills coming due motivated me to settle them right after breakfast. It’s a wise move to do the hard things first. It lifts that burden so my mind is not preoccupied with it all day. I have learned some things in April. They’re working for me. I’m gaining small pockets of organization here and there. I am pleased. I have worked hard last month. It’s time to sit back a little and not be so uptight about everything.

But I know myself. I’m a bit anal. I am obsessive by nature. If something grabs my attention, it is difficult for me to do small doses at a time. So now that I’ve identified this trait in me, I’ll probably obsesse about correcting it. I guess it is not a bad thing but I will try to modify myself. I never run out of goals. I’m a self-improvement junkie. I think it is in my genes but at least it is not about drugs.

I’ve really enjoyed the free version of The Brain Change Summit presented by Sounds True. Brain health is another of my obsessions. I didn’t have time and energy to catch them all but was happy to catch the one on the Alzheimer’s Solution by Dr. Dean and Ayesha Sherzai. It was an excellent presentation with no magic cures/pills. The solution is more about prevention. I shall add their book to my list of readings. Enough muttering for now. Time for a little down time with Kinsey Millhone in O is for Outlaw.

 

 

 

 

FEATHERWEIGHTS AND OTHER OBSESSIONS

November 20, 2018  7:49 am

Winter time and the living is not easy. The fish are not jumping. The mornings are dark. If I dwell in the cold and hardness of it, I would be done in. But I don’t. I’ve learned to concentrate on the mechanics of everything – how to get from point A to B, what I have to do if I want this, that and the other thing. It works. It’s magical. I’m transported from feeling icky to ___ . I can’t quite find the word but I feel my brain firing up like the furnace in the basement. Soon it will kick in and ideas and endorphins will flow. Ah, I hear the fan blowing. The warm air is blowing out the vents.

I’m finishing my second cup of tea. I will make a list of things my mother wants from Costco. She phoned yesterday to confirm. Are you going for sure. Will you remember? Don’t forget the barbecue chicken. She repeated the list. I mustn’t forget. Then I will make my own list. I mustn’t forget or get lost getting there. I get lost regularly going anywhere and everywhere. I don’t get excited about it any more but I could be a little more careful, pay more attention and look for signs and landmarks. I turn off at the exit for Yorkton.  It would save me time.

November 21, 2018  10:16 pm

I’ve let time and thoughts slipped away. It’s the latest I’ve come to this page in a long while. My thoughts are fragmented, scattered by the day’s activities and by my recent interest in the history of sewing machines. It was ignited by the book, Every Quilt Tells a Story by Helen Kelley. Her mention of the Singer Featherweight prompted me to look it up on the Internet. I was in love. One thing led to another and I was mesmerized by all the vintage sewing machines, even my own Kenmore Model 15813200. I bought it somewhere in 1972/73 for under $200.  It’s a long story. I better leave my mutterings here and head for bed. Tomorrow is another day.

November 22, 2018  8:47 am

Keeping a regular bedtime pays off for a good night of sleep. I think I took my obsessions of sewing machines into my sleep. I was dreaming of sewing different motiffs onto my quilt/table top I’m sewing along with catching a plane. I dreamt that we slept till almost 9 am and our plane was due to take off at noon. Yikes! My brain was busy even in sleep. My plan today is to embroider these birds onto to the quilt/table top. To embellish, I want to try out as many decorative stitches as I can on my Bernina. So I must not tarry and get on with things.

 

TWO IS ENOUGH

I am somewhat obsessive by nature. Once I hook onto something it is hard to stop or to be moderate. Now that Sheba and I have found our old off-leash dog park again, we’re quite taken with it. I pack her up every afternoon and we do our walk there. It’s much easier walking hands free than with a dog on a rope. I love climbing up the hill, feel the breeze and gaze up at the blue of the sky and the traffic on the freeway below. I feel the weight lifting off my shoulders. I am alone in my desert.

Though I am weary coming through the gate, I am rejuvenated by the fresh air and open space. It is a very meditative walk as we go round and round. Though I intend to do just two laps, I am often tempted to do another and another. I have good sense enough to stop at 3, remembering Sheba and I are in our senior years. Today I was happy to stop at two. It is enough. Sometimes more is too much, leading to injury and illness. We have to save something for tomorrow.