It’s the 5th of July and and our temperatures are heating up. I’m hot and bothered and sweating a bucket. I’ll try to cool off before heading off to bed. I’ve been working hard today though feeling not getting much done. So I’m feeling a bit restless and not satisfied. Life is hard and the hardest thing I’m struggling with is to understand and being understood. Then there’s the don’t take things personally.
I’m irked, therefore trying to tap out instead of act out my angst. And it is the 5th day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Though I am tired and would rather watch Miss Marple, I’m making an effort to put my words out. I always have an intention to do this in the morning but intentions don’t count when I don’t act on them. Every day I have plans to tidy and clean up. There surely is a lot of clutter and dust. But I just haven’t done it either.
One thing that has been acted upon is my crusade against those bloody creeping, creepy bellflowers. I’ve been tackling them early each morning. I mean business, wanting to get them under control by end of summer. The job of digging them out is not as formidable in reality as it was in my head. Once I started, everything falls into place, one small patch at a time. There’s a rhythm to it, much like the tapping on the keyboard. I can see success in my head. It will happen.
I’m getting sleepy. I’m closing down. Be back tomorrow.
It’s the 4th day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I know it’s not going to be an easy going. My eyes are already glazed over with sleepiness and not one thought in my brain. So what am I going to do besides sweating and falling asleep? This is what could happen when you don’t have a product or business to peddle.
I really admire sales people but I can’t imagine being one. I hate the idea of selling but once I was pumped up with the idea that I could. So anything is possible. I tried. The honeymoon didn’t last long though. I failed. That was long ago. I’ve had more failures since but none the worse for it. I hope I can succeed in writing this post. It is not easy. The words are stuck and I just can’t shake them loose.
Oh well, some days are like that. I might as well pack it up. Tomorrow is another day. It is not do or die. There are always a silver lining to everything, including failure. I just can’t think what it is at the moment.
Thank God for Wordless Wednesdays! Today is super challenging and here I am, enrolled in all these volunteered challenges. For one thing, today feels super hot after endless grey, rainy and cool weather. I should be jumping up and down with joy BUT…I’m feeling lackadasical. I don’t think I can find myself out of a wet paper bag.
But I have to show up somehow. I mean, I can’t just fold up and hide away. Well, I suppose I could but what would that say about me? Hmmm. I muttered to myself and went out in the world anyways. What can I say when my mother asks me to get her 2 cans of chicken broth? I went and got her 2 cans of chicken broth and some other goodies. The outing did cheered me somewhat. And so did painting 2 little index cards for my Daisy Yellow Index Card a Day Challenge. They’re not great art but they are cheery.
Looks like I’m not wordless after all. The other challenge I have is much harder. It is getting rid of those damned creeping bellflowers that is all over my front year. And to think I did it to myself because someone said they’re good groundcover and have pretty blue flowers. The downside is they choke out everything and very, very hard to eliminate. Have a look. Some failures. Some success. Like everything in life. But this is the year. The first photo is of an area loaded with bellflowers. Subsequent photos of small areas I’ve cleared most of them. Of course they do come back, especially after a rain. I try to keep on top.
This bed is loaded with creeping bellflowers.
Well, this was very wordy. I guess I had to get it out.
I surely miss wakening up to those early sundrenched mornings of past summers. I have taken so many things for granted – that they will always be here. Now comes the hard lesson. It isn’t so and they’ve never been. I’m realizing the value and the pleasure of those simple/ not so simple ordinary/not so ordinary things. So far this summer I’m still waking up in darkness in July and slipping into my warm fuzzy housecoat. What I now know is, nothing is for sure.
Let me not cry my blues and whine about the weather like I usually do. I want and am leaning towards it. Let me see if I can change my thoughts and words. It’s another day and the beat goes on. It is what it is. I have to join the band. How I play in it is my choice, but at least I’m participating, being actively involved. I’m doing the best I can. It’s all I can ask of myself.
I’ve always found words magical and healing. I inhale and exhale words and thoughts. They’re oxygen and medicine for my heart and soul. They soothe and smooth me. They can help me find the way out of the deep dark woods of my thoughts. It’s a good reason for me to show up here daily. It’s a good mental health practice, similar to brushing our teeth. Both benefit our physical and mental well being.
Today is the second day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Having broke the ice yesterday, it isn’t quite as difficult coming to my keyboard. The effort yesterday gave me a little extra gas for catching up on daisy yellow index-card-a-day challenge. I was stuck at day 27 and had no desire to go on. I was able to push myself to do a few more cards – day 28 – 30. I’m almost caught up. Halfway through the index card challenge.
So it is July 1, Canada Day, signifying 157 years since the passing of the Confederation Act, and the country’s formal creation. This day is supposed to be filled with celebrations – parades, fireworks, picnics, concerts, etc. As one whose nature is not bent towards being celebratory, I’ve never looked forward to all this but have felt obligated to participate and enjoy. But at long last, I’m okay to annouce that I have no plans for this long weekend of Canada Day celebrations.
Today is also the first day of July’s Ultimate Blog Challenge. The rules are simple. You write a post a day, publish it on your own website, then share on the UBC page. If you decide to participate on the daily thread, you read and comment on the 2 posts immediately above yours. It’s a great way of meeting other bloggers and getting new knowledge and ideas. It’s a good way of building community. I’ve been participating in the UBC for quite a few years now. I have always been eager to start but I’m feeling a bit stuck this time around. However, I will give it my best shot.
The beginning of anything is diffcult. Bringing myself to the chair in front of my keyboard was a huge effort but I am here. My reasons for writing have always been for the pleasure it gives me since I don’t have a business or anything else to promote. Now thinking about it, I also write to be heard and seen. This time I’m writing to cheer myself up and to motivate myself in putting one foot in front of the other and carry on. Maybe it can help me to finish my other projects that I have dropped by the wayside.
What I now know for sure is that later never comes, I can’t do/have everything and that I can never get on top of things. After years and years of trying and talking about it, I’ve finally come to my senses and let life evolve as it will. Of course, I still want to have a little foresight, put in some effort to minimize chaos and as much damage as I can. But things can go all to hell despite all my best efforts. I’ve learned not to blame myself, knowing that I’ve done my best. If I could have done better, I would have. Who wouldn’t?
I’m reading Four Thousand Weeks, Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. It’s not the usual self-help book on how to get more done. Quite the opposite! It’s from this book that I’ve realized it’s impossible to get on top of everything and that I can’t do/have it all. I have to choose how to spend the 4,000 weeks of my life if I was to live to 80. How stupid of me to keep bashing myself all these years, failing and yet not stopping. And so I keep reading and taking courses that tells me the same damn things over and over. Didn’t someone say that it’s dumb to expect different results from doing the same things? I’m always the slow and late learner.
It’s good that you can teach an old dog new tricks. I can’t really say I’ve turned over a new leaf, not all my leaves anyways. Learning new ways, learning to stop the not so good/wise ways is not easy. Changing is tiring. So a little each day with lots of rest and relaxation in between. And lots of TLC for myself.
I’m held hostage still by my unrelenting ruminating thoughts. I’ve been there many times in the past. I’ve had not much success in finding a cure so I will stay the course and let them go round and round till they peter out. Maybe something will trigger the jukebox in my head and I can hear a different tune.
The thing not to do is to berate myself for ruminating. If I could stop, surely I would. It is distressing and no fun at all. And if I could stop, why wouldn’t I? I am chilled with the stress. I put on my soft cotton sweater. It is a strange pale lime colour, not at all compatible with my Asian complexion. But it is amazingly comforting. I’m practicing what the Danish call haygge. I’m experiencing some ease in ‘talking‘ about my distress here. I seldom find it in verbal exchange with someone in real time. Often, there’s misunderstanding, mishearing or no hearing at all. That can cause playback over and over, like an echo chamber.
Here, I can tap out my thoughts, distress. There’s no talk back, no judgement and no why did/didn’t you do that? Thinking back/still, I know I did the best I could at the time. If I could have done better, I would have. Working out these thoughts on the page is more effective than trying to convince/gain another’s approval of my actions. Doing so only causes me to doubt myself resulting in more distress. Was it Rudyard Kipling that advises on keeping one’s own counsel in his poem IF?
I am thinking of Mary Oliver’s poem The Summer Day. She asks good questions but I have to find my own answers. I looking around and around at the wonders of my world – the tulips, the raised garden beds, the green in the greenhouse, my messy table percolating with some many possibilities. And I have to say like Satchmo, What a wonderful world.
I’m wondering like the grasshopper what else I should be doing. Recognizing that life is finite, I do not want to squander my precious time on things of no importance and things that are not dear to me. Yes, everything die at last and too soon. I cannot fit everything in and I cannot ever get on top of everything. I’m pondering and choosing what to do with this one precious life that I have.
Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean– the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down — who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life?
A sunny May 10th. I feel as if I’ve been in constant motion the last while. I’m breathless with it. My head is in a spin and full of things I need/want to do. What I want/need to do is to stop and get off the merry-go-round. How do I do it? My head hurts thinking about it. You can stop your body but it’s not so easy with your thoughts. It helps to tap on my keyboard in a steady, slow pace and let the rhythm sooth my head and slow my breath.
I do wonder why I get myself into this mess. The more I do, the more I want to do. This is as bad as the sugar, tea, and many other addictions. The more I have, the more I want, even after they are no longer feel good. It’s a treadmill difficult to step off. I stopped smoking because I had to. I had pain shooting up my nose. That was when I discovered my nostrils were all tarry and I had incomplete sinuses. Then there was the year we had bacon and eggs every morning. That added up – the pounds, that is. And the year we had ice cream every night also put on the pounds.
After I quit smoking, I couldn’t stand the smell of smoke. The ice cream didn’t taste all that great after we stopped. Tea tasted blah after too many cups. And yet, it is hard for me to stop all these addictive things. I think it is a habit, the repetitive habit of lighting up a cigarette, making a cup of tea, etc. before I do anything, or if I get stuck on doing something. I’m also addicted to doing challenges on social media – writing a blog post/daily for a month and doing an activity for a hundred days. They are all good things until I get obsessive about them. Sometimes it would be healthy for me to miss a day or two or even to just quit. Just to show I can stop.
I’m all revved up, typing up a storm. I should just stop now to show that I can. I can and I will. I need to chill.
A brighter Saturday morning. The sun finally came out after a few days of grey and rain. The rain was very welcomed. My water buckets for the greenhouse are full. I’m trying to keep my momentum going. If I can’t go fast, I’ll go slow. I don’t want the domino effect of going too strong and being totally wiped out in a whoosh. Slow and steady like the tortoise is my aim. Not that there’s any chance of me being a speedster. But there’s a possibility of me breaking some records when I’m 100 years old. That’s on the account of being the only one in that age category. Wouldn’t that be something, eh?
With that in mind, I’ve done my morning stretches. I have been working a little harder in the weightroom lately. I have a few stiff and achy muscles. Crowded and perched upon a high stool for a few hours at a music venue last night did not help matters. Post stretching, I’m feeling more relaxed and limber. Before giving in to relaxing with another cup of tea, I vacuumed the floor to fulfill my desire for order in my surroundings. One small deed. It will also help to clear my mind. A clear floor=a clear mind.
Some of my seedlings are outgrowing their pots. The broccoli are growing long and lanky. I think I will plant some of them in the raised bed and covered them with a crop cover. That will save me work of repotting them. It will also free up space in the greenhouse. They like the cool. I will plant some of the bigger cabbage seedlings, too. That will be enough gardening and moving for me today.
onethousandandtwo 