Spring

After the winter storm went through this past weekend, the sun came out and melted it almost within a day.  I am hoping that was it for the year and we are finally into the spring season.  Time to turn off the heaters and dehumidifiers – fling open windows and dust off that fan you know you’ll need in another few weeks.

Say hello to the wonderful flies, ants, mosquitoes, knats, and other wonderful insect population that will be joining us shortly.  I’d rather wear bug spray and put up with bugs then be in the dead of winter.

Time to get my summer haircut – well, almost time.  I don’t know how short I’ll go this year – probably as short as I always go because then it has all the rest of the year to grow back out with only needing the bangs trimmed to keep them out of my eyes.

Outside my open window, between the noises of traffic, I can hear the birds singing their heartfelt song of cheer that spring has finally sprung.  It makes me smile.

Winter Blues

This is the result of our winter storm from the weekend.  I was just a few minutes too late to get a picture of the snow coming down so hard one couldn’t see the hill across the river.  I’m standing in a parking ramp looking down.

Out on the Town

Went to Applebees with family members tonight.  There was three generations present – isn’t that great? I love that we can get together with such different age groups thus different perspectives.  It was fun – we laughed a lot.

Amy turned her head right as I was snapping the picture. :-(

Laughing it up!

Amy, Marjorie, Cyndi, Jackie and Rachel

Amy, Marjorie, Cyndi, Me, and Jackie

Wednesday

Today has been a “catch up on sleep” day because I haven’t felt like doing much else other than that.  I did a spot of cleaning and cooked a roast for supper but otherwise, I’ve been working on my writing.

Am quite gleeful because I found my manuscript changes which I thought I had lost.  Thankfully I had had the good sense to email them to me at yahoo so it was sitting in there waiting for me.  Took me a few hours to find it but I did.  About made me weep with happiness.

So I’ve been printing it out and reading it so I can work on it some more.  It is very close to being done though then it will have to be edited which will take awhile.  Once the editing is done, the corrections will have to be applied and the whole thing will have to be printed again before it can go to the publishers.  I’m thinking I will let Kinko’s or somewhere like that do the final printing and copies.    Then off to the publishers and literary agents.  Very exciting.

Reading “The Shining” is also stirring up ideas of my own for a “haunting” story so might start on that too.  I don’t know how writers find the time to finish one book if they have so many going.  Stephen King said in his hay-day he would write 3,000 words a day.  In 2001 he said he writes closer to 1800 a day – wonder how many he writes now.

I know I am no where near 1800 a day let alone 3000 but I suppose if I get motivated more I could do more.  Also if I didn’t have interruptions and have to actually work a regular job.

I have no grand illusions here – I don’t expect my books to hit the New York Times Best Seller’s list – but I do hope that they glean a moderate fan base to keep me writing.  Someday – hopefully by the time I’m fifty, I would like to be done working the regular job and be writing full time.

I am slowly marrying the idea of buying an RV so that I can travel and write once I’m retired from the general work force.  It would really be awesome. 

I suppose after a few years I would get sick of it and settle down but at least if I traveled the entire US, I would know where I wanted to settle down to. 

Maybe it is a “pie in the sky” dream but hey, its my dream so as long as it is a coconut cream pie in the sky, I will continue to work towards getting to it. 

Birds

I forgot to mention the birds in my last post. When I got home about 3:30 am, I opened the windows so I could hear the storm better when it came (it never did).

What I did hear were the morning birds chirping away at the sunrise. It reminded me of people getting ready to go to work the way they were chirping and fluttering around in the trees.

Down in Florida we had a Mockingbird and I would sit outside listening to it at night. The birds this morning were not as loud as the mockingbird but I still enjoyed their song.

Raining

It is a nice, sleepy, rainy day outdoors today.  I know we get a lot of rain in the spring and I love it except, of course, the dogs coming back from our walks covered in mud.  But hey, that isn’t much different than a child coming in all muddy so I deal with it.

I was ever so disappointed we didn’t get the “severe” thunderstorms they were warning us about since Sunday night.  The thunder barely rumbled at all and the rain has been quite gentle.  I love thunderstorms – they are so soothing to me.  I suppose that is strange considering they make most people anxious.  The extremely loud booming ones I like but prefer a more solid, constant rumble a bit softer than say…a freight train.  I think I developed this love of storms from my mother but that is another story.

I would have slept later today since I took a sleeping pill about 6:30 am, but Bennie sat at my door whining because he wanted to go out to go potty.  The little dear has gotten so much better about not pottying in the house – he hasn’t had an accident in weeks.

I so do love both my dogs – they are so sweet.  I love their little characters and even Baxter’s stubborness.  Baxter makes it so obvious that he thinks he is the master and I am the pet.  LOL.  I tell him every now and then that he needs to go get a job if he wants to be lord over the castle.

Friends

In the elevator down to the basement where I work, the thought jumped into my head that maybe I should see out a counselor.  I had an excellent one in Sarasota – I really liked her – and think maybe I should look for one up here.  Why, you may ask.

I was thinking about that, though I have many friends, I really don’t have anyone I can talk to.  I mean really talk to.  Someone who listens without judgment, without indignation, without platitudes, and without judgment.

Sometimes a trained professional asking me the right questions to trigger the answer that I already know but can’t seem to put my finger on, is so very helpful.  I value that.

A counselor does that – they ask who, what, why, when, where, how of the situation and gives leading questions that help me organize my thoughts and the situation.  You may be wondering why I can’t do it on my own since I know the questions.

The answer is simple really.  When you are in the middle of something – it doesn’t have to be a crisis – you are so focused on one thing that you can’t see the bigger picture.  You might think you can but once you start trying to put it all together, it just seems to not fit right.  Some people – and I know a few – see things more black and white so they don’t have trouble with the gray.

My coworker thinks I think too much – that I am always analyzing rather than just accepting that life is as it is and float along with the rest of the world.   I am a laid back person when it comes to my interaction with others – exceptions are road rage and those who hurt others.

But I take a lot to heart too.  Things friends and family say that really hurt my feelings bother me and I wrestle with the correct response.   My motto is if the response will cause them anger or pain then it is better to say nothing.  Like any motto, I try to live by it but have slipped more than once.

I like someone who is detached from every situation who can help me answer the questions and see the options I have.  My niece is a counselor and I’m sure she could explain this so much better than I can.  I’m going to have to ask her for her clinical view on why people without major problems or crisis still want to see counselors.

The thing is, and I have heard my sister say the same thing, none of my friends or family really know the deep dark “me” – a counselor is paid to get to know that part of myself and help me make sense of it.  Does that make sense?

After reading this post, do you not see why I should seek out a counselor? It is about as organized and insightful as trying to analyze mud.  LOL

Just Thinking

I’ve been thinking today about getting rid of cable tv.  I would keep the internet.  It isn’t an issue of money really but more that I would like to not have those things clouding my life.  Hours in front of the tv are completely wasted and that bothers me.  I keep talking about how I’d like to simplify my life and live more like the people back in the old days.

Granted, internet is a “new” days kind of thing but I need  that to keep in touch with people and to pay my bills.  The cable is $60+ a month and for what? Bland entertainment that I don’t even really enjoy while I’m watching it.

Besides the cable tv, I am thinking I should get a bike and then start riding to work on Saturdays and Sundays to save gas, get exercise, and be outdoors.  I have a bike picked out at Walmart but won’t buy it till next month.  I know I wrote about the bike already on the other blog.

I’m going through my day to day life looking at other things that I could cut out to make life more simplistic – I’m looking to cut the fat, so to speak.  It is an intriguing idea that has been blossoming in my mind all day.

It would be rather awesome to start reading and writing more!

Night Sky

On my way home tonight while driving north on 965, I saw the brightest light streaking across the sky not too very far off the ground.  It was too low and bright to be a shooting star – it looked like something on fire but then it simply went out.  I could be convinced it was a fire cracker of some proportion but there was no noise associated with it and it looked bigger than a fire cracker would.

I have no idea what it was – it looked big enough to be a small plane but yet it didn’t fall from the sky or hit the ground with a loud thundering so it couldn’t be that either.  I wish I could have gotten a picture of it – I mean, what is flying around at 3:20am anyway?

Oh well, guess it was an anomaly that probably had to do with the cloudless night sky.  I wouldn’t have put it more than a few hundred feet off the ground and it definitely looked like something on fire.  Guess if it doesn’t make the news in awhile than it was nothing – probably nothing anyway because I haven’t heard any fire or ambulance people dispatched and I live close enough to the station that I would have.

Maybe it was one of Mom’s UFO’s.  I guess by definition it was a UFO because it was an “unidentified flying object”…that covers just about everything in the sky some nights. 

Ham and Potato Soup

I think when I get home I will throw some ham and potato soup together in the crock pot.  I’ve been meaning to make it for days but don’t get around to it so think I will do that today.

I am planning on eating out with my son for my birthday but the soup will come in handy later in the evening or tomorrow for lunch.  I love potato and ham soup and have already cooked the ham so that part is at least done.

I’ll make a big crock pot full and then freeze half of it for later use.  I do that with just about all the soup I make because I make more than I can eat in one sitting and I don’t like to eat the same thing more than maybe twice in a week.

Two more hours to go – I’m so ready to go home!!!!