daily life – Page 93 – The Hermits' Rest

Highs and Lows of 2019

Yeah, so I said I wouldn’t be posting about goals for the year, but I didn’t say I wouldn’t pause to reflect a bit. I finally have a few minutes to actually do that, so I’m going to answer some questions originally shared by my friend (and brilliant writer) Teresa Pitman. I will also add some cheerful flower photos to prove it’s still colorful, at least among the tiny flowers outside our former church building!

What made 2019 unforgettable for you?

The most unforgettable thing is that other than one sentence when we ran into each other in the summer, my older son didn’t speak to me in 2019. I’m still at a loss about what the reason is, but I’ll never forget 2019 for that very unexpected turn of events. I honestly thought we had a good relationship and could discuss any issues that came up. It’s a mother’s nightmare, but dwelling on it and going through possible scenarios won’t help. I’ll keep waiting and sending love.

What did you most enjoy doing in 2019?

There’s no one answer to this one! I crammed a lot of good stuff into the year. Here are some of my favorite things:

Riding on Apache and exploring the ranch
Playing with the dogs
Walking in Austin and at the ranch
Attending book club
Learning from Master Naturalists
Writing
Brainstorming in all my jobs
Traveling to beautiful places
Spending time with my family

Do We NEED to Be Goal Oriented?

Ooh, this is a controversial topic in my family right now. When I first started this blog, I wrote that my main goal was to live in the moment. I’m basically sticking with that one, along with:

Keep learning
Be kind
Like myself just as I am

There. I’m done. My yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals are right there.

On the other hand…

My Cameron housemates, Lee and Kathleen, are very big on goals. They have fancy goal-monitoring journals that take a long time to set up. The journals help them set their goals for every period of time, and encourage them to evaluate how they are going, whether they are reasonable or not, and whether they need to be changed, due to life or whatever.

Alfred Takes a Long Strange Nap

Today was a very different day for Alfred, our immense Anatolian Shepherd dog. We had thought maybe we’d get by this year without having to anesthetize him to groom him. He’d done a lot better than last year, thanks to Carlton gnawing off many of his burs.

But then we noticed one of his huge double dewclaws had formed a circle and grown into his leg. It made him limp. That had to be dealt with!

So, our friendly mobile vet, Dr. Amy, who has probably funded her cool trailer off our pets, drove over to deal with our big, sweet boy.

The nice thing is that he got sedated in the foyer, on his rug. He didn’t even know what happened. Just he suddenly had to NAP NOW.

They fixed his nail and trimmed all the others, which we certainly can’t do when he is awake. Then he had a nice snooze for an hour or so.

Whoops

When I wrote yesterday about a feeling of dread, more than one reader responded that they felt clumsy at those times.

Doom came to this squirrel. Great shot of the black vulture by Anita!

Sure enough, today was full of minor oops errors and even a major one. And it wasn’t just me. My poor friends and colleagues dealt with it, too.

I got Maggie this fine hat as a consolation for not getting to go to Party City with me.

There were also disappointments and such at work. Even the good news of the day went sour. I couldn’t even make things better by shopping for our department party (at the Bobcat Lair) with coworker Maggie, because traffic got weird.

I’ll just cheer you up with photos of our Christmas lights, all from a box we found in the garage.

But hey, I remembered lots of positive things at therapy, too, and managed to go out with Anita to get the last party and family gifts just in time. I wish I hadn’t broken a delicate glass orb, though (the major error of the day), but I only got a small cut!

I even put lights in the cedar trees ( ashe junipers).

So yeah, those feelings of doom seem to portend something. But all in all, I’m grateful to the people who brighten my days.

Those blurs are snowflakes. Wish I had more!

I’ll be way more interesting after tomorrow’s party! In the meantime I hope you like our hodgepodge of holiday lights.

Old Houses, Theater, Work: No Deep Thoughts Today

I have been too busy getting things DONE to get any of my writing tasks done. No complaints there! I have things to write about in all my work blogs now.

One Old House

Yesterday was a lot of fun and messy as hell. Anita had a home inspection scheduled at the cute little house she’s buying from us in Cameron. We took that opportunity to clean up what was left in the house, which has been waiting for TLC for four years.

You can barely see them, but we put decorations in front of the Nash house.

So , we moved lots of bags of things the family of the first owner didn’t want. We removed furniture that wasn’t fixable. We cleaned mildew off furniture we want to keep.

The clean stuff we are keeping and a cleaner living room floor.

My most odious task was sweeping up the baking soda the folks who sold us the house had put down to deal with the odors. Whew. That was dusty.

Don’t Let Them Squish Your Happiness

After reading the Happier Now book, I’ve been carefully observing what brings happiness into my life. What has also become clear for the past week or so is how easy it is to have your happiness squished. Now, intellectually, I’ve known this a long time. Haven’t you read somewhere that it takes some large number of compliments to override one put-down?

No one can take away my happiness of observing a tiny bird on a fence.

For me, one of those “highly sensitive persons,” some of the unkind things that were said to me stuck for decades. I thought of myself as “fatso” even when I was of an average size. And as an adult, there have been a few things people said to me that I couldn’t shake. I let their perceptions of me affect my self esteem.

These days, I’m doing better, and that’s great. Yay me. Still, you can’t avoid negativity and negative people in life. Some of them you’re related to or have to work with, you know. And, as we have been talking about this morning, as we sip our coffee, there are some folks who just don’t like to see someone else happy or doing well, so they try to pull them down to their level (apparently this is common in all the families of origin in my household).

But, what has shocked me, and what I’ve decided I need to figure out how to handle better, is how easily my happiness can get squished by people around me. I’m sharing some personal examples next, not to criticize others, but to talk about how we might interact more successfully.

My Hair Scared Me

[First off, my apologies for another post full of pictures of me, but it’s hard to get photos of my hair without me in them. However…]

My Red Period, and a picture of me that I don’t cringe at. I am perfect the way I am! Repeat after me!

As you lovely readers know, I keep changing my hair color, because I love the Overtone color/conditioner. I’m not sure why I, a Certified Tomboy, keep coloring my hair weird colors and getting my nails done, but, that’s just me, I guess. This week, however, I got a hair scare, and people kept commenting on it!

For the past couple of months (starting in mid-October), my hair has been RED. The color of a stop sign, not a ginger person’s hair. When it’s first done, and after the first wash, it’s pretty spectacular and looks good with my complexion. I really enjoyed my Red Period, which is the name of the photo at right.

The problem started when I was unable to replenish the color after three washes, which is what I normally do, since the temporary color washes out.

Over the weekend, I noticed my hair was not at all red. In fact it was quite the Thanksgiving/autumn orange. It almost looked…gasp…NATURAL! What the heck?

What Do You Hear?

The past couple of days we’ve seen waves and waves of sandhill cranes fly over. I got some pretty photos.

What’s really been fun in that they keep flying by after dark. We’ve been working on projects in the garage for the past two evenings, and it’s been a true joy to listen to their clacking sounds.

When the cranes stop, the owls take over. On a crisp evening like tonight, with all the stars out, it’s great to be in Central Texas.

Texas Weather Weirdness AND Trouble in Kindness Land

This holiday weekend has had some rough weather all over the US, and I am grateful to have had nothing worse than fog and light rain. But still, I got quite a weather surprise last night. All day it had been damp, a bit chilly, and breezy. I was glad to have my coat on for horsing around and walking with the dogs.

I heard a lot about Lego creativity from Mandi’s youngest son last night. He is really funny and clever.

So, around 7:30 or so, I went over to Mandi’s house to look for rattlesnakes…um, no, to watch her make pies and talk to her kids. I put on the same coat I’d worn all day, and stepped onto the porch. WHAT?? It was HOT outside! Yes, after sunset it had warmed up at least ten degrees, maybe more. Now, that is NOT a usual weather pattern! It appears that the front that had stalled over the state had moved back to the north and brought sauna-like conditions. That’s a new one! And right now it’s almost 80 degrees, on the last day of November!

Kindness Land

I realize I could have made two posts, but since no one’s really reading this stuff this weekend, I’ll just combine topics.

You see, I have been struggling with kindness in some areas of my life. Since being kind is important to me, I’m trying to build new patterns and attitudes toward people I come across. To be honest, there are always people we find hard to be kind to, whether it’s someone who treats us or another person rudely, the person whose driving puts you in danger, or a coworker with no boundaries (made-up examples; please don’t worry if I am referring to you).

Damp and Dreary Can Be Cheery

Today started out bathed in fog, and as the sun sets it’s still drizzling. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful day. You can find beauty anywhere if you just look around! Just look at all these beautiful water droplets!

Anita stayed over last night, sleeping on my gradually softening air bed. Shoot, that was a GOOD air bed. We had the nicest discussion, just Anita, Lee, and me, as we drank our hot beverages and finished cleaning up after last night’s delicious Thanksgiving dinner. I felt so relaxed, with Carlton curled up in my lap, and the fog draped over the trees outside.

I got Anita to walk the dogs with me and pose like she is out on the misty moors. It was fun to walk through all the tiny air droplets. It wasn’t too cold, so it was good walking weather.