Archive for November 2012
Knowing Better
I do know better, but that doesn’t guarantee success. It is a struggle to resist the dreary weight of “shoulds” and myriad other potential hazards that lurk in the mind of a person with propensities like mine. (See Dysthymia.)
Luckily, knowing better is a very important early step toward optimal health. One of the best things that ever happened for me was having my affliction identified, and then being taught skills for responding to it.
With our new home and property, there are so many things we want to address, it is a challenge to make any sense of it. I feel a bit like I’m in a losing game of “Whac-a-Mole” (a game which, ironically, is based on a situation we are literally needing to deal with here).
I find myself able to chip away at one project until it gets dark, or I run out of time, or I arrive at a problem without immediate solution. Then a new day brings new demands and the previous project lands on the back burner. Who knows when I will get back to that one. Something new will pop up tomorrow!
Now, the Christmas season is near, and a whole new set of make-work projects show up. It troubles me to see the energy that could be put toward our “to-do” list, now going toward decorating this place like it is some sort of holiday show room. Look at that: I’ve become a Scrooge.
I know better than to focus on the dreary perspective. Most people would think the house looks beautiful, and it makes Cyndie so very happy.
Plus, it gives the cats something new to wreck! Oops. See, there I go again. Darn that doom and gloom.
I actually heard a holiday song on the radio yesterday during my drive home that sounded great and made me happy. The reason it sounded great was because it was fresh. I had not heard this song for almost a year. Unfortunately, it is not even December yet. By the time I hear this song again for the 3rd or 4th time, I will be sick of it.
We think the holidays are so fun, it is logical to extend the season as much as possible. Of course, the marketers are all in for that idea, and do everything they can to elongate the duration of a gift-shopping season. In so doing, we have created our own monster. It wasn’t good enough to leave the Christmas season the way it was in years past. It has been stretched into something annoying. You’d think it was a political campaign. What a shame it is that we allow our favorite holiday songs to become annoyances.
They used to be special, because they were heard rarely, for a precious occasion. Over-playing songs diminishes the pleasure of them.
You’d think we would know better.
Don’t Blink
If time passes in the blink of an eye, can I slow time down by blinking less?
I am trying, little by little, to deal with the miscellaneous stuff that has traveled with us to our new place. We were well aware of the ideal of jettisoning unneeded items before the move, so we wouldn’t be paying to transport things we don’t need. Our ability to live up to that ideal fell a bit short. As moving day closed in, I found myself just bagging things and then boxing the bags up, to be dealt with after we arrived.
Part of me knows I could just throw much of it away. Certainly not all of it. There is a fair amount of electronics that need to be delivered to a facility that handles such refuse.
There are also items that are perfectly good. I have new, blank DVD discs. I don’t have any working DVD recorders. It seems a shame to trash stuff that is perfectly good. I have listed some items to craig’s list, because I thought they had value, but that has turned out to be an exercise in futility. It’s a shame. There is this great way to announce you have something worth keeping out of the trash, but it still boils down to there being someone in your vicinity who actually looks for the item on the day you list it, and will actually follow through and come pick it up.
The few times I have received replies of interest, the promises to come pick things up have proved false. It has really dampened my level of wanting to bother with going through the effort of creating listings, and managing any subsequent queries another time.
I found our 1.5 million candle power flood light that has been separated from its battery charger for years. I don’t even know if the batteries will take a charge, but I’d sure like to try. Now I look back on all those times I have spotted orphaned transformers among our things, and I wonder why I couldn’t have put them somewhere logical. I can’t find one that matches the specs I need, and I’ve looked high and low, including places like harddrives that are currently plugged in and being used. Close, but not quite there.
Knowing we had piles of these transformers at one time, makes it really hard to go out and buy what I’m now looking for, especially when all I want to do is test and see if the batteries work.
Maybe, if time didn’t pass so fast, I wouldn’t have collected all this junk in the first place. Fast or slow, I need to get these piles disposed of, so I can focus on more productive projects awaiting attention around here. And every time I blink, another line seems to get added to that ‘to-do’ list.
List Management
I feel like we are lucky, …and not so lucky. All of us are. Of course we are. It’s the balance of life.
The whirlwind of activity associated with hosting friends and family over the holiday weekend, many of them seeing our new place for the first time, has me in something of a “showing” hangover. I find myself contemplating all we have accomplished, and all that is yet to be done, which lies before us. There is a feeling of being richly blessed (lucky), and now socked with some big responsibilities (unlucky).
It is the part of me that wants to have everything tended to immediately that creates a feeling of pressure about addressing all the responsibilities. If I frame the new responsibilities as obviously transpiring over a span of time, it’s not nearly as daunting. We’ll get to it all, eventually.
My moments of weakness come when I see things that one day concern us greatly, then fade out of mind before we ever get around to tending to them. We start down a project path as far as is immediately convenient, but too often lose sight of it a day later, at which time something else easily seems to grab our attention away from our previous focus.
One of my projects for today will be to get our printer set up and running. We created a “to-do” list on Cyndie’s computer last week, but haven’t had it available for easy reference, and each of us has made individual changes to each of the copies on our own computers. I need to teach her how to use Google Documents, so we can both be updating one master list.
I want to be able to check things off the list as they get completed, as well as see the once-important ones continue to receive visibility, so items won’t linger unfinished.
As our littlest kitty approached me for attention the other day, I got the impression the cats’ behavior serves as an example of how life is. Pequenita strolled up to me for attention, weaving between my legs. As I reached to give her some petting, she kept walking to just out of my reach.
My “to-do” list will always be taking that one more step, out of reach of my ability to accomplish to my heart’s desire.
Glorious Beauty
In the afterglow of a wonderful Thanksgiving day, highlighted by visiting family and friends, we are feeling a renewed sense of wonder for this place that has become our home. A home that we now share with two newly adopted cats. I am immediately reminded of our cats by the sound of one of them getting a drink of water, as I write. Unfortunately, Mozyr is dipping his nose into my cup of water on the end table to my right, to get that drink.
Hey, at least he’s showing confidence to be out from under our bed.
Actually, both cats have been doing really well with all the clamor and confusion from our hosting of a number of guests who have been infiltrating their space, just days after they have had the chance to learn this is their new home.
We are in this together, the cats and us, getting used to this ‘new home’ thing.
This beautiful paradise is our home?! Yes, indeed, kitties, it is.
Some of our first-time visitors of the last couple of days have inquired about which space we tend to spend the most time, and it occurred to me that we haven’t had enough time yet to give all the spaces a fair test. We love all of the different rooms. For just the two of us, we certainly have more rooms than we need. We didn’t really succeed in downsizing from our previous home.
We like sitting in the sunroom in the early light of morning, and at the kitchen counter of the center island whenever there is food-related activity going on. Climbing the wooden spiral staircase to our loft always gives a thrill, and the space up there is so appealing, it is hard to come back down. Since we started using the living room fireplace, where we have some new furniture, the thrill of sitting there and basking in the views through double doors on either side, as well as the glow of the fire, itself, is a big attraction. We logged a bit of extra time in the bedroom, hanging out with the cats when they first arrived, and that room has won increasing favor in our hearts.
They are all great spaces.
It has been a blessing to already have had the opportunity to enjoy hosting overnight guests on multiple occasions. This place deserves to be filled with the extra energy that additional people bring when they visit, and more so when they can stay a while.
I think that is a nice way to put this space to good use.
The icing on our cake is, after guests head home, we get to remain. And the space grows quiet, wrapping around us, and cradling us in all its amazing, glorious beauty.
Then, one of the cats slides around a corner at break-neck speed, claws trying to find purchase in the ceramic tiled floor, reacting to something that neither Cyndie nor I can see, or hear.
Pictorial Review
Cyndie putting the final touches on the Thanksgiving spread
Gathering around the old family table.
November morning with a new dusting of snow.
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Footprints in the new snow
Pequenita up on the highest shelf of the closet
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Mozyr watching the wildlife on our deck
Happy Thanksgiving
Today is the annual Thanksgiving holiday in the US, where tradition has it that we prepare a feast, with roast turkey being the most common main course. We will not be parting with tradition. In fact, we are combining new and old, cooking the traditional meal to be served on the old family table, but the turkey will be cooked in the brand new roaster Cyndie bought for the occasion, and we are hosting Thanksgiving dinner in our new house for the first time.
There is a lot that we are thankful for this year. I will take this opportunity to thank you for following our adventures here, and for being a part of Relative Something.
Cat Tales
Of course, you must expect that the newly adopted kitties are commanding the majority of our attention over the last few days. They are doing amazingly well in their new environment.
The first night was a bit like having a new baby. We were awakened about every two hours, and there were some sad-sounding cries in the night. Luckily, the cup that got knocked off the top of the dresser at about 2 a.m. was an empty plastic one, so it made a lot of noise, but didn’t break, and nothing spilled.
blurry nighttime cell phone capture of cats resting comfortably
The second night was great. They must have been tired, because they slept most of it.
Yesterday, after the cats had been here for just a day and a half, we opened up the bedroom door to let them roam. Pequenita was in her glory, but Mozyr was a bit intimidated. Unfortunately, very early in his explorations, a small end-table that had been pushed up against a window ledge, toppled out from under him. That scare sent him immediately back under the bed.
I had a project going on downstairs, and ‘nita was keeping me company and checking things out. We have a tall, empty wardrobe box left from the move, which allowed her to demonstrate her impressive jumping abilities. I think she startled herself a bit in the process, and came out of it a lot more nervous than when she went in.
In the basement, most of the ceiling is finished, but she found that climbing to the top of the storage room allows access above the ceiling tiles and into the rafters under the floor of the first level. Hopefully, while she was cleaning out all those cobwebs, she was leaving her scent behind to give notice to the mice that there are a couple of new sheriffs in town.
I got nervous about her being up there because, before we had cats, Cyndie had put out poison, and I don’t know where rodents may have stashed what they hoarded. I didn’t want Pequenita to discover a stash somewhere above the ceiling tiles. When I got her to come down again, I decided the adventure had earned her a chance to go back in the bedroom for the rest of the afternoon.
When we decided we’d be getting cats, I had to pull out all the snapping mouse traps we used to have inside. I moved them out into the garage. Yesterday morning I found my first mouse frozen in the jaws of one trap. I reset it, and by afternoon, had another one at the same location.
Maybe, if I can catch all the mice in the garage, before they even get to the house, our cats will have an easy job of it. They will be able to spend their days lounging in the sunshine that beams through the doors to the deck, while watching all the birds and squirrels put on a tempting show outside.
Relative Something 