Turning a corner

Although I didn't leave my house for 3 days this weekend, I did get a lot of cleaning and laundry done while I was there. The cleaning was partially in response to the fact that my interior painter is going to start work today, and the contractor who is installing my new whirlpool tub is going to start work tomorrow or the next day. Fun! It will be a total house transformation. The contractor started talking about resale value and I said "Are you kidding? This is going to be my dream home when it's finished, I'm never leaving!"

It's always been my dream home but it has needed painting the whole time I've lived there, and the tub will just make my entire existence extra special, I feel.

The laundry can only be explained by one thing: I'm feeling better. I have more energy. I care about what clothing I wear, which is not something one really cares about when depressed.

Not leaving the house, however, is probably not the best. Although it is like a little cocoon in which I can be free from worldly concerns...

It's a dog's life

Queenie is ready for supper; moments earlier, she had hurled herself to the floor and now is licking her chops:

Everybody keep your heads in your own bowls: words to live by (thanks M!)


Zoe looking exceedingly cute:


Max looking quizzical but with glowy eyes of doom:


Confidential to Shelly: yes, that is my big foot in green crocs -- but don't you agree they look somewhat dashing with the pink socks peeking through? No? Well, they are only worn around the house and to the beach.

Shoe post; men, avert your eyes

So I'm walking down the street to my car and I'm just moving along, thinking my own thoughts, when suddenly I realize that my back doesn't hurt. In fact, nothing hurts. Walking is easy, and I feel good. I look down at my feet. What shoes am I wearing? CLOGS. Dansko clogs. Which I swore in college (30! years ago) that I would never wear, because they couldn't possibly be comfortable because they had a wooden base then, and because they looked good on my friend JoAnn, who was small and cute with small feet while I was large and ungainly with big feet, so I decided they would never work.

All my shoes now are both comfortable and supportive, but evidently the Merrill mesh clog-style shoe is no longer supportive enough. I must wear clogs, which seem to put my spine in good alignment, as well as supporting my very very flat arches.

Clogs are better than sneakers, which I wore for 2 years before my knee replacement last year, in terms of looking nice. And I do like them now. And I do have several pairs in really nice colors.

But really, is this what it's come to? Sneakers or clogs? Before you know it, I'll be in orthopedic shoes.

I'm feeling old.

Letting people off the hook

I had the opportunity to practice forgiveness today, in a small way. I went to my doctor at the appointed time (and she's usually right on time), waited 35 minutes, and then left. I called and left a message saying that I had been there but she hadn't, and to please call and reschedule.

At first I was somewhat irritated, because it was a very early appointment (and I got up on time this morning, yay me!). But I wasn't sure whose "fault" it was, and I put "fault" in quotations because I'm not sure assigning fault or blame to every situation is really important. (At least, that's what a friend of mine 30 years ago said -- I had some really bad habits then!) The fact was that we were not able to meet. I regretted this, but I thought I might have made the mistake as easily as she, so my irritation was already lessening because of that.

She called later and it turned out that it was her mistake that caused the mix-up. And that was my chance for reacting angrily, or even just peevishly -- anger would be overreacting, but showing irritation was not necessarily out of the question. But instead I let her off the hook, saying that it was fine, asking to reschedule. The basic wrap-up: this kind of thing happens to all. And it can be enormously satisfying to let someone off the hook.

It helped greatly that she apologized, and I am now thinking about the role of apologies in the ability to forgive. It can be easy not to accept an apology because I'm still mad, and I need a bit of time to cool off, but usually if someone apologizes, sincerely, accepting responsibility, I settle down and am able to forgive.

I have in the past few years forgiven some people who have caused me great harm or done egregious (according to me) things -- without an apology. But man, it took a long time to get there. One of them was my mother, and she died six years ago, and I wasn't able to forgive her for a lot of things until after her death. Sometimes I still have flare-ups of anger toward her. And now I think, if one is practicing forgiveness, doesn't that look a lot like acceptance of another person, including their flaws and errors and everything? And where does self-respect enter in? If forgiveness is about acceptance, does that mean we forgive/accept everyone who treats us badly? Where do we draw the line? Do we set ourselves up for more problems if we are too accepting? Or can we sever unhealthy relationships in a forgiving way?

Stay tuned as I continue to examine this phenomenon and ask even more unanswerable questions!

Beyond belief

I saw this bumper sticker on my way to work this morning:

Take your child hunting
instead of hunting your child

I did look hard to make sure it didn't say "instead of hurting your child" which also makes no sense, but it really did say "hunting."

Is it supposed to be funny? I mean, I really don't get it.

Back to normal

...for some values of normal, that is.

I was delighted to find my office clean and organized when I came in this morning. I forgot I had done that before all that time off. It's so pleasant, I hope that I'll keep it this way (she says, as if she had no hand in the matter).

I wound up making a couple more resolutions which are small things that will make me happier. One is to get up on time and the other is to eat healthily (added to working on forgiveness and doing art once a week, at least).

My new approach to getting up on time is something I've thought about trying for years, but never have. It's a wake-up service called Snoozester. You can choose a character to wake you up each morning. There are other services I can try if I don't like this one. It worked this morning, though.

Another thing I'm trying to keep track of how I'm doing with my resolutions is Don't Break the Chain. The site lets you set up each goal and gives you a calendar that's separate for each. It's very satisfying to "check" off a day and see how many days in a row you've kept to your resolutions/goals/whatever you want to track. I just started it today, so again I don't know whether or not it will work for me. It felt good to check off one of my resolutions -- getting up on time -- but the others have to wait until the end of the day for me to evaluate them.

Would love to hear other people's resolutions and how they plan to stick with them.

Happy New Year!

Some pix from last night's fireworks downtown:






As you can see, I didn't quite develop the knack for it. I suspect I would have done better with a tripod, but would I have wanted to carry it around all night?

This was the first New Year's Eve I've spent alone for quite some time. My friends were all out of town. I was just going to stay home and entertain myself, which is quite easy for me, but at the last minute I decided I would enjoy some music and some fireworks (which mercifully were at 9 this year and not at midnight as usual) and so I went to our town's First Night celebration. And I thought to myself, embracing eccentricity means doing eccentric things and not worrying about what other people think. Normally I would feel like I would really stand out and people would look at me funny. Now I don't seem to care.

I had a surprisingly fun time. For the first time in years, I could choose exactly what I wanted to do without comprising with others, especially small children. I can't tell you what a pleasure this was -- I only had to please myself. Of course, having company can be fun, but selecting entertainment that pleases me (and wouldn't have pleased my friends) was a blessing in disguise.

And nobody looked at me funny, at least not that I noticed. I sometimes read while waiting for a show to start, but mostly I people-watched, an activity that I greatly enjoy and that I usually forget to make time for.

My very best wishes for a happy new year to you all!