• Moody Blues,  place holder posts,  Slow Living,  the dogs

    Hello 2023

    looking-into-2023

    I wanted to say Happy New Year, but I’m in a grumpy mood. Nothing to worry about. Just working my butt off with two jobs, driving around in torrential rain all the time, and feeling the gloom of not seeing the sun for a week, or is it two weeks? I can’t even remember. It feels like forever. We Southern Californians are not made for this sort of weather. I feel like a plant that is wilting from lack of vitamin D.

    christmas-2022

    I survived Christmas. It was expectedly gloomy due to my lack of family but them’s the breaks when you decide to switch up your life as I did. Freedom comes with its costs. Bug and I opened a few gifts at home and then I actually crashed Toby and his girlfriend’s Christmas which was really sweet. It’s kinda sad when your ex and his girlfriend include you in their plans because they feel sorry for you. But I really felt welcome and enjoyed  their company.

    southwest-fiasco-matt-visits

    Then in an unexpected twist, Matt (who was down visiting his family in Palm Springs for Christmas) got stuck in Southern California because of the Southwest Airlines fiasco. His flight home to San Francisco was canceled indefinitely so I went and got him and he stayed with us for a week! It was awesome. We attended a super-spreader New Year’s party, and Bug got a chance to really get to know Matt which made me happy. I was nervous they wouldn’t get on but they did.

    codys-christmas-swim-2022

    Oh yeah, this happened too. I was taking Cody for a walk on Christmas Day (and not paying attention because I was taking pictures of the sunrise) and somehow Cody fell into the lake. Yeah, not really an accident. This dog loves to swim. He doesn’t care that I live in an apartment with a white rug and no real bathtub to bathe him in. I tried my best to wash him off in my shower, but I have a rigid shower head, and no detachable hose so the water spray just sort of hit his back end and didn’t do much. I used a cup to douse him over and over with water, but I couldn’t get the lake smell off of him. And of course, all groomers were closed, and I don’t really have the funds for grooming anyway. So he’s still dirty. Good thing I love him. That pretty much sums up my mood: dirty dog, have no funds for extras.

    Happy New Year!

    I don’t want to end this post like that though. I want to say that the lows are necessary. I’ve had some of my best epiphanies and ideas on days like these. We can’t exist on distractions and happy times alone. It’s good to have lulls so we can pause and reflect and figure out what’s working and what’s not. It’s time to sow the seeds for good times ahead.

    xo

  • Life Lessons,  Moody Blues,  raving lunatic rant,  spilling my guts,  word-driven-blogging

    Rallying

    rallying.

    I have been lagging so badly. I think all I do is lag. Why so much lag!!!??? I don’t know. I think I just feel overwhelmed with life and time is a concept that doesn’t make sense. Years of content go by in my head and nothing gets written. And you all wonder why there are crickets chirping on this side of the internet. Because I am overwhelmed with lag!!!  I’m still here. I’m just stuck on a lag! I can’t seem to get over it.

    rallying-2

    I have several blog posts to write. They are all swirling in my head.  My publisher has tasked me to write a link-heavy post about all the books I have written. I need to ask for reviews for them to beat the amazon algorithm. (I hate algorithms except when they work for me and then I love them.) She asked me to write it weeks ago and here I am sitting on it while I stress about not being able to pay my bills. I am shooting myself in the foot.  So that’s coming. Where my reviewers at?!

    early-matt-days

    I also need to write an epic post about my new relationship and how it’s spanned 30 years. Thirty years!!!  It’s a doozy. I don’t even think I can do it justice.  I could write a book about this love story. Maybe I should. Maybe I will someday.

    fun-with-cc

    I also need to write a post about CC coming to visit and all the fun we had visiting our old haunts. I love having family around. I miss having a big family. There’s more to that than meets the eye.

    balboa-with-cc

    I also need to write about the job I didn’t get and the huge crush to my ego that job hunting at fifty is… I think I just need to check in. I need to throw myself on the screen and see what comes out.

    I think this post will be about rallying. It’s been a theme lately.

    You know when you are low and you realize it’s not getting you anywhere? You cry and there’s snot and you blow your nose and notice that your breath is bad because all the acid in your stomach is trying to escape…and while you are noticing all these things in the present, you realize you have two options: crawl into bed, and continue this luxury of sadness and pretend not to exist while still feeling all the feelings OR find something distracting to throw yourself into and trick your brain into thinking life is still worth living.

    Wow, that sounds like depression.

    I recently finished listening to “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone” by Lori Gottlieb. It’s sooooo good. I think I might even need to read it again because invariably I was walking and listening at the same time and sometimes I zoned out in my own thoughts or got distracted by the sunrise or a squirrel or something and I probably missed a jewel of truth.  There are so many jewels in this book! Every single chapter held so much helpful thought. I can’t rave about it enough.  Go read it now.

    Maybe rallying is a distraction, the act of covering up something deeper and darker that we are not ready to deal with. That’s fair. It’s a coping mechanism that has a side benefit of action. So many times I’ve been in a really low place and I’ve pulled out some strength from somewhere deep inside myself that I didn’t even know I had and moved my brain two inches to the right to a better place against its own will. I found my mojo there. I faked it until I made it. I found the courage to wipe away my tears and see a brighter side. It’s just keeping on keeping. Dress up, show up. All the cliches! Life is sucky. This world is sucky but it would be a shame not to hang in there for the brilliant times, the fun times, the best of times… it’s not time to give up.

    Feeling the feelings is important too. Finishing the cycle of a feeling lets you move on to the next one. So let’s feel the feels and rally. All the feels, all the rallies. Kumbaya. La la la.

    I should note that while I’ve had some big sad feelings lately, I’ve also had some really big happy feelings. That’s life, right? I hope you are feeling all the big feelings too.