bits of string and sealing wax

Each day I feel more like myself again, and it’s so great.  Ever since I had the miscarriage life around here has been so stressful.  I felt like I was in survival mode and just doing what I could to stay sane and keep breathing.  My attention was so sunk in what was going on with my cousin and her kids that I had a hell of a hard time thinking about much else.  I think I couldn’t grieve properly or process what was even going on with me.  My brain was pure fog and exhaust, and I truly couldn’t think clearly about anything.  I didn’t have the energy to make changes to my nutrition, and I didn’t have the energy to try to fit in workouts, and I didn’t have the energy to figure out what I wanted to do about school/ finding a job/ and sorting out the rest of my life.  Every ounce of me was poured into trying to keep calm, and not blow a damn gasket.

I made the best of things and did what I could, but it was pretty hard on me.  Now, I know I can’t blame my living situation for everything, but obviously a persons living environment  shapes how they function from day to day.  I went from 193, eating healthy, losing weight, starting a business, and feeling hopeful and inspired about things to topping out at a peak 215 (it was only during my period, but still), not feeling able to move forward, feeling like a failure, eating a lot of shitty stuff, and generally being filled with a sense of despair.  No fucking bueno, crew, no fucking bueno.

If I had a nickle for every time I retreated to my room because I was overwhelmed with a sense of “Is this my life?  Cause if the answer is yes I am going to have a damn panic attack” I would have wayyyyy more than ten nickles.  Like, I’d probably have way more than twenty nickles and would be well on my way to cashing those nickles in so that I could buy yet another funtastic app to put on the love of my life iPhone.

Starting a myfitnesspal is just one step, but it has been a huge eye opener for me.  I’ve been making so many changes to myself and my life that I can’t believe how stuck I was for so long.  I feel like I am getting my confidence back, and am ready to move forward into better times and happier days.  Ahhhh.  I now have a new “thirty days of change” goal.  I wish to track on myfitnesspal for thirty days in a row.  I also want to get in a workout of some kind for at least forty five minutes for thirty days in a row as well.  So can I possibly convince any of my blog buddies to start a myfitnesspal?  You don’t have to have an iPhone.  Come on, you know you wanna…

Now that I am rolling along I miss the good ole early days of 3fc when jelbelle, pepa, goodnuff and I were always doing or hosting challenges and what not.  It seems that we had an easier time keeping up with each other when we were on that site.  There are several people I blogged with consistently who have fallen off the face of the internet, and I still wonder about them from time to time.  I recently started posting at 3fc again, and also at myfitness pal, because I’ll take all the support I can get.  So now I post not only on blogger but on two other sites.  Maybe that is goontastic, but whatevs.  I’ve been longing for a few really great new blogs to read.

If I am able to stick to myfitnesspal and keep the one pound loss a week steady I will be at my old weight by September first of next year.  I believe that after a month or so I am going to start calorie shifting each week to avoid any plateaus.  I can bounce around from maintenance, half pound, one pound, one and a half pound, and two pound losses each week, and still make sure that I am dropping four pounds a month or so.   I will make sure to be on maintenance the weeks that Thanksgiving and Christmas fall on so that I don’t have to miss the little extras of the holidays. A slice of pumpkin pie slathered with mounds of cool whip is going to be about four hundred calories, but I’m not skipping on the two slices of pie that I generally eat per year.  Screw that noise!  Thankfully I’ve realized that doing forty five minutes to an hour of aerobics really isn’t a big deal at all, and it gives me five or six hundred extra calories to play around with for the day.

Speaking of workouts, changing my routine every day has been working splendidly.  I have around thirty workouts to choose from including: yoga, pilates, strength training, aerobics, hula, bellydance, salsa, and bollywood dance.  Never have I been happier to have such a vast array to choose from.  Changing what I am doing each morning permits me to keep from overworking certain muscles and getting too sore.  I hope that doing so will help my body burn the maximum amount of calories, and prevent me from adapting to my routines and burning less calories.

The end result of the weight loss and fitness regime is exciting to envision, but I feel like getting there is going to be equally as amazing for me.  I feel as though I am now fully capable of shedding and shaking off my old self so that I can embrace a me that has a confident place in the world.  I am cultivating a love of self that will help me find a career and choose an appropriate and fitting road for myself.  This is a neat feeling, and I’m not saddled with my usual amount of trepidation and insecurity.  It’s kind of like being eighteen again and going off to college for the first time.  Forget that I have attended five different colleges heh heh heh this beginning is the most important one in this moment.

And as far as moving goes, I am hoping that we do not receive foreclosure notice until half way through January.  Keep your fingers crossed that it won’t go through for another few months!  I have decided that in my heart I wish to be close to all the cousins that I grew up with, so Sarasota is a good choice for the time being.  I’d like to move back around mid July (after my family reunion and cousin’s wedding that will be taking place fourth of July weekend here), and itll be more convenient if the foreclosure notice held off a bit longer.  Once notice is given we have six months to be out of here, so if it doesn’t come around until Janurary we can move directly from here to Sarasota right at the time we wish to move.  I’ll have to get down there to look at apartments and whatnot, so I’ll save money up and plan to stay a couple weeks in June and possibly May.  If we can’t find a place we can always move everything down there and put it in storage, because I am sure that my aunts wouldn’t mind us staying at their place for a short time.  I feel relieved to have made up my mind about things, because it makes preparation easier.

Tomorrow I am updating my resume, and then I am going to send it off to everyplace that I can think of.  And if they don’t call me for interviews then they are damned fools and I don’t want to waste any of my superbly diving energy on the stupid pigs.  Just sayin’.  I need a large cash flow to fund my adventures and shop expansion, so I best get crackin’.

September 26th

I never ever ever in a jillion years thought that I would enjoy tracking calories in any way, shape, or form.  But, great Odin’s raven, I totally dig scanning things with my iPhone and then watching the food item pop up on my phone.  Seriously, it makes me feel like I am living in an advanced futuristic society, and that I’ll be taking my jet pack to work as soon as breakfast is finished.  (By the way… this is the future, so where the fuck is my jet pack?  I want answers.)  I scan the bag of celery, and BANG(!) the brand pops up with all the information and everything, and I can add it to my daily food diary.  I scan the pita bag.  SHAZAM!  I cannot trick this thing with my fancy Greek foods.  It is fast, convenient, easy, real real real fast, and I get to scan things.  I cannot recommend myfitnesspal enough.  Go and sign up for it.  Right now.  I suppose sans smart phone it would be like having a fitday or just tracking the old fashioned way though, and maybe that wouldn’t be as funtastic.  Subtract the scanning and I’d just be gasp recording my boring daily caloric intake. Lame sauce.  I kept a food journal for a while, but never bothered with the calories.  Because it was dullsville.  There were no scanners.  ZZZZZZZ.
Today I was fiddling around with the numbers in my profile to see the difference in daily calories for different weights and losses per week were.  Interesting stuff.  The profile can be changed to lose half, one, one and a half, or two pounds a week.  Mine is currently set for a one pound loss a week, but I noticed that I’ve been making the one and a half pound number.  I put it at one pound because I like to have calories left over at the end of the day.  Since I was goofing around I entered in my old weight (before gaining fifty pounds) and looked up how many calories I was eating each day to maintain that (without exercise or anything).  Then I looked up how many calories I eat to maintain my current weight.  Ya know what the difference is?  It is about three hundred calories a day.  Three hundred calories a day is a couple of pounds shy of a fifty pound difference in weight.  Isn’t that nuts?  I never realized what a fatass huge difference a few hundred calories could make every day over time.  And I know where that three hundred calories usually comes from every day too.  It’s extra pieces of bread at meal times- stuff like that.  An extra biscuit or slice of whole wheat bread or serving of rice, and hey there- we’ve got three hundred calories too many in a day.  Aha bells kind of went off, and it made me feel better to know that I’m not actually eating the whole world to maintain this size.  I’m making a small number of mistakes every single day. Realizing that is making me think differently about nutrition and my body.
Sooooo though I am still against ridiculous diet plans, I finally see the merit in tracking calories.  I was trying to follow intuitive eating, but I probably need more guidelines for now.  Perhaps a gal like me who has had an eating disorder for the greater part of 22 years needs boundaries.  I’ll follow intuitive eating, but pair it up with the sensible scanning and tracking that I’ve been doing for the last few days.
Oh, myfitnesspal, thank you for showing me the error of my ways.  It’s nice to know that at nearly thirty I can figure things out… eventually… at a snail’s pace… with much trial and error… and a few bumps in the road.  So perhaps it has taken me six years to puzzle out what a nutritionist could have told me in under five minutes, but by God, I must have needed to learn it on my own.  And by God and sunny Jesus, at least I learned it in the end.  And so what if I learn slower than a crippled snail on methadone? So what?

Speaking of new apps that I am infatuated with I decided to upgrade my free YOGA 250 poses to the paid version (it was only a dollar or two).  I liked the free version, but there are no sound cues when the poses change so I had to keep my eye on it too much.  The paid version has more positions, tons of breathing exercises, videos, and a wider variety of pre made work out routines.  Every time the position switches the new position is announced, and then there is a brief explanation of how to complete the pose.  I am absolutely loving the app, because it was precisely what I wanted.  I have created four different custom  routines that each last 45-46 minutes, and two different deep stretching and breathing routines (20-21 minutes) that I can do after other workouts (pilates, aerobics, or dance workouts) to make them more effective.  I really enjoy the yoga dvds that I have, but being able to design my own routines is far better.  No more fish position (hate hate hate) and I can tailor everything to my fitness level so that I don’t have to pause and wait when a pose comes up that I am unable to do.
Ya know what else is fun?  I can look at the super advanced “guru” poses and then try to picture my flabby ass doing them.  Bah hahahaha!  I may be laughing at myself, and yet I truly wish to one day be capable of doing complex crane poses.  The full locust pose with bent legs is so very beautiful in spite of the fact that it looks so simple.  The woman in the pictures makes it all look like a cake walk, but damn, that stuff is no joke.
I’ve been working out about forty five minutes to an hour each day, and over the last week and a half it has already become a habit.  Our home is so peaceful and quiet now that I look forward to spending my mornings exercising in a calm atmosphere.  It is no longer an issue of me trying to find quiet time during the day or night so that I can move and stretch in peace.  There are no kids tearing through the room or shouting going on across the house.  This is just how I like my home to be.  I feel calm and capable of making positive choices for myself because I am not drowning in a stressful environment.  This is good news.  I hope to continue this daily habit of working out for at least forty five minutes every morning, because I know that it is going to do wonders for my body, health, and my outlook on life.  A corner has been turned!  Look at that fuckin’ snail girl go!!

September 25th 2012

I know I’ve swooned over my iPhone before, but this morning I am doing it again.  For the last couple of days I’ve got new app fever (which can’t be found on WebMD yet) and I have found and installed some real gems.  I already use my iPhone to look up birds (Audubon), track and log them (BirdLog), track my period and ovulation (P Tracker Lite – which is free), manage my Etsy shop, manage my bank accounts, and at long last check my email on a daily basis (big step for me!).   I also fiddle around with games from time to time, chart stars with SkyView (so cool), accept credit card payments with Square, scan items for the best price (ShopSavy), listen to the Nutrition Diva on Stitcher radio, and goof around with photography with Hipstamatic, Camera Art FX, and Toon Camera.  I read free books on my phone, and giggle because the weather forecast that I love to tap on all the time for the week is nearly always wrong.  I know in my heart that I can live without my beloved iPhone, but seriously- I don’t wanna do it.  I love this little guy.  In fact, I should probably name the little sucker, and start tucking him in at night.  Come here, iPhone, lets have some snuggle time as I admire all of your fine features…

marry, me, Didi.  I accept.

Recently I added a pedometer to my collection of apps, but haven’t used it much because I don’t have my phone on my person at all times during the day, so it wasn’t the best choice for me.  However, I’d really like more help with shaping up my nutrition and exercise routines, so I decided to browse through health and fitness apps to see if I could find anything good.  I totally struck gold!  There is a free app called MyFitnessPal that I just put onto my baby iPhone, and I must say, it is pretty fucking cool.  Once you pop all of your information in, you can enter in how much weight you want to lose a week, and it will give you the number of calories to be consumed in a day.  It tracks calories and workouts, but unlike a lot of other calorie trackers that I’ve tried, this one doesn’t make me want to blow my brains out.  There is a cool scanner that will scan the bar code on the box of Divine Raspberry Cream Shortbread cookies that you just ate a sleeve of, and tell you how many calories you just consumed.  Whoa!  I can scan any damn thing that I shove in my mouth (provided it has a bar code, heh  heh heh) and the app looks it up and shows me what the damage is. Cool beans.  I’m not sure why this appeals to me so much.  I just love scanning things in stores to check prices, and scanning things to record calories happens to be just as satisfying I guess.
I had an Aha moment just yesterday (and have been having them quite a bit for the last week) and realized that though I may not want to follow a strict diet, I probably need extra help staying within my own personal guidelines.  I’ve never liked counting calories, or points, or carbs, or any other stupid thing, but I feel that recording what I am eating will help me achieve consistency.  This girl needs some god damn consistency, I can tell you that for free.  I am going to think of entering in my eats as a game, and scanning will be a bonus.  I can also see how many calories my walks are burning off, and what I’m burning doing aerboics, yoga, pilates, and my dance workouts.  I’m looking forward to knowing just what it will take workout and nutrition wise to keep me at a weight where I am happy.  (For now, my goal is 155-163)
You don’t need an iPhone to use MyFitnessPal, and can make all the same entries from a computer.  I am wondering if any of you ladies might care to start an account?  Or do any of you have one already?  I’d like to have a few friends to add, because I thought that might be a fun way to stay motivated.  It would be a great way to be accountable, so let me know if you are interested.

I also put the free version of Simply Yoga onto my phone, in case I want to do a workout while watching a movie on instant play or something (which is what I’ve been doing in the mornings lately).  The free version has options for 20, 40, and 60 minute workouts, how great is that?  Now when I am away from home I will always have a workout with me.  In addition to Simply Yoga, I added YOGA Free: 250 poses, and I’ll be playing around with that as soon as I get off of lappy.  This application is honestly just the thing I was searching for.  It doesn’t have any videos, but lists poses in categories from beginner to “guru” and individual routines can be chosen and saved with whatever poses a person fancies.  All you have to do is choose the poses in the order that you want them.  Presto!  Each pose has instructions and photos with an audio option.  GREAT!  I am very excited to play around with this, because now I don’t have to pick poses from memory when I’ve got a movie on and wish to be more productive.  I truly enjoy fiddling with my hand weights and doing yoga poses in the morning with a movie on for background noise.  Sure, I might be skipping the spiritual aspect of yoga, but it is working for me right now, and that is what’s important.  I’ve created my first routine, which runs through 87 poses (some of that 87 are repeats to make the routine smooth) and will take me about an hour.  I love that since I organized it myself I was able to add every pose that I am partial to.  The dvds that I have are good, but some of the poses in them I am currently unable to do, and some I flat out can’t stand, while other favorites aren’t always in the workout.  This new app lets me create workouts tailored to my preferences and ability level, and I am pretty stoked about it.  Any of you yoga lovin’ ladies out there should give it a whirl.

My last application downloads for the day were the sleep cycle alarm clock, and relax melodies (free and awesome).   The sleep cycle alarm clock was highly recommended by a friend.  I am not a morning person.  In fact, you could say that I am a violent evil beast in the mornings and you would be telling the truth.  I can’t stand alarm clocks, and typically feel pretty tired when I am jarred from sleep by one.  The sleep cycle alarm clock is supposed to wake a person up when they are in a light rem cycle, so that the person feels alert instead of groggy.  I really hope the thing works out, because I am determined to become more of a morning person.  I’ve always been a night kind of a gal.  I’d like to pop out of bed feeling all refreshed and cheery instead of feeling like knifing somebody in the back twelve times.
The relax melodies was so relaxing that I fell asleep while playing with it.  There are a bunch of sounds to combine and mix up that can be combined with beta waves (for concentration) or alpha waves (for relaxation).  I’ve not tried the fancy waves yet, because I was too lazy to go and grab my headphones, but we’ll see if they work soon enough.  I thought I’d try the beta waves with some sounds for meditation once I complete my new office/meditation room- which should be mostly done by today.

I better get going with breakfast and yoga.

If you’ve got an iPhone you should really take advantage of all the neat stuff it can do!

September 24th 2012

I woke up at three thirty this morning and couldn’t get back to bed.  I guess five and a half hours of sleep are going to have to be enough.  Last night I took GABA and L-Theanine together before bed for the first time, and it definitely knocked me out.  I’ve been waking up at all kinds of crazy hours, so hopefully that nonsense will level itself out in the next week.  I will report any gradual changes that the supplements have, because I know that Jitterfish was interested in the GABA.   (Oh, and as it turned out, none of the stores carry GABA anymore- they only have 5-HTP.  So I did have to order it off of Amazon, but both supplements together were thirty-one dollars including shipping.  The GABA will last one hundred days, and the L-Theanine for sixty, so that isn’t too bad cost wise).  I am going to take the two new supplements at night, and the 5-HTP midmorning- one each a day.  Supposedly 5-HTP and GABA decrease appetite and the urge to binge/snack, and help with weight loss, but I really didn’t purchase them for that purpose.  I want to alleviate my brain crazies.  The book I read years ago about brain chemistry suggested taking the supplements for six months, and then tapering off.  During the six months an individual is supposed to utilize the boost in mood/ improvement in sleeping habits/ and all the happy feel good feelings to their advantage.  The idea is to improve the diet and exercise habits, and make lifestyle changes so that when it comes time to taper off the supplements the beneficial amino acids will no longer be needed in pill form, but can easily be absorbed from a healthier diet.  The supplements assist with deficits that have built up over years.  I find all of this interesting because there is a history of severe hormonal imbalance in my mother’s side of the family.  Perhaps I can be the one to cure myself without having to go through stressful marriages and screwing up offspring.  Tee hee hee.

Right now I am doing pretty well with my diet, and have continued doing freestyle workouts in the mornings. I have been up sooooo ridiculously early that I am choosing quiet activities (pilates/ weights/ yoga) and not doing any dvds.  Once I am back on a normal sleeping schedule I’ll bust out the aerobics and all the bollywood dance dvds.  I look forward to goofing around with a new workout each day.  As far as diet, things are getting much better.  There are no more sugary foods around, and there isn’t any snack crap in the house either.  I’ve decided that I will allow myself to eat either chicken or beef for one meal a week, and then stick to veggie meals the rest of the time.  I still want to do a master cleanse, but am going to wait until October to do it.  I need to get myself on a steady sleeping cycle, and get my exercise routines in place first.
Also, I am currently brewing kombucha for the first time.  Once it gets going I intend to drink a bottle of it a day when I am on the master cleanse.  It will totally help break up the monotony of having to drink cayenne pepper lemon/syrup water.  I love kombucha, but it is five dollars a bottle, so I decided to learn to brew my own.
Kombucha is a fermented tea that was made popular in Russia, and it has amazing health benefits.  It is a living food with active growing cultures that could be compared to yogurt or kefir.  A “mother” or “scoby” can be grown in three to five weeks, and then used to make one or two gallon batches that take from 3 to 30 days to make depending on temperature and humidity.  A gallon of the stuff costs about a buck to make, and yields five bottles (I saved up some store bought bottles that I had, so I will just fill them), so I am brewing it on the top shelf of my pantry henceforth.  I feel like a chemist.  Each batch also produces a new mother too, so I’ll probably have a gallon or two brewing at all times.  One bottle a day has a positive benefit on overall health, and I love love love the stuff.  It is very low in calories, and totally addictive.  Have any of you ladies tried it?  Most of the grocery stores here carry it.  It comes in the plain style, or there are different fruit juices added to it in small quantities.  Yum.  Though sweet green or black tea is used to make it, the bacteria actually eats up nearly all the sugar, which is why it is low in calories.  It doesn’t taste much like traditional tea, and people seem to either love it or hate it.
Cubby doesn’t like the stuff, so I’ll have it all to myself.  He does like kefir, however, so I may try cultivating that in the future.  I think I’ll have to order the kefir grains though.  The nice thing about making kombucha is that you buy a bottle or two from the store and then use that to “grow” your own.  No ordering is required.

Well, I am on a babbling spree here.  I’ve been awake such weird hours that I feel a little isolated, so it’s nice to have the blog to chat with.  Ha ha.

Yesterday I painted the floor in the Horrid Ugly Room.  It looks a hundred times better already.  I am going to eat and work out a bit, and then I will be back in there touching up the trim around the floor.  I can’t really change the trim color, because unfortunately I used all the white on the floor.  The only other colors I have are tomato red (I don’t want it looking like Superman in there), a quart of spring green, and a half gallon of the gingerbready peachish brown.  The funny brown color is what is already on there.  Now that the floor is white, the weird colors aren’t bothering me as much, so I’ll just do the touch ups today, and leave it at that.  I can also hang up the art that I currently have, and start to work on my wall-patching collage.  I am probably going to use it as a meditation room, so I need to decor to work miracles.  I wish I had more furniture options.  I have two different tables that might work, and a few chairs, but that’s pretty much it.  Double sigh.  There is a large rug that I’ve been meaning to clean that might just work in there as well.
Hopefully I will be able to complete most of this project today.  My printer needs more ink, so that I can complete my wall collage, and I also need staples and tacks because I wanted to make book page heart garland to hang around the top of the room in there.  I have some string lights that I might stick in there instead.

Gotta get my Monday going.  Everybody have a great start to the week!

September 22nd 2012

Alright, I am finally at a stage where I can move forward with the decorating of the unfriendliest room in my house.  I have never cared much for this room, nor have I personally ever utilized it in the eighteen years that this house has been in my family.  It once was my brother’s bedroom, and then it was a storage room packed full of junk, and then I had roommate Heroine Addict in there (that was brief), and then roommate Curly Hair in there (also brief), and after that Sparks (a year), and after that Brother Dan (my cousin- he used that room the third time that he moved in with me, but I was in Florida for most of that year), and after that it was empty for a few months, and after that it became the bedroom of The Small and Charming and The Pants Pee-er.  I had painted it a friendly yellow with fuschia trim before the Heroine Addict moved in, but Sparks painted it the colors that it is now, which I am really not crazy about.  The floor in there was pretty bad, so she took some black exterior paint that I had and painted the floor.  It looked decent at the time with her rugs and whatnot in there, but not is is very scratched in many places, and looks bad now.

So, step one in making that room friendlier was washing the white curtains and spreading out a happy little altar on top of the dresser in there.  Here are some before pictures so you all can oogle at the cold bland starkness of a nearly empty room.

Ok, this is what the room looks like when I am standing in the doorway facing into it.  Along the right wall is a long shelf that Brother Dan (it’s an old nickname that stuck) built when he lived here.  I probably won’t keep it because it is very long, and I need more space in there.  But yeah- I don’t like the blue and peachy brown colors at all.

Here is a close up of the floor.  See all the scratches and places where the paint has worn away?  It looks terrible, and I don’t care for how dark it makes the room look either.

Now, I have decided that I do not want to spend a single penny on this project.  I don’t want to purchase any paint, furniture, or decorations, so I have to either use what I already have or make some new artwork to stick in there.  On the plus side, I already have four framed pictures that I took out of a calendar, and one fertility goddess collage that I made back when I was in Florida for a school project.  Those are the first items that will be hung up in there.  Thankfully, I also have several partial gallons of paint leftover from when I painted different rooms of the house.  My first task will be to move everything out of there, and then paint over the floor.  If I have enough white I’ll probably just go with that, but I’ll have to see.

These two pictures show the south wall of this bedroom.  There is no door over the closet, and the long shelf runs along most of this wall.  The glow in the dark stars are leftover from when this was Sparks’ room, and I haven’t decided if I should take them down or just leave them.  That is foam board in the closet, which I might use to make something arty to hang up in the room someplace.

Once I get the floor painted, I think the room will instantly be a hundred times better.  A bright white (or very light color) should open the room up and make it look a lot cleaner.  The scratches and patches of wood showing through have a very dirtying effect on the floor.  It looks perpetually unclean- yuck!
I am going to move a table and chairs in there, and will likely get rid of the long shelf.  The wicker chest and the drawers will likely end up holding all of our spare sheets and blankets, and I’ll probably put some of those plastic rolling drawer thingies in the closet to hold a lot of my craft stuff.  Thankfully, I have an extra white curtain that I am going to hang over the closet door, so that there isn’t a gaping, ugly hole in the wall revealing a lot of storage.  In the picture with the long shelves you can see a Moroccan style lantern that I plan on hanging in there… somewhere… not quite sure yet.  Probably in the left hand corner of the room.

Note the damage to the door- I have no idea how that happened, but I am guessing the Pants Pee-er did it when he was having a tantrum.  There is a small hole punched into it underneath the doorknob, so I’ll have to think of a way to cover it.

The North facing wall.  I already put a little alter on top of the dresser to get some energy flow in there, and make the room more inviting.  That’s a brass statue of Kali in the back, and next to her is a little picture of Baba Hanuman.

The rest of the North wall is mostly covered by windows.  These pics are so grainy.  Sheesh, iPhone, sheesh.

The wall with the door in it is probably the worst one.  There was damage done (never really heard the story on that) to the wall when Sparks was living here, so there is a big patch of plaster on that wall, and I have no blue paint to cover it up.  I have decided that I am going to create a collage here that will be applied directly to the wall and the damaged spot on the door.  I’ve got scrapbook paper, and will print images off of the internet to use.  You can see that I drew some flowers and a butterfly on this wall with colorful permanent markers.  That wall is the only one without heavy texture on it, and I was just goofing around with the markers.  The wall over the shrine I blasted with some yellow spray paint that I found (just to experiment), but I wasn’t crazy about the result.  I am going to hang up all the shrines that I made that will eventually be listed in the etsy shop on this wall.  At some point, the shrines for the etsy shop will probably spill onto the other walls, because I’d like to eventually have at least twenty to thirty of them posted at all times, but for now I am starting with four.  I believe I will put the table and chairs in front of the windows of the North wall, but I haven’t decided yet.
Here is what I am working with, and I hope I can achieve a result that is inviting, relaxing, and creative.  If I achieve my goal, I’d like to start taking clients in my home, and this will be the room that we’ll use.  The art will likely be goddess and fertility related, and I’ll probably hang some crystals in the room as well.  I seriously hope that I can transform this room into a functioning office/ craft space.

We still have not received foreclosure notice yet, so I may as well use all of my house to my advantage while I am still living here.  As far as I know, once the foreclosure notice is sent, we have six additional months to move out.  At the earliest, I’d say that we have to be out of here by April first.  I am still on the fence about where our next move should be, because Cubby is in the army until next August, so he has to be within reasonable driving distance of Kenosha because he would prefer not to transfer units.  He is ok with moving to Madison (only an hour and a half away from here), or Racine, or staying here, but I just can’t make up my mind.  At this point part of me thinks that I should move to Madison, and part of me feels that I should go back to Sarasota.  If I moved directly from here back to Sarasota, Cubby could stay with our friend until he is done with the army.  Yeah, it would probably be tough to be apart for four months, but it’s definitely do-able.   Blerg.  I suppose I shouldn’t spend too much time wondering about things.  I’m just going to have to see how we feel when the time comes.
I haven’t spent any more time looking for a part time job, and I don’t know what I am going to do in that area either.  I don’t like working for people (ug, I never have), so I am considering putting my all into writing, finding clients, and the etsy shop.  I can’t decide what is right for me and what is practical.  It has been many years since I’ve had official, steady work, so my resume will require lots of doctoring to make me sound good.  Ha!  I can put my experience at the birth center onto it, but I don’t know how helpful any of that will be because I don’t want a job as a CNA, and there aren’t any birth centers in town.  Herrrumphfff.  I surely will mention that I am self employed as a metaphysical healer, and started a business, and can add that I’ve got a typing speed somewhere around 80 to 90 words per minute, as well as having a good amount of experience with most office type computer programs.  Oh boy.  I should probably find a part time job, because September and October are good hiring times.  Maybe I’ll try over at Hobby Lobby.  They pay very well for retail, and I’m sure they’ve got an employee discount that I could take advantage of.
I wish I was more decisive as a person.  I have such a tough time making decisions like these.  Part of me feels like maybe we’ll live in Madison for a year, and then go back to Sarasota.  Part of me feels like I should find a part time job, and part of me wants to be completed committed to writing, finding clients, and getting my etsy shop going.  Le sigh.  I’ll just have to see what happens.

September 21st 2012

It has been so nice with just Cubby and I living here.  The past week we’ve been re arranging the house, and bagging up items that we want to drop off at Goodwill.  I am turning the kids’ old room into a spare bedroom slash craft room slash office, and will hopefully finish that project today.  I started off strong, because I wanted to re organize our incredibly too packed-full-of-junk bedroom, but then got bogged down because I couldn’t decide how I wanted to arrange the furniture in my new multi-purpose-no-longer-pee-smelling spare bedroom.  About a month ago we redid the front living room (which I lovingly call the gypsy room), because I was suddenly overcome with an urge to arrange the room in a feng shui appropriate fashion.  I loved the end result, and decided that I wanted to do the same overhaul on our bedroom, and now the spare room as well.

My main issue with the spare bedroom is that I have nothing to put on the walls in there.  Blank walls make me banana sandwiches crazy, so now I need to create some art to go in there.  If the walls are bare (they are painted a robins egg blue- Sparks painted it that way when she lived with me long long ago) I won’t want to work in there at all, and the room will go unused.  I’ll end up dragging out whatever craft items I am working on when I need them, and the room will end up nothing more than a big box for storage.  I love the idea of having a room to truly designate as a work space, so I need to find a way to make it work.
My brain is so silly.  Instead of moving everything into the room and then decorating the walls my impulse is to create some new art and hang it up first, let the room settle into a creative new atmosphere, and then move the rest of my craft things into it.  The issue is that I don’t care much for the room at the moment.  It isn’t painted a color that I would choose, but I do not wish to spend time and money on painting it.  Blerg.  I don’t want an unused room in the house.  I believe I have a couple of canvases and an assortment of paints and such, so perhaps today I’ll think of something to paint and stick in there.  I’ve decided to reserve the untextured wall so that I can hang the goddess shrine boxes that I eventually plan to sell on etsy.  There are four at the moment, so they’ll spruce things up a tad.
Today is slowly shaping into an arts and crafts day instead of a “well I’d better get this household room arranging project finished” day.  Oh well.  I’ve been feeling like painting for a couple of days now anyway.  I’ve not painted in many years.
On another note, I recently began working out in the mornings again, but my routine isn’t solid or exact just yet.  The past couple mornings I’ve turned a movie on, and then done yoga positions, worked with my hand weights, and done sets of other random exercises that I favor.  I’m going to get myself into the habit of doing one workout dvd each morning, but for now I’ve been happy simply winging it with whatever exercises I am in the mood for.  Can I mention again how great it is to have total reign over my house once more?  A quiet peaceful space helps my productivity level increase.  Ahhh.

So, guess who wrote the first two pages of her novel yesterday?  This girl.  Yup, that’s write (get it, get it, oh the cleverness of me!).  Inspired by the quietness that has recently enveloped my once again peaceful home I finally seized the moment and decided that there is no time like right fricken now o’clock.  I didn’t start at the beginning of my story, but decided to work on a piece of it that has been floating around in my head for the past couple of days.  I’m going to continue writing parts out, and then I’ll connect the dots later.
I have been “mind writing” this story of mine for the last year now, and it’s about time I got it onto virtual paper.  I believe that I am going to compose chapters and then send them to a handful of friends to be read and edited.  This story is for women, so I may ask some of you to offer up opinions at some point in time.  I need hardcore critiquing, and who better to edit and offer feedback than women who read and write a great deal?
Alright, it’s about ten to nine in the morning, and I want to get cracking on my art projects.  Hope everybody has a great weekend.