My dance card has been full these past weeks. Same ol’ same ol’, though: work, home, housework, laundry, cooking and all the things to do with family - husband, mom, kids, dogs (dog hair!!!), & cat and now, a new “guest”, a mouse in the kitchen - trying to find balance. I’ve been watching over my mom very carefully since she returned, determined to not let the events in South Africa send her into a downward spiral. The need to be ever vigilant has lightened up a little, and my mom is doing well.

More folks were let go at work, one of whom I’ve mentioned many times in my blog, a “frenemy”. I’ve worked with him for 10 years or more, he’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met, but was also, occasionally arrogant and sexist - you know the drill. He drove me mad sometimes and I’ve already said I’ll miss him terribly. His last day was Tuesday. There were other losses too, I know, I know, you must be sick of reading about it! My old friend and my sister. Could this be a catharsis? Can I even spell that word? I have mixed feelings on the whole matter of losing these people in my life. On one hand, yes, sad. On another, light.

Somehow this catharsis or lightness, or whatever you would call it, has caused me to reevaluate (again) my life. I’ve decided I like it here where I am right now. I’ve taken on quite a few projects at home and at work. Caroline, Roseanne and I walked in that Susan G. Komen race last Sunday. Fun, but hot. I was pooped at the end of the day. It was wonderful having Carolina Mooney Juney home for the week-end. We spent some good time together. I had the girls baking with me on Saturday - old fashioned Dutch rusks. Kind of like the Italian biscotti, but (isn’t this typical) bigger and heavier. We did two double batches (each batch took 9 cups of flour and 1 lb of butter, plus buttermilk and cream) so that Caroline would have a lot to take home. Jessica is installed in cosmetology school. She seems to be enjoying it (we hope and pray). It is her birthday on Monday, and we have plans to spend the day together tomorrow, shopping for her presents, going out to lunch and maybe having a mani-pedi together. We plan to go up to a local outlet mall just over the border in New York.

On Sunday I am planning to go to church, I sloughed off most of the summer, although I did buy myself a Bible, and I am planning to read it. It is a good translation, I believe. I won’t go into what I think makes a good translation, I’m so tired right now! But suffice it to say, I am pleased with my purchase. The stack of books next to my bed has become a dangerously high tower. What’s a girl to do? But back to church…I will try to be more regular. I do not do this out of a sense of guilt. I do it becuase it is the right thing for me. Just showing up and listening to the message helps me to obtain that elusive balance and perspective in my own life, plus, hopefully, I am leaving with something to offer other people in terms of kindness and freindship.

The other projects are: fixing up the broken things in our home, such as our dining chairs. My mom bought the dining suite for me in ’94, second hand, but a very good name (Henredon) and the chairs need re caning and re upholstering. I’ve found someone who can do it, therein lies a story for another time….it’s going to be expensive. Expensive enought that the possibility of just buying new chairs seems to be another option. But I remember that my mom was so excited when she found it, and she bought it out of such love, I couldn’t replace those chairs for all the tea in China. Anyway, this person has agreed to let me do one chair at a time, I’ll pay cash. I don’t care if it takes me six months. First, though I had to order the  upholstery all in one go. I’m paying for it a little bit every two weeks. I have to go over the wood on the chairs with some wood soap and lemon oil before I start dropping them off. Don’t trust the re-upholsterer to clean the wood nicely before he fixes the cushions back in place. Hmph.

I want to sort through all my table cloths, I now have about three or four good vintage ones, (picked a new one up the other day - Irish linen - at an estate sale I just happened to be passing - $8!) and make sure they’re clean and pressed and packed away nicely. Then I want to do my (sad) linen cupboard.

I want to go out to Lancaster county at some point - maybe next spring - and buy three hand crafted chests (kysts?) for the girls, and I’m going to fill them with beautiful things for when they start their own homes. I’ll pass on the vintage table cloths and I’ve collected some Carol Boyes stainless steel utensils (she’s an artist from SA, mainly designs home textiles, works in 18/8 stainless steel and pewter and maybe also silver). I have gazillions of expensive pots. Whoever likes to cook the most can have my two prized Le Creuset (6 qt oval and 2 1/2 qt round). The AMC Classic pots can be divided among them. I’ll see.

Had all my bits and pieces of broken jewellery repaired. I don’t have much, none of it that high quality, but all meaningful to me. Sold the extra gold - unmatched earrings and broken chains etc. which paid for the repairs.

Lastly, I’ve joined a knitting group. We start on October 14th, we’ll all be doing a similar sweater.

Well, not quite lastly.

I’m still looking for a writing class. The person I thought I found as a teacher has not responded to my queries, and I’m afraid it is a dead end.

Oh, and I’m exercising more. I’m either walking or working out at lunch time most days. We move offices in a few weeks, and the new facility has a real gym. You have to pay - if they let me pay monthly, I think I can swing it. They even have classes. I want to lose 18 more lbs by Christmas.

Still using up space here, I am.

I haven’t found another spot to blog yet, although I think I’m on my way. I found a person who offers an online writing course and have initiated correspondence. So far, I’ve inquired about the availability and schedule of the next class, he’s responded, and I’ve enthused. The class involves blogging. It’s probably hosted on something like blogspot. I’ll find out more today.

Yesterday I took a really long walk at lunch time, after which I had a nice cold shower, washed my now even shorter hair and still didn’t make it back to my desk in the allotted hour. I did not even try to blow dry the feathers on top of my head, I just pushed them about with my fingers. Talk about letting go of vanity. It dried alright. I don’t think I scared anyone away. I wore my Weight Watchers pedometer, and with my stride measured at 28 (inches? I have no idea, I just followed their stride measuring instructions), the step total for the walk was over 5,300. I wore two two pound wrist weights on my arms, with the idea that they may help tone my arms. I don’t think they toned anything except my veins and arteries.

For breakfast I’ve been sticking to Fiber One, just over the 1/2 cup serving size, and I usually throw in a handful of raisins and occasionally a banana. I also have a cup of coffee. We don’t bother with skim milk, and I do put 2 tsp of sugar in the coffee. No one in this home is into the low-fat or fat-free diet food offerings that are available. We’re all of the opinion that you should just eat less of the “real” stuff. Should I mention that I’m the only plumpy living here? I do all this very early in the morning because I want to make sure to (this is indelicate) get to the loo before work. I loathe using the work loos.

Once at work, I’ll make a cup, occasionally two, of coffee. Generally there I have Splenda, but I do use half-n-half. I try to fit in as much water as possible throughout the day, but often I forget. It seems ridiculous to buy plastic bottles of water when there is a perfectly good water fountain down the hall that gushes cold water and has a fixture for filling a glass.

For lunch, if I don’t go out with my colleagues….and I’m guessing that whole phase of my life is over now that my one colleague is leaving next Tuesday…..I just have a Slim-Fast or some left-overs from the previous night’s dinner.

Once home, I almost always prepare something for the family. I have worked myself into the position where I am the main one doing food preparation, and this is another thing that is ridiculous, given that there are two grown daughters living in this house, plus my husband and my mom. My mom pitches in occasionally, but her efforts usually use up every ingredient in the pantry and we have left-overs for months. This isn’t always ideal, since I’m the only one who really appreciates her style of cooking. She’s getting on, and sometimes makes mistakes, e.g. mushy meatballs, or generally overcooked meat and vegetables. Neil will pitch in too, occasionally, bless his heart (mostly). He is of the seventeen peas per person variety of cook, and this is a sore point between us. So, this week I did buy ingredients for soft tacos, and told Jessica and her boyfriend (since he appears to have moved in) that they are in charge of that meal one night this week.

Our dinners are not usually too weight loss friendly, although I do always include a salad and vegetables. If it isn’t too weight loss friendly, I just make sure my portion of the heavy part of the meal is small and load up on the salad and vegetables. Last night I made (for the first time actually) rigatoni with vodka sauce and an Italian inspired salad (iceberg/romaine lettuce, lots of tomatoes (home grown, from a friend), thinly sliced red onion, roasted red peppers and fresh mozzarella). We also had a warm loaf of Italian bread.

After our evening meal, we don’t usually have a dessert, although there are some Klondyke bars in the freezer this week. There is always a ton of fruit available. I believe that my worst fault, my downfall is the one or two glasses of wine that easily morphs into three. According to my Christiane Northrup book, alcohol is the ultimate sugar high. I just love a beautiful glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Lately I’ve been liking Oyster bay. This is an expensive, fattening and unhealthy habit. Every time I think of having to give it up I become heartsore.

This week I’m trying to be good about that, and so far I haven’t managed it even once.

I tell myself it’s my way of dealing with the tension that I feel. And it is. It was. It doesn’t really work, so I might as well admit it and forgo those extra carbs, since I still remain feeling pretty tense in the evenings. Why is that? Why can I just not relax? Why can I not just fall asleep and then sleep all the way through most nights? Is there something peculiar about my personal chemistry? I’ve been like this since I was 8, long before I was able to try and self-medicate. I was looking at old photos the other day, and noticed that even at 8, I was always pale and had dark circles around my eyes. I’ve tried meditation, I’m still trying meditation. I’ve tried intense physical activity to exhaust myself, and yes, finishing early enough in the day to not cause me to be hyped up at night. Hot baths, warm baths, hot milk. Prayer. Making my bedroom a sanctuary (that was difficult, since my bedroom has some sort of weird static attraction for the flotsam and jetsam of the house). Nevertheless, here it is, 4:09 and I’ve been awake and typing since 3am. Woke up to pee, went back to bed and realized sleep was not going to come and why lie there all frustrated? Enough complaining.

I’ll do the walking again today. I’ve got some leftovers dished up for myself from last night, mostly salad, but I could just take a Slim Fast. It’s another day about to begin….My car is empty of gas, have to leave at least a half hour earlier to fill it up. I need to mail some birthday cards at some point today and I have an optometrist’s appointment this evening. We’ll do leftovers tonight, tough beanaroonies if the kids and Neil don’t want that.

My eldest is coming home by bus on Friday, and on Sunday she and I and my middle daughter are doing the Susan G. Komen walk/run for the cure. That’s something happy to look forward to, eh? Couldn’t talk my youngest into joining us. Damn. She misses out on so much.

The drama with my sister and family, mostly my mom, is still unfolding. I haven’t spoken to her in ages because I just don’t know how to begin. To me, the foundation of our relationship has changed. We’re not in the same place anymore, but where are we? How do you go from here? Carefully, I suppose.

I’ve been whipping through the house, gradually fixing things. I’ll write more about these endeavors some other time. I’m signing up for a Tuesday night knitting group that starts October 14th. I do not knit, but, apart from word crafting, I long to do something creative with my hands. We are each going to knit a beautiful sweater. All exciting things.

Ah Feathers, SoClose, Annie, Ella, everyone, I screwed up again. I did not sign up in time for the writing class. I was worried about the old moola. I was waiting for this Friday’s payday, which was just a bit too late. As it happens, youngest daughter, our Bolshevik, the one who has been trouble finding her way, has asked to go to cosmetology school. She found the school, asked me to go with her for the tour, which was last night. Well, Bob’s your uncle, I applied for a tuition loan right there and then and to my surprise was accepted. So, dd3, in 10 months, will graduate with a license and an accreditization of some sort to be a beautician. She will learn to cut and color and highlight hair and perm it and do it up and she will learn facials and and nail care and waxing. The main emphasis is on the hair part, though, and they have a policy to find their students jobs at the end. Their “products” that they work with are Redken and Mac. There was an immediate $150 registration fee, then another $240 due on Monday. There went Mama’s writing class! Am I a martyr? Heck no. Do I feel like one? No again.

I am searching for a blog site for beginning writers. I am searching also, for a teacher. I think - no - I feeeeel an idea for a book. It’s been there for a long time. I suspect I could only have that one idea in me. On the other hand, I have strong, strong opinions on everything. Please, did any of you ever read Marianna Frederickson’s “Hannah’s Daughters”? I was so moved by this book. My idea, my story is so similar. I don’t want to rewrite her book, I don’t want to do it better, I just want to record the story that I know. I want to acknowledge to the world the marvellous women that I have known. I have not practiced the real craft of writing for many years, and this is why I need a course. I need to learn the steps.

Meanwhile, the lifestyle changes have been, well, evolving!

I am NOT in the weight loss groove that I was in a few weeks back. Groove it was. I do know (intimately, my dears) how to get it back, but I’ve been doing nothing about it.

I told you that I “lost” my sister, well, that’s how it feels. And my 2nd oldest friend of 27 years emailed me that she felt she could no longer be friends with me. The two losses happened on the same day. I thought I was handling both with such equanimity. My sister I will always love, no matter what, I’m just effing mad at her right now. My old friend…well, that’s an odd situation. We’ve been physically miles and miles apart for so many years, and I know our lives are so different. Despite this, she has been a constant in my life, someone I have always believed to be a soulmate, and a touchstone, and I thought maybe I had been the same for her. The one friend you never need to explain yourself to. I never agreed with her politics in the beginning of our friendship - she was, at 19, a recent refugee of sorts from a war - the war of Zimbabwe’s independence and was bitter. Over the years she seems to have mellowed in her opinion towards Africans, but it has always been the stance of a white African. It’s just there. Have you ever read Doris Lessing or Alexandra Fuller? If you are interested in such things, do. Both of them explain this attitude, this position, so truthfully and without guile. Nadine Gorimer is perhaps the classical music to Fuller’s pop. But Fuller writes to the majority; she’s accessible to everyone, whereas, I feel Nadine Gordimer (and J.M. Coetzee, too), despite some content or plot, recognizable to us all, writes to a more exalted group. Anyway, forget white African guilt….since we could never really meet on any real ground when it came to politics, we glossed? (not sure if that’s the appropriate word, maybe avoided is better) over it all. I told you she told me, bluntly, simply, we can no longer be friends. Ouch, that.

On Friday, I was told that my friend at work, J., the Orthodox Jewish man, the obscenely highly paid consultant that noone actually liked except me and two guys from India, had been let go. He’s probably the smartest person I’ve ever met. We’ve fought for ten years, he’s made me so mad I’ve entertained thoughts of sabotaging his PC at work (unplug it a little, so it won’t start easily….dribble water into the monitor). I’ve loathed him. He made me cry not so long ago. He’s caused me to second and third guess myself so many times, and it’s not fair. Sometimes the ideas I’ve had he’s claimed don’t make sense, and then presented them to our team! Shmuck. Bastard. Yet, I’ll miss him like nobody I’ve ever missed before! What am I ever going to do without a truly TRULY educated and smart person to listen to, ask questions of, argue with, learn from? The only other person I can think of that I’ve ever known who is as smart as this person is my dad, except my dad was a shmuck, and drank himself to death before I could get up the skill to argue properly with him.

So, I find myself in the embarassing position of TEARING UP at odd moments, like some big, effing GIRL! Thinking of my friend not being there for me to fight with anymore just undoes me. I wonder if he even likes or respects me at all? I have never ever never been a crier before. It embarrasesses me no end. I’ve just turned 47, my periods are still as regular as clockwork; am I in peri-menopause? Are these embarrassing moments of tears related to that? I’ve joked about it before in this blog, but the tears thing is new. I wake up in the night drenched, but that’s been happening since my 30’s, so I’m kinda confused.

Oh well, no writers blog, no class, no sister, no friends.

Daughters and husband are well. Mother is okay. My mom was happy from the outings, but a little bit full of small physical complaints, which she describes so well. She even does media presentations (hand gestures) to describes the various aspects of what’s happening to her. At times…TMI. Dogs…okay. Shelby had two really seriously bad seizures this past week after weeks/months of none. There’s another heartbreak for you.