Glimmers and shadows

 I have to remember to count the good as well as the bad. I have to build on the good and resist the bad.

I had close to a breakdown yesterday.

I went to the dentist- They take my blood pressure with the wrist cuff, and it is always high. It was high this time too, so high that they took it again and it was lower but still high. 

When I go to my regular doctor, she doesn't get worried, she says the wrist cuffs are inaccurate and so are the arm cuffs, in her opinion. She takes my blood pressure with her wrist watch and fingers after I calm down, and then it's good.

I may need to schedule an appointment with her though to check in.

That put me in a mood, though, so I didn't get as much done as I wanted and sort of crashed on my bed for a while. 

Then I had a long phone call from my cousin, with challenging news from her end of the world. Her granddaughter's adoption is likely to fall through, and I think my cousin was hoping I would volunteer to adopt the child. 

I cannot. I simply cannot. 

Then I saw numerous postings about Nazis- actual Nazis- protesting outside a production of Diary of Anne Frank only a few communities away from me.

Nazis.

Shift to noting some good.

My brother, his wife, my sister, her sons and one of their wives all came over to my house on Sunday and moved a lot of the big stuff out of my house so that I can sell or donate or give it away. This is stuff that I simply couldn't move myself: two heavy couches, a ping pong table, heavy oak end tables. It feels like progress.

They also took various items that they could use and enjoy, which also lightens the load.

On another day, moving furniture around, I had to disassemble my internet/tv set up- and I reassembled it again and it all works!

I found a remote control that has been missing for a year.

I have friends coming this afternoon to help with some of the cleaning/ packing.

I've made progress in grading my students' work and should be caught up tonight.

Yesterday, I found out it was National Sundae Day in time to have a sundae.

I bought a house today

Today was the closing on my new house-soon-to-be home. I have a lot of downsizing to do in the next 30 days so that I can move in. 

I hope to have my current house ready to list in the next two weeks! I need all hands on deck- will be calling out to friends and family to help.

In another post, I will catalog all that needs to be done to get my current house ready for market. It's overwhelming- 35 years and the accumulated stuff of six people's lives. Yes, the kids have taken most of their things - but some remnants are uncovered as I dig through drawers and closets. 

More on that another time. 

I've just spent a bit of time organizing my planned budget for 2025. Some areas are just best-guess, other areas are fairly easy to predict.

As if anything is easy to predict.

Income and Expenses

My income will probably be a bit less. I'm working on ways to improve that. That is one of the areas that is getting my imagination going- what will give my life purpose, meaning- and income! If you follow my postings here, you know that I teach university classes online currently. I hope to continue doing that for a couple more years. If it stays a good fit. Still, I'd like to expand my options.

My sister thinks we should do a podcast. We share a passion for saving the planet while being more frugal. She is a reseller of vintage fashions that she finds at thrift shops and yard sales. I am a researcher of sustainably packaged and responsibly produced goods: for instance, right now I'm using a subscription for Dropps * for my laundry and dishwasher soap, and Who Gives a Crap * for my TP and paper towels and tissues.

Some of my friends and family sell their plasma. This includes some who are full time teachers in public schools. 

They need the money.

Some other friends and family work online teaching English as a second language to students all around the world. They seem to enjoy it, and as something supplemental I might like that.

I've enjoyed selling some of the jewelry and other items that I've inherited, usually using eBay. I don't know if I'm ready to intentionally buy things to then resell. Maybe. We'll see.

I would like to do more writing than just this blog. Having a professional writer in the family, though, I know that writing is no easy meal ticket!

What other things might you imagine me (or you!) doing that would bring a sense of purpose, some enjoyment, and a bit of cash?

For my expenses, I'm trying to downsize those as much as I can as I try to increase my income. 

My monthly house expense (mortgage/HOA) will go down. So will my annual homeowners insurance.

My property taxes will go up.

My use of gas should go down, although I don't know how much of a savings that will be, since as my miles driven go down, the price of gas goes up. Still, I believe that living in a city within walking distance of several attractions and with an accessible bus route means that I will save some money in the near term.

I'm hoping my energy costs in general will go down with a smaller house. Again, it's hard to predict. I'm good at being frugal already.

The other part of this planning is planning ahead. When will I need a new computer? A new phone? A new car? What personal care should I look into- regular massage, or a hair styling once in a while?

Who shall I become? Looking at concrete items and specific numbers is helping me to look for a future me.

*Product placement links for your curiosity- no remuneration to me!

Dark day Nov 6 2024

 I am not doing well. I am heart sick, and nauseous. 

I am going to allow myself to feel these feelings.

I am going to drink coffee, and take care of my physical self.

I will keep on working for justice, for peace, and for the health of the planet. 

Even if I am discouraged and disheartened, I will keep moving. 

What other choice is there? 

So I will keep my appointments, grade my papers, check in with those I love.

One day at a time. 

Two steps forward, one step back

 

I'm getting productive- or trying to become more productive. I had a productive day yesterday: 

I caught up with grading for my class.

I made appointments: two medical appointments, two insurance appointments, car care appointment, legal appointment, home care appointment, and an appointment THAT AFTERNOON for tree clearing in my yard.

Understand: all these appointments required PHONE CALLS, which I detest.

I got all the documentation arranged for an upcoming BIG PURCHASE.

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.

The tree clearing was supposed to happen yesterday afternoon. When the guys hadn't showed up by 5:00, I was getting worried. Sundown is happening earlier, you know?

Ultimately, they didn't show, the sun went down, and I texted them we'd have to reschedule for Monday or Tuesday, since today (Thursday) and tomorrow I was booked out of the house a lot.

So I was disappointed- this tree clearing is weighing me down, and I really wanted it DONE already!

So as I am returning from my early morning appointment, I get a text that the tree guy is on his way!

I texted back, when will you be here? Because I have to leave by noon!

He texted, 5 minutes.

He came. He assured me he could get it all cleared before I had to leave.

He's cutting now.

I'm about to jump online for a scheduled meeting with a student. Then head out the door to Ann Arbor for an oil change and checking in with grandkids for Halloween!

Hoping that all times out well!

*UPDATE: All timed out well. Plus, Tree Guy bought 2 items I was about to post to Facebook Marketplace and took them with him!

Full moon musical

I was having trouble sleeping last night. I got up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water. There was a full moon, and the moonlight was pouring in through the sliding glass door to my deck.

I stepped out on the deck to see the full moon. It was beautiful; hiding in the trees. I never have any success in photographing the moon. I didn't even try- just enjoyed the peaceful moment and the beauty.

Then I heard a yip, then a howl. It took me a moment to get my phone recording- but this is the chorus I heard:

Coyote Chorus

I am trying to upload the video here. I missed the first solo howl, that came from the southeast. The clip above has the choral part of the coyote cantata. I heard later, and I'm not sure you can hear it in the video, a solo howl from the west- that was later answered by the original coyote chorus.

At least, I think it was the original chorus. It was from the same general area, with the same general volume.

I think. My hearing and placing what I hear in the right physical area is not what it once was!

I will miss this. I like seeing the deer (when I'm not driving) and the turkeys meandering through the fields or across the road. I loved the time a charm of finches arose in my backyard, startled from their feasting on thistle down.

Yesterday, a hawk circled and circled around the pond or marsh that is beyond my fenced in yard. It was so close.

I love the birds around the bird feeder in winter. I love the hummingbirds around flowers in summer. 

I looked at a house today, a condominium that could possibly be it. It's closer to all my kids. Closer by an hour to the kids in Illinois and the kid in South Carolina. Closer by almost an hour to the kid in Michigan- which means it's two minutes away instead of 60! I am asking my child to ask their partner if it would be okay for me to be that close. I don't want to crowd anyone.

It's town living, not country living. It's a big change. Human neighbors sharing walls and common green space. Fewer four footed neighbors serenading me at midnight.

I want community. I also want agency. I want natural beauty, and I also want some order. 

I don't know what the future holds. I don't even know who I will be. 

I've posted a fair amount in the past year or so, much of it navigating my grief at the death of my beloved.

I want to begin to post about my life, going forward. 

These are, again, meandering thoughts. Maybe I will come back and revise. Maybe I will delete entirely.

For now I will publish- partly to see if the video worked!

Change is gonna come

 I am beyond stressed. With my work for Byzantine U, my prep for the High Holidays, my need to declutter and repair and clean and paint my house to sell, my need to find a new house home, my need to care for my family and friends, my worries about the looming election and the national and world events- I am beyond stressed.

Something must change. Change will come, is coming. Some of the change I can choose, direct, guide, and some I cannot. 

I am sometimes having difficulty knowing which changes I can direct, and which changes are outside of my control.

I know that I need changes in my life. I feel stalled. What used to bring me joy finds me indifferent now. Most of my life is flat and stale.

Maybe I need a complete change of direction, purpose, career, focus. 

I could become a cycologist, right? 

I have been an actor, director, producer, educator, waitress, program coordinator, journalist. I've been on so many boards as president, VP, chair, secretary, and more. 

I know I'm good at my work as an educator, and I enjoy working with my students- but I have to force myself to make the connections, do the grading, post the assignments.

I'm good at organizing programs and designing and coordinating events- but here too I find I lack interest, initiative, motivation.

I am stalled. Not drifting, exactly- I'm still getting the necessary tasks done, although at the 11th hour and the 59th minute.

Gotta love deadlines.

Tonight is Kol Nidre, the evening that we enter into the Day of Atonement. The Kol Nidre prayer itself is a petition to the Eternal to be excused from oaths that were made under duress, obligations that we took on or promises that we made against our heart's desire or our own truth.

We ask that, as the New Year begins, we can enter freely to a future that is not controlled by our past.

My past has influenced me, and much of that is good. However I cannot stay in the past; I have to move forward.

May this New Year have tender and sustaining memories of the good of the past- and also beginnings and discoveries.

I am a different person now. 

My clock

 

This is my clock. It's one of the clocks my mom had. She collected old clocks- or clocks made to look old! This one actually is old. Here's the back panel.

You can see the 1928 date. The fainter date seems to be 1940, and would be a later repair.

This is a wind up clock. I'm not sure how often it should be wound. Daily seems too often, and once a week usually means that the clock starts to lose a minute a day. Sometimes it loses more than a minute a day. Sometimes it springs ahead. Usually it's within a minute or two.

The clock has a single chime on the half hour. It chimes on the hour, too, but I don't know that I have ever heard it chime the correct number of chimes for the hour. I've heard it bong more than 24 times! I've heard it bong four careful chimes for 11:00!

I'd like to take it in for examination and repair. Maybe.

At the same time, I'm not sure I should. It's working, in its own way, with its eccentricities. It's quirky, not all together accurate. I worry that if I open it up for repair, it could stop working entirely.

We had another wind up clock, a wall clock that Ken and I received as a wedding gift. For more than 30 years, the clock worked beautifully. We wound it about once a month, and it kept accurate time. The chimes sounded at the correct time, with the correct number of chimes.

 

Then it slowed and finally stopped. We took it in to be repaired. The jeweler said the works could not be repaired, but could be replaced with battery powered works. It would keep accurate time again.

We would lose the chimes, though. 

It would look the same even though everything on the inside was changed.

We had the clock repaired and for another decade the clock kept time. The clock is in my car now, waiting for me to take it to the jewelers to have the battery replaced.

I will replace the battery. I still love the clock, even if it is different on the inside. 

But my new favorite may be the antique clock with eccentric timing and chiming.