Archive for blogs
January 12, 2011 at 5:30 am · Filed under bedtime, blogs, bookcase, books, clothes, coffee, daydreaming, early morning, laundry, medication, personal helper, the animals, thoughts
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I am sat here with my usual cup of coffee and I find myself quite contend. I feel that there’s not much that can go wrong now this early in the morning before the day has properly started. I’m still yawning a little bit, but another cup of coffee will take care of that. It’s nice to be up and sit here and enjoy the early hours of the day. All is quiet around me and the animals are asleep.
I feel like minor royalty in her realm, as if I’m the head of a very small state in which only I rule. All my subjects are sound asleep and all is well with the state of affairs. Oh no, I don’t have visions of grandeur. Only the need to have peace and quiet in my life. What better way to achieve that than to be in charge. It’s only a very small kingdom I rule.
My Wednesday personal helper is going to be here this morning and I must take a shower before she gets here. It will be nice to get that out of the way and to be clean and refreshed. I will have to put on some clean clothes and I will have to magically make an outfit appear out of the closet. No doubt I am capable of that. I always manage to come up with something.
In about an hour and a half I will take my medicines. I’ve cut my anti-psychotics down by half and starting this Friday, I will have cut down my anti-depressives by a third. My psychiatrist thinks this is doable. We’re going to keep me at these doses for a while and see how I do on them before we make any more changes. We’re going to cut down the anti-depressives more before we do anything else with the anti-psychotics. I feel good so far and I have a lot more energy. I’m not so sleepy and lethargic during the day.
Since today is Wednesday, I don’t have an awful lot to do. It will be a fairly quiet day, but those are welcome too. It turned out that I did have a load of laundry to do, as I pulled some clothes out of my closet that needed washing. I’m going to change the sheets on my bed and that will make going to bed tonight an extra pleasure, although it always is. That’s one thing I look forward to every night. Going to bed and listening to the radio while I fall asleep.
Maybe today I will get a chance to sit down and read my book, something that I’ve found impossible to do lately. I’ve felt that I’ve been too distracted to give it the proper attention. Since I’ve stopped reading in bed at night, I’ve found it hard to sit down in my armchair during the day and do it. Something is always pulling my attention away from it, if not my own thoughts that meander all over the place, but nowhere important. It’s a very good book filled with interesting details and really requires me to sit down and give it my full attention, which is something I can’t seem to do now, but I’m going to give it a try today.
My bookcase is filled with good books that I still need to read if I ever get around to them. I end up sitting in my chair and daydreaming about nothing in particular at all. None of my thoughts are very deep and heavy and I’m not solving any of the world’s problems. I just let my mind wander and touch down here and there like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower. It’s the most uncomplicated way to spend time. I’m glad I’m relieved of thinking depressing thoughts that weigh down heavily on my shoulders. That’s all behind me now. I’ve passed that stage.
Well, I’m going to read some blogs until it’s time to make my move. The day is young yet. The sun won’t be up for awhile. I’m switching to cold milk. I’ve had enough coffee. I’m very thirsty and it will be most welcome.
Have a nice day!
Ciao,
Nora
November 14, 2010 at 5:17 am · Filed under bedtime, blogs, cigarettes, coffee, dislocated jaw, dryer, early morning, hairdo, laundry, radio, rain, rituals, sisters, slippers, Sunday, Tyke, weather
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It’s early in the morning and I’m very contentedly sitting here drinking my coffee and smoking my cigarettes. In other words, I’m going through my regular morning ritual. I’ve read blogs and commented on them and had a good time doing that. It’s always very interesting to see what pictures and stories people come up with. It’s a comfortable routine and a good way to start the day.
I’m sitting here with my bathrobe on and my comfortable slippers that
Aims made for me. They are very soft and warm and the best things to wear when you have cold and sore feet. Tyke is fascinated by them and can’t figure out what happened to my feet when I wear them. He follows me around and tries to bite them as if my feet are trapped in there. When I don’t wear them, I put them away very carefully in a high spot. I don’t want any surprises.
The rain has stopped for now and they say that the river is not going to flood, despite the amount of water that went into it here and in Belgium. There’s supposed to be more rain today, but tomorrow the weather is getting better and we’ll even get some sunshine. There was a lot of rain yesterday and it was almost impossible to take Tyke for a walk. My hair has dried up funny and I’ll have to wash it, because it sticks up in unexpected places and is completely flat in others.
The day went by quickly yesterday, despite the fact that I didn’t do anything special, except for hang up a load of laundry to dry and wash one load. Of course, I slept very late and I went to bed early. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t wait for it to be late enough to go to bed and I watched TV until it was.
I do think lying in bed, listening to the radio until I fall asleep, is one of my favorite things to do. I don’t care much about what I watch on TV. There’s not that much on at night that I really care about. It doesn’t matter if I miss a program, I’m not addicted to one. Listening to the radio while lying in bed is very cozy and I don’t even mind if it’s a report of a football game. I do learn to recognize the names of the players and their teams.
I don’t have anything on the program today, except that I’m supposed to go to my sister this afternoon at three o’clock. If the weather is bad, she’s going to come and get me. I assume it will rain. I’m not willing to take the chance to get soaked on my bike. I do hate getting really wet. A little bit is okay, but soaked to the skin is another matter. Despite the fact that I live in a wet country, I don’t have any rain clothes. That is something I need to rectify one of these days. I think I’ve said that before already.
I do miss having a clothes dryer now. I very much would like to have one and not have to wait for things to get dry on the clothing rack. Some day, when I have the money, I would like to buy a combination washer/dryer. It must be possible to buy those second hand. There is man in town who deals in these things, maybe he has something like this at times. I’ll have to get in contact with him and ask him if he ever does.
I’m going back to bed in a little while to get the rest of my sleep. It’s too early to stay up and, besides, it is Sunday and there’s nothing better to do. It won’t be light for a while yet and even then it will be gloomy and there will be no action outside whatsoever. It will be a good day to stay in bed and sleep late. If I were a farmer, I’d go milk the cows now and feed the chickens. Alas, I have no such luck.
I’m starting to yawn, so it is time to go. I don’t want my jaw to get stuck. It did again the other day, but I got it unstuck very quickly. It’s a bit of a shock every time it happens.
Have a nice Sunday. I hope your weather treats you right.
Ciao,
Nora
June 16, 2010 at 9:21 am · Filed under bicycle, blogs, clothes, coffee, early morning, emails, friends, hairdo, shopping, sleep, Tyke, weather, weight loss
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I’m up for the second time this morning. I was up much earlier, before the early birds had even started singing. I drank my coffee and answered my emails and read blogs and then walked Tyke, but decided that I wasn’t really awake at all and went back to bed, where I slept for another three hours. That was just what I needed and I feel much better now and like I’ve had enough sleep.
I’m very cozily sitting here in my bathrobe now, nice and warm, with a cup of coffee. When I walked Tyke early this morning it was cold outside and I wore my jacket and a scarf, of which neither was a luxury, but now I’m toasty warm and very comfortable. I’m so comfortable that I may never get dressed, but that is silly and I do have to get dressed, because I’m supposed to meet my friend Yvonne later today for a cup of coffee downtown and I still want to go to the store and buy that bathroom scale.
I’m very curious about how much I will weigh and I can’t wait to step on the scale. I have the feeling that I’ve lost a lot of weight, judging by how my clothes fit me. I wore my tight jeans yesterday, but they weren’t so tight anymore. They were a bit baggy in the legs and I wore a smaller belt that I really had to pull tight. I’m going to wear some different jeans today and I can’t wait to see how those will fit me. Oh, vanity, all is vanity…or is it sanity, all is sanity? I think maybe the latter.
It’s cloudy and windy outside today, typical Dutch weather. The sun shines off and on. If it weren’t for the beauty of the clouds, it would discourage you. You almost want it to rain to get it over and done with, but then the sun comes through and that really looks good too. It’s the kind of sky the Old Masters painted, except that we don’t have the endless horizon to go with it or the ships on the stormy sea. To be by the sea now would be a great thing. To have your hair blown to smithereens by the wind and to see the waves pound on the shore. You don’t worry about having a bad hair day then like I do now. All it takes is a good haircut, right?
My friend Yvonne let me know she would call me at the last minute to say if she was going to be there, but that she was having a hard time and that she didn’t think so. I just wrote her an email saying that I assume she is not going to make it and that I’m making different plans. I’m not going to sit here until 1 pm and wait for that phone call when I could be doing other things. I also have to buy new accessories for the bathroom and go to the post office.
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I’ve just roughed up my hair into a punk hairdo and put on my other jeans that fit me surprisingly well. I pulled them on without any problems. That sure did good things for my self esteem. I put the smaller belt in them and pulled it tight. I’d hate for them to slide off my rear end. I don’t have a lot of hips yet to speak of. They will reappear last, I’m sure. I took Tyke for a walk and it was a little bit warmer outside. I still wore my leather jacket, but left it open. It’s warm when you’re in the sun and out of the wind, but when are you when you are on your bike like I will be shortly?
I’ve got to get going now. I’ve dawdled enough. I have to get my purse and my wallet and hop on my bike. My trusty steed.
I hope you all have a wonderful day.
Ciao,
Nora
June 10, 2010 at 12:31 pm · Filed under blogs, chores, cigarettes, coffee, depression, domestic help, music, psychiatrist, shoes, the Exfactor, thoughts, Tyke, walks
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I am sitting here with a cup of coffee and my cigarettes and have just read the blogs I was behind on reading. I left comments on some and on others I didn’t. I don’t always know what to say. Sometimes I even think it’s inappropriate to make a remark. I feel that anything I would say would be the wrong thing, because I may have missed the point of the post. I’m not all that smart all the time. I don’t always understand people’s most pertinent emotions, just as I’m probably not always understood myself. It’s so easy to dismiss things or to trivialize them or to ignore them as not being important enough.
The simple things are always the easiest. The quick to grasp ideas that some people are very good at presenting. Things that don’t need long explanations in six paragraphs or more, which is the way I write. Some people don’t make long stories, but keep it short and to the point. You almost think it’s a shame that they do, because you want more of them, but they said what they had to say and that’s it. I like it when people ramble on a bit, because that is my own style, and some people are so pleasant to read. You want to know more. You want information. Trivial bits of knowledge.
The Exfactor was here earlier. He arrived just as my psychiatrist called, like I had asked the secretary for him to do. I took the call in the bedroom for privacy reasons, but of course the Exfactor knew something was up. I don’t know if he overheard me speaking to my psychiatrist or what. The Exfactor asked me right away, when I was done, if I was not doing well and I had to answer him honestly and say that no, I wasn’t. We talked about that for a bit and about what the reason was and he understood it quickly enough. He said that people shouldn’t expect me to run when I’m doing a fine job walking and to be proud of the fact that I walk so well. I can only agree with him. I can run in the future when walking has become the most normal and natural thing and I’ve stopped falling down.
Sitting and being alone by myself has become a chore now. I no longer enjoy the silence and the solitude and try to avoid them at all cost. I try to keep myself busy, but am hard pressed for ways to do it. In a little while, I’m going to do some jobs. Really things that the domestic help should do, but I need to do some things myself. I’m even thinking about ironing, that’s how bad things have gotten. It’s not a frivolous chore I take on. I’m also going to change the sheets on my bed again. For luxury reasons.
I feel like listening to music and I think that I will go to Deezer and put together a play list or listen to the latest hits there. This is in an attempt to keep my mind occupied and to not dwell on other unnecessary things. The possible subjects that pop up into my head now are very negatively loaded and I’d rather not be confronted with them. They are a waste of time to think about, but I’m almost compelled to. It’s a neurosis. I’m like Woody Allen in one of his movies, but maybe he’s like that in real life too.
My high tops were just delivered and I will have to try them on in a while and see how comfortable they are. I’m looking forward to wearing them. I’ve been wearing sandals, but I don’t like them very much, because little pieces of dirt and twigs get stuck between my feet and the soles of them. That’s the drawback of open shoes. Sandals are funny kind of shoes anyway the way they expose your naked toes.
I can now walk Tyke and maybe that’s a good idea for me to go and do. We can go for a longer walk and enjoy the dry weather. It hasn’t rained all day, although it is overcast. I don’t have to stay home and wait for that package anymore. I’m sure that Tyke will enjoy the exercise and it will be good for me to get out of the apartment. I mustn’t turn in to a hermit.
Right, off I go into the wild blue yonder.
Ciao,
Nora
March 26, 2010 at 9:49 pm · Filed under antidepressants, antipsychotic, blogs, books, chores, coffee, decaf, humor, medication, mood stabilizer, nap, sleep, tranquilizers
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I’ve done chores and I read blogs until I got blog-reading-tiredness and couldn’t even leave comments anymore. That’s because I was behind on my blog reading and hadn’t realized how far behind I really was, so I gave up and I hope that I will be excused by all of you who have not received a sign of my presence to your blog. I may have been there, but have been too overwhelmed mentally to leave behind a sensible comment. You should never do too much of one thing for a long time. It will drive you crazy.
I’ve just made myself a cup of coffee, because I’m starting to give up the ghost. I am yawning very badly and am in serious need of sleep, but I’m trying to fight it because of the time of day. In another 20 minutes I need to take my medicines and I hope to get my second wind from this cup of coffee. If everything fails, I’ll go to bed for a nap, but it can only be a nap. I don’t want my body to get the mistaken idea that we’re settling down for the night.
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Well, I went to bed and slept for an hour and a half and it was nice. I’m now drinking decaf, but I think I’m going to need a regular cup of coffee to really wake me up. It will be an exception to the rule of not drinking coffee in the evening. I think one of my medicines will need to be adjusted to make me less sleepy during the day, and that will be fine with me, because as far as I’m concerned, I’m still taking too many. I think the anti-psychotic is the culprit, because one of the side effects is that it makes you very sleepy. That’s why I’ve stopped taking them during the day. I was constantly sound asleep on the sofa. The other culprit could be the tranquilizer that I take at a high dosage during the day. I need to start reducing those, but I can’t do that on my own. I need to do that in consultation with my psychiatrist.
I very much regret getting on some of these medications. I thought they would help me at the time, but more and more were added and now I’m stuck with the consequences of trying to get off them. And they all have side effects. I would not recommend to anybody that they get on some of these medicines. I think they are dangerous and unhealthy and the pharmaceutical industry is pushing doctors to prescribe them. There’s supposed to be a pill to fix everything, but sometimes the cure is worse than the symptom and medicines get misused. Heavy duty medicines get prescribed when something lighter might have worked too. I have to get off some of these drugs before it’s too late. I want to keep my antidepressant and my mood stabilizer and that’s it. All the rest can go.
Well, now you know the true feelings I have about the drugs I take. I’m not such a blind believer in them. I shouldn’t be on most of them and I’m on my third psychiatrist and they all inherit me with the drugs. Oh yeah, I forgot about the sleeping pill.
On to other things. My body has been tricked by the decaf and thinks it has had a real cup of coffee. Isn’t that funny? I’m going to have another one. Maybe they should give me placebo pills instead of the real ones and they will work because of my believe in them.
I’m going to try and read a book in bed tonight and hope I have enough sense to put the book and the reading glasses away before I fall asleep. I haven’t read anything for such a long time and I really miss it. Tyke will have to be on his best behavior if I mess it up.
I’m going to get ready for bed, I think, although it’s not that late and tomorrow is Saturday. There is no humor in this post and that bothers me. I should write another funnier post now immediately, but I don’t know if there is anybody funny home. I could have a look.
Have a good evening, or a good night, whichever applies to you.
Ciao,
Nora
March 18, 2010 at 2:45 pm · Filed under blog post, blogs, chores, comments, computer, emails, household help, housewives, language, middle of the night, sleep, the Exfactor, Tyke, writing
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I had written a post earlier this morning that I decided was so boring that I deleted it and I want to start all over again. It is possible that I don’t have it in my fingers today to write a good post, but we will see. I will give it my best shot and see what I can make of it. I may not be quite as funny as I normally am. Maybe I am more serious today than I am on other days. If so, it is because I didn’t get enough sleep. I didn’t go to sleep until the middle of the night, diistracted as I was by things to do on the computer and there are always so many of them.
The fact that I have a new computer doesn’t help things either, because it makes me think that I can do everything better than I used to, so I want to try that out. I like my email program, so I’m constantly checking for emails, or writing them, and I find that very satisfactory. Looking for interesting blogs is an other favorite activity, as if I don’t read enough already and keeping up with them is a full time job, but I gladly put in the time.
Leaving comments is a tricky business, because at some blogs that I read I never leave any, feeling as if I’m an interloper there who really has no business being there and the other comments seem so good that I can’t think of anything equally good to say. I should have a little more confidence in myself. I’m sure I don’t come across as the shy and retiring type.
More than anything I like writing posts, because I like the business of writing. It doesn’t matter so much to me what I write about as long as I do it as good as possible. I always have doubts about spelling and grammar, not having been formally educated in them in this language, but I think I fake it pretty well. I know I’m confused about expressions sometimes and use Dutch ones in English, because I’m not sure of which language they belong to. I’m trapped between the two and thinking in both of them.
I could write posts all day long and maybe never run out of things to say, while in real life I’m not much of a talker, depending on who I’m with. I feel handicapped in my speech, as if saying something out loud is harder than writing it down. Of course, I have to speak in Dutch and I still manage to make a mess of it and want to use many English words. It happens in a discussion that I don’t remember the Dutch words for things and use the English ones, so I end up speaking Dutchlish. I also happens that when I’m trying to write down a concept in a post, I have to think it through in Dutch first and translate it into English before I can put it down in complete sentences.
I’m glad I have a domestic help now, because I’m going to have her wash the windows next Monday. They are so dirty, I should be ashamed of myself, but I’m not. Dutch housewives have clean windows, but I don’t consider myself one. You see them in the middle of winter, out with a bucket of suds and a stepladder, cleaning their windows in their plain clothes without a jacket on and I think they are mad. They also scrub the entrance way and the stoop and the front door in freezing temperatures. I’m not that dedicated. So the domestic help can clean the windows. I brought that up, because the sun is shining on them now and I can see all the dirt. I fills me with anxiety and I won’t let it. I’m for an anxiety free life.
The Exfactor was here this afternoon and put the door back on in the spare bedroom. It was always a bit of a mystery to me why he had taken it off, except that it seemed to be in the way to him. It had been stored in the shed all this time and of course it is rather dirty, so I have to clean it with a lot of elbow grease. I keep it ajar, so the cats can go in and out through the cat flap that’s in the back door there, but at least it takes the view away of all those unsightly boxes that are sitting there and the eternal dust and debris that the cats drag in.
We only had a short political discussion, more for the form than anything else and I let him do most of the talking, which he does easily. Sometimes it helps to be the more silent one. Tyke entertained us with his follies and that took up some time. Thank goodness for a funny dog.
I have to do some chores now, duty does call me. It has a nagging little voice that can not be ignored.
Have a great day. It is 18C here, isn’t that a miracle?
Ciao,
Nora
February 26, 2010 at 9:53 pm · Filed under blogs, chores, expectations, happiness, health, life, medicines, mopping, Olympics, vacuuming
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I’ve decided not to watch any Olympics this evening, but instead to catch up on my blog reading, which I was very behind on. I’ll get my pajamas on in a while and make myself comfortable on the sofa and watch some Olympics then. They are broadcast all night because of the time difference. I don’t know what I’m going to do when the Olympics are over. Life will be so boring when everything gets back to normal. Well, maybe not. There was life before the Olympics, after all, and somehow I managed. I know I read a lot more books then.
I’m taking my medicines for my airway infection and I must say that the codeine works very well. I’m allowed to take it 4 times a day and it completely takes away the pain, making it a lot easier to breathe, allowing me to do things as if there is hardly anything the matter with me. So, needless to say, I did some chores today.
First I cleaned up that torn bag of cat litter. I was a ten kilo bag and when I tried to pick it up, the bottom fell out and all the cat litter dropped on the ground. I swept it all up and put it in a different bag and then swept the whole room which was covered in dog hair and debris from outside that the cats and the dogs had tracked in and other dust and soil. It hadn’t been properly cleaned in a while and it is where the back door is, so you can imagine what it looked like. It looked like the great outdoors.
Since that was done so successfully, and since I was hardly out of breath, I vacuumed the apartment next. I didn’t rush the job, but did it nice and easy, as if I had all the time in the world, which I did. I vacuumed up the last of Jesker’s hair that was stuck beneath the furniture and now that is all gone. Tyke doesn’t shed any hair. His fur is thick and curly, but I have yet to find any laying around.
Now I have to mop the floors, which is going to be a lot of work, so I saved that job for another day. I have a sponge mop and I think it is more work than a rag mop, though I am still undecided which of the two I like better. I know I will feel a lot happier once the floors are clean, because they are mucky now. I do want to pick the right moment to clean them, when I have a lot of energy and I know I can get the job done. I will do them in stages and take little breaks in between.
My nose is still plugged up and I can’t blow it now. Everything is stuck. It causes me to talk funny. My throat is slighty sore and hoarse, and my chest is rattly, but it doesn’t hurt thanks to the codeine. I know that in a few days I will feel a lot better. I’m already glad that I’m able to do chores so much easier and that I’m not just lying on the sofa being sick. That’s a great relief to me.
Lately I’ve been having regular crises over the value of the purpose of my existence. I very much miss having a reason to go on living for other than Tyke, and before that it was Jesker. I think of how tough it has been to survive this past winter and how very much I don’t want to have another winter like it and that I’m not happy with the prospect that I’m going to have winters like that for the rest of my life. I wonder about the true purpose of my life and what it really is all about and I don’t see much reason for it, other than to just get up in the morning and somehow make the best of it until I go to sleep. It doesn’t seem like a very fruitful and useful life.
I wish there were an option to step out of your life when you think it has been enough. That you’ve lived the life you’ve wanted to live and that you don’t see much purpose in going on living. When the negatives of life outweigh the positives and there’s not enough happiness left in it. I find myself in that position now and I very gladly would have followed Jesker into his eternal sleep. I’m quite envious of him to have died such a peaceful death. Just one little injection of sleep medication is all it took.
Well, that’s all I have to say about the subject for now. I’m sure I’ll talk more about it later. It’s open for discussion.
Ciao,
Nora
January 31, 2010 at 4:31 am · Filed under blogs, books, cafés, coffee, comments, fruit juice, Jesker, party, snow, weather
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I’m sitting quite cozily by the desk lamp drinking my coffee after having just finished a tall glass of fruit juice for the thirst. This time I was smart enough to buy two large cartons of fruit juice, so I have enough left, although I may come to find out that I need three to last me the week. The stuff is so good when you are thirsty and nothing else will do to quench that thirst. Not even cold milk, which I used to think was the best cold drink when I was diabetic and didn’t know it and was always thirsty. I would drink a liter of it in one go. Now I just drink tall glasses of juice and I love the slightly sour taste of it, because the juice is not too sweet. I like mixed yellow fruits better than plain orange juice, and no matter how well I shake it, the best is always at the bottom of the carton, because that’s where all the pulp is. I could write a treatise on good fruit juice probably.
Jesker is lying right beside me and has tried to get me to get dressed because he wanted me to take him out. He got me to follow him to where me clothes and boots were and then looked at me with sorrowful eyes. Of course, I’m not going for a walk now, he just had to go out back, but he was not quite happy about that. He complained a little bit and then grudgingly went to sleep, but I’m sure I haven’t heard the end of it yet. I’m sure in his little brain he’s just waiting for the next moment to come along when he can try and lure me outside again. He never forgets.
It snowed during the night and there are a few centimeters. I’m wishing for it to be gone, although it looks quite pretty, but I’m not fooled by the beauty of it and remember very well how slippery it can get if it stays and freezes. It’s supposed to get up to 2C today, so it should melt, but there aren’t any guarantees. It never did get that warm yesterday either and it snowed in the afternoon, although it was supposed to be 2C then also. In the north of the country there is more snow, so I’m glad I live down here in the south. Those few hundred kilometers do make a difference and we are less influenced by the sea, which makes it a bit dryer and warmer here. It’s a good place to live, as climates go, but that’s not the only reason. I live in the Dutch mountains.
I finished Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver and have now started her novel Pigs in Heaven. I’ve read this novel before and also the one that came before it, but it’s been long enough since I read it that it will be like reading a new book again. As I read it, I remember bits and pieces of it, but it’s still fun. Animal Dreams was an interesting book. There was a lot of sadness in it, but very realistically in that tragedy happens to people in the most bizarre ways and that we have to learn to live with that. There was also joy in the book underneath it all and it does have a satisfactory ending. I don’t say a happy ending, because no such thing exists. Well, endings don’t exist, do they? One person or the other dies, but the rest of the people go on living. They have to, that’s their fate. To carry on the story endlessly until someone can come along and write it down again.
Jesker has given up on me and has gone to sleep on his pillow in the bedroom. I’m surprised he didn’t try to change my mind again. I suppose he realized his timing was off.
I just looked outside and see that there are already footsteps in the snow and tire tracks. I’m surprised, it being Sunday. I wouldn’t expect anyone to be up that early, or to be out that late. Of course, the cafés don’t close until 3 am, so it could be people coming home from a night out. I think some places stay open even longer, but I think that’s in the summertime when you can get home when the sun is up. I’m not a party animal, so I don’t know much about these things. I haven’t stayed up to party all night since I was 26 and it was New year’s Eve and I saw the morning coming. That’s a long time ago.
It’s very nice here with my bathrobe on. I have no desire yet to go back to bed. I am wide awake. I think I will stay up and visit some blogs that I’ve been neglecting, because I visit them, but very often lately I haven’t been leaving any comments and I feel like that’s just a bit antisocial. It’s like peeking in, but not letting anyone know you’ve been there. Of course, lately I haven’t felt like I know what to say, I’ve been so empty of words that are cheerful and it’s been an effort to say anything at all.
Have a good Sunday you all. I hope your snow melts if you have any.
Ciao!
January 3, 2010 at 7:29 am · Filed under authors, blogs, cigarettes, coffee, comments, criticism, emails, language, novels, snow
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I’ve been up for a while, drinking coffee, smoking my cigarettes and answering my emails. I’m also pretty much caught up on my blog reading, although I didn’t leave comments everywhere. Sometimes I’m just short of words and sometimes I’m only a lurker. I read other people’s comments and wonder where they get the imagination to write such good ones, because I really have to stop and think of something sensible to write and sometimes I give up completely. It’s not that I’m not amused or that I don’t empathize, it’s just that I can’t find the right words to express that and I really have to try very hard to come across as a sincerely involved person, which I am, make no mistake about it. I just assume it speaks for itself, but it doesn’t, of course, and I know how much I appreciate each comment that I get, so I try very hard to say something relevant if I can.
When I first started reading blogs, long ago in the Dark Ages before I wrote my own blog, I didn’t realize it was customary that if you didn’t have anything good to say, it was better not to say anything at all, and that you should always try to find something positive to comment about, even if it was just a minuscule detail. I was always putting my foot in my mouth by being to straight forward and calling a spade a spade. I thought I was a criticizer and not just a reader who could put her positive two cents worth in. It was in a time of my life when I was super critical of anything anyway, so it was the imperfect setup. Very unfortunate. Since then I’ve learned to keep silent if I think something is nonsense, or to at least find something positive to focus on and to bring any criticism as diplomatically as possible and not see it as a matter of life or death.
It’s in the national character to be very critical of things to the point of being rude. That’s no excuse to act like a clodhopper, of course, but I used to meet many of those Dutch kind of people when I still lived in the States. They were critical of everything and all things were better in their own country. Those are the kind of people you don’t want to read your blog, because they will find all sort of faults with it and trip you up on the smallest details and have an argument with you. I think that’s another reason why I don’t write in Dutch. It’s to prevent me from meeting those kinds of people. English speaking people are more polite as a rule. They come better equipped to hand out the niceties of life and isn’t that just a much better atmosphere to write in?
You all know that I only read English language blogs and novels. The only Dutch I read is in the TV Guide and in the articles I read in magazines in waiting rooms. My Dutch is good enough now that I can pass for a native, which I am, after all, although for a long time I didn’t feel like one, but I don’t have the least desire to read Dutch language novels, many of which would be translated out of another language anyway. There are good writers here, there’s no doubt about it, but I’m not the least bit curious about them. My interest lies mainly in English language female authors and there are so many good ones to choose from, that it will keep me busy for a long time, and I will even read male authors now and then.
This specific interest was born after reading a big collection of short stories by female authors that I enjoyed very much and I started reading them and subsequently discovered other English language female authors. Our library has a very good collection of English language novels and I was able to extend my list of authors quite a bit. Now, of course, I mooch books through Bookmooch and I have been very successful so far. What I can’t get, but really want, I order occasionally at Bol.com at a discount. Every time I hear about a new author, I look into it and add her to my list if she sounds interesting.
So, you could really say that English is my first language and that Dutch is my secondary language. I don’t know if I could express myself as well in Dutch as I do here in English, although I am aware that the occasional mistake slips through every once in a while. I make more mistakes in Dutch.
It’s snowing outside and there are a couple of centimeters. Only one car had driven on it so far, so it looks very pretty. I have to take the dog for a walk, because he’s waiting impatiently. I’ll have to dress warmly, because there’s a cold wind blowing.
Well, that was all about writing and reading and such. I hope you all have a nice day.
I’ll be thinking about you all on this Sunday and wondering how you are doing.
Ciao,
Nora
September 24, 2009 at 2:38 am · Filed under blogs, chores, facebook, Internet, middle of the night, painting
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Well now, what do you think has happened? I was very tired early in the evening and went to bed at 8:30 pm, only to wake up at 12:30 am and find myself wide awake as if it was morning already and time to get up. Of course, I got up, because there is no sense lying in bed looking at the ceiling and ruminating over the past day, so I carefully stepped over the sleeping dog and went to the kitchen to make myself a cup of decaf. Since then, I’ve been sitting here behind the computer trying to keep myself entertained, and in a little while I’m going to sit down at the dining table and paint. I may as well make a productive night out of it.
It’s really funny when you get up so early that it’s barely even tomorrow yet. You look at the alarm clock and think to yourself that the time can’t be right, but then you look at your watch and see that it is and you think, what am I going to do with this whole long night ahead of me? Of course, there are always numerous ways to entertain yourself on the Internet and I don’t quickly run out of things to do.
Nowadays I even go to Facebook every day and that is something I used to neglect to do for long periods of time. I am a much better networker now than I used to be, although I don’t use it to its full advantage, but I see people who do and I admire their enthusiasm and stamina. I like to see the artists and the pieces of art they create and I always hope there is new work to look at. Some of them are most excellent and the more abstract the art, the better I like it, because I am a primitive figurative painter myself. I always try to befriend artists and when I browse through suggested friends, that’s what I look for. Many people have their artwork as their ativar.
Of course, I also read all the new posts of all the blogs I follow and leave comments there. I don’t actually visit many artists blogs, because I like to read stories and I’m interested in how people tell them and use the language and get their point across and how a story unfolds. I also like the various subjects people write about and that make me think about things in my own life, although I also read a lot of Mommy blogs and I am certainly past that stage. I read those for the humor and the human interest and to remember my own experiences and to know I was not so unique in them. They’re very eye opening.
So anyway, slowly the hands of the clock are moving toward the morning hour. It’s becoming a more and more decent hour to be up as I feel the day creeping towards me. I want it to stay nighttime a little while longer, because I do want to paint for a while and I want to do that before I have to get dressed and walk the dog and get started on my chores. I do have those chores waiting for me and I think today might be the day that I tackle some of them.
I have an almost total lack of interest in how clean my floors are. I mean I sweep and vacuum them, but I hardly get around to mopping them. It just doesn’t turn me on. The thought of bringing out the mop and the bucket is almost more than I can bear to think about. Isn’t that silly? And I know that when I make a bucket full of suds, I will have those floors done in no time at all. It is just a matter of getting over the initial inertia.
It must have to do with the fact that by nature I’m not a good housewife at all and it displeases me to have to do it. I like things to be organized and picked up, but I don’t like the actual cleaning and scrubbing. It’s that my mother taught me how to clean house, otherwise I might not have liked to do it at all. We girls had to help clean the house from top to bottom every Saturday and we weren’t dismissed until it was all done. We weren’t allowed to complain about it either. And we had to dust all the baseboards, something I don’t do now and it shows. My knees don’t allow baseboard cleaning. They are too knobby and bony for it on the hard linoleum. Some day…I must keep my chin up and remember that one day the whole living room is going to be painted and that will include the baseboards.
Well, now I’m going to paint before it’s too late to get started on it. This was just a wee hours of the morning ramble. I’ll try to write something decent later on in the day. Maybe I’ll be mightily inspired and write an epic story. Yeah!
Have a good day. It’s supposed to rain here, so it should be very cozy inside and I’ll get to wear layers of clothes when I go out.
Ciao,
Nora
Another Splendid Day 
>Funnier!
March 18, 2010 at 2:45 pm · Filed under blog post, blogs, chores, comments, computer, emails, household help, housewives, language, middle of the night, sleep, the Exfactor, Tyke, writing
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I had written a post earlier this morning that I decided was so boring that I deleted it and I want to start all over again. It is possible that I don’t have it in my fingers today to write a good post, but we will see. I will give it my best shot and see what I can make of it. I may not be quite as funny as I normally am. Maybe I am more serious today than I am on other days. If so, it is because I didn’t get enough sleep. I didn’t go to sleep until the middle of the night, diistracted as I was by things to do on the computer and there are always so many of them.
The fact that I have a new computer doesn’t help things either, because it makes me think that I can do everything better than I used to, so I want to try that out. I like my email program, so I’m constantly checking for emails, or writing them, and I find that very satisfactory. Looking for interesting blogs is an other favorite activity, as if I don’t read enough already and keeping up with them is a full time job, but I gladly put in the time.
Leaving comments is a tricky business, because at some blogs that I read I never leave any, feeling as if I’m an interloper there who really has no business being there and the other comments seem so good that I can’t think of anything equally good to say. I should have a little more confidence in myself. I’m sure I don’t come across as the shy and retiring type.
More than anything I like writing posts, because I like the business of writing. It doesn’t matter so much to me what I write about as long as I do it as good as possible. I always have doubts about spelling and grammar, not having been formally educated in them in this language, but I think I fake it pretty well. I know I’m confused about expressions sometimes and use Dutch ones in English, because I’m not sure of which language they belong to. I’m trapped between the two and thinking in both of them.
I could write posts all day long and maybe never run out of things to say, while in real life I’m not much of a talker, depending on who I’m with. I feel handicapped in my speech, as if saying something out loud is harder than writing it down. Of course, I have to speak in Dutch and I still manage to make a mess of it and want to use many English words. It happens in a discussion that I don’t remember the Dutch words for things and use the English ones, so I end up speaking Dutchlish. I also happens that when I’m trying to write down a concept in a post, I have to think it through in Dutch first and translate it into English before I can put it down in complete sentences.
I’m glad I have a domestic help now, because I’m going to have her wash the windows next Monday. They are so dirty, I should be ashamed of myself, but I’m not. Dutch housewives have clean windows, but I don’t consider myself one. You see them in the middle of winter, out with a bucket of suds and a stepladder, cleaning their windows in their plain clothes without a jacket on and I think they are mad. They also scrub the entrance way and the stoop and the front door in freezing temperatures. I’m not that dedicated. So the domestic help can clean the windows. I brought that up, because the sun is shining on them now and I can see all the dirt. I fills me with anxiety and I won’t let it. I’m for an anxiety free life.
The Exfactor was here this afternoon and put the door back on in the spare bedroom. It was always a bit of a mystery to me why he had taken it off, except that it seemed to be in the way to him. It had been stored in the shed all this time and of course it is rather dirty, so I have to clean it with a lot of elbow grease. I keep it ajar, so the cats can go in and out through the cat flap that’s in the back door there, but at least it takes the view away of all those unsightly boxes that are sitting there and the eternal dust and debris that the cats drag in.
We only had a short political discussion, more for the form than anything else and I let him do most of the talking, which he does easily. Sometimes it helps to be the more silent one. Tyke entertained us with his follies and that took up some time. Thank goodness for a funny dog.
I have to do some chores now, duty does call me. It has a nagging little voice that can not be ignored.
Have a great day. It is 18C here, isn’t that a miracle?
Ciao,
Nora
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