Archive for dip

>A very new day…

September 1, 2010 at 1:24 pm · Filed under Autumn, books, coffee, dip, dreams, feelings, grocery shopping, hypomania, moods, peanut butter, radio, relationships, sleep, state of mind, the Exfactor, weather

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I’m sure my dip that I had yesterday was of a temporary nature, because today is a brand new day and I feel much better. I was up early in the morning for a little while, but clearly had not slept enough and went back to bed and slept until 11 am. I felt very good when I woke up and I was ready to face the day. I had none of the negative feelings that I had yesterday and my outlook was much brighter.

Listening to talk radio when I go to sleep is working out very well. I leave the radio on while I sleep and wake up to it as well. I fall asleep quickly listening to it and find it very soothing. All sorts of subjects are discussed and I learn a lot if I’m not asleep, but I wonder if subconsciously I don’t also pick things up while I’m asleep, because I dream some very interesting things that I normally don’t. I think the things I hear on the radio penetrate my mind while I´m asleep and get mixed up with what I’m dreaming at night and early in the morning.

I do have a greater desire for sleep, but I think that´s not necessarily a bad thing. I´m not as hyper as I was or I should say, as over excited, and I think that is good, because it was a bit worrisome. I felt the slightest bit hypomanic, although I would have denied it if you had asked me about it. I am now speaking after the fact, when I´m calmed down. This is a much better sort of mood to be in.

I´m very appreciative of my present mood, which is much more settled and serene and doesn´t require me to have to think of ways to keep myself constantly occupied. I can be at rest and be okay with that too. I´m not going around thinking of ways to stay out of trouble and to fill every moment of the day. It is alright to have long empty pauses too. Those are just restful moments. I can sit and do nothing at all and have peace with that and stare into the middle distance and think of nothing important at all. That´s a preferable state of mind. When nothing is really very urgent and all can be taken care of in its own good time.

The Exfactor was here this afternoon and did the very necessary groceries. I was out of all sorts of things and it was a good thing that he went to the supermarket. I plan the groceries to last me exactly one week and had run out of things. I was even out of coffee and was drinking tea, which I luckily still had enough of. I do have all sorts of tea and had the Exfactor buy me some more just in case. I fixed coffee for us when he came back from the store and it tasted mighty good, but I did make a strong pot. It met with the Exfactor´s approval anyway, so I know my coffee is good. He´s a picky person.

This particular brand of coffee has points that you can save on the packages and I´m cutting them out and saving them in the kitchen drawer. Because the Exfactor drinks the same coffee. I´ve made him promise to save his points too. I don´t really know what sort of useless things you can get with them, but if they´re free, I want to get them. I just have to find the booklet to paste the points in. I think you can get silver teaspoons and other decadent items like that. I´ll have to do some research. I´m getting real greedy. I´m a typical housewife after all, but that´s not why I drink this coffee. It is just plain good. They don´t even need to give away the points.

I had the Exfactor buy me some wheat bread and peanut butter. The wheat bread is good for me and the peanut butter I like and has protein. I haven´t been eating bread for a long time, but I think it´s a good addition to my diet. I´ll be eating it instead of the porridge, because I think it has just a bit more fiber and vitamins. I know that peanut butter is more fattening, but I don´t plan to eat the whole jar all at once. I do need more protein in my diet than I´m getting from dairy products alone. I thought about getting eggs, but then I remembered that I really don´t like them all that much and that I always forget to eat them. I would like to eat some fish one of these days, but I prefer a piece of salmon from the open air market and I never go there on the right day. There´s the problem with eating fish also, because salmon is a cultivated fish and there some question about it being a healthy to eat fish. I have to find out more about this.

We finally have nice weather today. It isn´t raining for a change and although there are clouds in the sky, the sun is shining a lot. It isn´t very warm, but you get a little bit of a sense of a nice early day in fall. Meteorologically it is fall already. It has been since yesterday. I do like the month of September because we usually have nice weather. It´s like a breather before autumn really starts.

I have to make it a point to sit in my armchair this afternoon and read my novel for a while now that I don´t read before I fall asleep. I so much prefer listening to the radio and I fall asleep quicker too. I do want to spend time reading, though, and I have plenty of books left to read. I don´t want to neglect my mind. These novels I read always give me lots of food for thought, especially the ones in which relationships and their different aspects are the focus. I learn a lot about human behavior and stop being surprised and what situations bring out what sides of a person´s character. Anything at all is possible.

What I´m looking forward to most is a peanut butter sandwich and a tall glass of milk. I think that will be my special treat for today.

Have a nice day!

Ciao,
Nora

Comments (6)

>Middle of the night.

December 21, 2008 at 4:37 am · Filed under Christmas, coffee, dip, early morning, food, garden, gastric band, glasses, moods, Rapid cycling., relationships, silence, single life, sleep, Sunday

>You could also call it very early in the morning, whatever. The fact of the matter is that I wake up at 3 AM and that there is no stopping me from getting out of bed and getting the day started. I must admit, though, that I like these wee hours of the very early morning and that I spend some of my happiest moments then. I like the coziness and the solitude and the silence of the world around me. I can pretend that I’m the only person awake for miles around.

The best part of living alone, is that I don’t upset another person with my schedule. I can be awake or asleep whenever I want. It used to bother the Exfactor something awful when he heard me type in the middle of the night, because he was a light sleeper and my nighttime activities always woke him up. Now I can do whatever I want and I am glad about it. This is one of the very things that would prevent me from starting another serious relationship. It would be the loss of freedom to do whatever I want at whatever time of day.

I don’t miss having a man in my life. Sometimes I am a little bit lonely, but not necessarily for a partner. That loneliness can be filled by anything and anybody. They’re just lonely moments and not moments that I long for a partner. It’s just more of a longing for human contact and it’s up to me to fix that problem, but most of the time I am perfectly okay on my own. I find a lot of comfort in my own company. The realization that I can be who I am without having to adapt myself to someone else is a blessing.

Well, I went out on my bike first thing yesterday morning to find some Christmas cards and I did at one store, but I think I got their last box and now it seems that I need to go out and buy another one. I need not despair, however, because there are several more stores where I can have a look.

I have decided that I like sending and receiving Christmas cards very much, so here is a gentle hint. If you want to receive a Christmas card from me, email me your snail mail address and I’ll add you to my list. You can email me through my profile. Please feel free to do so, because sending cards is just about the most fun activity that I can think of for Christmas. I really enjoy it and it is almost as good as receiving them.

I have put up the twinkly branches and it looks very nice indeed. It gives me the festive feeling just a little bit. I need to cut off a branch from the Golden Rain and decorate it. I’ll see if I can do that today with the aid of my stepladder.

I did finally sweep the patio, which was covered with rotten leaves and I layered all of those in the flowerbed. I figured those would make good compost. I cut back the winter blooming jasmine a bit, because it is such a rambling plant and wants to grow all over the place. I will have to do it again in the springtime.

I am not very interested in gardening in this period of my life, as opposed to a time in my life when I was crazy about it and it was my greatest hobby. It is not something I get excited about now. The patio is just a place where I hang my washing to dry when the weather is good and that is about it. The cats hang out there and the Überhund piddles there in the morning. I do like the Golden Rain when it blooms, it is a beautiful sight.

I bought the muesli with the apple and raisins, but I can only eat a small amount of it before I am full and I chew it very well. So, that means that I eat a little more often during the day, but in smaller amounts. I think in the end that’s better anyway. I have also been drinking more fruit juice instead of coffee. I think I drink three tall glasses of that every day. It’s most refreshing when you are thirsty and I am always very thirsty because of the medications that I take. They give me a very dry mouth. That’s one of the drawbacks you learn to live with.

I have gotten used to wearing my glasses constantly. Now, when I take them off for some reason, my right eye does not like that at all and goes funny on me. It’s like it can’t focus. That must be because of the astigmatism., but that is all guess work.

I never did get around to vacuuming the furniture yesterday. I got sidetracked every time I planned to do so. I may do it today, even though it is Sunday and my official day off.

I had some ups and downs yesterday and the only way I knew of how to fix the downs was to go to sleep for a little while, because that always seems to get me out of the slump. If I nap for just a little while, I feel better when I wake up, as if my brain has reprogrammed itself and the negative energy has switched to positive. There is such a difference in my attitude between the two poles, you’d think I was a different person emotionally speaking.

I try never to blog when I am negative, because it is all doom and gloom when I do and the last thing I want is a post that is based on my negative depressed feelings. Sometimes I start one, but I always have enough sense to delete it. At least, I am speaking of the here and now and not of the past.

When I feel myself sliding down the slippery slope, I always try to remind myself of all the reasons I have to feel happy, but it doesn’t always work. I concentrate very hard on all the positive things and try very hard to stay in the present moment, but regardless of that, sometimes the gloom wins for a while and that is just the way it is.

Well, those are all the words I have for you this morning. I must say that I am enjoying my mug of coffee very well and I am about to make a new one. One decaf coming up!

Ciao…

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>With the exception.

November 8, 2008 at 7:41 pm · Filed under a long night, blog name, computer, Crisis Phone, dip, identity, self image, the Exfactor, the Paramount

>I spent the time from midnight until about 3 PM behind the computer, with the exception of the time I spent walking the Überhund. It was too much and I had to force myself to shut it off and walk away from it. It was an abnormal amount of time to spend behind the computer and changing my imago several times turned out to be very difficult too. I had a hard time with that. My whole identity laid in that name and when I changed it and kept changing it, I kept loosing little bits of myself, until I became a bit lost, well, a lot lost. I got to the point that it scared me. So I turned the computer off.

Then I realized that I was hitting a huge low and I don’t know if it was from the lack of sleep or from changing my identity, but I felt terrible and was afraid to go near the computer again. I decided to take a sleeping pill and try and get some sleep, in the hope that I would feel better after I woke up, but sometime after I took it, my sister called to tell me that she couldn’t make it to our divorce party, because she had another commitment.

I explained to her that I had been up since midnight and that I was trying to sleep, but that it wasn’t working, but I never know what I can expect of her, so I expect nothing. Afterwards, I cried and felt like shit and decided to call the Exfactor who had his phone turned off. Now, for some reason, when he is spending time with the Paramount he shuts his phone off so nobody can reach him, which I think is very immature. It is as if none of us are allowed to know that he is spending time with the Paramount and have conversations with him then.

So, feeling deeply distressed, I called the Paramount, who handed her phone to the Exfactor right away, who pretended not to know that his phone was not turned on. Of course, he couldn’t do a thing for me, not even talk properly, so I said I would call the Crisis Phone and get help there, which I did.

I got a nice enough professional to talk to and felt somewhat better when I got off the phone. It was a better experience than it was the time before. This man listened and asked smart questions and understood right away what my fear was, that I was afraid of becoming manic, and we talked about ways to prevent that from happening.

Finally the sleeping pill started to work and I slept for about an hour or so, but it was enough. I still have that fear that my identity is lost to me and I don’t know what to do about it, except to reverse things as much as possible. I think I have crossed a line into a, for me, uncomfortable area that’s too far removed from my center and I feel afraid. The title of my blog is too abstract and the image is too alien to me. I am moving into uncharted waters and I am afraid to drown and I want to go back to the comfortable shore.

I could do this for somebody else, but I can’t do it for me. I can’t be avant garde for me. It has to do with who I am and how I perceive myself emotionally and intellectually. I suppose I can be a Vincent van Gogh, but not an Andy Warhol. I need solidness and reality, at least van Gogh’s kind. That’s how far I have evolved.

There, I have changed things back to The Choppy Sunflower. Which is where they should have stayed in the first place. Change for the sake of change is not always good, in my case it isn’t.

This day will go down in my personal history as a day of infamy. The whole thing reeks of embarrassment to me. Of lessons learned the very hard way, never to be repeated again.

Ciao…

Comments (15)

>On my own again.

October 26, 2008 at 6:36 pm · Filed under dip, divorce, food, friendship, Joost, the Überhund, the Exfactor

>Well, I am alone again after enjoying Joost’s company for 2 days and I have to say that it did me a lot of good and that suddenly The Exfactor has shrunk a bit in dignity and respect in comparison to Joost’s good and upright character. The man who would literally not hurt a fly. I was very tempted to proposition Joost to have a ‘living apart together relationship’, but then I was worried about destroying our good friendship, so I did no such thing. We have such an easy camaraderie that I would hate to loose that by propositioning him with an idea that could not be further from his mind.

But being around him opened my eyes to some thing. Basically what it is to be with a good and decent human being who does not play a game and who is completely upright and honest, almost innocent in his approach to the world and the people in it. And who is so gentle and careful around other people and so respectful of them, it amazes me. No matter what kind of dysfunctional person you turn out to be, he keeps on giving you friendship and respect.

Well, I’m impressed, more so than other times when I had to share him with The Exfactor and had less time to spend alone with him. The Exfactor is so dominantly present that other people don’t get noticed as much.

I shouldn’t speak ill of the Exfactor, but only speak positively of Joost. I suppose I saw him through new eyes this weekend. That’s good, that’s eye opening to me and it makes me a stronger person than I was before, because I know something now.

Anyway, Joost said he would be back at Christmas time, so that won’t be too long.

We spent half the day in our pajamas talking politics and didn’t get dressed until noon, when we had to walk the Überhund. It wasn’t cold out and there was a brisk wind blowing the last of the leaves off the trees. The Überhund skipped and jumped around as if he was on an outing. He plum wore himself out. I made grilled cheese sandwiches when we got back, but was only able to eat half of one, much to my chagrin. I made them with young aged cheese and they were the best.

I got another dip in the afternoon, but this time at 2 PM, because of the time change. I told Joost about it and he helped me through it in his unobtrusive way. I didn’t have to outperform myself, but could just be my downcast self and partake of the conversation that way. What I really wanted to do was go to sleep, but I felt I couldn’t do that.

On another note, our marriage and divorce had to be registered in The Hague, because we had been married overseas and that was the last obstacle to make it all legal. I got notice in the mail yesterday that this has been done now, so all the legalities have been taken care of and I am now truly an unmarried woman.

I am going to put my pajamas on now and my bathrobe and curl up on the sofa and watch some dumb TV. That’s what I am in the mood for. Maybe I’ll eat something nice, if I can find it.

Ciao…

Comments (9)

>A Dip.

September 29, 2008 at 5:15 pm · Filed under dip

>I’ve been feeling in a dip these past couple of days, which is no doubt in reaction to the hypo manic period, but I hate to write about it, even though today I felt like crying every time someone so much as pointed at me and I did shed quite some tears spontaneously. I felt overburdened suddenly by everything and incapable of dealing with the most simple things, such as being creative during creative therapy. I had a good cry there and everybody was very supportive and didn’t think it was odd for a normally cheerful person to have a tearful few moments. It wasn’t a very productive class for me this morning, but I stayed and did my best to make something of it.

I went home to walk the Überhund, who must have picked up on my mood, because he was being very disagreeable and wouldn’t listen unless I got very stern with him, which I dislike doing, but I had to. He wanted to walk into the street right in front of the traffic.

I got rid of the Norton Virus Scanner and downloaded the free AVG 8.0 virus scanner, which I have had in the past and which many people assured me was better than Norton. Then I ran a complete virus scan, but it only found some cookies and it took 40 some minutes to run the complete scan. I was watching it scan while drinking coffee and saw things come by that I had no need off and uninstalled them after it was done scanning. I saw Ubuntu come by too, which made me think and later on I saw how much space it took up and that made me think some more.

Then I had to go to the meeting with my SPN and the ergo therapist and discuss with them how things are going with me and the different therapies so my SPN is informed about what is going on with me. I had several tearful moments there as well, but the kind that make you feel better, I think, and it was decided that I should take baby steps and not run and that I should add dance therapy to my curriculum. I will start with that this week.

The road ahead can be as long as it needs to be, I don’t need to go running head over heels down it. I can take my time.

Then, when I came home, I did something that felt very good to me and that I experienced as a liberating deed. I uninstalled Ubuntu and it was very easy. All I did was find the program and go to the uninstall button and click on it and the thing was done. It was mighty good. I think the borderliner in me doesn’t like big changes and this was too big a change. I couldn’t cope with it and it kept nagging me, not even in the back of my mind, but very much in the frontal lobes.

So, now I am back to the comfortable chaos that is Windows and that I know so well. Don’t ever be fooled by me, I will tell you that I like fun and adventure, when I really like comfort and familiarity.

I abhor changes in my environment and everything that does change has to be done in little increments so that I can get used to it. Like having your husband suddenly not there again isn’t a big thing, right? Well, maybe it wasn’t.

So, anyway, that was what my day was like and the dip isn’t over yet, but I’m fighting it. I think I will go grocery shopping now, even though it is after 7 pm. Well, why not, it will keep me occupied.

Ciao…

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