Archive for jewellery
>Late in the afternoon…
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It will be early evening by the time I’m done writing this, but never mind. The title stands.
It’s been an unpleasant day and for as good as I felt yesterday, that’s how bad I’ve felt today. A complete opposite situation, in other words. I’m trying the trick with the coffee, but I’m not being very successful so far. I’ve tried to get my head in a different frame of mind, but I’m not managing it very well. I don’t know exactly what the problem is, except that I’ve lost my happy outlook and I can’t find it anywhere and now everything is doom and gloom.
I’ve tried to keep myself busy with the odd job, but it hasn’t helped very much. I even tried to cut my hair, but the scissors were too dull. I don’t have a pair of really good ones and must invest in some.
Since the weather is so nice today, I’ve had to find different clothes to wear and switch my cowboy boots for summer shoes. Tyke thought this was really interesting and followed me around, sniffing my feet and biting my shoes. He’s only known me with boots on.
Finding summer clothes wasn’t that hard and they still fit me. That’s always a relief. It means that I can’t wear my scarves any more and I’ll miss them, but I can wear necklaces. I’ve had to take off the silver rings as my fingers were starting to itch, so now I’m not wearing any, which is fine. I’m undefined and plain old hands are okay too.
I’m still wearing leggings under my skirt, as I don’t want to show my bare legs yet. It’s a little bit too early in the season for that. Besides, they lack colour and are as white as milk bottles. Somehow I have to get them tanned a bit. I may have to sit in my sister’s garden and figure out a way to stand sitting in the sun. It’s not my favourite thing to do. I used to sit on the beach in California, but that was when I was young and ignorant about skin cancer.
I just finished a cup of coffee, but I’m awfully tired. I need to go take Tyke for a walk, but I think after that I will go to sleep. That seems like the most wonderful idea right now and completely like what I need.
It’s just a short post, but it will have to do. I can’t always be long winded.
Have a good evening.
Ciao,
Nora
>What do you do?
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What do you do if you wake up from a nap on the sofa and your first thought is that you don’t want to be there any more? And what do you do if nearly an hour later you still feel that way, despite the fact that you’ve taken your medicines and smoked a cigarette and petted the dog?
Well, you make yourself a large mug of strong coffee and drink it as rapidly as you can and very quickly you will start to feel better, because the caffeine does something to the chemistry in your brain. It is an added value and because it is, you make another mug and drink it with the same eagerness you drank the first and just generally start to feel good. Wasn’t that a wonderful invention of the people who first started to brew coffee and discovered the stimulating qualities of it? Little did they know that they would save the life and sanity of a woman in the 21st century on the European continent.
After you drink your coffee, you feel fit enough to deal with your dog, who needs to be walked and you cheerfully do so. All that caffeine in your head is making your synapses fire properly and your thought processes move smoothly and easily as if they were the products of a well oiled machine. There’s something to be said for little cups of espresso too. They are downed easily and quickly and give fast results. An espresso machine may be in order. Something worth looking into, since the Senseo coffee maker is starting to leak. A creative solution must be thought of.
I’m wearing a brand new outfit today. I got it ready during the night when I was up and wide awake and not nearly ready to go to sleep. The only same things I’m wearing are my cowboy boots, but you can’t get those off my feet nowadays. I’m completely hooked on them and they are comfortable, except for where my little toe hurts from my hiking boots, but I would have that in any kind of shoe now. A new outfit was easily put together, because I do have enough clothes to choose from, although I need to clean out my closet to get a better idea of what is there and what fits and what doesn’t. I need to sort through the whole collection. That’s a good job for a rainy day, which we are not going to have for a while. It’s supposed to be nice weather this weekend with pleasant temperatures.
I also found all the rings I was looking for. Most of them are very nice with pretty stones, but the prettiest ones were too big. I’m wearing a mother of pearl and a red translucent stone of which I don’t know the name. They are both set in silver, which is a metal that I can be allergic to, so we will hope the best. The other ones have prettier stones, but like I said, they are too big, although it must be possible to make them smaller. I’ll see if I want to go through the trouble of that.
I think I went to sleep a little after 6 o’clock in the morning and woke up at 9:30, just before the phone rang. It was the Exfactor who said he would be over in about an hour, which left me time to get dressed and walk Tyke. I was till very sleepy when the Exfactor got here and couldn’t engage in a too animated conversation, because I still needed my coffee. He did do the groceries for me, which was very sweet and now I’ve got enough milk and cheese to last me for the week. I’ve also still got porridge and since I haven’t eaten it in awhile I think I will have a bowl of it tonight. That will be simply delicious.
An air plane just flew over and I’m disgusted by the sound of it. It has been so nice not to have the sound of it and now it is slowly returning to the every day noises we hear. For a while it was really silent and only if the wind was coming from the right direction, you could hear the traffic on the highway or the trains at the station. I find the noise of air planes very intrusive and am indignant that they can just fly over populated areas, which is hard not to do in the Netherlands or anywhere else I suppose, the airports being built near highly populated areas. I feel sorry for the people who live near Schiphol, which is a very busy airport and they must go mad with all the noise. We have it relatively easy compared to them.
My personal helper called this afternoon and she is coming over on Monday for an introductory meeting and will start to work on Thursday. That is amazingly fast, because I thought I would have to wait a few weeks. She sounded very nice on the phone, although she did address me in dialect, which luckily I understand. Everybody automatically speaks dialect to each other until they realize that you speak Dutch.
My psychiatrist called also and I could tell him that I was having a fairly good day, which he says is something that is very typical of me, that one day I can be completely in the lowest valley and the next day be out of it again and he said that that’s why it’s so important that I stick to a strict schedule, although he understands my desire to stay up when I feel good. It’s hard to let go of that feeling, but it does take all day to recuperate from a long night up. I told him that what he had said about guilt and wanting to be dead had made a lot of sense to me and that I had given it a lot of thought, and he said that was half the work, that an idea made sense to you and that you recognized yourself in it.
Well, I’ve rambled on long enough now and I don’t want to bore you, so I’ll bring this to an end. I’m also coming to the end of “The Stone Diaries” and am enjoying it very much. I hope I have another book by Carol Shields on the bookcase, but I’m not sure. If I don’t, I’ll have to order one. She has such a nice writing voice and it all flows so naturally and you don’t get the feeling that she’s writing according to some standard formula.
All right, have a nice day and a nice evening Drink some coffee if it’s not going well. Don’t drown your sorrows in beer.
Ciao,
Nora
>Late at night…
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I’ve tried several times today to write a post, but each time my mood was not such that I thought I could write a good one and I deleted each attempt, even if I had written a few paragraphs already. I think maybe now I’m up to it and I’m seriously going to try it. I’ve just slept a little on the sofa and when I woke up, I was very groggy and made myself a cup of coffee despite the late hour. It has woken me up completely and improved my mood quite a bit. If being up late is the price I pay for that, then so be it.
I’ve had a struggle with depression all day long and it’s been a difficult day. At one point I called my psychiatrist and talked to him about it. He says that I’m feeling so guilty for performing what I think is below par, that I think I deserve to die for it as a punishment and that this feeling is something very deep seated in me. We have to analyse this more at our next meeting. Because I’m depressed, I’m unable to perform and he increased my Effexor one more time and reduced my anti psychotics, because they can work as downers and make you feel flat. He is going to call me tomorrow afternoon to see how I am.
Some people from the Green Cross Foundation came to talk to me about my status quo after having been alerted by my domestic help. They wanted to know how my situation was and to offer me a personal helper who would come to support me several hours a week with such things as personal care and shopping and other things I have a hard time with. I was completely taken aback, because this was unasked for help and at first I didn’t get any and now I’m getting a lot. They are going to file a request immediately after questioning me carefully. They were psychiatric nurses, so they knew what they were talking about. They showed a great deal of concern and prepared a work folder for me as we spoke. It was an amazing thing.
When I wasn’t feeling down in the dumps or trying to write a post, I slept on the sofa a lot. Sleeping is my best defence. It only takes me a few minutes to fall asleep after I lie down. It is so very comfortable on the sofa in the sunlight, but even though there was sunlight today,. it was a cold day and I had the heater on and my cardigan too. I like to be warm and cosy, although I have now turned down the heater and taken off my cardigan as it was quite warm enough in here. I think I get cold too when I get sleepy, so that really should be a signal to me.
I had cold milk and Camembert for dinner and it was mighty tasty. I should be the spokeswoman for dairy products, I eat enough of them and I could not do without them. I especially like the soft cheeses, because they agree with my gastric band so well as opposed to the harder cheeses, but I like any kind of cheese really and there are many good kinds to be found in the store where I shop. There is a whole cheese counter with a large variety of cheeses. Some of them are quite expensive, that’s why I stick to the cheaper store brands of the Brie and Camembert. I’m always trying to keep my grocery bill as low as possible. It’s a challenge, although I’m sure that the more expensive kinds will taste a lot better, these cheaper ones taste good enough.
I have a tiny little scab on my face on a place where I have rosacea and every time I accidentally touch it, it starts to bleed something awful and I have to sit with a tissue to my face and wait for it to stop bleeding. It looks like a battle took place here. It’s because the weak blood vessels are so close to the surface there. It’s very hard not to touch that scab, because it itches. See, it’s always something.
I’m actually feeling fairly good right now, which is the first time today, or since yesterday, that I can say that. I’m saying this very conditionally in case something goes wrong with the carefully balanced things. I’m almost afraid to enjoy the moment, but I must. They don’t come along often lately.
I’ve taken off all my rings and for one of them I had to use dish washing liquid. It was a little bit tight. I decided that I did not want to belong to anybody any more and have no memory of anyone on my hands. I have callouses on my fingers from the rings. I don’t know if I’m going to wear different rings, I think I will. I have some rings that have little or no meaning. At least it won’t look like I’m married or that I’m a widow. I’ll look for the other rings in a while in my jewellery drawer. I have some silver ones with semi-precious stones that I may want to wear. They come from a collection of jewellery that belonged to my mother, but I have no recollection of her wearing these, so there are no memories attached to them. They are just rings to me and I’ve had them for ages. They are actually kind of pretty and I do look forward to getting them out again. Maybe I’ll start to care about what I look like again.
I haven’t done so in quite awhile and just put on the same old things in the morning with not much thought to how I looked. I really didn’t care very much. I thought if I looked halfway decent from a distance, then that would be okay. Up close and personal was a different matter, but then who does get that close? Not many people. I will try to put on something nice tomorrow morning. To celebrate the changing of the rings. Not the changing of the guard, that’s a whole other thing all together.
I’m going to look for those rings now and matching bracelets. Maybe I’ll pick out my outfit right away too. Then I’ll have no excuse to be lazy in the morning and put on the same old things. Yes, I think that’s a good idea.
Have a good night if you’re going to sleep and a good day if you’re waking up.
Ciao,
Nora
Another Splendid Day 