Flowers From The BF
Just because. So bright. So beautiful. Love you. Thank you. I updated three pages, posted a few things, babysat the nephew, watched football, and did a little, little, work. This weekend is over. I need to go to bed. I have an early work day tomorrow. Sleep sweet with good dreams. And stay warm all my friends in the Midwest. The cold is here, and the snow is coming for us. Good night.
101 Birds
101 visible birds. I counted them. At least I tried to count them. I may not be exact, because if you click it and enlarge it, there are a lot of spots and smudgy parts that look like birds but could be part of another bird or a camera flaw or a picture defect. I used my best judgement. Plus, they were already pretty far away when I had the genius idea to take the picture. There were SO many I couldn’t believe it. This is just one shot that I finally thought to take. I just stood there in awe of nature and the flight of the weather bound. They were loud too. Geese ya know. Flying south. And truthfully I was thinking that with so many flying over my head, what if one, or 10, pooped on me? Would that still be considered good luck? I was paralyzed by the sound and sheer numbers. I was doomed until I shook myself out of the bird haze to grab my phone. Anyway that’s my rough count of what I captured in the frame. Feel free to waste just as much time as I did counting them over if you feel strongly about this number issue and send me your best estimate. There’s no wrong answer. Here’s the small wave that flew by right after. Late to the party, but just as loud. 18 more. Later.
Post Tornado. Skeleton Trees.
Lots of noise. A strange, continuous roaring sound to the north of our location. Sirens everywhere. No actual sighting in my town. Confirmed visuals in Coal City to the South and Frankfort to the west. And as everyone knows by now, Washington, IL, out in the middle there. It is VERY windy now. If you turn on the TV to the Bears game in Chicago, you can see that our wind is extra windy. In case we forgot that our weather patterns here in the Midwest don’t just stroll in all leisurely-like, changing over the course of a few days or even hours; but prefer to burst out of the atmosphere like fireworks in the sky. Boom, flash, done. It’s dark. It’s light. It’s dark again. One minute you are outside just milling around and taking pictures, marveling at nature in all its raw beauty, and the next minute a powerful gust of wind crackles through the high branches of your fragile, breaking trees, pushing you, the garbage cans, and one of the plastic chairs you are standing next to, across the patio, almost giving you a heart attack. I literally covered my head because I thought a limb was coming down. I know the sound. So you decide you should probably go inside and close all the windows because it was 65 degrees mere minutes ago and now its 50 with all your blinds blowing inside the windows trying to come off the hinges. I have work to start and finish because I wasted my day on all this weather and I may slip in a drink or two to count my blessings tonight with my family. Say a quick prayer, send a thought, or help if you can, for our neighbors to the south. It’s getting dark now and the weather looks like it’s staying. Good luck. Stay safe. Winter is pretty much here. Only four or five more months until it’s spring. Cold hands, warm hearts. I think we say something like that. Later.
66 Degrees. And Flashback.
I don’t want to be repetitive and post another picture of my daffodils, so… So spring. So cliche. So here is a winter snow pic that my daughter took. I was just scrolling through all the shots she took at the height of our winter and this one is good. I hate to wait until it snows again. So enjoy the memory and the good fortune we share, to live in an area that changes seasons so dramatically and abruptly. FYI, the L/C belongs to me. (Low census.) Hopefully they don’t call and ruin my day off now. Gotta go and lose these kids for the afternoon. The BF is breathing down my neck to get out of the this house. Now. Later!
View From the Trail
The Nature Trail, that is. In my quest to exercise every day, but not do the same thing every day, and because I can be lazy and not feel like sweating or jumping around for an hour, I walk our local trails. Sometimes I run them, but it was kind of snowy and slippery and I didn’t want to be carted out of them on a stretcher. So embarrassing when the ambulance and firefighters have to come to the Forest Preserve, hike a mile into the woods, with all their equipment, to find me, and then basket me out like some dumbass who was running in the woods and slipped and fell and broke her ankle. Or leg. Or neck. This is suburbia! They didn’t sign up for that!
Anyway, this is the creek, above. And below are some trees. I will resist posting all of the pictures I took or that my daughter took. Apparently she shares my love of photographing bare branches as much as I do. I find walking to be the easiest exercise ever. This is Monday. Tuesday was The Firm (that makes 3 workouts now if you are keeping track–still looking mostly the same–still trying to curb the appetite and eat better). And I walked yesterday too, just around the neighborhood. Just to get outside. It was cold and deceptively slippery. The sun was melting some of the snow but not all of the snow. Just enough to leave that slick of ice that will drop you on your ass in a heartbeat, while also simultaneously wrenching out your back as you try to prevent the fall. I made it safely back home but only because I was very careful to NOT walk on anything that even looked like ice.
In other news: I still haven’t heard from the hospital. I can call tomorrow. I have two interviews next week that I’m pretty excited about. I have been trying to stay positive and concentrate on losing the chunk because it will help me in the long run to not feel negative about this silly stuff. I’d like to say I didn’t post yesterday because I was all up in the social and political censorship internet issues. Doing my part to keep this a cutting edge, raw and real website, filled with black humor and gripping information about life and the occasional boozing and swearing. Protesting to keep it free and available for you to read. And to protect my right to type any and everything that flows out of my brain into the atmosphere no matter how ridiculous or irrelevant. Even if no one actually wants it or reads it. I think the day was a success. I think the internet made its point. I never know how these things go. Smarter folks will have to argue that one for me. In the meantime my little site will be here if you change your mind. No. I was just seeped in the gloom of winter and joblessness. Feeling the UN-love from HR departments everywhere. At least everywhere in the Chicagoland area.
After I got back from my walk though, I really did feel better. There’s studies about the effects of sunshine on depression. I won’t bog down the paragraph with details, but if you feel bad, and you normally don’t, try going outside for about 10 minutes. It’s an easy, free, painless way to see if maybe you just need a re-boot. Nothing medical here. No belittling any real problems that you have. I always like to try the path of least resistance first before I drag out the big guns. I aim for 30 minutes and see how I feel. I would have stayed out longer, but I had to pee really bad and I didn’t want to risk the hold. Too much? Anyway, when I got home, I got the surprise interview phone call and then it was time to go to watch my daughter play volleyball. Too busy too worry then.
Here’s another thing that my cousin will love. The match was an away-game, and held in a gym that was so freaking hot I thought I was going to pass out. It was in one of those really old schools, the kind that look big from the outside but are even bigger on the inside. Three stories high and a basement, with painted, cinder-block walls, long hallways with high ceilings, and lots of recessed doorways and narrow staircases that give it that old-timey, asylum feeling. The gym itself was a compact room of shiny, wooden planks, with the bleachers hanging over the gym floor balcony-style. One wooden door, set into the back wall, lead into another little gym, with another set of balcony bleachers that you could access from the top or bottom. We parked on the wrong side of the building and had to walk through the whole school and then back outside again to get into the gym. No, not the gym, the “GYMNASIUM”. Carved into a giant stone arch, above a huge wooden, double door with leaded glass and black iron fixtures that we reached by climbing up, not one, but two, flights of concrete stairs, flanked on both sides by red brick, shoulder-high walls. Heat definitely rises. My palms were sweating. And I was wearing a T-shirt. Before we go chucking it up to menopause, let it be known that we were ALL dying in there. I’m counting that too for my exercise log. It’s like the sauna part after a good workout. I feel cleansed.
I might have more to type for later. But I’m making Jambalaya and it takes time, so I have to go. I already made brownies. And biscuits are in the hopper. I like to cook when I feel bad. It calms me down and gives me something exacting and tasty to focus on. When I post about rice pudding, you’ll know it’s time for an intervention. That’s my go-to, can’t-drag-myself-out-of-the-house food savior. It takes hours to cook and slowly bake and it becomes something more than just rice and milk and sugar. It’s like Bondo for your soul. It fills in the cracks and holes and keeps the bad stuff out until you can figure out a way to get it whole again. I haven’t made it in years and years, thank god. But the last time I did, these cousins of mine, the ones I speak of, were there with me. To sit, and wait, until it got dark, and share it with me. So I didn’t have to eat it all alone. I think about that sometimes. It was a moment that I truly needed help and they were there, like magic.
Sorry about that. This is what happens when you type every random thought that spills into your head. That had me tearing up over here, and it’s beautiful outside, and I’m happy and I’m all better now. On a funny note, now that I really think about it, all our names begin with the letter “L”. How weird!! Anyway, I love you guys. And if I never said it before, I’ll say it now: Thank you!! You guys are awesome.
Alright, really done now. I have food to cook, not so much because I feel bad this time, but because the weather is supposed to turn on us again and a big pot of food just feels safe and secure doesn’t it?? And I need to take care of a squirrel that won’t get off the bird feeder. He will B-BE taken “care of”. How can I get all my fab bird pictures with squirrels hanging around eating all the seeds? (Bird Alert! A blood-red Cardinal and a sky-blue Blue Jay are in my air space. Trying to get them in my camera and out to you. Spent an hour yesterday but I need more!) Also, my kids aren’t home yet so I should probably go see if they left me any messages on their whereabouts. Later Gators!
Clear Blue Sunny 33 Degrees at 10 AM
I had a dream last night that it snowed. I got up and the streets and driveways and lawns were covered with half a foot of snow. In my dream I was cursing because it just figured that it would snow on the day that we actually have to drive an hour north. But thankfully, it was only a dream. I could pretty much go the whole winter without snow if this region would be so accommodating. I doubt we will get that lucky but it’s something to wish for. And because I know how much my cousins love my weather updates, I thought I would put up a pic of our sky, with a skeleton tree that I can’t stop taking pictures of. This is today. Like 10 minutes ago. I just ran outside to get the best picture I could for this site. I will go that extra mile to keep things fresh and current. My BF just asked me, “What the hell are you doing??” I said, “Just goofing around.” But we both know…Only the best for my friends and family. Enjoy your day and Merry Post-Christmas!
Are you sick of looking at that gaudy duck too?!?
Our weather has taken a turn for the better these last few days. It’s our last blitz before the horrible cold and (according to the weather predictors) record breaking freezes and snow inches. Yay. The only good thing about the snap in temperature is that it ends any allergic sneezing and runny eyes and noses. Annoying. The cold sucks though. I don’t know why I stay here where it’s all “seasonal”. Oh wait. I know why. Family. No job. Can’t sell the house. Can’t buy a new one. Etcetera.
Anyhow this nice weather really causes me to procrastinate on the schoolwork. But it does inspire me to get off my fat butt and exercise. Which I desperately need. How long can I keep pushing the 40+ envelope before I get some medical problem that I will actually have to go to a doctor for?? Let me tell you, you creeping, increasing, scary pounds on the scale…not much longer. After my initial health kick earlier this autumn where I shed a pants-applicable 5 pounds. I have managed to hold steady without a lot of effort. That means little to no exercise but no eating either. I’m squeezing the clothes on, but it is not pretty. There are lumps and bumps where there should be none.
So here I am again. Finding myself having to go run and eat healthy. If only I could keep it up for longer than a week or a jean size. Now, at least, I have the added inspiration of trying to outrun my daughter. Since she started cross country (it’s over now—but she did really good) I tried to help her with practice runs, but I am far too slow. These damn kids are fast. And they make it look pretty easy. I was practically having a seizure on the trail. I was counting down in my head by hundreths of a quarter mile just to make it two miles without stopping. I felt pathetic, old and out of shape, but there was no one around to hear me count and watch me dry heave and it did give me something else to think about besides my collapsing lungs.
And I did finish that two miles. 26 minutes. As usual. Every single time I start “running” again, that’s my go-to time. (Let’s not forget I broke a foot this summer so back off!! It’s a miracle I can run at all!! Let’s go with that excuse ok??) Anyway. It’s only been two days of avoiding crap food. Processed, sodium infused, alcohol infused, fried, etc., and I have to say I think I feel a bit better. I can breathe and my head doesn’t hurt too bad. The key is to drink alot of water. Something I have also been neglecting. I can tell that right away though. Because my eyes get all loopy and I feel dizzy. I also tend to go for the dramatic flair and claim that my throat feels like it is closing and I can’t sleep. I actually went to bed last night feeling hungry. My stomach was protesting the fact that I didn’t stuff it so full of food it could try and trick me into sleeping flat so it could give me massive heartburn and laugh in my ear, “HA HA, you have to sleep sitting in a chair!” Spoiled American.
I have heard of this anti-inflammatory diet (which is very similiar to a blood pressure diet or sodium restricted diet) and I guess that’s the one I will have to settle into. It seems to be credible and addresses quite a few of the problems I have been having as a woman aging in this world. It’s so hard to make the right changes even when you know you should. I give myself until 45. That’s the outer limits of my neglect and disregard. After that I think my ability to skate by like a paunchy middle aged lady will totally catch up to me. And I would hate to wait that long and be forced to change. Fun stuff huh??
I wanted to do more than just this post today. But typing on the computer for hours on end makes me really really REALLY crabby. I’m not sure why. But I am feeling the irritation building. I was able to finish my paper. With 7 hours to spare! And I applied for more jobs today. I think that’s what sets me over the crabby edge. The internet is awesome for job hunting and applying but it can be super tedious and repetitive at the same time. Now I am here. Getting ready for school tonight and trying to post something worth reading.
I’ll do some lighter, fun stuff later. No need to keep it so serious. Here’s a picture I took of Stevie’s cross country conference race. These are the 7th grade girls lined up and ready for the whistle. I like the way it looks. Kind of fishbowled out with the coaches behind them. It looks like something exciting is about to happen. These kids are awesome! Track is in the spring so we need to get training! It gives us something to look forward to during the long winter and a goal to shoot for. Skinny and fast. Fall back. Spring forward. All right.
just shy of pretty 