You Capture - Color

First I had to look up the word color in the dictionary. I wasn't sure I recalled the meaning. Here we have gray. And white. And grayish-white. And that's all.

Once I knew what I was looking for, I went in search of the elusive color. And I got as far as the chocolate shop. Because really, why go any farther than that?



I didn't eat it all. Only, like, half. (But I had run that morning, so it totally, you know, canceled that run out. Yeah, I almost said evened out, but who am I kidding?)

Check out the rainbow at Beth's.

let's go to bed

Bed. That's all I've got lately. I just want to be in bed. I love it there. I want to be curled up under the covers and nevereverever come out. My bed is soft. It is comfortable. It is peaceful. It is calming. It welcomes me. It's glad I'm there. It conforms to my needs. It doesn't complain about anything or try to argue at all. It wants me to be safe and warm and comfortable. It likes me.

I'm starting to believe that winter, which I've always loved and supported, is slowly killing me.

I'm tired. I'm sad. I'm eternally cold. I feel terrible. Regardless of how hard I try to change that. And I've been trying. But it's hard. And this week, I feel myself giving in to it. I don't want to. It just seems to be happening. I can't pinpoint any fully concrete reason. But it might just be winter.

There has been no sunshine. Everything is gray. I have been indoors almost exclusively. Fresh food is lacking. Movement is limited.

It sucks.

And my bed calls to me. Soft little whispers. All day long.

*******

tell it to me tuesdays

it's so not appropriate to think of this right now, but it's so hard to not

So, we're watching the telethon for Haiti. Which we totally support and all. But, here's the thing.....

There are celebrity operators. And I soooooo want to call. But I would totally be picky.

"This is Mel Gibson? Um. I'm going to call back and try again."
"Reese Witherspoon? Um. I'm going to call back and try again."
"Steven Spielberg? ET is great. I'm going to call back and try again."

"Daniel Day-Lewis? Ohmygosh! I totally skipped school in high school to go see Last of the Mohicans! Okay, so it was only 7th hour which was the last hour of the day and it was only Lounge. But still. I totally skipped. Although I told the Lounge teacher where I was going, so maybe it wasn't really 'skipping,' but still. You're awesome. Okay. I love you. Okay. Bye."

Or.....

"RINGO!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!! IT'S RINGO!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!"

Or.....

"Jack Nicholson? Um. Is Ringo there?"

*********
Please help if you can.

hopeforhaitinow.org

You Capture - Love around the home

Our house was built in 1947. Five years ago, we became its second owners ever. But every piece of everything the original owners had ever owned since, um, they were born had to be removed (thrown away, recycled, given away, etc... Thanks, Mom and Dad!). And carpets torn out. And every surface had to be scrubbed. And painted. But that process really made it ours. We were able to chose just exactly how we wanted everything to be. This house is so very much home. I love everything about it.

This lamp is the very first thing Hubby and I bought together. We bought it just after it was decided he was moving to where I lived. Just being excited that we would have a home together. We bought it for the novelty of buying something for our home, not knowing where that home would be. Now it lives in the meditation room.


I am madly in love with my kitchen. It used to be dark wood and mauve paint and tons of crap piled everywhere. Now it's just how I pictured it in my head, way back in the "planning stages." Full of light and lightness. (And chocolate.) I spend a lot of time in here. It makes me happy.



The bedspread was an anniversary gift a few years back. I love it. Like, really love it. I loved it when I saw it in the store. And I love that Hubby was paying attention to how much I loved it and went back to get it for me. And I love curling up under it every night. And I hate having to get out from under in so early in the morning.


Books kind of overflow from every available space here. (Okay, so they're mostly my books. Like these ones. And the Shaun Cassidy albums tucked in with the books. Those are mine, too.) I love books. We have more books than anything else. I think that's wonderful.



This little makeshift alter kind of thingy is part of the mediation room. Buddha, Krishna, Shiva, and Ganesh. They're calming. Soothing. Which, I think, is the point. I start and end my day here with them.


But this is kind of the best thing about my house. Or, at least, the thing I love the most...




Spread the love at Beth's.

Defined.

I feel, sometimes, that I'm overly complicated. By overly, I mean unnecessarily. I make things harder than they are. I take things personally. I feel stressed a lot. I work a lot. I run a lot. I yoga a lot. I bake a lot. I eat a lot. I worry a lot. I'm cold a lot.

"A lot" is big for me.

I'm an over-doer. A perfectionist.

And a hypochondriac. The slightest little ache, pain, sniffle, whatever simply MUST mean I'm dying. Or something. I once got so worked up after looking through the book What's Your Poo Telling You that I left the book store, went home, and made Hubby go back with me to see if he agreed that this book was diagnosing me as devastatingly ill and probably dying.

I am also, apparently, lacking sanity.

It's not easy for me to relax. I'm not sure I've ever been really and truly relaxed. Yoga and meditation helps. Drinking tea helps. Being married to my super-mellow Hubby helps (although sometimes I become over-frustrated with his mellow, which kind of defeats the purpose). I wish I was more easy going. I aspire to be more calm. To accept. To find joy. To relax. To let go. (I actually use that as a mantra during morning mediation.) But, um, that's hard for me. Harder than it should be. I have good days, and bad days, and going half-mad days. (Thank you for that line, Mr. Buffett. I use it all the time.)

Yesterday I was at the chiropractor. (I've been going for awhile. He's a very helpful guy) I've been having this odd discomfort in my low back. Right where everything is all screwed up, so I was only in mild panic mode about it.

I'm explaining location and severity. He's examining and testing. Then he says to me:

"You have a lot of repetitive microtrauma."

And I just stared at him, because oh. my. gosh.

He just defined me.

Totally and completely.

I have a lot of repetitive microtrauma.

Silly, insignificant things that, somehow, are a really big deal to me.

Repetitive microtrauma.

That's me.

In a nutshell.

(Not that I'm necessarily happy about this. But it feels oddly good to have the definition. I can sum it all up now; I need to work on reducing the repetitive microtruama.)

(Which seems like something that could produce some repetitive microtrauma. At least, for me.)

sometimes smiles

Sometimes I feel like I need to smile, so I try to make myself smile. It doesn't really work. It's not the mood-elevator that a real smile is.

But sometimes smiles just happen, all by themselves.

When I was leaving for work, Hubby said I look nice today. And I smiled.

I stopped for a chai (because it's been one of those weeks), and there were poppyseed muffins, too. And I smiled. (Because now I have a chai and a poppyseed muffin.)

And when I got to work, my co-worker peeked her head around my door and said "did you see the puppy?" And I got to snuggle with Sugar, the St. Bernard puppy. And oh. my. gosh.

I'm still smiling.

You Capture - Winter

I love winter. I love everything about it. The snow. The cold. The sweaters. The running. The ice. The glistening. The hot cocoa. The way my glasses fog up when I come in the house. Using the four wheel drive. Snow days. Just every little thing.

But...

This happens to me every year. Right about now. This patch of blue settles over me. Always about this time of year. Always so so hard to navigate through. Always so so easy to just sink in to and kind of wallow. The reasons vary. Maybe it's that subsisting on a diet of peanut butter balls and fudge, no matter how much you continue to run and yoga, will cause you to gain weight. Maybe it's the feeling that your changes in appearance have somehow let loved ones down. Maybe it's the feeling that you might not have much of a place in the greater landscape of your family. Maybe it's something that you can't name at all. Maybe it's something that you haven't even thought of. (And by "you" I mean "me.") But it all adds up to equal blue.

But blue is temporary. Even now, in the middle of it, I know that (as my dear, wonderful boss from my library days used to say) this, too, shall pass. Even now, in the middle of it, I'm preparing for it's passing. I've moved The Beatles into more frequent rotation ("it's been a long cold lonely winter" but "it's alright."). I know there's a detox session on the horizon. And, no matter what, I never seem to lose sight of just how beautiful everything around me is.....


The way the places that are so familiar are so different, but still so comforting.....


Blue is hard. But white can manage to shake blue off, even just for a little while.


Winter marches on at Beth's.