Good morning. Just me. It is a beautiful morning although promising to be another hot one. The air is running fine. We were up earlier, but decided to go back to bed for a while. We were drifty from having stayed up too late the night before. No reason, really. Maybe just a little too tired and restless to go to sleep. I had a hard time shutting things down.
This morning is going to be on the busy side. We have some house chores to do. We have started already and will go back to it before too long. We lost our balance over the last couple of days. Nothing too bad. But, now days a couple of plates or cups on the computer table is major. But, alas worked for a few minutes need to relax the back again.
Today, is a very big day for us. Our youngest son Jacob is coming for a sleep-over. YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! This is a very long time in coming ... at least over one year since he’s been here, and I’m thinking in literal terms, he’s never slept over the whole night. As one might guess, we’re a little nervous. We want him to be happy here. I think it would be a good place to relax after being with his Dad or brothers for a while. Jacob didn’t drive the last time he was here, so I am going to pick him up at his dad’s place at 2:30 this afternoon. I just can’t wait!
In other news, this wasn’t a great week to do work at work. I got a few things done and made all my meetings except one to finish an ICAP (survey). That’s pretty good, not perfect. I think I took an off-stance this week, because Sr. And I weren’t in agreement about the client and parent surveys. I might have written about that before so I won’t go into it again. The bottom line was that they seem to be now in again, but I will need to do the best job possible to make them good reports. Plus, there is going to be a rush job Monday. Sr. Decided that nothing is more important than getting out the new group schedules. That is going to be pretty labor intensive for me. Lots of brain work.
I didn’t progress as well as I should of on a separate report over how well the DSPs did on developing evenly their program areas. I was taken up with other ideals. For some reason or another, I felt it imperative to do a little reading. I just read in about 50 pages of a book on psychology and mental retardation. It was probably an example of me being side-tracked. I was in a fuzzy mode most the week. It did give me the confidence at the time of thinking I was very much on the right track and abilities toward ideals of my future.
Past that, Yesterday I found myself sidetracked into the purchasing mode again. I had gotten a Horchow on-line catalog. Oh this store is enough to make the angels cry. They send out this on-line teaser each week, and this time it had highlighted wall coverings. This is the store I had bought my wonderful coffee table. There was one major wall in our bedroom that had been unaccounted for. Previously, I had only a medium to small picture in the fireplace area of my fire place mantel behind my bed. The mantel took up all my headboard decorating needs. It reached floor to about seven foot and the slightly past the width of my bed. Last year, when we got the new bigger bed, the old bed and mantel was designated to the guest bedroom. And, it left me with nothing for the center wall above the bed in the master bedroom. This is the wall that gives an entire character to the room. I had to restrain costs at the time and had gotten a rather simple headboard that looks like a simple cast iron footbridge. As I had figured at the time, the pillows would cover the best of that.
If you had been following along at all with the Flylady, you might now, that the bedroom is supposed to be one of the nicest rooms in the house. It is like an inner sanctum of comfort and should never be waylaid with anything that doesn’t give pleasure or feelings of love. I had a good start, even including the walking machine which I still want to learn to use faithfully. But, there was still that missing hole. Yesterday, you may of noted that I fell in love with a tapestry for that wall.
Needless, to say this whole ideal of upgrading my whole home to imply it is mine has gone on for this last year and has proven not to be cost efficient. In fact, we are into obsessed with no real excuse as often as I have tried to rationalize. Though given this fact, I know that as soon as the extra money comes in from the student loan within a couple ofweeks, I will be at my computer ordering the tapestry. I know this about myself. Hopefully, the balance of the money will go into the cars brakes and taking care of the car air conditioner. I don’t feel guilt about it not going directly to school, because I had taken money from the estate to pay off the school-related computer expense. So, it balances out.
I tried to figure out ... am I to the point, I can consider this whole home improvement spree over. This is the analysis of where we are at with our project. It is an inventory of almost everything we’ve come to accumulate in our life.
Living room: New - moss couch, bookshelves, green mint recliner, Large rose/moss floppy crysanthinum drapes, fancy round coffee table, computer, tv, table, chairs, pictures, books, old - antique roll-top files, antique treadle machine, wooden scrolled mirror, step stool for Abbe, books
Balcony/Hall: New - stone bistro set, vacuum set, Christmas tree ;) - oh, and camera and tape recorder if friend would bring back. Then we could take some pictures
Bedroom, New - bed, mint/moss greens/rose quilt, soft down blanket, linen, pillows, sham, exercise walker, old - two antique dressors and mirror, antique teacart, mint Green/rose floral curtains, clothes, stored items in closet
Kitchen: New - dishwasher, window hardware, clock, picture frames, appliances, Old - wicker shelves, oak table and chairs, white lace curtains, calendar wall hangings
Bathroom: New - peach floral/black shower curtain/liner, old - towel rack, carpeted step stool for Abbe
Backbedroom: New - white desk/dresser from Lee, window hardware, white rose quilt/pillows, old - fireplace mantel, bed, enfolding desk, white lace curtains, stored items in closet
That’s pretty much it. I'm going to ignore all thoughts after all these years without of thinking we're just materialistic. But, I've asked my friend to get for my birthday a digital scale and I've asked Macadam for some kind of scratching post for the kitties, so I can take the sheets off the back of my couch. Reminds me that after I get that camera back, I should do a household inventory and look for insurance on my apartment. I think it would cost per year under a couple of hundred dollars. And, at this point would be well worth the expense. The Flylady says that anything that isn’t loved in your home is clutter. I really don’t have too much of that at this point. Although, I still have to go through the closets to relieve myself of some of those artifacts.
I know I must be on the right track, because when I pause to look away from my computer screen, I find my eyes falling on one item and another and at the same time, feeling the deepest sense of satisfaction in what has transpired over the last year. It is like when I am editing my written work. I keep going over and over the material, until I can read through the whole thing without making changes. I look at each room and wall and do the same. I more often than not, find myself drifting into a sense of peace with what I see and sense it to be a self-reflection of who I am or aspire to in life. We’ve still a need to work on our sense of perfection in regard to charity on the bank account.
There was one more series of thoughts I’d like to include here for the moment. Yesterday, two things happened. First, I found myself into a set of conversations with myself in regard to my new physical and inner surroundings, and secondly. Three separate times while driving, I became aware that I was driving yet had no idea where I was. Make a note now to watch that! Anyway as too the thoughts ... I had gone back to thinking of the day my ex-brother-in-law had brought over the tread mill and added to that the thoughts of Jacob coming over.
Somehow this train of thought carried me back in time to a comparison of the point I had been most high on the social class scale. My minds went back to the thought of first having “owned” an 18-room Victorian house. I say that tongue in cheek, in that the mortgage was held in both my ex’s name and mine. According to married scales, that meant I just happened to be listed on what was valued as HIS property. While in the married mode though I had been proud of the life-long accomplishment. We’d met a group of people through enrollment of the younger two in co-op preschool and kindergarten. This gave me the opportunity to become involved in a grass roots concept of education and at the same time, placed me with other families that regarded highly education. It was a good social circle for me to have found. There were four of us who lived in the same three block radius, so we found ourselves car pooling the kids. Beside my friend who earned his doctorate while exchanging pleasantries over neighborhood watches with the kids in my previous house, these ladies became very important to me and I found myself in the midst of being often a volunteer. We all focused on the education of our children and I was proud that as were some of the other sons (everybody had boys), that my kids were in the gifted range as them. Pretty exciting all told.
During that time, I felt as an adult with high aspirations. I was married, had a beautiful house, though in constant need of attention, some nice furnishings, my wonderful kids, and a sense of purpose. That last year, I wrote a 500 page book. I was down on weight and felt very good about myself. I felt I belonged in life and had purpose.
But, then it was as if being too happy, was too much for my marriage. Without the neediness I’d known in years before, I became more and more independent from my husband. He fell in love with another woman and I’d discovered that other things not so nice were happening in my life, and that not only had I severe depression, I had multiple personalities. This was the final point of losing one’s marriage. Too, too much for the ex. *sigh* Too, too much for us.
Although, I went on to another life which included living in a homeless shelter after being forced to give up the boys and life, I have considered up until now, every year of my life as lesser to that which I had lived that last year in the community and circumstances of back then. For many years I lived barely on SSI payments and after the homeless shelter I found myself feeling very alone in government housing. But, you see this whole last year, and especially yesterday while driving, I realized that I had not only met where I had been that last glorious year of marriage, I’d far surpassed it! I am exactly dead center with where I want to be in life!
I don’t own a house, but then again, I am not up to being able to care for a house or condominiums upkeep. And, on the other hand, I absolutely love my apartment and neighborhood. I like sitting on the balcony and watching kids play in the sprinkler’s and old men talking to each other while sitting on their steps. I feel like I’m in a community, even though I knowabsolutely no one here. It feels safe. With the assistance of my on-line community ... I gain more than is lossed.
As far as psychological balance, I am far more advanced than I’d ever hoped to be. I love my independence and as to actual surroundings, as I’ve been indicating I was never ever as happy “back then” as I am now. It means something different to have made all the choices than to have been forced to agree with spouse, given hand-me-downs from ex-mother-in-law, or collected from garage sales. Everything I own now, is due to my own choices.
I have pressed financial common sense, but I have chosen to purchase at levels that are top of my limits. I knew of high standards from having lived with and around wealthy-in-laws. I learned a sense of taste from my mother-in-law. That was a good thing. I mixed this with my own values of what was important and comfortable to me. True, I don’t have income or space for a grand piano, but then again, I really don’t know how to play it :) Everything, I do have though, is something that is totally me! Can’t say much more than this. Given all this and graduate learning, I have surpassed the feelings I had had about my life back in the days of yesterday. There is not a word big enough to express my satisfacton.
However, Yesterday I pushed all kinds of new limits that I hadn’t done before financially. At least, since the days when I was having credit card problems. I had realistic expenses, in that, my ex took me through five years of custody battles in court with his expenses being paid by his attorney father. I was going through the need to put everything including grocery items and all else on my credit cards. There was one luxury expense. II’d ordered the very expensive set of books from encyclopedia Britannica, including my great books collection and annals of America. I went into bankruptcy well over $20,000 in debt.
At the time, the books felt to be one of the most critical decisions in my life. And, even to this day, I have thought often of that purchase, but if given the circumstance over again, I would have made the same decision. The collection is one of the most important to me of most everything I own, because it represents the things or ideals that are most important to me. It has given me a great sense of satisfaction that I have the plethora of all things wise and wonderful at the touch of my hand. I say this, even though the fact that after I purchased it, I’d just learned of the wealth of information available to me on the Internet. The books represented to me an “ownership” of theideas most respected in my life. In that the quest for knowledge and understanding far surpasses any other need I have. I’m learning now that the aesthetics of my life are now ranking almost as high, but not quite. The best of financial acceptance is that ... All money for expenditures has come directly from my bank account. I still don’t allow myself actual credit cards. Like when I’d worn one year contacts without taking them out. The eye doctor was so frustrated at me for lack of responsibility that I assured him, I would never purchase them again. I haven’t. Maybe it would be easier to blame it on having multiple parts, but as a whole, we’re not a responsible enough person. At least, not yet. Perhaps more lessons on professionalism of being a psychology practitioner, might help. AND, being forthright in these kinds of conversations with the good doctor.
Like all other decisions financially I face, the decision to go back to school is inclusive in this range of thoughts. It is the same thrill and sense of satisfaction I hold with the knowledge of the world at my fingertips. There is no doubt this is another financial quagmire. I can’t kid myself into thinking that this school loan is not real. BUT, like all else, it seems irrelevant that I will be paying costs of this quest, most likely into my retirement. In the back of my mind, I will be paying them until I pass from this world into the next. Thing is? It doesn’t bother me, maybe like it should. I feel as if I am missing some kind of necessary gene. In the whole quest of meaning and quality of life, this feeling of discovery and challenge is worthy of my life’s mission. I value learning this much. Maybe, the reason most important to my educational interest in psychology with a specialization in education.
The last assignment made in the Masters’ work journal reflects some of these thoughts, in light of making future decisions and choosing which kind of field decisions go into my future planning. One of the comments I received from a peer, was the acknowledgment that as many options as I have laid open to me, there is yet the possibility, that I may choose to do something way different. I accept that. I’m not exactly sure what career goal will open to me by the time I graduate. Life has too many chance encounters to give any one greatconfidence in the direction choices will allow. It’s kind of cool actually. It gives me an open-door feeling that I’m progressing steadfastly to my future, with only the assurance, that my education is leading me toward the things that interest me most.
Cool, Huh?
Ok, ok ... breath here. I’ve gone non-stop for a while with little pause in thought or fingertip motion. Let me reread over where my minds are at.
(continued, next entry)
