Consistency is not one of my strengths!

Hello to the few beautiful spirits who follow my blog at all.  As you can tell, consistency is not one of my strengths. Part of the problem is I keep thinking that I need to do research and write an article that would be of interest to people and so I keep not being able to find the time to do that and thus, don't write a thing in this blog.

I wanted to talk a lot about gardening and the like but the truth is I end up getting so involved in other things, I don't do it ... don't garden.

I have a lot of website work to do for various clients including my son!  I recently started getting more involved in my community and this takes a lot of my time but it is very fulfilling.  I'm trying to find that balance in my life and, as I know all of you know, creating a true balance is almost impossible.  If I spend what I feel is quality time with my boyfriend and working in my community and go to work every day, then I don't end up spending time with my grandkids.  If I spend quality time with my grandkids and spend quality time with my boyfriend then I don't give as much to the community and I don't get as much work done (my at home work).  It is a constant struggle.  I know I am not alone in this ... but it is still very frustrating.   I am trying to just let go of what doesn't get done and do the best I can and play catch up here and there.

I guess I am not creating a "simple" life after all.  I tend to complicate things.  Having ADHD doesn't help, of course.

Anyway, this is just a silly blog post but a blog post just the same!    :-)

Processing Life As It Is ....

I posted this picture on my facebook page and also these words below.  I thought I should post it here so I don't lose it as things eventually disappear on facebook after a while and I liked where my mind was at the time I wrote this.

About the quote above:  I know this could be misinterpreted as just giving up and giving in ... but I think this is on a much deeper level ....  Sometimes for me just in my daily every day life, I am constantly thinking about how I should be, how my day should be, how my life should be and what happens is ... I have spent my entire life with a vision of what I wanted to be but never really looking inside the me that is ... and accepting her with all her flaws ... instead I've always pined over the me I thought I should be ... instead of loving and accepting the me that is.  So what this quote does for me is it brings me back to the present ... the here and now ... the life I have right now ... the day I have right now ... the me I have right now ... Can I always improve on all these things?  a better me ... a better day ... a better week?  absolutely ... but improving things has to start with understanding and realizing who and where I am right now ... that has to be the base to spring from ... it goes back to basic simplicity ... being happy with simple things without getting caught up in the rat race of doing more and getting more ... remembering what is right in your life when little things get you down ... I could go on and on with what this quote does for me ... but I think you get the picture ... :-)

Herbs, minimalism, decorating, ADHD thinking, projects - realistic and unrealistic, etc. - yep all this in one blog post ...

I am so happy that my herbs are coming up!  All but Rosemary.  I keep talking to her and urging her to burst through the soil but nothing yet.   :-(   I continue to check on the dampness of the soil, water when necessary, and talk to Basil, Mint, and Thyme - thanking them for showing up and making me happy.  I am hoping this weekend is going to be nice so I can start my "bag" garden.  I've bought two bags of top soil and we have picked out the spot where I will put them.  I've already bought my onion bulbs and also some other veggies.

I am still dealing with becoming more minimalist.  I tend to be able to purge things and not hold onto things but I still have too many things, I think.  I truly would like to have a bohemian type of minimalism - if there is such a thing.  I've been inspired by the Innermost House.  The simple style and warm minimalism speaks to me.

I have begun converting my room into a more simple style.  I used to be addicted to reds, golds, purples - a mixture of all kinds of colors.  There is nothing wrong with it but I'm losing interest in it.  I am drawn to whites, ivories, etc.  Now when I go to the thrift store, I look for white and ivory textiles.  Here is a pic of my dresser top. It used to have a red, pink, and gold throw on it.  What a
difference a white tablecloth and white accessories (along with gold) make.  I plan on painting the dresser that ivory color of the swatch you can see laying on the white cloth there on the right.  The box was one of the first wood-working projects my son did years ago.  I found the two gold frames on the roadside just a few doors down along with a few really nice baskets.  I took them gratefully!   I also found an old style bedspread that I fell in love with at the local thrift store.  It is pure white.  My room is becoming brighter and lighter and just feels good.  The color of my room was the color it was when I came here.  I actually really like it.

Oh you may wonder why my "room" is a bedroom and why I don't sleep in the same room as my boyfriend.  The truth is he is a very light sleeper and I not only snore but I also move around a lot due to my arthritis in my neck.  I move many times during the night from one side to the other side and I take a while to position my pillow just right under my neck so I won't wake up with a horrible headache.  We make it just fine with this arrangement.  I would feel much worse if I was keeping him up all night when he has to get up so early to go to work each morning.  So my bedroom and my office are all upstairs.  I like it.  I'll show pictures of my office at some point.

My ADHD brain still gets me in trouble.  I literally began thinking about the possibility of offering to do a column in the local paper.  My idea for the column would take a crazy amount of research time.  What was I thinking?  Luckily, I haven't made that offer because realistically, I would never be able to pull it off.

My idea?  Oh yeah.  I have this weird feeling of sadness when I see empty buildings - residential or commercial.  I would love to do a column where I pick one building at a time and research not only the history of it but also talk about ideas on how to bring it back to life.  Can you imagine how much time it would take to do that type of column?  Goodness gracious.  But that is how my ADHD brain thinks.   So many cool wonderful projects come up in my brain.  I can spend a lot of time just THINKING about doing them - and the time it would take to actually DO them?  It's truly impossible.  I cannot even get the things done that I have on my plate now ... how could I possibly take on that project, as well?  I can't.  That's the reality of it.  I am soooo trying to become more of a realist in some ways.  I need to focus my dreaming on things that I really could possibly accomplish - like planting a small garden - growing herbs in my kitchen window - finishing the glazing/painting project on the sun porch once it is warm enough to open the sun porch back up for the summer - projects like that.  Those are realistically doable and I will be able to enjoy the fruits of that labor - in some ways, literally!

Saturday morning ....

It is Saturday morning.  The world is frozen again outside this April (Spring?) day.  Last week the weather was nice and in the 50's.  It turns out it was just a teaser and rain, then sleet, came yesterday.  Spring in Vermont!  My herbs I planted in terra cotta pots in my kitchen window are sprouting.  The Thyme came up first and is bursting out of the dirt.  Basil came second and the Mint is sprouting a couple of small sprouts.  I'm still waiting for Rosemary to burst out of the dirt.

As I've talked about before, being organized is very important to the ADHD brain.  Getting disorganized can create total chaos in our brains.  So today I have decided that I MUST take Saturday mornings as my own.  Saturday mornings to work on whatever I want including projects, writing exercises, etc.  This morning I will be redesigning my son's marketing materials.  I just got a gig to design a website for a court reporting service.  I organized my budget this morning and paid some bills.

I also must write something here on my blog every day.  Even if it turns out to be a paragraph.  I MUST write something every day.

I also have started writing my boyfriend's life story.  Even his therapist from years ago told him he must write a book.  Unfortunately, he is not a writer.  Lucky he found me.  (smile)  

I am not saying much right now.  I might come back and edit this later.  But I must get on to my project of redesigning my son's marketing materials!

Too many ideas in my head ... not enough time!

I have ADHD.  For those of you who have it you understand what I mean when I say there are so many ideas swirling around in my head that it is hard to focus on just one.   I am trying to teach myself how to move away from some ideas that are just a waste of time.  Imagining what I would do with each and every empty building I see is a waste of time.  I will never have that empty building so how on earth would I be able to do all the wonderful things that pop up in my mind to do with it.  I am constantly decorating my house and other people's houses in my mind.  Why ... ?  So I have not come up with any clearcut exercises to stop these thoughts ... these ideas.  I simply at this point just try to talk to myself and say clearly to myself, "Stop! This is something you can never accomplish so why waste valuable brain space on it!"  Yes ... I do talk to myself that way.  Sometimes ... even out loud.   My mother always called me a dreamer and I guess that is definitely true.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a dreamer!  But what is invaluable is to be a "selective" dreamer.  Dream about things that might actually be able to be accomplished!  I have totally landscaped our yard in my mind.  Do I have the expertise or the money to do everything that I have landscaped in my mind in reality?  No ... pure and simple.  No.  So ... what I have had to try to do is think of one small project at a time.  Otherwise, all the projects swirl around in my head and nothing ever gets done.  I am very proud of myself for following through with starting an herb garden in my kitchen window.

 I just started it around April 2 so nothing is really growing yet except for my Thyme.  It is starting to sprout up!  I am so excited.  I do hope the other three (Basil, Rosemary, and Mint) sprout soon!

I am very proud of myself for actually following through and purchasing the terra cotta pots and the seeds and planting them!  This is a project that has begun.  It will be a continuous project in that I have to remember to water and nurture them every day.  I do have an idea of my next small project like this.

My other project, of course, is this blog.  I know that no one has found me yet and those who do have not really found as informative a blog as they would hope for.  I hope to change this in that I really want to find time to do more research so I can actually provide a lot more information than just my personal ramblings.

It is very hard for an ADHD brain to manage time.  It is also hard once disorganized to reorganize and keep organized.  ADHDers LOVE to be organized. But it is so hard sometimes to get there and then to stay there.  It is hard for me to function well sometimes if I am not organized.  Disorganization around me just makes my brain feel disorganized.  Too much clutter around me makes my brain feel cluttered.

When I first started my job this past August 2013, the desk I inherited was full of stuff!  All of the office essentials were on top of the desk:   paper clips, binder clips, tape dispenser, stapler, rubber bands, notepad, files containers, etc.  I immediately ordered two drawer organizers, put almost everything in those drawers to my right and now the top of my desk just has one of my computer monitors, the telephone, and one step organizer for files that I use every day.  To my left is a cabinet that houses other files that are currently (but maybe not daily) being used.  Hmmmm ... I think I will take pictures at work today and maybe my next blog can be on the organizing techniques I use at work that work for me.

I am headed to work right now.  It is 8:25 a.m. and I am supposed to be at work at 9:00 a.m.   I work less than a mile from my home.

Washing Dishes as Meditation

I have found that when I am standing at my sink washing dishes, it becomes almost like a zen meditation.  All other thoughts seem to leave my mind and I am there looking out my window as I have my hands in soapy water and a nice cloth washing each dish and fork and spoon and placing it in the right hand side of our double sink.  There they wait for me to finish soaping and cleaning to then begin rinsing one by one.  There is a ritual to it - an order to it.  Once I am done, I then use the cloth to clean off all of the counters and scrub my cutting board and then back into the soapy water to rinse the cloth.  Pulling the stopper from the bottom of the sink and as the soapy water swirls down, I use the water to get all the soap to go down the drain.  Then I wipe the sink bottoms and sides and wring out my cloth and then lay it out nice and straight on the middle between the two basins.  Then I take my dish towel and dry my hands and then place it over the dishes that are drying in the dish drainer.  And then ... my meditation is done.  I look around at my clean kitchen and get some kind of sense of peace.

Okay, I know this is weird.  But, I like this ritual and it gives me some inner peace.  I will never own a dishwasher.   Seriously.

Repurposing ! ! !

So I love the idea of repurposing items.  I found this photo on pinterest and finally traced it back to it's original place, I think?    You can find these repurposing items HERE with more information on how they were done.   I so want to start doing some things like this.

I have a problem.  I think big.   I think unrealistically big sometimes.

Soooo ... I am trying to think realistically.  I want to find something small to repurpose and see if I can really do it.  Like maybe just a simple small table that I can repaint or something.

It is the same thing with projects around the house.  I can imagine all kinds of projects.  I have already totally renovated our kitchen in my head.  My boyfriend reminds me that I truly have no idea what it would take to renovate our kitchen.  It is a BIG JOB!  So, I am trying to think smaller - like our extra room upstairs that needs major rehauling.  If I take it one step at a time, it is doable.  First step?  Finish getting all the rest of the old wallpaper off the remaining walls that have it.  I will try to take pictures of the before - before I paint so I can prove I actually followed through with an idea.

Anyway, I just wanted to post something before I go to bed tonight.  I promised myself I would try my best to post every night if possible.

So here I am.  I'm writing.  ;-)

Here I am. I'm writing.

So here I am getting ready to go to bed for the night and trying to think of what I should write about.  Sometimes I may not have much to say but I am going to try my best to write something at least once a day. I need to get my writing chops back.  When I went to the writing workshop a few weeks ago ... see that post HERE .... I realized that the reason I could not think of a thing to write when we were given the two exercises is because I have not been writing and thus, just drew blanks!  So I promised myself I would begin writing again ... even if no one ever sees it.  I think one of the reasons I enjoyed being at the University so much many years ago was because I had deadlines I had to meet with all my papers.  I so miss academia and writing papers ... doing the research and pulling all the research together into a decent paper.  One of my biggest regrets is that I did not continue on to grad school after getting my B.A.   I still kick myself over that one many times.  But ... I just have to try to move forward with my life now and do the best I can do with what I have left myself with.  I may not be able to go to grad school but I CAN write.  I just have to commit to it and follow through.

How did I end up 54 years old?    When did that happen????    Yikes!

I have to confess something.  I am jealous ... okay envious would be a better word.  I am envious of Lena Dunham.  What is she ... 27 years old?????   She has accomplished so much at such a young age.  And, yes, I am envious.  She has accomplished everything I SAID I was going to accomplish.  Ever since I was old enough to write, I fancied myself ... a writer.  And yet, I would let life jerk me around in many different directions ... taking me away from what I should have focused on.  And I truly despise myself sometimes for doing the whole self-sabotage thing and doing that to myself.  Having an ADHD brain has not helped.  Not having anyone encouraging my creativity while I was growing up didn't help either.  In fact, having someone who squashed my creativity when I was growing up didn't help.  BUT ..... I have to take ownership for not having figured out how to encourage myself and how to overcome all of the pooh-poohing of my ideas as I grew up.   Others have grown up in a household where they were never encouraged and mostly discouraged and yet they still seem to have managed to fulfill their dreams.  Anyway, this is not supposed to be a pity party.  This is me reminding myself that I am responsible for myself.  I am responsible for encouraging myself now and for getting it together enough to actually finally write every day no matter what.  So here I am.  I'm writing.

Our Soul - A Powerful Source of Love ....

Our Soul is essentially a powerful source of love; that's true for each and every one of us. Love is the light of truth. When you accept truth as your being, it immediately exposes the Shadow, all the other parts of yourself that are not guided by love. The light exposes their lies. But we depend on those other ways of being, as we created them to solve problems in life, albeit in fearful ways: to justify, make excuses, blame, rationalize, be right, avoid, and so on - rather than the braver path of communicating empathically and taking responsibility. So courage is needed; the way out is the way through. But it's worth it as bringing light to the misguided solutions of the past - understanding why they were made and loving their creator - is the ultimate learning experience and enables us to embrace our wholeness.♥
"There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." ~ Carl Gustav Jung ♥

I am not sure who to attribute the 1st quote above, unfortunately.  I came across it on facebook and it really resonated with me.    But I am already a Jung fan and love his quote that does go well with the 1st one.    I thought I would share here.

Creating a Balance in One's Life

I'm trying to create a balance in my life but it is soooo hard.   I know that I need to simplify my life so that I don't have so many things that I have to try to balance.  I try all kinds of time management practices and ways to simplify my life and I seem to continue to complicate things.  I need to add morning meditation and going to the gym to my life and it is next to impossible without getting up really early and thus needing to go to bed much earlier.  I'm trying to not neglect my boyfriend but it has gotten harder because I'm spending more and more time in my office working on things.  When he asks me how on earth could I have that many things to work on, I don't really have an answer.  I so want to get to where he is where I just have work I go to and nothing to have to do when I get home in the evening other than the usual cooking dinner with him and eating dinner and then watching television.  Then if I wanted to add a project like something around the house like I want to do, I can.  Instead I stress about all the paperwork I need to do on various things.  Some things are things I should have done a long time ago like taxes for my lost years between 2007 and 2010.  Explaining my lost years would take probably a few posts so I won't go into that now but it has nothing to do with drugs, alcohol, or rehab of any kind.   I have work to do on a client's website.  I need to work on my son's logo and the redesign of his website and his marketing materials.  This I want to do because he is my son and I want to help.  Anyway, my plan is to try and see if I can get more done in the mornings.  So instead of staying up until midnight, I'm going to head to bed soon (It's 10:17pm) right now and then get up much earlier than usual.  That way, I can be up before my boyfriend and maybe get some things done before he leaves for work and then start my morning routines.  I want to add meditation and going down to the gym for at least a 1/2 hour each morning.  The gym is just on the road below us.  It is not very far away at all.  So ... here's hoping I can actually do this!  It is now 10:19pm.  I hope to be in bed and on my way to sleep by 10:30pm.  I'm setting my alarm for 5:30am instead of my normal 6:15am.  I'm going to see if I can get ANYTHING done in that timeframe!  Wish me luck!  Oh wait, that's right.  Nobody reads this nor comments on this blog.  But one day they will!  I just have to have patience and persistence in writing something every day!

Inspiration Fridge vs. Our Fridge

Pinterest Inspiration Fridge

MY FRIDGE as of TODAY
3/16/13
don't pay attention to the date
my camera is off

I am so proud of myself.  Although the inspiration fridge on the left is obviously larger than ours, I still used the same organizing concepts and organized our fridge.  It looks so good!!!  Now things won't get lost in the back.  We can just pull the basket out and see what is in the back of the basket.  Yay!  I wish I had taken a before pic ...

What do you think?

I'm becoming an organizing freak!  I've always liked for things to be organized but now I'm wanting everything to be totally organized.  I have lots of things planned that don't cost a lot of money.

Dreamer vs. Realist (can you become a combination of both?)

 I am trying so hard to keep to some kind of routine ... I always prided myself on being a gypsy type of person ... always moving ... rebelling against routine ... for me, this was probably not always a good idea.  Some people can live that lifestyle and still maintain some semblance of "being together" in the midst of their creative chaotic endeavors.  I do not believe I ever was able to do that.  My life eventually became completely unmanageable which is a huge symptom of a need for a big change and not a change that amounts to "changing seats on the Titanic".   Finally just a couple of years ago I came to the conclusion that what I needed, especially with a very chaotic and active ADHD brain, was routine and serenity and security. I had already figured out that clutter around me created even more clutter in my brain and I tried to purge things.  It is hard because I like pretty things around me as well.   I just have to be more selective.  I moved to Vermont two years ago to be near my grandkids and my son.  My son and daughter-in-law were kind enough to offer for me to come out and live with them for 1/2 a year while I worked on my health and finding work here.  Slowly, I got better and I got a part-time job for a while eventually finding a full-time job that is secure and working with really nice people. I work for a small law firm less than a half mile from where I live.  I eventually met the love of my life and I live with him in his home that he has lived in for 30 years.  I am slowly putting my stamp on it and he and the house are feeling like home now.  Because I have an ADHD brain and because I am at my core a "dreamer", I think a lot about a lot of things at the same time and make BIG ambitious plans.  I am working very hard to start thinking more realistically about some things.  When I think of decorating it turns into major renovation projects. My brain can just go wild with these thoughts.  This is GOOD for a writer.  I could write all kinds of crazy dreams.  BUT, in real life, I am trying very hard to limit my project dreaming to projects I might actually be able to accomplish.  In my head I have totally renovated our kitchen.  I even renovate my son's kitchen in my head.  I even renovate anybody's kitchen or rooms in their homes in my head as well as the rooms in my own home.  My brain just goes crazy that way.    BUT, again, I am working very hard to try not to do that!  It is truly a waste of brain energy and time that could be going into actually DOING smaller projects that are actually accomplishable.  Also, I am beginning small routines and changing one bad habit at a time rather than dreaming that I can change into a completely new person over night.   This beginning routines has been challenging in another way in that it really brings out some OCD tendencies in me.  But I like them.  I rearranged all my spices recently.  I rearranged all my canned goods recently.  I am beginning to be more obsessed with organizing things and for everything to have a place and for things to look similar.  An example would be that I am collecting baby food jars.  My plan is to spray paint the lids with chalkboard paint and to put all my spices in this baby food jars in my cabinet so that all the spice containers are alike.  I actually love this type of thinking.  Luckily, for me, my boyfriend has OCD tendencies as well so although he is not quite into everything matching he understands my beginning to need this more.  I know I sound a bit crazy right now.  But, in truth, I really like that I am getting a little more OCD.  I think that as I gain more control of my surroundings, the more chance I have of gaining control of my willpower problems in exercising and eating.  I feel eventually, I will be more apt to be in control of what I eat and if I exercise.  These are two things that I have the most problem with in my life and they are so important to my being able to live a long life.  If I do not get these two things under control then my chances of having a long healthy life dim somewhat.  Okay, well I am going to go now and visit the local thrift store and see if I can find any of the items on my list of things I need.   I plan to plant some seeds today and begin my herb garden as well as begin some seeds for my veggie garden I plan to have this year.  I planned to last year but I was not working full time yet and so really had no money to do much of anything.  I will try to post pics!  For now the picture you see here is more of my dream than my actuality at this point.

Interestingly, this blog looks different on different computers.  I am at my son's today.  I spent the night babysitting my grandkids.  I pulled up my blog and it looks kind of weird on his computer.  I am still contemplating changing to wordpress rather than blogger.  I wonder if I can transfer what I've written here so far over to a new one or if it will be all from scratch?  I keep thinking I should change and then I run across a number of blogger blogs that look great!!!   I guess I'll just keep trying to make this blog look more appealing.

I thought I could have actual separate sections and thus, I could blog about different things in the different sections but it seems those extra pages are just that ... pages ... and don't allow new posts.  So I have to rethink how I want to share everything with you or with those who may eventually read this blog.  I really don't want to have like 5 separate blogs ... I cannot even keep up with this one much less if I was trying to maintain a few.  Yikes!

Anyway, I guess this is all for now although I may come in and edit this and add to it.  I'm going to go check out how I can possibly share things in a more cohesive way.

I promised myself ...

Okay, so I promised myself I would try to write something each day here.  I don't want this to be a blog about what I did that particular day.  I want it to be full of information and hope and inspiration.  So I'll try.  

I used to journal.  Off and on which is my usual life of inconsistency.  A few years ago I was going through several journals that I had written in over many years.  I threw them all away.  Why?  I realized that I was going through the same crap over and over again just in different forms.  I was not learning it seemed - not learning from my various mistakes.  Sure, sometimes I would learn and make a change for the better but it seemed that day when I sat down and looked through those journals that a big part of my life was spent making the same mistakes over and over again and seemingly gaining no clues on how to change that pattern.
There was a song I heard not too long ago. (My boyfriend has an amazing collection of CD of wonderful singer/songwriters).  It hit home with me because although I didn't burn my journals, I put them all in a black garbage bag and threw them in the trash.  Let me see if I can remember how it went.  I can't remember exactly how it went but I remember it was about burning his journals.  Let me see if I can find it on youtube.  Hold on.

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Well here is a not very good recording of it ... but this is it!!!  

David Dondero - Journal Burning Party

Here are the lyrics:

well the party's no fun if you're not drinking

and the bar is no fun if you're flyin' straight

sittin' in the corner with a pen and paper

like a journalist with a deadline date.

got an old suitcase full of journals,

and i used to try to use them as a reference point.

now i kinda realize that i run in circles,

run in circles with a black ballpoint.

well, i've got an idea, if you wanna try it.

meet me in the yard by the barbeque pit.

we can take everything that we've ever written,

make a great big pile and take a match to it.

we'll have a journal-burning party.

we'll get a clean slate, honey,

at the journal-burning party.

see, we'll write it down and then we'll burn it up.

we're going page for page

up into flames.

march 28, 1993.

those words mean nothing to me.

november 5th, 1994.

i don't wanna read it no more.

you see, i tried to reflect,

it just made me depressed.

so let's have a journal burning party.

we'll get a clean slate, honey.

come on.

i always wanted to write a song

and say "come on",

so come on.

come on.

all right.

come on.

come on.

come on.

come on.

come on.

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That song so resonates with me.  So here I am at 54 years old - gosh I'll be 55 in July!  And I'm still trying to figure out what it means to grow up and be responsible.  

When I moved here, I was so sick of the gypsyesque lifestyle that I had been leaving pretty much all of my adult life.  READ:  Leading a life of impulsive life changes and compulsive / impulsive self-sabotaging but also pretty interesting sometimes life.  I so was looking for more simplicity, stability, security.  When I first met Gary, I was so intrigued that he had been working at the same job for 17 years and had owned his own home for 30 years!  Wow.  And, as I've gotten to know him and fallen in love with him and realized I had found my soulmate, I realize just what an amazing man he is.  I am going to start a book about his life.  He is a true success story:  crazy horrible childhood - leading to drug and alcohol use - leading to a life as a major drug dealer - leading to prison - leading to recognizing he no longer wanted this lifestyle and wanted to go straight - leading to becoming a daily runner and reader of books - leading to getting out of prison and continuing his daily running and reading of books and giving up his previous lifestyle completely and forever - which meant losing all of his so-called "friends" - which led to finding a job that he still works at and also led to some lonely times but also a time of self-reflection and finding himself.  It really is an amazing story of someone who did change - who did manage to turn his life around into something much more positive and productive.  He recently had 20 years clean and sober.  I was so proud of and for him.  It was a true milestone for him.  

I think I'm going to add a TAB called Gary's Life Story or something ... and start writing some blog posts about his life that maybe one day I can turn into a book!  ... :-)

Yes, I do still dream big.  I'm working on pulling my life together enough that maybe I can really realize a dream or two more ... :-)

Imma Writer !!!

I went to a Writing Workshop on Saturday at the Rockingham Library in Bellows, Falls, Vermont.  It was about Creative Non-Fiction with Elayne Clift.  I realized while I was there that my writing has suffered so much over these last few years mainly due to non-exercise!  The two exercises we were asked to do, I had nothing when it came to read each of ours.  I kept starting and stopping and scratching out.  I think I was in my head too much when I really should have just written from my heart.  My latest attempt at this blog is to begin exercising my writing.  Maybe I will improve!

I am trying to get better at many things and also to begin doing things I enjoy even if I have to do them by myself because my boyfriend doesn't share some of my likes.  We do a lot together and I have to get used to the fact that most couples don't do everything together!  That also is one of my issues I'm working on.  It felt so good to go to the writing workshop and spend 3 hours with other "writers".  I've spent a lot of the weekend trying to get more organized in my home office.  I still need to purge so many little things and create a more simple, serene space and home.  I watched much less television.  I know that for my brain to not feel cluttered, I must have no clutter and must be organized and maintain that organization as much as I can.

It is getting late so I'll go for now.   I know no one is reading this blog yet, but I will try to write every day something and post pictures and try to post interesting articles, etc.  Maybe one day if I continue to be as consistent as possible, more people will find my blog interesting or informative.

Night Night

LOVE LOVE LOVE

really????

Really?  This is why my blog never gets going ... because of me!  My inconsistency has always been my biggest enemy, with procrastination coming in a close second.  I AM going to do better!  I have to!!!