What Am I Doing

Well. I'm in NY over 2 months and it is so boring. I don't have a car so I can't go anywhere. I stay home all day and listen to music, do housework, dance, watch TV and basically go nuts. I can't wait until the spring when I get my SS early and hope to move to Florida. NY is too expensive to live on what I'll get. Wish me luck. I also need a car!

New York

I am now in New York and have kicked the dust of Arizona from my shoes. I have been here just over a month. It's different, to put it mildly. I haven't driven a car in over a month. I live with my sister and her husband and it's not always fun. He gets drunk and stupid every night and she just puts up with it. The other night he cracked the bathroom mirror and she just let's it slide. No wonder I feel stress. I might as well be living with Dave again in the good old days. I sure hope things change or I will be sorry I killed my dog and left my home.

Didn't Keep Up With My Louise Hay

I didn't keep up with my Louise Hay and have fallen back into depression. I am alone with my dog and talk to no one except my sister, and once in a while my younger brother. The only conversations I have are with the clerks at the grocery store or Kmart, etc. Pathetic. As Theoden said, when did it come to this.

With Dave away I enjoy the solitude and not having the constant bickering. But at the same time, I have to sleep with Jackie and I'm a light sleeper so her moving wakes me each time. And lately she's taken to waking at 4 am because she sleeps during the day a lot. It's too hot to take her for runs (as if I could run).

My life is flat...............I can't even go to the movies because if I'm gone too long Jackie freaks out when I come home. At least I'd forget my troubles for a few hours and get into the cool air-conditioning. Don't get me wrong. It's cool here, but I'm going stir crazy. And it looks like Dave won't be getting back until the end of July, if I'm lucky.

Where do I go from here???????????

Something's Gotta Give

I am now almost 59 weeks into unemployment and I must admit it is starting to scare me. I still don't know what I am going to do. I don't want to stay here and might not be able to because I cannot find a job. Not in my field and not in any other I'm the woman that nobody wants.

I used to want to move to Florida but now I'm not so sure. I've never been there. My older brother is there but his son recently moved back down so I imagine he's happy with that. Plus he's unemployed too and a bit of a hermit. I love him dearly but I think I wouldn't see a lot of him if I was there. Plus it costs money to move to Florida.

Then there's back-up New York. My sister on Long Island. Her request that I come and stay with her and her husband aren't made as often as they once were. Pause for thought. My younger brother and his wife are having a baby so they are going to be tied up. I don't feel I fit into that life anymore.

I came from California where I thought I was happy for 30 years. Turns out I was probably happy for half that time, if that. I think when I met Dave my joy slowly turned sour as the years went by. That will be 29 in August. And yet we still live together here in Northern Arizona. Bizarre.

Then we have our (my) dog Jackie. What becomes of her. She's spent more time here with us than she did in CA. In people years she's late 70's, early 80's. I don't think she wants to move. But do I sacrifice my life for my dog? That is the crux of the matter.

Our house is worth less now than what we owe on it. It's falling down around our ears. I have finally realized that Dave was a worthless piece of shit since he elected to leave cleaning the house up to me. He did the yard work, which consisted of trimming a few bushes and spraying weeds with weedkiller in a Hudson. He didn't even remove the dead weeds. He left them there.

Now that he is in CA for health related issues I am doing the yard work, plus trying to get this house in some semblance of cleanliness and order. He had a whole year of not working to dial in this house so that it was cherry. He didn't. He spent his time playing online backgammon and talking on the phone. Or watching the golf channel. Or just watching TV. What a fuck-up.

Moon, that spells fool.

A Walk With My Dog

Jackie & I went for a walk in the creek today. The pictures above are of Jackie and what I call Ravenstree. Or I should call it ravens' tree, because the ravens like to sit in that tree. I thought about writing a story/book about Ravenstree, the place.

We explored the creek in detail. I let Jackie have rein. We were slow and leisurely. She stopped, sniffed, sprayed, peed and pooped. She ate grass.

Now me, I got to see the little flowers, the weeds that no one wants but are so beautiful because they flower. Coneflowers, little white things that I call paper flowers, snippets of purple and orange. And the rocks. Big rocks, small rocks, I love rocks. I should have been a geologist. I usually take a rock back with me to study and add to my collection.

I have put an email in to our POA to see if in the next newsletter we could set a date to have a creek clean up. So many people use it to walk their dogs and you see all the garbage that people don't mind discarding randomly. Plastic bags, broken bottles, water bottles, things that are unsightly to me and harmful to the creatures that inhabit the creek.

The bunnies, the quail, lizards, snakes (not yet), birds of all shapes, size and color. I don't like living where I am but I do love the creek and the field across from it where the cattle go to graze. We don't go in there often because of the cactus. Jackie has tiny paws and it's easy for her to get stuck with something. Plus she's allergic to stings. I don't have an epi pen for her, just some children's Benadryl and an eyedropper to use. Even with an epi pen I'd still have to take her to the vet. That happened not that long ago. Very scary. She's only had 3 episodes like that but they are not fun. The 2nd one I wasn't sure what happened so I just gave her the Benadryl and prayed to God and St. Francis and played her favorite CD and finally she was okay.

It's funny how your pet becomes you child when you are childless. She's 13 or 14 now and I know I won't have her forever. So I try and have patience and not yell when she barks or gets annoying. Because when she is gone I will miss that more than I can say.

Well, I started out with our walk and now I'm sitting here with tears welling in my eyes when I think of life without Jackie. I won't.

I Will Write

I am going to write a short story if it's the last thing I do. I have read all these wonderful books and have Christina Baker Kline as a terrific inspiration. Her blog is gold. I have to get off my lazy butt, stop procrastinating and just do it, as Nike says. I have so many story thoughts in my head and I've started quite a few, but I lack the discipline to plunk myself down at the computer and commence. I have excellent beginnings, one that I think will be very good, based on an event happening now that I will fictionalize.

I think I am letting my personal life's drama get in the way. I live with an emotional vampire and that makes it difficult to concentrate. Plus all the little extras that I'm dealing with. But I will persevere and get through this negative time in my life and come out victorious. Hey, I won a vivabox, that's got to count for something!

Buddha Quote

The less you have the less you have to worry about.

It's Been A While

I haven't been here for quite some time. 2010 is the new me, the new and improved me. I have started doing Louise Hay's You Can Heal Your Life and it has turned my life around. If you read my earlier posts you can hear how depressed and down with life I was. I'm going to keep them as a reminder; so I don't forget where life can take you.

This will be about my ups and downs with the process. I have finished Chapter 1 of the workbook and it went a lot better than anticipated. For some reason I was nervous. I am sure as time goes by it will become more intense, but I hope to get rid of so much baggage that I have been carrying around for a good part of my life. Wish me luck!

Life Is So Much Different Now

Life is so much different now. I don't have time to go into details. I will keep the old, depressing stuff so I know how I felt then. But everthing has changed. More information to come!