Appel 2 Images number 1.

I fell asleep on the sofa yesterday afternoon and woke up because of the alarm clock that I have set for 5 pm to take my medicines. I didn’t really properly wake up, but sat on the sofa bleary eyed and finally said to Eduard, “Excuse me, but I am going to bed.” That was at 6 pm and I went out like a candle once I got under the covers.

Of course, it also meant that I woke up very early after getting some seven hours of sleep, so I am writing this in the wee hours of the night. Getting seven hours of sleep is pretty good for me,
though, so I won’t complain about how early it is still. Tonight I will stay up properly until 11 pm or so, because we are going to see that film.

I have been reading a book called The Woman Who Gave Birth To Rabbits and it is a collection of short stories based on real events that happened over a period of 700 hundred years of history. They are obscure bits of knowledge that the author ran across while looking up other things. There was a woman who claimed to give birth to rabbits and she was very poor and hoped to get rich by claiming it and somehow proving it, although in the end it couldn’t be done. She was found out and punished and so was the physician who helped her make the claim.

I have been reading this book for two weeks now, as I keep falling asleep over it. I read several pages and fall asleep sitting up in bed and Eduard somehow has to get me to give up the book and get me to lie down under the covers. Of course, I don’t remember a thing of this in the morning, but I do remember what I have read. Some of that enters my dreams and I dream very interesting things about exotic people and intricate situations.

I have also been dreaming regularly about Muslims and it must be something that subconsciously keeps me occupied. Of course, Muslims are in the news a lot lately. There are one million of them in the Netherlands and they play an important role socially and politically and they are a very important group of people at the moment. We have lots of Muslims in the neighborhood and I see the mothers walk by every day, taking their children to school.

I am not ambiguous about how I feel about them as a group of people. They have their place in our society and I am a firm believer in integration. There is a group of people in the Netherlands who thinks they should all pack up and leave and they have their political leader too. A man who sews fear and hatred. This man is getting a lot of media attention and the problems of some of the Muslim groups are getting a lot of media attention also. It makes it all seem a lot worse than it really is and pulls everything out of proportion. I think I ruminate about this a lot and it keeps me occupied and that this causes me to have dreams about it. In my dreams I am always solving some social and cultural problem.

When I see the mothers and their children walk by, and when I see the men visiting their tea house, I certainly don’t think about terrorists or people who are a danger to my society. Far from it. I see people who are trying to survive and who are trying to make the best of it. I like the little shops they set up in the neighborhood, as it gives the shopping street a cozy and lived in quality and everybody shops there. We all go to the vegetable man. The shops bring new life into the area.

Well, anyway, it is complex and not really so. People with the wrong attitude make it more difficult than it should be and there are people like that at both sides of the fence. In a few generations, we will look back on this and see that the Muslims have become a vital and integrated group in our society, just as the Italians and the Spanish and the Greeks have become, and as the Jewish population once did. We have always absorbed other groups of people here. We just seem to have this phobia about Muslims, but maybe we had that about other groups of people also and have forgotten it.

I am glad that we live in such a mixed neighborhood. We have all sorts of people here, from higher educated to laborers and everything in between. I do like that aspect very much. We are sort of stuck right in the middle of it.

Yesterday, a cold wind was blowing. We had a little bit of rain, but it didn’t amount to much. In the afternoon it felt like it could have snowed, but then it didn’t. When I took the dog out at noontime, I was glad I was so warmly dressed in layers. Those girls who wear their jeans on their hips and such short tops must really be cold now. Remember? Suffering for the sake of beauty? I remember wearing mini skirts and pantie hose in the dead of winter.

In the morning I must have been one of the first people at the grocery store when it opened. There was hardly anyone there and I do like shopping this way. Everything looked so pristine and virginal. All the vegetables were neatly stacked. There was no one in front of me at the check out and I had just got enough groceries to fill two bags, which in turn filled both the bags on my bike. Subconsciously, I must have known that.

Today, Eduard will have to get some vegetables at the open air market, but yesterday he came home with a whole bag of Mandarin oranges, which had been left over from some luncheon that a group had given at the film house. Never say no to free food. I had almost bought some at the grocery store myself, but then decided not to for obscure reasons. Last week he came home with bag of little containers of yogurt that were very good.

You see how we have to do some kind of shopping almost every day without a car. It is almost like we go foraging. Eduard buys some things at his grocery store and I buy other things at my grocery store. Then there is the open air market twice a week for vegetables and cheese and fish and the drugstore for other goodies.

I bought two cartons of yogurt, one of which was decidedly cheaper than the other, to compare the two in quality. Well, of course, the more expensive one is better, but the best one is the one Eduard bought at his grocery store, which was thick and creamy and had bits of fruit in it and which was very satisfying to eat, so I guess that one wins. So, Eduard gets to buy the yogurt from now on.

I don’t know if it is a good thing that I like yogurt so much, but it is nonfat and low in calories, so it should be okay. It seems to me that I only need to look at a calorie and it translates itself into an ounce of fat. Eduard eats a horse and loses weight. I think I need to stop eating Cup a Soup. There are only 75 calories in a package, but if you like Cup a Soup and eat it regularly, it sure adds up quickly and so
mehow those calories seem heavier than other ones. Maybe if I just stick to the yogurt and the Mandarin oranges, I will lose weight more easily. Right now, nothing is happening. I feel heavy and I am afraid to weigh myself.

I am rationalizing again, aren’t I? As if there is something magical about food and if you stand on one foot with you eyes closed while you eat and only eat the crumbs, you won’t gain any weight. It is hard when you have a slow metabolism and your body has a tendency to hold on to everything that goes into it. They should invent a pill that speeds things up and I don’t mean a laxative, although that would help too.

My daughter forwarded me an email in which my grandson’s teacher commented positively on his writer’s skills. It seems he has quite a good imagination and knows how to get it down on paper. I am so happy about that. It is great to be verbally gifted and I am happy that the critter has the talent. It is something that runs in the family. My grandmother wrote very intricate stories about her travels around the world. That’s where the talent starts. My mother was verbally gifted, I am, my daughter is certainly, and now my grandson is also. I would love to read his stories and I hope my daughter saves every one of them.

My son also had quite an active imagination and the vocabulary to go with it. He was the kind of person who would sit back quietly in a crowd of people and say nothing at all and then, at the right time, say the most appropriate thing, even if you thought he had not been paying attention. My daughter can argue her point of view splendidly and does so regularly. She can convert the converted. She talks politics with her Dad and can even almost convert his Republican points of view. Except that he is either very dense or stubborn and votes what he wants anyway. Oh, well…

Well, that brings me to the end of my words for this night. I will now go and visit all of you and see what you are all up to. See what words of wisdom you have and what pieces of art. It’s always very exciting to see what you have done that I haven’t seen yet. When there is something new, I get a flutter of excitement in my stomach.

Have a great one, people, ciao…

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Van Gogh 3 Images number 1.

Starting yesterday afternoon I have been feeling a lot calmer and I emailed this ‘little’ fact to my psychiatrist and he wants me to go back to my old dose of anti psychotics on Monday. I think I will be ready for it by that time, although I feel a little bit of reluctance, because I feel so nice and calm right now and I have a tendency to give the credit to the medication, which I believe is rightly so. We’ll see, I’ll give it a try and see what happens, that’s all I can do. I really have not been taking the Oxazepam, because it was making me so drowsy, so that does not explain my calmness. I do treasure the feeling, though. I always forget what it is like to feel this serene.

Yesterday morning, when I was still feeling quite upbeat, I went downtown and bought myself two pair of new black tights and, because I couldn’t stand not to, another sweater the same as I already had, but in brown. Then I went to have coffee with Eduard and told him I had only bought the tights, figuring that somewhere down the line I would tell him about the sweater. Of course, when he looked at his bank account on line in the afternoon, the purchase of the sweater showed up and he started to laugh at my wicked deed and I could only tell him that I would have told him about it at the right time. But then again, maybe I never would have and I had thought I could get away without telling him at all. As if he wouldn’t have noticed that I had a new sweater, right!

Lest you think I am a total waster of money, I do have our monthly budget all worked out and I know exactly where all the money is going and what we can afford to do. I keep track of all the bills and all the money that goes out and comes in and it is a good thing that our weekly outing doesn’t cost us anything, because we really couldn’t afford it and buy new clothes too.

On Friday we are going to see the film Reprise. It is a Norwegian film about two writers, one of whom becomes very successful and one of whom doesn’t, and the tension it creates between them. I always like foreign films with subtitles and Scandinavians films especially, because they are sing song languages and pleasant to listen to. I also try to pick up the words that are similar to my language or that are similar to English. I also like to see how they deal with emotional issues and if that is different from how we deal with them, or how they deal with each other in there day to day interactions.

In the Netherlands, when we meet each other, we kiss on the cheeks three times. It’s a lot of work. Right cheeks, left cheeks, right cheeks. You have to get it just right. In the South when you part you say, “Hoi,” in the rest of the country you say, “Doei.” If you are polite you say, “Dag.” The queen would never say, “Doei.” Men and women always shake hands, if they don’t kiss, as opposed to the English speaking countries where only men shake seem to shake hands. It’s very rude not to shake hands when meeting someone. If you meet them for the second time, you kiss three times. First you shake hands and then you feel a pull and that means you are also going to kiss. Unless you shake hands in a stand off sort of way and then it is clear that you won’t kiss. We probably spread germs more often than other people do with all that hand shaking and kissing, although I suppose we acquire some sort of immunity. As far as I know, the same rules apply in Flanders.

Miss Etiquette. Anyway, today is the wonderful day of Thursday, which means it is no particular day at all. The stores will be open until 9 pm tonight as opposed to 6 pm when they normally close. It is called “Shopping Night.” It will be very busy with the holidays approaching and the stores all decked out in their holiday’s finest. The Christmas decorations are up in town and one of the squares has Winter Wonderland, with an ice skating rink and stands that sell special foods, none of which I can eat. If you don’t get depressed, it’s a wonderful time of year. Lest the weather stay good and we are supposed to get some bad weather that is going to come from the west and hit England first and then come here and rain on us. Rain always seems to come to us courtesy of England, but then the English can’t help it either. They get t from the Atlantic and, I suppose, from Ireland.

Today I have to vacuum and mop the whole apartment. It is a job I am looking forward to very much. Right! My arms are aching thinking about it and so is my back, but it must be done. At least I no longer have to worry about me being allergic to the dust that I will inhale and all the dust mites. Cats and dog will walk on my newly cleansed floors and leave paw prints. It can’t be helped. I should also wash the front windows. It is a job I am postponing, but that really ought to get done before my daughter gets here. Things must look good before she gets here, it’s a rule.

Well people, that’s about it for me. I have no other interesting tidbits, so I will go and see what you are all up to. It’s early still, so I have lots of time to visit and time left to contemplate the universe.

Have a great day, ciao…

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Appel 1 Images number 6.

First of all, I want to thank Eileen from A Life of Triggers for my Courageous Blogger Award. I sure do appreciate and display it in my sidebar with some amount of pride. I’ll try to think of who to pass it on to next. Usually that takes me awhile, so be patient with me. I’ll get around to it eventually. Thank you Eileen!

This morning I weigh 88 kilos exactly again. Phew! I was worried there for a while, because yesterday I weighed 88.8 kilos and 88.4 the day before that. Weight is a funny thing, it will go up and down no matter what you do, no matter how good you are being.

Yesterday I had two servings of yogurt, two double Cup a Soups, two small pieces of cheese, one glass of juice and one glass of milk. Oh yes, and one small part of an orange. That’s about 800 or 900 calories. not over 1,000 anyway. It really is more than enough food for me, I do not go hungry at any point. As a matter of fact, the last piece of cheese was too much and I had a bit of a hard time with it.

Yesterday morning Eduard and I saw my SPN together and it went well, We had a good productive talk and much was resolved. It’s amazing how much you get done when there is a third person helping you think things out. I am going to make a concerted effort not to nag Eduard so much and Eduard is going to pay more attention to when I get hypo manic. If we irritate each other, we are going to write it down on a piece of paper in a kind way and hand it to each other. We have already discovered that writing things down is too much of an effort for what we think we are irritated about and let is slide instead. They are minor irritations that are not worth the paper to write them on. We will have a repeat appointment in a month. In the meantime, I keep seeing her once a week myself.

I didn’t do too much yesterday. It was a mellow day. Not by choice so much, but there simply wasn’t that much to do and no money to do it with as it is the end of the month. I was forced into inactivity, because there was nothing else to do. The apartment was pretty much cleaned up, the laundry and ironing are all done.

I did get a little bit tired at the end of the day and went to bed for a while, where I dozed for about two hours, but didn’t really sleep. Having been up since midnight, this was a bit surprising, but I wasn’t tired enough to really go to sleep. Finally, at 8:30 pm, I took my sleep medication and went out cold and slept until 4 am this morning, which I think is pretty decent. I don’t think I would get much sleeping done without my medication. It’s been this way for years now and I always need something to help me sleep. Always the Temazepam or the Oxazepam. I think I would become very manic without the proper amount of sleep, or very depressed.

I am certainly not depressed now, au contraire, I feel very good, but I do understand the worries of some of you. I am not manic though, I am hypo manic and I feel very good and I don’t want the feeling to pass. I am keeping some sort of lid on it, I am not completely out of control. Being out of control, I would be doing all sorts of irresponsible things. I know there is a fine line, but I don’t think I cross it very often. Yes, I know that staying up all night isn’t that smart, but I did get a chance to get caught up on everybody’s blog, and leave comments, which was long overdue.

Anyway, I slept well last night and I am now caught up on my sleep. So that is a good thing. Hopefully Eduard’s salary will be in his bank account today, so I can do some much needed grocery shopping. I look forward to that , because I do enjoy the challenge of shopping for the best prices. It’s a relief not to have to buy meat anymore, but I do want to check out the meat substitute products. My sister makes sauces and other things with them and we had a spaghetti sauce of hers once that was very good. I think making a leek pie with a meat substitute sounds like a good alternative. I have made it without meat completely, but I think it is much more exciting with some sort of meat substitute in it if you don’t use the meat.

My red V-neck sweater, as it turns out, also matches the multi colored stretch tunic, so now I can wear it over that as well as the burnt orange one, making for two outfits. Isn’t that great? I thought you might like to hear that. I can wear it on Friday, when we go to see another film. We still haven’t decided what we are going to see yet. It will be a last minute decision, no doubt. Just having a night out is nice enough, we’ll worry about the film at the last minute.

Man, the coffee sure tastes good this morning. I am gulping it down. I am very thirsty and I don’t know why. Maybe it is from that very aged cheese I had last night. Oh yes, I have to remember to give you that recipe for crepes. Must not forget that. I will do that when I have a little but more light here later today. I am sitting in the near dark now and it is still too early to turn on the Bright Light Energy Lamp. Otherwise my rhythm will get screwed up.

Well, that’s all she wrote. I must go now and visit my fellow bloggers. See what sort of surprises you have in store for all of us.

Have a terrific day all of you. Good day to you and ciao…

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Appel 2 Images number 7.

Eduard bought the red sweater for me, but I had told him the wrong size, so it was a bit too small on me. Luckily, he had to go into town later in the evening, so he took that sweater and exchanged it for another size and that one fits perfectly. So, now I am the proud owner of a red V-neck sweater, which I wear with a a dark gray V-neck long sleeved stretch T-shirt underneath and a white round neck tank top underneath that. It looks good layered with an ethnic looking necklace over a pair of jeans and I am very warm in it. I even shined my boots and I look pretty spiffy.

It’s amazing what care I take about my appearance. I check my nails every day and if they need polishing, I take the time to do that and I sit at the dining table with my reading glasses on and carefully apply nail polish. I didn’t used to be that vain, but I like it. Nobody has as neatly combed hair as I do. It’s long enough to need combing and hair spray. I think it is one of the benefits of middle age to have the time to take care of myself. Or to make the time and to care enough to do that. To feel vain enough to.

I won’t even begin to tell you what time it is. Eduard and I went to bed early and I fell asleep without taking my sleep medication. I woke up thinking it was somewhere early in the morning. Well, it’s not. Let’s leave it at that.

Needless to say, I am sitting here with my cup of coffee, wide awake, as chipper and cheerful as can be, as if I never have heard of the word sleep. I am glad that I am an adult and that I get to decide to get up and not have to stay in bed, I would be bored to tears if I had to stay in bed now. I realize that I still may be hypo manic, but to myself I feel okay, so I can’t make a good judgment on that. I just feel cheerful and wide awake and ready to tackle whatever comes my way.

My sister and I walked the dogs around the pond yesterday and I said to her, “I have been hypo manic for a week, but you probably didn’t notice it,” She laughed and said, “Oh sure, I noticed it, I knew it all along.” Well. you can’t fool all the people all the time then, can you? Eduard said, “Well, if she knew all along, she should have said something to me!” Eduard is slower to notice that I am, he just thinks I am in a very good mood. Eduard himself is mostly always in a good mood, so he doesn’t think anything of it when other people are. He doesn’t suspect anything, no matter how often I warn him. I tell him what signs to look for and he promptly forgets. Maybe that’s why our marriage has lasted 14 years. It’s because Eduard is oblivious.

You wonder why manufacturers make tights without reinforcing the toes and the heels. I have a perfectly good pair of tights that I can’t wear now, because yesterday it got holes in the toes and now I will have to throw them away. When I buy new tights, I will look to see if the toes are reinforced or otherwise I will not buy them. It means being colder under my jeans, because the elastic is gone in the other pair of tights, that’s another thing I should complain about.

So, I need to go out and buy two pairs of new tights and I know just the store to buy them at. For those sorts of things you go to the Hema. For underwear and dishtowels always got to the Hema. Our mothers did and our grandmothers did. When I buy new underwear next, which won’t be too long from now, I will go to the Hema. That’s also where they have the best smoked sausages, but I can’t eat those anymore, so I won’t try that. They also have very good pastry, but that is also a thing of the past. You see how much I have to do without, either out of principle or out of no choice.

I made cheese crepes for Eduard last night and when I had made 4 for him, there was just a little bit of batter left and I made a tiny little crepe for myself. I tasted so good! I had not had anything like it in a long time. I have a really good recipe for crepes in cups and tablespoons, so if anyone who is American is interested, let me know and I will publish it.

Eduard went to his store yesterday to buy Senseo pads, which are cheaper there, and he bought me some very good yogurt. It was half a liter of nonfat, multi fruit yogurt with bits of fruit in it. I liked it so much, that I finished it all in one day. Of course, half a liter is not that much, I think it is a pint. It was very thick and creamy, even though it was nonfat. They probably added a thickener to it to make it that way. Nevertheless, it was very satisfying, but ever so tempting.

We are going to try different kinds of yogurt to find the most appealing one, the tastiest one and the most filling one. It has to have bits of fruit in it and it has to have some thickness to it, otherwise it doesn’t feel like I have eaten anything. Of course, it has to be low fat or nonfat. And it can’t be hugely expensive, like those little containers of yogurt that are so popular and so costly. It has to have an appealing sort of thickness when I pour it into a glass, sort of a really slow thick ooze. That will make me feel as though I am eating something that is really bad for me, like an ice cream shake or something. The little food that I do eat, has to be very enjoyable.

Now that I am in charge of the food budget, I am becoming very price conscious. Before I had no idea what things cost. I had a vague idea, but I could never take part in a survey about the cost and quality of food products. Now, when confronted with a choice, I am a very keen shopper and I will make choices based on nickels and dimes. I think how often I will buy a product in a months time and how much that will add up to and decide if it is worth it. I make decisions about cat and dog food and about yogurt and Senseo pads and toilet paper. Some things you can’t do on the cheap, you just have to go for quality. Like detergent or bread or cheese. Your laundry won’t get clean and you will be eating plastic.

For the past two weeks, the cheese man has not been there at the open air market and we have had to buy our cheese at the grocery store. It means buying cheese that is cheaper and not nearly as good, or buying cheese that is almost twice as expensive. Take your pick or find out what happened to the cheese man. We’re hoping he’ll be back soon, as we can’t live without him.

What’s really good to buy at the open air market are the vegetables. You can buy green peppers and onions and leeks and potatoes for a lot cheaper price. Sadly though, not all of it is the best quality, grocery stores have good buyers too. I looked at the oranges at the open air market last week and, although they were cheap, they didn’t look nearly as nice as
the oranges I got at the grocery store.

I went to the Ikea website yesterday, and saw that they had some really nice fabric for 1.99 Euros a meter. I need 3 meters, so that’s not bad at all. They also sell iron on hemming tape for 2.99 for 10 meters, so that’s a really good deal. We will go there next week when Eduard can use his wrist again. So for less then 10 Euros, I can make a new curtain and I already have the rods.

Ikea is such a fantastic store to go to. I needed an Ikea when I was first married and there was no such thing around. It was like the Dark Ages back then. Ugly Furniture sold at ugly stores. And it was the early Seventies, so everything was hideous. Ugly checkered and striped things in burned orange and avocado green. Tupperware parties! I am so glad to be alive now, in this age. For those of you who are young, you don’t know how good you have it!

It wouldn’t be fair to my daughter to say that I am glad that I got one part of my life over and done with and that I get to go on with another part of my life now. I do wish she were a closer part of it, but other than that, I like this life ever so much better than my previous one. I feel that I have escaped some fate that was worse than anything I could imagine. Some slow death in the suburbs, in the republican suburbs, being married to a republican with no intellectual or socialist tendencies whatsoever. I shudder at the thought. I would probably be an alcoholic by now and drink myself into a coma every night in order to make things bearable. Or worse…

Well, I think I have amused you enough for one night. I may write another post later today. We’ll see how this night goes first. I’ll fill it by visiting some other bloggers. I haven’t done that in weeks and it is about time that I do. I am sure that they are feeling very neglected, although they may not give a hoot. It will keep me busy for the rest of the night.

Have a great one, people, whichever one it is. Sleep or activity. Ciao…

P.S. I want to give Sue O’Kieffe at Sacred Circle Mandalas the I Love Your Blog Award that I had not given away yet to anybody, so I hope Sue doesn’t have this award yet. Sue, you can pick it up from the top of my side bar.

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Later that day…

This morning I thought,”To hell with it, I am not staying in this claustrophobic valley with no views, I am climbing back to the top of the mountain where I can see everything and have lots of breathing space.”

So, that is what I did and I am standing on top of the mountain now. It is good to be there and I am not coming down. Come hell or high water. They don’t call me Mrs Stubborn for nothing.

I talked to Eduard and we both decided that it was not a good idea at all for him to be home all day long, so with both our blessings, he went to work this morning and he will be home again somewhere around lunchtime, when I will be out walking the dog with my sister at the pond.

I took advantage of the quiet time at home and cleaned the apartment and looked through the Ikea catalogue, where I saw some really nice fabric on sale that I would have a purpose for. Now I just need to find a way to get to Ikea, which is 14 kilometers away from here and Eduard can’t drive now, because of his wrist. I suppose I can be patient and wait until next week or go to the open air market this week, where there are always stands that sell fabrics, and see if there is anything equally as nice for a good price.

I asked Eduard in the meantime to check and see if I have any money left in my checking account and to buy me the sweater I saw at M&S Fashion that was red with a V-neck and really cheap. I thought I would wait to buy it, but then decided that at that price they would not last long and I need to get it now at the beginning of the season. Hopefully he will not come home empty handed.

Jesker is being silly and rolling around on the ground while making funny noises. I think he is mopping the floor, although I just vacuumed it. The dishes are done and dried and put away and all the laundry is done. There are only three T-shirts to iron. I could start sanding the table, but I want to rent a sander with a vacuum thingy on it that will vacuum up the dust at the same time that I sand. That will save me so much work and I don’t want to sand the table outside as it is too cold.

I can’t wait to have my sister’s chairs and have been looking at my own chairs and realizing how ugly and old and beat up they are. They are thirteen years old and are really showing their age. They were cheap when we bought them and it shows. They are going straight to the dump.

It is always nice to get new (used) things for free. Somehow that makes it extra special and it makes you care about them even more. We have a second hand washing machine that just won’t quit and I treasure it and hope it will last a few years. Knock on wood. The next washing machine will be a combination washer/dryer. I have seen them for sale for about 400 Euros. That’s a lot of money, so this old thing just has to last for a while.

Anyway, being on top of the mountain is just splendid. There is room for other people, but I rule! I am the omnipotent ruler! It is my little kingdom and I get to say what happens there.

I have to stop now and get ready to go walk the dog with my sister and her dog. It isn’t raining yet and hopefully it will stay dry while we are out. It rained during the night and all the worms came out of the ground.

Cheerio, ciao…

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Appel 1 Images number 5.

I always think, if I really become totally disillusioned with myself and this blog, I can just hit the delete button and it will cease to exist. Knowing this, I will keep writing just a bit longer and not worry about it so much. Not worry about the fact that I bare my soul here and that maybe I shouldn’t and that maybe I am being way too honest and that maybe I should edit myself much more than I do. I can always hit the delete button at any time and all of this will disappear and it will be like it has never existed and nobody will be any worse for it.

So, knowing that, I am not going to do that now, it is just that I know that I can.

I have stopped disassociating and I feel like I am in touch with reality again completely. Not that I like that reality that much, but that is another story all together.

Until Saturday, I was on top of the world and I thought I was doing just great and it was a real disillusionment to have Eduard tell me differently. I am now trying to recapture that top of the world feeling, but it is not coming back to me easily.

Instead I have been feeling a sadness as if someone I know has died. I was pretty down all weekend and felt somber and downhearted, but this morning I feel some of my spirit pouring back in me and I feel that maybe I will be okay again and I will climb back to the top of the world. I feel in the end, that that is where I belong.

This morning I weigh 88.1 kilos, so 4 ounces more than yesterday, but yesterday I had some of Eduard’s rice dish and two pieces of cheese. I fixed the rice dish myself and couldn’t withstand having some of it. I also had a double Cup a Soup twice and several tall glasses of cold milk. Today it’s back to eating yogurt and being generally good. Eating the vanilla yogurt is okay, but it is not as satisfying as eating the nonfat yogurt with the bits of fruit in it, so when the vanilla yogurt is all gone, I am switching to the nonfat yogurt with the fruit. I think I will eat a double Cup a Soup only once a day for dinner and I think I will try to eat a third of an orange and see if that will stay down. Once you start eating bulky food, you want to keep eating more bulky food and that is definitely out.

Eduard is not able to go back to work in any serious capacity this week. He can go and do a little bit of paperwork and do some supervisory work, but he will be home most of the week. I don’t know if this is good for us. I think we have spent too much time together these past five days and I think maybe that has not been so good considering my mood. I think I need some time by myself to take inventory and I think I need to be by myself to get an idea of where my head is at. It will be good if Eduard can get away by himself a few hours each day. Maybe he can go to work and supervise his main volunteer in some jobs. Maybe he can go to work and just read the newspaper there and have some coffee and have a chat with whomever. I will suggest this to him this morning.

He needed to have his bandage renewed yesterday and I managed to get into an argument about that with him, in which I got very angry for a while and refused to renew the bandage. That’s how bad things get. I know the problem lies with me, but still it is a problem that we both need to solve. I am going to call my SPN today and ask her if it is okay if we both come in together tomorrow and discuss some of our issues with her.

Well, that’s all I have to discuss right now. I won’t pull the plug on the patient yet. It is just knowing that I can that helps.

Have a terrific day, you all. Ciao…

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Disassociating

I am disassociating. In my case I mean detaching or disconnecting from reality. I don’t do it constantly, it hits me like gusts of wind hit you, so every once in a while. At first I didn’t realize what was happening, but then I remembered the word disassociate and the fact that this had happened to me a long time ago.

Once I remembered the word, I was not as mystified and worried, but I could not remember what to do about it. I called my psychiatrist and asked him what I should do. He said to stay very focused on the here and now and the time and to go for walks with the dog and to write down my thoughts and feelings.

Eduard and I took the dog for a long walk and the dog was very happy about that. I didn’t disassociate much until we were almost home again. I know I do it in times of stress and having been dysphoric must have been very stressful.

So, now I am writing and that is something that I always do more than willingly. I am also very much trying to stay focused on the here and now, but I do realize that I am having a bit of a hard time with that and I imagine things happening that aren’t going to happen at all. I feel all sorts of anticipation for nothing. It makes for an unquiet mind.

I wish I had a good joke to tell you, but I don’t because I never remember good jokes. There is only one joke I know and my daughter told me it a long time ago and I never forgot it, but it is too long and obscene to tell here, so I will refrain from doing that.

Jesker sure likes going for long walks. We try to vary them a bit all the time, so there is something new for him to discover each time. He goes crazy with happiness. Today he discovered two piles of dirt made by a mole. He thought those were interesting for quite a while. That must be his old hunting instinct. Sometimes he sniffs something and his teeth start chattering. Then you can’t pull him away from that spot no matter how hard you try. Today we had one of those moments. We never know what it is about those spots that make him react that way. We always think that a female in heat must have passed by. Does anybody have any suggestions?

Eduard is trying to reason with a cat who is trying to sit on a piece of paper that Eduard is writing on. The cat doesn’t realize that that’s not done and doesn’t understand what Eduard so frustratingly is trying to tell him. To the cat it is just a nice piece of paper to sit on, that’s what pieces of paper are for.

I am still thinking a lot about the movie Atonement and different scenes of it still play in my head. It is a movie you don’t easily forget and I think I would watch it again if it were ever shown on TV. It wouldn’t be as dramatic on the small screen, but the acting would still be as great. Maybe we should get a wide screen TV just for that purpose.

I have to take 3 anti psychotic tablets spread over the day. It is fairly easy to remember, because I can take them at breakfast, lunch and dinner, even though I don’t eat proper meals then. Today I tried to eat half of an orange. I figured I could share an orange with Eduard, but it was a failure for me. It wouldn’t pas my gastric band and I had to upchuck the thing. Well, it tasted good going down. Double the Cup a Soup is working out well and the 125 ml of yogurt is also. Fluid things and semi fluid things go down well.

Well, my psychiatrist was right. When you write, you don’t disassociate. Hopefully the increase in the anti psychotic medication will start working soon and I will stop disassociating all together. My psychiatrist doesn’t need to have my file in front of him to know exactly which medication I take at what dose. He knows it by heart, even in the weekends.

Now I am going to stop and eat something. My little stomach is growling.

It was fun writing this down and it made for a good break in the proceedings. Ciao you all…

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Van Gogh 5 Images number 1.

For those of you who wondered if I was still somewhat hypo manic, yes, you were right, I was, even though I claimed I wasn’t, but then again, what do I know, right? I think maybe I am not the right person always to yell you if I am or if I am not. I think that decision should also lie with Eduard a bit, so from now on I will ask him every day what he thinks. I think if in doubt, he can be the one to be the tiebreaker and I’ll let you guys know what he thinks. That should solve that problem.

I had to call my psychiatrist yesterday afternoon. Eduard pointed out to me, as diplomatically as he could, that he had just about had it with my over assertiveness and my anger and irritation and aggressive attitude and that I had to cease and desist. He said I had been behaving that way all week to him and when he said it, I realized he was right and that I had been that way to him.

We discussed it and being the smart and well informed people that we are, we realized this was a case of dysphoric mania as opposed to euphoric mania. I was active and wanted to do a hundred things, but every time I thought that Eduard was not going along with the program, I nearly bit his head off. In other words, I was a bit of a bitch, quite a lot actually.

Well, it is all good and well to identify a behavior, but I had no idea how to stop it and even as we spoke I felt the irritation grow inside of me and I wanted to argue my point, even though I knew he was right. I felt very unkind and I didn’t know how to stop being unkind and impatient.

So, I called my psychiatrist who, of course, was no stranger to this phenomenon and had the solution right away. I was to increase my anti psychotic medication with 2 mgs and take the oxazepam when I felt especially disagreeable and to keep doing that until feel the aggression and the irritation abide. It may take a couple of days or a week or longer, who knows? But it is the best solution for now and will give both Eduard and me some respite.

A dysphoric mania is when you think you can move mountains, but get irritated and angry at the people who stand in the way of you moving those mountains. You have a goal and are convinced of its possibilities and you become quite ruthless to the people who you think stand in the way of it. You can become convinced of quite unattainable goals and become very angry at people who try to stop you. Or who you think are trying to stop you.

Well, anyway, you see how sometimes you don’t recognize your own behavior and that is pretty sad.

This morning I weigh 87.7 kilos, so I have 2.7 kilos left to lose before December the 15th.

Yesterday morning, after I wrote my post, I cleaned up the kitchen and then took a shower and got dressed and made up and walked the dog early. So, when 8 am came along, I was ready to go to the grocery store and do my shopping. That was great, as there was hardly anyone there and I rode my bike on nearly empty streets. I bought some delicious aged cheese for Eduard and some great treats for the dog, who couldn’t believe his luck and very happily took one to his pillow and chewed on it merrily.

Later in the morning, Eduard and I went into town, where I had to buy a birthday present for my sister and Eduard went to the film house to do some work there. I went to three different stores to find a proper necklace for my sister, who also likes to wear them, but I finally succeeded. I found a great ethnic looking one that I think she will like. Then Eduard and I had espressos at the film house and went home again.

In the afternoon, I took a nap on the sofa, due to having taken the oxazepam and it was necessary, because I had slept so little during the night the past couple of days. Eduard went to an open house of the railways where his friend Etienne works. It was good that he and I had a little time out from each other and my psychiatrist had suggested as much.

I took another oxazepam later in the afternoon and that knocked me out some more, so I am not going to take them today unless I absolutely have to. Only if I feel major irritation and anger. I am hoping the extra anti psychotic will actually do most of the work.

I hope that I don’t completely stop feeling hypo manic, as there are some aspects of it that I really enjoy, such as being very active. Getting lots of things done is very satisfying.

Forgive me for not commenting on your comments, but I do read them and I do appreciate every one of them.

Have a great day, people. Ciao….

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Bewerkte Gele Bloem 3 Images number 8.

I think I was somewhat manic when I wrote my last post. I didn’t remember what I had written and just reread it. I also reread the comments on the post previous to that and I see that my kid commented, which I always like, but which had not quite penetrated my thick skull yesterday. I think I am okay now, but Eduard told me last night that I stayed somewhat manic the rest of the day, although I was agreeably so and not that much obnoxious. Just a little over assertive at times.

After I finished writing the blog, I did the dishes and hung up the laundry to dry. Then I got dressed and made up and waited for the dog to get up so I could take him for a walk. When we got back, Eduard was up and shortly afterwards, we rode our bikes into town to his work where he had to do some paperwork and where we had capuchinos with cookies. While Eduard was busy, I went downtown and bought new Christmas tree lights for the headboard, and a tribal necklace for 5.95 Euros. The store manager said,”You can’t go out and even buy the beads for that kind of money,” and I agreed and was happy with my purchase.

Then I went to the grocery store downtown and bought low fat vanilla yogurt by the liter, which is cheaper than buying fruit flavored non fat yogurt and only differs a few calories when you eat it per 125 ml. I think the difference is 10 calories. There are 8 servings of 125 ml in a liter and a liter costs .99 Euro cents. 125 Ml is 3/4 of a cup and is 100 calories. So you can see that all those prepackaged little containers of yogurt are really a rip off and that you shouldn’t buy them. I ate those yesterday and one container is only 25 grams, which is 2/3 of a cup and it has 67 calories in it, but it costs 4 times the price of the vanilla yogurt. That’s a lot of math, isn’t it? Buying yogurt by the liter is cheaper than buying it in little containers, even though it may be less convenient.

Yesterday, I ate 100 grams of yogurt and six small cookies. That’s all I had and I didn’t go hungry once. So, I ate 1 and 1/3 of a cup of yogurt. This morning I weigh 88 kilos exactly and I have lost 8 ounces since yesterday. That’s 1.76 lbs. Now I have to lose 3 kilos or 6.6 lbs before December the 15th.

I also bought some big juicy oranges and then Eduard and I went home again, where my sister called me to see if I wanted to walk to the pond with the dogs, so we did. The weather wasn’t that great, it was overcast and cold, but it didn’t rain and we kept dry even though we brought an umbrella. It didn’t rain on us. All of the leaves have pretty much fallen of the trees now and it is hard to see the path for them. Half of the time, we are walking in the mud beside it. Jesker becomes very muddy and has bits of leaves stuck all over him when we get home. He does get worn out properly, though.

When I got home, Eduard and I decided we were bored and decided to walk the dog to the regional psychiatric offices to pick up a prescription for me instead of waiting for it to be faxed to the drugstore. It is quite a walk and the dog thought this was very exciting. He got to go in the elevator when we had to cross the railroad tracks, because he can’t climb stairs and he thought that was a little bit scary when the elevator went down. We picked up my prescription and walked to the drugstore. It was for my sleep medication and I was completely out, so it was important that I get it filled. Jesker thought it was all just wonderful. He went places he had never gone before and sniffed and looked in every nook and cranny. We were all quite worn out when we got home. Jesker collapsed on the floor and went straight to sleep.

Eduard told me what he wanted to eat for dinner and I proceeded to fix the dish my own way and told him not to come into the kitchen, which he didn’t. He is being very good about it, because he is used to fixing his food a certain way and now he has to trust me to fix it properly so that he will like it. Well, he cooked the rice and I cooked the rest and he liked it. I can’t cook rice. It is basmati rice and somehow that doesn’t turn out for me. I will learn to do this properly one day.

In the evening we went to the film house to watch the movie Atonement. Let me tell you something. That is one hell of a beautiful film! My God, I was awestruck. It was so well done and so well acted and so well directed and so well shot. We talked about it afterwards for quite a bit.

We sat in the café, where it was very busy with people having drinks and food after they had watched their films and there was an overall general good atmosphere. We managed to find a table in a corner and talked and people watched. Of course, Eduard knows so many people, but it was fun for me too. It was a real night out and the café was fun and cozy, filled with good natured people having drinks, who were all in the right mood, because they were going to see a film or because they had just seen one and were talking about it. It’s quite an intellectual crowd that comes to see the films, but they are people of all ages and all sorts. Three people work the bar and two people work the cash register. Then there are three or four film operators and one person for the tickets. It’s busy all night long. People come and go.

Eduard and I had such a good time, that we have decided that we are going to go see a movie every Friday evening. We will pick out the best one there is out of all the movies that are playing and make a night out of it. Eduard has glasses of white wine and I have decaf capuchinos with hot foamy milk with chocolate sprinkled on top. It’s a real treat that doesn’t cost us anything, it is all on the house.

We got home at 10:30 pm and still had to walk the dog. He was waiting patiently for us to come home and was very glad that we took him out right away. Then we hung out for another hour before we went to bed. I read the Lumiere monthly to find out what other films are playing this month and to get an idea for next week. There are lots of possibilities, but Atonement will linger in my mind for a while. I don’t know if anything can top that one.

I think I am not manic anymore now, but they are moods that strike me and that can last for a day or for several days. Often I don’t know I am when I am. I just get very assertive and active and a little overbearing according to Eduard. Afterwards, I realize I must have been. Looking back things are always more clear to me.

I have no wild plans for this weekend, although I wish I did. I would like to move some mo
re mountains and do some more mind breaking stunts. Have I done those yet? Action seems to be the magic word now. I must have that.

I will now try and contain myself and go and contemplate my navel for a while. It is still very early, so I must find a way to amuse myself. Doubtless I will find a way to keep myself out of trouble. Yesterday I did chores, I will do something similar today.

Have a great weekend, people. Irene says, always have fun doing your grocery shopping! Ciao…

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Painted Beach Images number 5.

It’s in the middle of the night, but I am awake again and bright and chipper, this despite the fact that I also took an oxazepam last night before I went to bed. I didn’t feel like going to bed and really wanted to stay up and move mountains, but then decided to be wise and go anyway and then I couldn’t think of anything to do but go to bed and read. That seemed like the sensible thing to do. When you are an adult, you have to make sensible decisions. I only slept for a relatively short time though, and here I am awake again, ready to tackle the next day.

I just weighed myself and I weigh 88.8 kilos, so I have lost 5 ounces since yesterday. Not bad, aye? Now I am below 89 kilos and I hope to keep going steadily down. I ate a lot of fruity nonfat yogurt yesterday and some Cup a Soup and I drank some glasses of low fat milk. I was busy all day long doing one thing or another and just sort of ate in between things.

In the morning I went to my GP to have some blood drawn for my thyroid check and my cholesterol check. I will know the results in about a week. my eyes were starting to bother me again just a little bit and I want to make sure that my thyroid is still okay and that the medication doesn’t need to be lowered some more. Mostly they bother me when I watch TV.

Then I went to the grocery store close by us, which is the most expensive grocery store, and not the one that Eduard has been shopping at, to do a price check on all the items that we buy every month. I had a long list of products that we buy and checked what the prices on those items were at that store. When I got home, Eduard told me what he paid for most of these things at the other grocery stores and this way we came up with a shorter list of about ten items that Eduard will keep buying at the other stores, such as coffee pads for the Senseo machine and milk and a brand of potatoes that we like. The rest of the products I can buy at my store.

We then worked out a budget for the household which will be in my checking account, separate from the checking account for the other bills. This way we can keep better track of that money and it will be my challenge to stick to the budget and to try and stay under it, which I am sure I can. It is going to be a real sport to get the best deal on grocery items.

Then last night Eduard and I were having a discussion about eating meat and I asked him if he really consciously could still eat meat, knowing the conditions the animals are kept in and are transported. Eduard used to be a vegetarian exactly because of these reasons, but somewhere along the line, he gave up and started eating meat again. The long and the short of it is, that Eduard has decided to also stop eating meat and that from now on we will only be eating fish and eggs. Eduard will go to the open air market once a week and buy cheese there and fresh salmon and smoked salmon and a herring for the cats. We may sometimes eat a biological chicken if we are absolutely sure that it is truly a free range chicken that has wandered around outside in complete freedom. But that will be for special occasions, as they are quite expensive. Most of the time we will eat vegetarian, which I have been doing for quite some time now and is very doable. I want to try some meat alternatives, which Eduard thinks is nonsense, but which I think work well instead of meat and can be quite tasty when used in other dishes. I am doing the cooking now, since Eduard has hurt his wrist and he is completely at my mercy and I have to take advantage of the situation and fix things my way a little bit.

In the afternoon, I did some shopping and it was a lot of fun knowing ahead of time how much money I was going to be spending, because I had all the prices down on my list. In my excitement, I forgot to buy yogurt, so I will have to go back and buy that today. I am going to have my own little bookkeeping system to keep track of the money and the expenditures and I am a great one for that. I love working with a good system and nickling and diming everything to death. I love getting a good deal and I do like walking around the grocery store looking for the best prices. I am great at making lists and sticking to them. And not going to the grocery store hungry.

In the afternoon Eduard and I went back to the GP to get his advice on Eduard’s wrist. Eduard had to know how long he would be out of work and the GP told him he wouldn’t be able to use his wrist for about 10 days. That means no manhandling heavy films and other intricate manual jobs. Eduard can only do paperwork or supervisory work. He has been taking paracetamol for the pain, but last night he said it was starting to feel a bit better. He also has a huge bruise on his knee where he hit the road, but luckily, his jeans weren’t torn as he was wearing extra protective pants over them. Those are torn just a little bit.

This morning we are going into town to buy cheese on the open air market and then to Eduard’s work to arrange some things and to have coffee there and read the morning paper. We also want to buy an extra set of Christmas lights for the bed headboard. One store has a set of 50 lights on sale for 1.99 Euros. You can’t beat that.

This evening we are going to see the movie Atonement. We have both tried to read the book, but neither one of us could finish it, so we both gave up and will see the film instead, which is supposed to be really good. We haven’t seen a film together in ages, so it is about time and it will be a real outing for us, especially since it is free and we don’t even have to pay for the drinks. Those are the benefits of working in the film house and being married to the person who works there.

My sister is getting new dining room chairs and she is giving her old, very nice ones to us. They are teak and leather and only six years old. They are quite classy looking and we desperately need new chairs. It means that we have to sand down the dining table and stain it a color that will match the chairs, but that is no problem as the table needs to be sanded and refinished anyway. It will give us a whole new look and I will do the coffee table at the same time too. Then there is the buffet which will either have to be stained in the same color or painted white like the bookcase is. I’ll have to think about that. Maybe white would be the best way to go. A high gloss white or a mat gloss, what do you think? The bookcase is a mat gloss. I guess that would be the best or should I stain it to match the tables?

I can’t wait to get it all done. I am looking forward to it very much a
nd making the place look good. Especially now that I have all of this spare energy to go around. I have the feeling that I can move mountains and I gladly want to tackle all sorts of jobs. It is very frustrating when there isn’t anything I can do. I suppose that next week I could start sanding and staining the table in advance of getting the chairs. Yes, I think that is a brilliant idea! Glad you thought of it.

Today I am wearing my long sleeved white stretch T-shirt with a V-neck. Over it I am wearing my multicolor stretch tunic with the three quarter sleeves. Over that I am wearing my burned orange V-neck sweater with my tribal necklace. Then I am also wearing my jeans and my ankle boots. I will look like a hot chick.

All of my body looks good, except for those 3,8 kilos that are sitting on my stomach and that absolutely have to disappear. That is 8.36 lbs. That is my first goal. After that I am going for 5 more kilos. That is 11 lbs. But first those 3,8 kilos, those have to be gotten rid off by December the 15th. I have measured my waist. With my clothes on it is still 107 centimeters, that is 41 inches and too many. The rest of my body looks fine. All the weight there is gone. I am apple shaped in the front. My rear end looks fine and so do my face and arms and legs. I can suck in my stomach really well if I don’t breathe too hard.

I think I am going to do the dishes now and hang up the laundry to dry. I had bought a new laundry softener and I want to see if it worked. I am hoping that it also made the laundry smell really good, because it claimed that it would. After that, maybe I can find some other household chore to do that doesn’t make a lot of noise and not wake Eduard and Jesker. That leaves out vacuuming. Darn! I could wash the living room windows I suppose. The odd passerby would look at me very strangely. Woman in bathrobe washing windows very early in the morning.

Well, that’s all for now folks. I am still hoping to win the lottery or find stolen drug money laying in the street. Actually, if anybody has about 11,500 Euros, than that would be fine.

Have a great day or a great sleep. Remember, always be a hot chick, no matter how uncool you feel. Ciao…

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