I did it!

I wrote that one letter of objection that I thought was going to be the hardest one and that I was putting off until last, but I had written it in my head quite a few times already, so when the time came to sit down and write it, it went quite easily. I sat down and wrote it in long hand first and then typed it and referred to the attachments that I had numbered and I think it all was rather comprehensive and understandable. It is very important to back up your statements with the right documentation, so I made sure I included everything I could think off. I have visited the copier in the grocery store quite a few times now this week. I have just about used up all my nickels and dimes.

It’s a relief to get it all done and now I have to wait for the various outcomes. I feel like a little person fighting the big system with every bit of arsenal I’ve got. I’ve got to try and do my best, though. If I don’t do it, I’ll forever regret it.

This morning I went and had my gastric band filled some more. I took the bus to the hospital, which takes all of 8 minutes including all the stops it makes. I like taking the bus, because there is a big bridge across the railroad tracks I would have to take if I went by bike and I’m not quite up to it. The bus is an enjoyable way to travel, because you get to people watch, which is one of my hobbies. I like it when there are little kids on the bus, because they provide some comic relief and grab everyone’s attention with their sweet little faces and their shenanigans.

Now I can eat a little less than I did before, which is good and the whole purpose of it. I just had toast and I am very full. I had cup a soup earlier and it had the same effect. I won’t be able to eat that pudding with berry sauce anymore, but that is good. That was cheating anyway. For a person who used to get such joy out of eating, this certainly is a very different life style.

On Sunday it’s my birthday. I will be 54 years old. The Exfactor and my sister are coming over in the morning for coffee and pie. The Exfactor send a card in the mail that I got today, but I’m not allowed to open it until Sunday. It’s a thick card, it feels like there is something in it. It is very hard not to open it, but I’ll be good.

My sister’s husband is moving out this Saturday. They have made arrangements for when he has the children. My sister can’t wait for him to move out, every hour that he is still there is one too many. She has finally gotten over her adoration of him and it is about time. It was not normal the way she looked up to him and the way he treated her. Now all of us sisters will be single and we will all be emancipated women, although my oldest sister is not so by choice. Still, she finds herself to be very emancipated and that is the good part. Somewhow, comng from the dysfunctional family that we did, we do all manage okay on our own and are not helpless females, even though some of us started out that way in our late teens – early twenties.

I just took the Überhund for a walk. Without me noticing it, it had rained again, just a short shower, and evrything was nice and fresh. I had to cut back the jasmine that I planted in the pot, to the part where there were new little leaves growing, so it lookes kind of puny right now, but I am full of hope. Close to our house, a weed filled piece of land was cleared and smoothed out and grass seed was sprinkled on it and now little blades of grass are popping up out of the ground. It is an amazing thing. You think nothing will come of it, but somehow it does. We are very lucky to live in a neighborhood with lots of open spaces with grass and trees, although I do notice that the clover and the dandelions take over most of the grassy areas.

It’s oh so silent here. There is hardlly a sound coming in from outside. Thank goodness that this is a quiet neighborhood. The teenagers next door get kind of rowdy sometimes, but just very briefly and not at night. The boy thinks he is quite a guitar player and he has an electric one with an amplifier  that he turns up every once in a while. He just doesn’t quite have the talent. It’s all a lot of noise and he’ll never play for Linkin Park. The girl has a good voice and is pleasant to listen to.

Well, it’s pajama time again, and toast time and TV time. Tomorrow I will sleep late, hah, watch me do it until 7 AM and that’s it.

Have a great day,

Ciao…

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Thunder.

The Uberhund is very upset because it is thundering and lightening and he doesn’t know what it means. He is barking at it something fiercely, because it is right above our heads and going very strong. I think he is a little bit scared and a little bit indignant that it won’t go away by his barking at it. He is also trying to maintain some dignity at the same time by being very regal looking when he is not barking. He does that by taking on photogenic poses at my feet. Each time it thunders, he looks at me and barks again and I am sure he wonders why i am not getting upset. We were supposed to go for his walk just now, but it is raining, so I suppose we will patiently wait for that to pass also. I’m having a heck of a job calming this dog down, because some of these thunder strikes are mighty loud.

The Uberhund and I went to the vet this afternoon. It was time to get a new supply of his pills for his osteoarthritis. I let him off the leash in the examination room so the vet could see how well he moves around. That medicine really helps him.

He also got weighed and he had lost a whole kilo and a half of which I am mighty proud, because I do have him on a strict diet. I measure his food and know exactly how much he eats every day.

The growth on his toe is now nothing to worry about. It has turned a pale pink and it will either stay that way or shrivel up, but it will not grow any more and it isn’t bothering him any more either. If he is licking it, he is doing it secretly without me knowing about it, but it doesn’t seem to be itching him anymore.

The Uberhund is always so relieved when he gets to leave there. He doesn’t know how fast to get out of the front door and the vet is such a nice guy too.

Oh, the storm is over. I must take the opportunity to walk the Uberhund…

So, we made it back in one piece, the thunder storm has moved to the north east of us and is rumbling at a distance. It was nice and cool out there after having been so warm. Our street gets especially hot as it it at the wrong angle to catch the wind that usually blows from the west.

The Exfactor was over this morning to finish packing up things in the workroom. This left me with having to tackle my own shelf system on which there were a lot of things that I had not looked at for years. I took a bit of a nostalgic trip through some of my less impressive years. Some things I threw away, but I discovered a bunch of art materials and diaries and I found better boxes to put those in. I have organized things so I can get at them and they are no longer hidden away.

The Exfactor and I traded bookcases and I get a set of white long low ones for two tall wood colored one. I don’t need all the space of the tall ones and like the white ones better. The workroom is going to be a spare bedroom when i get done with it. I just need to get a spare bed. I’ve got all the bedlinen to go with it. The walls need new wallpaper, but I don’t know if I’m quite up to that job yet. Well, I won’t be running a bed and breakfast.

There is one crate of photographs I need to look through and I am kind of putting it off. Photographs are always tricky things in that they brings back a variety of memories and I don’t know if I am ready for them yet. I may leave that job for a later time or do it with someone else there. My sister, for example.

It’s official now. My sister is divorcing and it turned out that her husband was having an affair since December. My sister is taking it as well as can be expected, but she can be a tough broad too and she is holding together well. Now all three of us sisters are going to be without husbands and my older sister says we should go in business together. Open up a shop annex café. We could sell our own very good cappuccinos and chocolate brownies. I wonder if she means those very special brownies?

All of us are planning on staying single, not because we are ugly broads, but because our hearts aren’t in it. It will be very interesting to see which one of us will have the first date. I think it will be my younger sister, because I am not open to dating and I think she is. We’ll see. I’m the greater cynic I think. My older sister is an even greater cynic than I am, but I think her heart could easily be broken if she were to let down her guard.

Done with that analysis. I shouldn’t discuss other people on my blog.

Every evening I forget to watch the 6 o’clock news and I sleep through the 8 o’clock news. Tonight I am going to try and stay up for it. It’s ridiculous that a grown up woman falls asleep watching the 8 o’clock news. Too many tranquilizers, that’s why I’ve cut the extra one for tonight out and I’ll see if I can stay awake better. I can’t be asleep while crucial things happen around the world, like in Zimbabwe for instance.

I think I am going to finish cleaning the kitchen cupboards now. That sounds like a fun thing to do. I can have a little toss out at the same time. Rid myself of rubbish, that’s always cleansing to the soul.

Hope you are all having a good day and a pleasant evening, think of me while you do whatever it is you are doing and send a good thought to me. I’ll see if I can catch it with my butterfly net.

Ciao…

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The Pondorosa.

Well, it’s been another busy and eventful day here at he Pondorosa. On top of everything, the weather decided to be a scorcher, so we poor Dutch people were walking around with many body parts exposed and sitting at sidewalk cafés trying to find some refreshment. I am working on a cold bottle of Coca Coal myself, which is helping me quench my thirst and making my stomach region cold. The apartment is pretty cool, because I ‘ve kept most everything closed and the heat hasn’t had a change to sneak in. I just have some little top windows open for a little bit of circulation. An old trick I learned from a native Californian. Do not by all means throw open your doors and windows when it is hot outside. It will fill your house with heat and flies.

This morning I had my appointment with my SPN and i decided to be serious and not have one of those half baked conversations in which I say how great I am doing and then leave again. So, this time I really took my time to talk to her carefully and answer her questions with care. Her concern is that maybe I am hypo manic and I keep having to tell her that, no I am not, I am functioning just fine and am standing with both feet on the ground. I rate myself at a 7, sometimes at an 8 when I am feeling especially good for a little while and sometimes at a 6 when things don’t go as planned, but mostly I am a 7. I don’t think that’s a grade to be concerned about.

I told her, there is nobody jubilating behind my eyes and thinking life is just one great big party and a dream I can’t wake up out of. I think everybody is surprised that I am doing as well as I am. They had expected a hopelessly helpless Irene who wouldn’t have known how to deal with the situation and instead they get this. A competent human being and then some.

We went and saw our divorce mediator this afternoon. We are on agreement on everything and now she is going to write a covenant, which is a divorce agreement between the Exfactor and me and when it is written, we will sign it and it will be presented to the judge, Then we will be divorced in two months time. That’s the normal legal time it takes. She said in the meantime we could consider ourselves divorced for all practical reasons.

The Exgactor and I get along splendidly for small portions of time, but i wouldn’t want to spend a whole afternoon with him, because he starts to irritate me with his lack of attention to detail and his absentmindedness. He forgets half of what you ask him to do, because he writes nothing down and it creates irritation with me who is a stickler for detail. It’s a good thing that we go our own way. We are avoiding a lot of stress this way. Imagine having to be reliant on someone who is so absentminded all the time. Hanging your life up to that particular hook. Very dangerous and unsettling. No doubt it was the source of a lot of my insecurity, because he would not relinquish control.

Well, enough said about that, that’s like getting old cows out of the ditch, as they say here.

I came home to an Uberhund who was very happy to see me, but we could only go for a little walk because it was so hot. The Uberhund would walk for miles, not realizing he was overdoing it and collapse by the side of the road somewhere and I would have to call the animal ambulance. I don’t even have their number in my mobile phone, a good one to add.

So instead we find ourselves here with him laying beside me on the cool floor and with me staying cool while typing this. I am listening to my favorite MP3 player, the one with the weirdest music. I like to wake up with it and go to sleep with it. It’s got I don’t know how many songs on it. Quite a few. Sometimes I listen to the more mainstream ones, when I am feeling more regular and mainstream. Sometimes I just have this need for very odd music. I go through a lot of batteries, but they are all rechargeable, so I am constantly recharging batteries.

I have a tendency to get very sleepy in the evening and start nodding off when i want to start reading blogs. I am going to give it a try now and see how far I will get. Have yourself a good rest of the day and enjoy your evening.

Ciao…

P.S. Here is something I had forgotten about but that needs to be addressed. Two very nice ladies have given me awards. Babaloo for Fairymix.com has given me this award:

And Debs from the Lehners in France has given me this very nice award:

Which leaves me in kind of a quandary. When I left blogger and I came to WordPress, I left all of my awards behind and you know how smitten I was with all of those awards. I gave them top billing on my blog and it was hard to miss them when you opened my page. I thought getting awards was very important and that it equaled being liked by people and being accepted and being appreciated.

Since I left all of my awards behind me, I have had a change of mind and I found out that i did not miss them and did not have the least inclination to import them to my new blog and show them off. I realized that they were no longer important to me and that having them was no longer a sign to me of being one of the gang of accepted and well liked people. That was my interpretation I put on it and it was no longer valid.

So, the next decision was, what to do about any future awards I might get, what would I do about them? Do I gracefully accept them and display them for a day and then get on with life?

I need to hand them out to deserving people, don’t I? But how do I choose, because everyone who reads my blog is a “deserving” person.

I could have a free for all and tell everyone to just take an award when they come upon one, but most people are bashful and will not do it. Nobody will just take an award when it is offered for free.

I have come to the decision not to accept any more awards and to not display them if I do happen to get one, no matter how special and beautiful it is. So, these two I am displaying now are the last two that I will. After that I am taking a page out of Stinking Billy’s book and am not going to clutter up the site with awards anymore, although my reasons may be different than his.

I realize that there are so many awards out there that sooner or later everyone will get at least one. But i say, lets just write for the fun of it and for the beauty of it and for the entertainment value of it and not bother with the awards. The awards lie in the readership and how moved it is by what you write and the comments that follow. That’s what my interpretation is going to be from now on anyway.

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Oh, hell!

I am so sleepy , I feel like taking a nap, but it isn’t nap time at all, or is it? The Uberhund has been for his 5 PM walk and had his dinner and is now quite contendly laying somewhere in an obscure place in the apartment, I don’t know where. I hear little noises every once in a while. I have left open the door to the work room, so the minion cats are having a field day climbing in and out of boxes. I figured they needed to have some fun today and it is like an outing to the park for them with amusement rides. They think they are being very stealthy and that I don’t hear them, but of course I do.

I need to eat, but there is nothing in the house that is bad enough to satisfy my evil streak. I must have some chocolates and I am trying to think of a place where I can find them. Maybe at the train station store. They may have them there. I need to count my pennies fist…

…For some strange reason I briefly went through life this evening thinking it was Sunday and thinking that the train station store was the only store open. When I rode my bike there to buy some chocolate biscuits, I passed the regular grocery store and thought it so odd that all these people where entering and exiting it, but I took the opportunity to enter and do some grocery shopping. It didn’t dawn on me until later that it was actually Monday and that I had known that the rest of the day when I had gone to my first creative therapy class. .

Sometimes I really worry about my mind, man. It would worry about Alzheimer, except that this is something I have done my whole life so it isn’t anything new. I left my little sister at the grocery store when she was 3 an I was 10. Just came home without her. I left my bike there once too, but I think my parents were less upset about that.

My first creative therapy class…what can I say about it? I wasn’t very creative. I was about as creative as a 3 year old, but with all the inhibitions of a grown up. I made a very badly done collage, wanted to throw it away halfway through, decided to stick with it and try to salvage it and ended up with a crappy product. It is tough to be creative. People always think that I am, but I have serious doubts now.

I think I’ll sculpt with clay the next time. maybe I can find some samples to work with and get inspired and make something halfway decent. I think one drawback of the pills is that they make me dull and less artistic. They make me more inhibited.

So, Sunday evening I was scrubbing the lower kitchen cabinets and rearranging them and when I was done with that I said, “Screw it,” and got dressed up properly and went to the café at the film house. This is the only café where I know I still can get my drinks for free and not get picked up when I sit at the bar by the nachos machine. I had two glasses of wine and two cappuccinos and had a fun time talking to the people I knew who all thought they had to feel sorry for me because we are getting a divorce, so I had to assure them there was no reason to.

The Exfactor was there and we briefly discussed our business together, but I tell you, he leaves me so not emotive and not interested, he may as well be an acquaintance of mine. He is just a somewhat older man with a bald head and a gray beard who is showing his age and who is not in the least bit sexy. I can look at him with a lot of indifference now and see how caught up he is in his own dream from which he will wake up one day. The poor guy. There will be nobody there to catch him…

…I am writing this post in bits an pieces over a period of time. It is now the middle of the night and I am wide awake. I must be because of all those catnaps I took during the evening while I was eating my chocolate biscuits on the sofa. Sometimes I can be a very sinful and sloth like human being. When I went to bed, I made myself a glass of warm milk, but it remained untouched on the nightstand and I fell asleep almost instantly sitting up in bed trying to read a book. Not just any old book. It’s “The Story of Chicago May” by Nuala O’Faolain, sent to me by the WiseWEbWoman. I just started reading it, so I can’t say anything sensible about it yet, but it ought to be good as other books I have read from her have been.

Today I am seeing my SPN and in the afternoon the Exfactor and I are seeing our divorce mediator. I have had some trouble getting a hold of a certified copy of our marriage certificate, but my daughter in Texas is taking care of it now and I should have it soon now. I thought I had it all settled and done and was expecting it in the mail any day now, but when i went to check on it, it turned out they had not filled the order at all. That’s red tape for you. I am sure my daughter will have the thing done in no time at all.

I am curious to see my SPN, as I feel that I haven’t had a really good talk with her lately, except to tell her that everything is fine and keeping the conversations kind of short. I think I should take full advantage of my 45 minutes this time and fill those up with a good conversation. Nobody says I have to fill it up with only bad news, after all.

The Uberhund is sitting here wanting to get some loving. That’s why I have to end this epistle and make some coffee and pay attention to the critter and spend some quality time with him.

Have a good whatever day it is today, you know best, don’t ask me!

Ciao…

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Just about!

I think I’ve got just about every document I need for my meeting with the man from social services tomorrow after noon, If i don’t have it, it is not for lack of trying. I have been running ragged collecting them all and making copies of them and just as I was doing that at my sister’s house yesterday, the ink ran out, so I had to abort that mission and go to the grocery store this morning to continue that. I had 11 pages left to copy and dreaded having to do it there, because I visioned badly run machines that would eat all my nickels and dimes, but nothing could have been further form the truth and all went smoothly.

I returned the items that I did not want for the dog and that was no problem and got him some new snacks instead that he likes very much. I even bought tobacco and have 11, 20 Euros left until Friday, which I think is pretty good, considering I don’t need anything else before that time.

I have decided to cut down on the coffee, I will no longer drink those huge two pad mugs of coffee anymore now, but I will drink the more demure one pad smaller mugs of coffee. I realized I was going through the pads at an alarming rate and I thought that was totally unnecessary, so I cut that down right away. Having never done any serious grocery shopping, I am finding out about al these things now and I can be a real cheapskate. It’s a challenge to spend the least amount of money and make the food last.

Out of the blue, I took a nap on the sofa this afternoon and was only awakened because the dog was barking very loudly. It turned out the girl next door was at the front door and had rung the doorbell but I had slept through that. I’m getting old, people. I woke up from the alarm clock this morning and had my leisurely hour drinking my coffee and petting the Uberhund. He is such a darling early in the morning and literally needs the sleep rubbed out of his eyes. Why have a grumpy man when you can have a sleepy huggable dog?

I hope I am never silly enough again to have the great misfortune to fall in love. I hope I am spared such a disaster. It would be such a worse state of affairs than the one I am finding myself in now. I suppose you have to be in the “falling in love sort of mood” and as long as I am not maybe it will never happen to me. I hope to God that I have learned enough from my “love” predicaments not to start down that road ever again. What I called love anyway, it may not have been the real thing at all, of course, but I am not going to bother to find out and put my feelings at risk and do any kind of experimenting. I thought I came pretty close with the Exfactor and if that is as close as I can get, I don’t want to find out how much closer I can get. Strike that one up for a pretty good experiment.

It turns out that the Paramount has more than one good male friend that she spends quality time with and the Exfactor claims that he is not jealous. He is all for given each other the space and freedom they deserve. He has a bigger heart than I have and doesn’t mind going where other men have also recently been. It is really an amazing thing, because the Paramount is not what we call mother’s prettiest. I wonder what the appeal is?

The Uberhund has found the one sunny spot in the living room and is curled up there now. It must feel good to him, to bathe in the sunlight like that. There is no sign of the cats. They have been hanging out outside a lot lately, no doubt because the weather has been so good. All is well, as long as they don’t make pests of themselves with the neighbors. Sometimes, one of them will take his life into his own paws and sleep on the new chair during the night, but as soon as I show up in the morning, they don’t know how fast to get out of it and make a beeline for the back door lest they get sprayed with the water bottle. I am mean like that.

Well, that’s all I ‘ve got. Tomorrow morning I’m seeing my SPN and in the afternoon I am seeing the man from Social Services who is going to make a determination about my benefits. So, you all keep your fingers crossed and hope for a good ending. I am a bit nervous, although i should not be, as I am an honest citizen.

Ciao…

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Back to normal.

Okay, back to normal, or as normal as I can get it for right now. I woke up very early and couldn’t sleep anymore and felt a little bit distracted and uptight and then more and more so and finally realized that I had forgotten to take all of my medications before I went to bed last night. So, I took some of them and I will wait with the rest, because in a few hours it will be time to take those. Slowly I am starting to feel a little bit more normal again. It is not good to forget the medications! Especially not the ones that help make you think straight.

I had an especialy tiring day yesterday and I think it was an especially emotionally tiring day. In the morning I saw my SPN and that actually was fine, but it did get a train of thought going within myself about my past marriage and it was hard to put a stop to it, especially as I had an appointment with Eduard later in the afternoon to see the divorce mediator.

I don’t think it is a very good thing for me to see that much of Eduard right now, but it can’t be helped as there are all these details we need to take care off, but he does end up taking up a lot of space in my head, to the point that I start to think that he is living here again and that I forget that I can go my own way and do things as I want them.

The appointment with the mediator went fine too and a lot of things were clarified. It was a very intensive conversation and we had to answer a lot of questions, but we do know where we stand financially now and the picture isn’t all that bleak. We’ll both manage.

I have to go to the Center for Work and Income today to get myself registered to get my welfare payment started and my subsidies on rent etc. I also have to go to the bank to change my account back into my maiden name and make in Internet accessible and have Eduard’s name removed from it.

I had to send away for a new copy of our marriage certificate from the Sonoma County Courthouse, but I was able to do that on line and I hope that all works out well, as it was very expensive to do and it will be sent by FedEx and should be here soon. I have yet to receive a confirming email, though. If this doesn’t work out, my daughter will have to get it for me and send it to me by regular mail.

Well, I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

This morning I have ergo-therapy and I am looking forward to that, because I feel a certain amount of stress and hope to get rid of some of it there. It will be good to sit around that big table and talk.

It is good to listen to the things that keep other people busy, what occupies their minds, what they worry about, what sort of troubles they run into. It puts things into perspective. You look at yourself and see that maybe you are not so bad off in comparison, that at least you would not want to trade your set of troubles for theirs. Some people get really raw deals.

Well, this is just a short post. I hope to be completely invigorated by the next and be roaring like a tiger and ready to tackle which ever problem comes my way.

Ciao…

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Outlook Express? Really!

Well, we’re having email problems and we’re down to just having one email address at the moment and it is not working either, but I am sure that one of these days, if we have enough patience and we hang on the phone long enough, all will be solved and we will get emails again. There was a time, after all, when we lived without them and we will have to manage again for a bit. It’s a bit primitive, but I am so frustrated now from being on the phone with the helpdesk that I don’t want to cal them again for a while. I will let Eduard do the next round again. Besides, I think men accomplish more than women when it comes to talking to men behind helpdesks. Or that is just my imagination and I just wish it to be so to not have to deal with it. I do sound very assertive over the telephone, but maybe a little bit desperate. I am not in the least amused, of course.

Ergo therapy went fine this morning. I was not the least bit nervous and actually looked forward to it with my big mouth and my bravura. We had a big group session in which everybody got to talk about what was bothering them at the moment, including me and I did not hold back and I was not shy and I laid it on the line and some people wanted to know what I was doing there, being my over assertive self. I warned them that I am not always like this. I think I should have been in despair more and cried some, but maybe I will do that later some time., I don’t know. I feel like a tough cookie now, but I may crumble still.

So, I was gone from home all morning and Jesker was very happy to see me and wagged his whole rear body. What a welcome, and Gandhi was right there too, she is a friendly greeter also. I had a nice mug of coffee before I took Jekser for his walk and sat and contemplated the walls and listened to some music. That’s a good way to mellow down after such an intensive morning with all of that emotion. I can handle it though.

I hate to talk about my marriage/divorce situation, but Eduard has promised that he will be out of here by this weekend, which I think is pretty decent of him. He is now trying to figure out the best way how. He doesn’t really want to move in with his girlfriend ,so he is looking at other options of moving in with people with lots of extra space until he gets his own place. We’ll see. He wants to move all of his belongings in to the spare room for storage until he is really ready to move and have everything packed into boxes and ready to go. That sounds like s sensible thing to do.

I think right now I am a little bit past caring. Just for the moment. Just right now. I’ll care again later, when it is necessary again that I do. It gets tiring to have to walk around with your emotions on your sleeve all the time and balance them there like a waiter balances a tray. I think I’m a little bit done with that now.

I prefer something more action packed and true to life. None of this drama, because there’s been enough of it already. I would like to have a really good laugh about something very silly and unwise. I must be my own comedian, I bet. I’ll have to figure out a way to do that. If I didn’t have all this darn medicine I would celebrate life with a couple of drinks in a café with some broads who are broad minded. Do you know any of them? I know a lot of you, but you all live so far away! I’d even invite John and make him the receiving end of all my jokes.

Well, I think Eduard has fallen with his nose into the butter, as they say here. He left quite a while ago and hasn’t returned yet, so maybe he has found a place to live. I will go walk the dog shortly. You never know with those men, they find a cozy spot to drink a glass of wine and that is the end of them.

Listen. I know I am going to be lonely, there will be days when I will curse it, but I will not be unhappy and upset because I don’t know where my husband is. Because he won’t be supposed to be here. And I’ll have a lot of peace because of that.

Okay, time to wrap it up. Have a terrific whatever is left of the day. Remember, pubs are great places to hang out in, but not to meet the man of your life. The man of your life is a figment of your imagination.

Ciao…

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No shape.

I was in no shape to write a post this morning, because i was not nearly coherent. Then Edurd had also told me that a computer uses 300 watts an hour and that made me think that with all of my blogging I really use up a lot of energy, and since I am going to be a poor woman soon, I don’t want to owe the energy company any money at the end of the year, So I felt uncomfortable about spending so much time behind the computer and had to find a solution.

So, this morning, instead of writing a post with my non coherent mind, I downloaded Google reader and added all the blogs that I read to it and I can now see them all in a jiffy and if they have been updated. Today I very quickly read through all of them with the result that I didn’t leave any encouraging comments anywhere, I was in such a hurry to get through them. I promise to be better tomorrow and actually comment, because I do know how to do that.

I also picked up an unexpected award from Debs at the Lehners in France and I certainly wasn’t expecting that, but am ever so grateful for it and sure appreciate it. Here it is:

Isn’t that sweet? I am sure that I am supposed to hand it to someone else, but it is something I can’t quite wrap my head around right now, so I will do that tomorrow. Please remind me to do that.

I have been feeling rushed all day, but in reality I am not getting much accomplished. I saw my SPN this morning and that was fine. I don’t know if she is 100% behind me on my divorce plans, but I can’t force her to be and time will tel how it will all work out. This does not mean that she is not supportive of me, she is just cautious. After our meeting, she had her meeting with the personality disorder team, so I will hear all about that next week.

Yesterday, I had a meeting with the activity coordinator at the psychiatric out patient clinic and I am starting 3 hours of ergo-therapy on Wednesdays starting tomorrow. No time to get nervous about it. I just jump in and do it. I will start 3 hours of creative therapy on June the 30th on Mondays. I am just full of bravery and will not back down this time. I am so full of myself right now and feel very brave, although I am the least little bit nervous, but I will get over that.

I had another treatment at the physiotherapist this afternoon and that is helping a lot. I will have one more treatment on Thursday and that is it. I should be alright after that. The ultrasound is helping me a lot.

Eduard and his girlfriend tried to find affordable housing for Eduard just across the border in Belgium this afternoon, but they have not come up with anything yet. It is becoming increasingly difficult for various reasons to have Eduard living here still and the situation is really unattainable. He comes and goes and I find it very uncomfortable, because I get used to him being home and get some of those old cozy feelings and I shouldn’t be having those. It’s much better if he is gone and I am on my own and just functioning that way then get all tenderhearted about him, which is inevitable when I hang around with him and I am having a weak moment, because I do get those. I must stay focused on the reality of the situation as it is and not on how I thought it was.

The obvious solution is that he moves in with his girlfriend for the time being until he gets his own place and I am all for that and would gladly pack his bag and all of his belongings. He needs to be gone from here. I need to get on with my life. I can’t do that if he keeps coming home every day and taking up his place again here. I need to deal with my feelings on my own and get that process started, I am now hampered in it every time.

I think for Eduard it is uncomfortable too, because he wants to get on with his other life and doesn’t feel comfortable doing that in my presence. I sure as hell hope we decide on something by this weekend. I know that we will both go through a process of grief and now we are just postponing it. It is inevitable that it happens. But once set upon the road, there is no turning back.

I have downloaded 8 CD’s to an MP3 player and I am listening to it now. It is pretty heavy duty music, no fooling around. I’ve got dEUS and Death Cab and Goo Goo Dolls and some very good Björk. I do so like her very much for her unexpectedness. I’ve got half the player filled up, so I will get some other neat stuff yet.

I will totally be truthful with you and tell you that today is not as easy a day as the last two weeks have been, but I have been informed that this is perfectly normal and that my emotions will cover a whole range. That this is to be expected and not to become discouraged by it. So, I will not. Nothing in life is only easy, there are always the hard bits too, but you climb across them or out of them and make it to the smoother areas again. Toady I am nostalgic for the good times Eduard and I had and they have a tendency to shine a little brighter maybe than they actually were. Nostalgia does that to you. I keep having to look at everything through these glasses of present day realism. Know a lost cause when I see it and not beat a dead horse. No, I’ve stopped doing that already.

How did you like that football game between the Netherlands and Italy? Was it great or what? We certainly had great big grins on or faces because of it. It gives us hope for the rest of the games. Maybe we will do alright.

Right, that’s it. I must go and watch some boring TV and have some decaf and then walk Jesker. My trusty and loyal four footed pal who never lets me down.

Ciao…

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In my dreams.

I grieve in my dreams. I wake up and I know that I’ve spent the night dreaming about the situation I am in, but that I have been crying about it and that in my dreams everything is quite sad and traumatic and not at all the way it is during the day when things are so positive and upbeat. I wake up and try to remember if something bad has happened the night before I went to sleep, but then I realize that nothing has, that it is only in my sleep that the trauma has occurred and that in fact everything in real life is okay. I think this is a very clever way for my mind to deal with the break up of my marriage, allowing me the opportunity to grieve while I sleep and letting me be positive and hopeful while I am awake, because there is not one doubt in my mind that I am doing the right thing. In fact, each day I am more convinced that I am.

You should hear Eduard and me discuss our divorce. We sound so mature and practical and so full of common sense. We can talk about any aspect of it without getting the least bit upset and we always figure out a way between the two of us to resolve some issue. I think it is because we are genuinely nice people, who don’t bear any grudges and who both have the same goal in mind and that is a peaceful divorce.

I think that when we get to the divorce mediator, we will have things settled very quickly. There are some formalities that she needs to help us with, but the main division of goods has been done by us. She needs to help us with out finances and how to divide that honestly and file for our divorce in court. It can be done in no time at all.

Eduard is going to look into renting a place in Belgium just over the border where there are no waiting lists for housing. Lots of people live just across the border and the commute is very easy and can be done by bike. It would mean that he can move out a lot sooner than having to wait for a place here, while still be on the waiting lists here. I think he is looking forward to moving out and having his own space and his own life, just the same as me.

Yesterday Eduard organized all of our paperwork having to do with just about everything, so that I will always be able to find anything at all. I still need to organize my own personal papers in a folder, but I will have that done in a jiffy. We didn’t have a very good filing system before and it was slightly unorganized.

I have been finding a lot of joy in taking Jesker for his walks. I take him four times a day now, taking him at 10 PM also when it is still light outside. We have a nice round that we make and that we can expand if I think his legs can handle it. Sometimes he is a little shaky and then we keep it short. It is a very relaxing form of exercise and allows me to have a good look around at all the gardens and the people we meet along the way. Pretty soon there will not be an Eduard here to take him for his night time walk, so I figure I may as well get used to doing it now.

You wouldn’t believe how green and bountiful everything is and in how such short amount of time the dark bare earth has been covered by a carpet of a multitude of flowering plants. Abondanza! It’s pretty incredible and never ceases to amaze me. The hedges especially always surprise me and it is good to see so many of them are still planted and that there are areas where wild flowers are allowed to teem. Very beautiful! You really need to be out walking a dog to see and appreciate all of this.

I am being distracted by the music I am listening to, I feel myself get caught up in the words and then I stop typing. Sometimes it’s a song that I haven’t heard yet, because I’ve got the MP3 player set on random play and there is a lot of music that I’ve just downloaded. It’s nice to be distracted by music, to have a soundtrack to live your life by. I really, really need an iPod Classic. I think it has 80 GB’s of space and the possibilities would be endless.

Well, that’s it for me for now. I’ve got to go and look up some more music in the library catalog. I must fill one more 1GB MP3 player.

Have a terrific Monday everyone, slay many old ladies and save many dragons and eat the peas that the princesses lay on.

Ciao…

Here is a quote I borrowed from The Artful Eye. I thought it was highly appropriate.

“Remember that the best relationship is the one where your love for each other is greater than your need for
each other”

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The things I do to please you!

I changed the theme again of the blog after Maggie May complained about how hard it was for her to read the print on the black background, so there were only two options, either Maggie had to get really strong reading glasses or I had to change the theme of the blog, and since I like change, I didn’t mind doing that at all and at the same time I got to pick out a new image for the header, which I think is very angelic looking to match my mood of innocence and slight rapture at my possible new beginnings.

Yes, I am most definitely pleased about the way things are turning out and I am very grateful for this turn of events and can’t wait to start my new life as an independent woman. I look forward to not being married anymore and throwing of that yuk and being a woman who makes her own decisions about how she lives her life. It will be wonderful not to have to justify what I do to someone else and to have to give an explanation for everything I do or don’t do. Free at last, for the first time in my life. The emancipation of Nora, which I will celebrate with a party of some sort.

I have decided not to take of the two gold bands that I wear on my left ring finger, one of which I wear in memory of my son. In the Netherlands it is the custom of widows to wear their own wedding band as well as their deceased husband’s wedding band on one finger and this way people will think I am a widow and that may save me from some unpleasant encounters. People will treat me with some unspoken respect and that is just the way I like it. Let them assume what they will. As long as I don’t come right out with a statement I will not be lying.

My gastric band was filled this morning and I was very nicely driven over to the hospital by Eduard who took any speed bumps very slowly and carefully. Walking is going ever so much better now and as long as I don’t lean into anything I feel pretty good. Most backrests are hard and uncomfortable so I sit up very straight and don’t lean back. I may even try and take the dog for a walk in a while as long as he does not pull at the leash too much. He is not bothering me about going out, so I have a little bit of time yet. In the morning he gets impatient at six, as Eduard doesn’t take him out until seven, and I tell Jesker to go and wake him up and Jesker does this by barking at him, which Eduard does not appreciate. Jesker is such a smart dog!

Eduard is a bit grumpy in the morning and does not tolerate the cats well on the kitchen counter and the dog at his heels while he gets his breakfast and he grumbles at them and argues with them constantly as if they are people who understand his purpose. The animals have no idea what is is all about and just keep doing the same thing every morning.

I make myself small behind the computer and hope that I am not doing something wrong that will require some comment from him. Grumpy people should live in separate houses.

My younger sister just called me and told me in the strictest confidence that she is getting a divorce to and I am very happy for her, because she has been unhappy for a very long time. I am not to speak to anyone about it though because of the children. They want to have everything arranged as much as possible first and then tell the children, who can then decide which parent they want to stay with. None of you know my sister, so I suppose my secret is safe with you. Mum’s the word. It has to be a successful divorce.

Anyway, that means that all of us three sisters will be without a husband soon and none of us are planning on looking for a new one. We will take them on as platonic friends, but that is about it. We’re not planning on getting into the draining aspects of relationships again. We’ve been burned too much and are possibly too dysfunctional to pick a good healthy partner. We did not have very good role models. All three of us have the tendency to be a bit of an Einzelgänger, so that is alright then. We make our own way through this life.

We’re not telling our older sister anything until both our processes are well underway. There’s no need to inform the whole world until we are fully ready to. I’d like to present everybody with a given fact as much as possible. The beauty lies in the perfect formula in that you don’t have to check with everybody and ask for their stamp of approval or their blessing.

It will be good to hear the words, I now stop pronouncing you man and wife, or something along those lines.

Wel, I have to go and try and take the dog for a walk. My real post for today is below here, in case you haven’t read that yet. Here’s to the true emancipation of womanhood for my sisters and I and hopefully for our daughters too. I know we can do it and come out as fully functioning and capable human beings. You just wait and see.

Ciao…

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