Dharmouse's Journal

Goodness, it's been another year.  The family and I celebrated my 34th (cringe) birthday on the 29th.  We went out for a steak dinner.  It was so lovely not to cook or clean up afterwards!

This year has been such a blur.  I can't even begin to describe how confusing it is to think back to last year's birthday and try to recap everything that happened.  Let's see...

-I pierced my left nostril on my last birthday.  It healed up beautifully and I still love it.  For me to love anything after a year's time is amazing!  I'm even going to get another ear piercing in a few weeks, the top of my ear cartilage, because I had such a terrific experience with the nose.

-The boys hada birthday.  We had Thanksgiving.  I roasted a goose, if my memory serves, and it was pretty good, but this year I'm doing a turkey on the Holland Grill we found at a yard sale for $10.  All the heat stays outside! Yay!!!

-Went to my parents' place for Christmas.  Oh wow, what a celebration.  We totally spoiled all the kids.  It was so cool.   I miss my Mom, Dad, Sister, Bro-in-law and their kiddos so very much.

-January showed me the worst case of seasonal depression (lack of sunlight) I've ever had.  Honestly, if I wasn't nutso before, January did me in.  I didn't do ANYTHING except hibernate in various spots around the house.  February ripped by while I tried to drag myself out of the black pit of oblivion.  March came and granted me a spectacular case of laryngitis, which turned into pneumonia and took 6 weeks and 3 courses of antibiotics (plus a rescue inhaler) to cure.  It left me with chronic fatigue syndrome, which is sort of like the seasonal affective disorder, except that you are AWAKE and miserable, as opposed to comatose and miserable.

-I perked up in May, mostly because I shelled out massive fundage for high quality supplements and herbals.  We took a lovely family vacation to Glacier National Park and saw lots of mountain goats and bighorn sheep.  It was beautiful, and we all had a great time together.  I managed to get myself sufficiently sane and healthy.  Just in time for June, when I got my eyes operated on to correct the congenital strabismus that was inhibiting my peripheral vision.  WOW.  I didn't know I could go crazier than I was before! WOWWWWW!!!  The visual confusion and anxiety I had while my eye muscles were adjusting to their new position made me remember January's madness with nostalgic longing.  Now, however, my eyes are better than they ever have been.  I am so happy with their final look and my improved vision that I'd choose to go through it all over again.  I'd just ask for more ativan.

-July was spent being eyeball crazy and making huge financial errors that almost cost us our house.  That's what my husband gets for putting ME in charge of money, is what I say.  I still feel guilty, but we are still in our home, thank goodness.

-August....HOT!!!  The dogs are misbehaving, work stress is mounting, and I still haven't cleaned the house.  In other words, business as usual.  At the dawn of September, I make the happy discovery that taking my B vitamins at 10 pm actually makes just about everything better for me, and I discover a whole new level of motivation, focus, and organization.  We also start homeschooling for 4th grade, which makes me feel like a moron for ever thinking I could educate these boys properly.  However, after the first week or so, we hit a good rhythm and I discover a new way of presenting lessons that makes this whole thing downright enjoyable, if not time-consuming and completely unappreciated.

And that brings us, basically, to the present.  The big wheel keeps on turning.  I am so grateful for this life experience that it's hard to put into words.  ALL of the difficulty included.

More later...hungry kids...

Thank goodness, the strep throat is done.  I feel much better.  Hurray for tension tamer tea and multivitamins. 

Now I've got to really kick into gear and get my house clean.  We have visitors coming in October and the house is scary looking.  Cleaning isn't my favorite thing in the world, and now I've got tons. Off we go, hi ho.

I'm sick.  Strep throat.  Gaaaah.  Drinking tons of tea right now.  My fave is "Tension Tamer" from Celestial Seasonings.  It's cheap, easily accessible so I can drink as much as I like, and a truly excellent blend.  I always feel better after a cup.  I think it's the Eleuthero in it.

The house is dreary and dirty today.  I need to clean but I feel horrible.  Everyone's in a correspondingly rotten mood and I can't seem to make anything better today.  I'm just trying to stay mindful and watch as this passes on to something new.

I kept pretty busy this week with important stuff, and I'm kind of proud of myself.  My entire house has been a terrible mess for a long time, and it's time to shovel out.  The hard part is, when you've let it go for as long as I have, it's a really depressing, time consuming, and boring Gordian knot of a problem to sort out.  I did do well, though, this week, at keeping on-task and focused.  I was really tempted to spend a lot of time writing journal posts and finding friends and communities here on LJ because it's become my new "sparkly", one of those temporary pet obsessions I get intensely involved in for a period of time and then drop with an equal amount of disinterest.  I'm kind of curious to see if I can draw this one out a little, in hopes of sustaining it as a long term project, so I strictly limited my time here to about 20 minutes each day, reading and looking around.  Four days seems like a just-right time between journal entries, so here I am.

It's a nice, quiet day today.  One of my kids is out hunting with his father, and the other is sequestered downstairs on a video game binge.  I keep telling myself to finish my daily tasks (you know...dishes, laundry, etc.) and yet I haven't managed to spur myself into action yet.  It just feels nice to sit on the couch and read.  I've got two reading selections at the moment, a dharma study book by Pema Chodron called "No Time to Lose"  for cultivating my mindfulness and a couple of manga on the side for pure entertainment.    Pema Chodron is the Abbess of Gampo Abbey, a community of Shambhala monks and nuns in Nova Scotia.  I like how she is able to expound the Tibetan teachings in a Western voice.  It makes the dharma feel less exotic, more down-to-earth and practical, which I think is what it's meant to sound like.  The manga are from Kazuya Minekura, a volume of Saiyuki Reload I had to skip (Vol 4) and her more recent one, Wild Adapter.  She has a way of hooking you in somehow, I wish I could figure it out.  I don't always quite like where she takes her story material and yet...there I go, buying more.  I also gave in and bought volume 1 of Rozen Maiden, something I'd promised myself not to do (because I get hooked on manga series and my habit is already expensive).  Next thing you know I'll be prowling for Bleach or (oh dear) Fruits Basket and shelling out more money I don't have.

I promised myself I'd spend time studying Baha'i Writings this weekend.  My user name is dharmouse, yes, but I am actually, officially, a Baha'i.  This is the coolest thing about the Faith...there is no disparity between studying the dharma and calling yourself a Baha'i, because the Buddha was a manifestation.  I find that, even though His dispensation has been renewed many times since His departure by the other Manifestations after Him, that His teachings, especially mindfulness training, are still so very useful.  It's like a fitness regimen for the mind.  Spiritually speaking, I feel my closeness with God more for Baha'u'llah's Message, which is the most recent.  It is His guidance that is steering me through everyday modern life and challenges.  But for someone with a flickery mind  like mine, Buddha's insistence on paying attention and staying present is a very beneficial.

Well, I am being called away now to do Mom-ish things.  Time for a snack and dog walkies. 

Wow.  I've got an LJ.  I wonder if I'll keep it.  I've never been good at journaling.  I've started several, written in them for a short time, then forgotten them for months or years.  At that point, it feels weird to have such a huge gap in a journal, so I toss it and vow never to try it again.   Inevitably, I find myself thinking how a diary or a blog would be soooo cool, and the whole cycle starts again.  Maybe this time I'll actually stick with it.  Maybe I'll set myself a little weekly reminder, to make sure I don't fall too far behind.   I suppose the whole thing boils down to whether it's rewarding to me to keep it up, so here's to hoping that it is.  I like the IDEA of keeping a journal.  I guess I have to see if the actual experience lives up to my expectations.

I'm a listmaking person.  This is not really by choice.  I learned (finally) that if I don't keep lists, I don't stay happy, healthy, and possibly still married.  Listmaking, I find, can be a very dreary thing.  Lately, though, I have discovered that the tedium is much more bearable if I occasionally throw in a fun or whimsical list.  In the little 5X7 legal pad that serves as my household to-do list, I've jotted down things like '5 things I'd do if I were a supermodel' or '7 non-traditional uses for chewing gum'.   When it's time to sit down and make the lists that guarantee me my daily dose of domestic servitude, it's a lot easier to start if I'm thinking up 10 wacky things to say to door-to-door solicitors.

In that spirit, I'd like to kick off my LJ with a list.  "5 Excuses Why I Wasted Good Work Time By Posting On LJ"

-There's such a critical shortage of blogging housewives and it's my moral obligation to help out, lest the species go extinct.
-The timecube makes it possible to both post AND work, as there are 4 days in one single rotation.  If you do not belive this, you are EDUCATED STUPID AND EVIL.  (Google "time cube", folks, to remedy your stupid evil educational state.)
-Anonymous might just die of boredom if they don't have somebody new to troll.  Again, moral obligation here.
-If I manage to say something reaaaaally stupid, it just might get made into a meme!  Everybody wants to be the one who starts a meme!
-I must post in order to distract Sauron while Frodo and Sam get the RIng to Mt. Doom, precioussss.


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