Ginger

Combing through iPhoto today and found this. Ginger was the sweetest of the Freedom Ride horses I met at their annual Derby Day Soiree fundraiser last May. I wasn't as confident approaching some of the others!

Spent some time with Kat last week. Standing in a stall while she cleaned her horses' feet and described how much grain they eat (Scully-dog scavenged any bits Sienna scattered off the floor), it shocked me to realize how much fear I seem to have developed over the years. From horse-crazy adolescent to wary adult; when did that happen? But I do miss riding in the desert; and marvel at memories of myself going out to catch my ornery horse at John's place, pushing hard in the dark to reach the river by moonrise, and keeping up with Tom while he gave Brandy a workout. Only ten years and a lifetime ago; was that me?

The Mirror and the Wall

In a relationship, my partner mirrors the places I need to grow, and is the wall I need to push against.

And a real gem from Shaina: When someone tells you "no", he has just saved you from spending an evening with someone who really didn't want to be there! Or from a fruitless (frustrating) conversation with someone who is unable to give you the attention you need at that moment. That is to say, he (or she) is doing you a favor by telling you "no". Brilliant!

Commitment

Bottle Blue

That's the name of the color we finished painting our library/office room today. It's a fabulous, medium-darkish sort of blue (picture a bottle) and will provide a great backdrop for our sci-fi and fantasy collectibles. In addition to painting, we also hung new wood blinds, picked up a neat counterweight desk lamp, and--after much debate and re-arranging--agreed on a new furniture layout. All in all, a very productive day.

I always feel connected with Scott when we "project" together. Certainly there are moments when I want to tell him off! But his style has loosened up (he eyeballs and freehands now!), and mine seems to be getting more present and practical; I resist his suggestions less and I think he's more open to mine. My highlight was when he finally expressed his frustration with the old furniture layout, particularly that he didn't like being crowded and having my things all over his desk! That rare admission instantly broke through my irritation; I laughed and together we looked for ways to solve that problem.

And somewhere inbetween all that, we rescued a baby squirrel!

Mmm-mm Moment

Pushed against a pattern today. In a small way that seems almost silly, but then that's why they're called baby steps, right?

After lunch (I've been cooking fresh food for myself the last week or two, which has been a great improvement over the long run of frozen and prepared food I've existed on the last few months; it never seemed worthwhile to cook for myself), I found myself craving a Cookie. And after knocking about all the cupboards, I couldn't find anything else that would satisfy my craving. So I restlessly pulled down my cookie cookbook (which I'd flipped through the last time I craved cookies and didn't make them) and found a recipe for Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies. Man, did that sound good.

Yet I did everything in my power to thwart myself from fulfilling my desire. Coming at it from a feeling of defeatedness before I even began, I looked for the slightest reason NOT to make cookies. Oh, too bad; I didn't have all the necessary ingredients. Oh wait--I do have baking soda. Not enough sugar... but I could raid the sugar bowl. In fact, if I halved the recipe (I certainly didn't need 6 dozen cookies!), I had just enough of everything I needed. Hmm... Well, there isn't enough time; it's only two hours until I leave for work. I looked at the recipe. I paced the four steps across our galley kitchen and back. It was too bad; I sure wished I could have a cookie.

Then I thought angrily, this is ridiculous! Why am I thinking two hours is not enough time? It was a micro-version of the feeling that the rest of my life is somehow not enough time to start something new. Or that a cookie-making detour was not worth the time it was going to take (unless I was ready to commit a whole day to baking--all the way or nothing!). Well, what else was I going to do for two hours? Next thing I knew I was in action; slowly at first, but then picking up speed and having more fun as I went--discovering I had pecans to throw in the mix; realizing I could use my big stand mixer. I suddenly remembered the time I journaled about making banana-nut bread; I'd forgotten the simple satisfaction of measuring, making, reaping edible results.

So, less than an hour after my "a-ha" moment, I was having a happy and satisfying "mmm-mm" moment with crispy chocolate chip pecan cookies, a glass of milk, and the next chapter of Prince Caspian!

Of course, after that all I wanted to do was take a nap!

Monday

It's Monday morning, and I'm struggling (as I frequently do on beautiful, sunny mornings with the whole, excruciatingly long day ahead of me) with a sense of being lost, directionless, displaced. What should I do? Where should I start? How will I fill this day? It's not that I don't have plenty of stuff to do; the office (currently under renovation) is a shambles, I have business calls to make, and there's always more laundry. It's more like I have no guiding principle or goal or priority to direct the flow of activity. And it's not that I have no purpose or see no value in my life; it's that I can't connect these mundane activities to that sense of purpose (which I hold in my head, but really experience only in fleeting moments).

A few weeks ago in despair I made an analogy to the laundry. No matter how much laundry I do, how well or how often I do it, there's always more laundry. And while I'm not now in despair or hopeless or wilting under a feeling of futility, I just can't seem to Organize my Life.

The kitchen timer has just sounded; mealtimes provide markers throughout my day, and Scott's return from work divides it. Otherwise my day is a formless void that I struggle to fill, and at the end of which I marvel at (anad shame myself over) how little I accomplished in so much time.

Overtaxed

Well, after spending the last couple of weeks blaming myself for lollygagging around and not getting anything done, I finally snapped to today (with a little catalytic help from Ron and Marcie) and gave myself permission to BE SICK. Instead of dividing my energy between taking care of my health and trying to work--and doing neither of them well--I've decided to devote the rest of the weekend to my own recovery. Without the guilt of feeling "lazy" over my head, I feel better already!

So after a trip to the allergist (who I left armed with an action plan, three scripts and two educational websites), I stopped for an excellent bowl of Caribbean Chicken Soup at Pollo Tropical (it reminds me of sancocho; and the new shrimp soup looks suspiciously like asopado) and passed a pleasant hour at Target choosing leisure activities... the Revenge of the Sith soundtrack (with bonus DVD!) and the complete Chronicles of Narnia in a fat paperback omnibus edition. Oh, yeah, and another ship to hang from the ceiling of our space-fantasy themed office, currently under renovation...

I feel so much more relaxed now... amazing how big a strain feeling guilty and angry at myself put on my already taxed system! And after all this time, I still forget to be aware of stuff like this.

Synergy

Deadly Emotions

Joyce Meyer's guests this morning were Dr. Don and Mary Colbert. Dr. Colbert is the author of Deadly Emotions, which I've been meaning to check out ever since the first time I heard him speak.

That time, Dr. Colbert got my attention when he described a physical parallel to restimulation (when you encounter a stimulus and because your old brain doesn't know the difference between the present and the past, you respond emotionally as you did when you first encountered this stimulus--in childhood, for example). Dr. Colbert said that a part of your brain (the amigdala, I think) stores the memory of your body's physical response, and so when you are restimulated [my word], your body has the same physical reaction--for example, an adrenaline rush. He went on to show how one thing leading to another can make you really sick (e.g. sustained adrenaline -> increased cortisol, which if sustained will basically start eating you from the inside... hope I remembered all that right!).

Today Joyce asked him and Mary about workaholics and people who can't rest. Some highlights:

He called anxiety the "common cold of mental illness"! He talked about needing to renew the mind, to re-program your brain with truth from the Word (like what I do in group: remind myself of truth and replace old recordings with true ones). Mary said that people expect something or someone "out there" to change the way they live or they way they think (like God waving a magic wand), when really only they can take control of and change those things. "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got."

One of Joyce's favorite verses is 1 Peter 5:8 (Amplified): Be well balanced (temperate, sober of mind), be vigilant and cautious at all times; for that enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion roaring [[a]in fierce hunger], seeking someone to seize upon and devour.

I think Dr. Colbert is going to be on the show all week, if you want to check it out: 9:30AM M-F on BrightHouse channel 14. And, I didn't realize his office is right here in Longwood!

Think Denk

Think Denk:

What a wonderful word is "moot"... I imagine a map like Tolkien's, of Middle Earth, with a land named Moot, to which all irrelevant comparisons and questions are banished; or perhaps they simply choose to live in Moot, like some people choose to live in Idaho. There they would live, exchanging non sequiturs, while the rest of us pursue our linear, logical ways.

Just thought this was a wonderful image!

Shaken

I've been avoiding the news. After being exposed to it all day on Wednesday, I've pretty much stuck to the updates and what I get from friends and family, all of who are feeling their helplessness. Tonight I picked up a paper at Panera and read.

I read things that moved me to tears. People dying in shelters from Day One (what kind of existence did they have, to have been living 24 hours from death?). Learning that Florida schools are enrolling newly-homeless children. Victims arriving in Houston being designated "domestic refugees". Rescue workers being shot at. Pain, fear, anger I understand; but what motivates a person to fire on the very help he awaits before it has a chance to reach him? To rape and beat fellow disaster victims?

Things that angered me. Wounds, wounds; one man saying that it felt like the government was punishing the people of New Orleans. A university professor who thinks the government should have ordered a mandatory evacuation on Thursday--when the storm was still in South Florida, and who knew that it would survive crossing the peninsula and strengthen, much less where it was going to hit? The government is not God; neither is it the devil. And hindsight is always 20/20.

I'm so distressed. Last year when Florida was ravaged by four storms, I witnessed the best in people, peppered with some of the worst. Now all I see is the worst, and it's shaking me.

Gas, incidentally, is up to $3.11 (from $2.99 yesterday and $2.48 the day before). But with all that's happening, if that's the worst effect we feel locally, then I have nothing to complain about.