It's more than just a hippy thing

I smiled tonight as I slipped my key into the front door lock.
I knew what would be behind the door.
My beautiful, hardwood floors were covered in muddy dog paw prints. My white kitchen floor, even worse. My backyard after a solid day of rain yesterday, would be a muddy and unkempt looking, and the holes the puppy I've been fostering had dug would be mud holes. None of this would not stop me from taking my dogs out to play. The sun was out again, and the temperature a perfect 58-ish degrees.

As the youngest child of a large family, I was rarely ever alone. Someone was always taking me somewhere, picking me up from somewhere, watching me, in charge of me, or just plain with me. My mom tells me that I used to be really good at giving friends in the cul desac the slip, and slipping into the house and retreat to my room. Once there, I'd bury myself in a book. I still remember that room in the house on Bing Court, the little room at the top of the stairs with the pink rose wallpaper (this was not my choice, blame my sister, Karen). I'd curl up on my twin bed with one of the Chronicles of Narnia and read..and nap. On many occasions my friends and family would be in an outright panic, trying to locate me once the street lights came on (the get your butt home alarm in my family) and only my mom would think to check my room. It seems even in grade school I was looking for my little space in the world. The one without noise or drama, and apparently, other people.

My first place on my own was an efficiency apartment-thing on a horse farm. It was one room and a bathroom, one closet, one sink, one microwave, and a two burner stove. I was deliriously happy there. It was there I learned that phones are a convenience I pay for, not you the caller, me, the callee. (hush). Here I answered the phone when I was okay with being interrupted. This place was far enough out in the country that there was no such thing as unexpected, drop in visitors.

This expanded when I moved to a condo. In condominiums everyone comes to your door, neighbors from up or downstairs, across the hall, or across the street, kids selling cookies, or kites, or titanium screws, mail and package carriers, Jehovah's witnesses, people looking for "spanish speaking members of the household", you name it. This exacerbated my behavior to include, "if I wasn't expecting you, I didn't answer the door" even if you saw me in my house, through the giant sliding glass door before you knocked on my door. Ever.

The people in my life that love me, they get it. A few told me they couldn't possibly sit through the ringing of their phone and not get it., but they understood enough to know I wouldn't if I was reading, or talking to a friend or watching a good movie. I always return calls.

All these years later, I am much the same, with very few exceptions, I answer the door and phone when it suits me to do so. I return calls when I know I have the time and attention to dedicate to the caller that they would want me to.

I love to lay on my bed in my self painted yellow bedroom on a sunny day and listen to whatever I can hear. Controlling the external static in my home gives me great comfort and yes, peace. I know it's a temporary state. I know sooner or later I will have to deal with all of the things I am putting off, and I will. Just not now.

Right now, I will revel in the peace that I create.

Wherever you find peace in your own life or whatever you have to do to create it, for yourself and for your loved ones, tend it well, never take it for granted, one glance at any internatoinal headline will tell you how blessed you are. Anyone who has survived a home filled with domestic violence can tell you how lucky you are to have a space to feel safe in and everyone, everyone deserves a little more Peace.

Junk drawers

Today, I came up close with my junk drawer. The real one in my kitchen, and the one in my head.

To be honest, I have way more than 1 junk drawer in my kitchen, but I TRY to keep one full of all the cords and chargers for the electronic crap I own. Thankfully the good people that make all those cords put the name of the device on the charger making it easy for me to identify what cord goes to what small metal object I can't live without. Otherwise, I'm fairly certain I would have blown up/burned out all of these little electronic things I own.

Rifling through one of them today, I ran across my Garmin. I bought this when I first moved to NC, HAD to have it...and I did use it, for about 3 months. It has a setting where you can tell the garmin how fast you want to run, and it will yell at you in electronic fashion, when you are going too fast, or too slow. I *thought* I would like that, I did NOT. It did keep track of my pace, and my miles per week. I also found, in my drawer, two stop watches and two heart rate monitors.

I closed the drawer without removing any of it, and drove to a neighboring town for my run. I couldn't find my running schedule, but I thought I was down for 4, maybe 5. I ran 6. It was one of the best runs I've had in a long while. The night before I had read an article about negative self talk - the article was about weight loss and self-sabotage, not running, but it applies to running, plenty of people tell me they don't run, because the "can't". I've always wondered where that comes from.

As I started tonight, unfettered by worry about heart rates or splits or even just pacing, I wondered if I had negative self talk ahead, so I let the thoughts roll through.
I always think of Al D. when I run. He was a friend of my brothers and a multiple IRONMAN, Al used to tell me to 'just keep putting one foot in front of the other', as I came up a small hill, my head jumped to 'this ain't no E. Maple Avenue', my predawn running days in Sterling at Chrismas with all those gigantic blow up grinches and santas and the like, the first time I ran 10 miles by myself, crossing the bridge over route 28 and listening to Eye of the Tiger, I thought about my dogs, my family, my potential Thanksgiving plans, realized my tennis shoes matched my shirt and shoes, felt like a dork for matching, saw a cairn terrier on the trail and wondered when Wizard of Oz would be on TV again, wondered how I was going to discreetly dislodge my running shorts wedgie, and realized I left wet laundry in the washer.

I'm no Rebecca of Sunnybrook farm, and I'm fairly certain I've run into negativity when running before. I just can't remember it very clearly. One of my running coaches told me during marathon training to check myself. Lungs ok? Legs ok? Are you hurt? Or is this just hard? Those four little checks are all I've needed. That last one, it's the kicker. Running is sometimes hard, but I *can* do hard things. Hard is not impossible.

I had new music for my run, because there are some electronic devices I can't give up., some of it made me laugh, I believe Pink's "leave me alone tonight" is very possibly my new theme song (that is, if I had an old one, this would replace it) and some of it made me sad, some of it pushed up the hill and to run hard for the last .25 miles. Train like you'll race, Cravey.

There's been a lot of JUNK in my life lately. I've been stressed out, angry, frustrated, tearful, regretful, over-tired, scared, restless, losing sleep, and downright cranky. I am sick of it. I do not now how to deal with most of the things that are working me over like a loser in the UFC octagon. Most of it is unchartered territory for me. I am angry that I am letting myself be so affected by all of this STUFF.I am disappointed that I can't look at the rest of my life, at all of the great, wonderful, fantastic, things and people I have surrounded myself with and AM truly grateful for.

Running usually clears my head and helps me better prioritize my junk drawer, I don't know yet, if that happened tonight, I just know I desperately want to close the damn drawer and walk away from it.

My Beach Ball*

This is the chair I took from my brother's house when he died.
I don't know where he got it, or why. I know it sat just to the left of his fireplace directly across from the big chair Mark always sat in. When I would come to visit, or to drop off the dog; this is the chair I always chose to sit in to visit with Mark and anyone else who happened to be there. It's more comfortable than it appears and I always liked the creaky sounds it made when you shifted your position.

I took home to my condo in Sterling, and moved it from room to room, I used it to stand on to reach high places when I was painting. There are still paint spots of institutional white on the lowest rung. I moved it to North Carolina with me where once when I was cleaning I moved it out onto the deck and forgot it about it and it got rained on. It's a bit worse for wear these days. Yet, I cannot throw it out. These days, this chair holds pillows, mail, magazines and sometimes my feet, but I never sit in it like I did when it was in my brothers house.

I am not much of a 'things' person. I don't care if you spill things on my couch, or my clothes, or if your dog vomits in my car. These things will all clean up, for the most part, and what stains remain are just remnants of life being lived around these things. I can't quite bring myself to let go of this chair, though. I don't know if I just see him more clearly as time goes by when I look at the chair, or if I'm just being overly sentimental. Bottom line is, I don't care. It's staying. I can't/don't sit in it anymore, but I did just move it out of the corner of my living room, and I'd be happy to offer it to a friend stopping by for a visit.


*For all but one of you, the title won't make sense, for the one that does - thanks for sharing that story with me.

For Wordsmiths

She found the place by accident, needing to sit somewhere, and even though the place was deserted, it looked warm; something she was not. She scoffed quietly to herself when she read the name. The only heroes in this world were sandwiches. The ones she saw on the worn pages of the crumpled, dusty, comic books she found when cleaning out the attic in her parents house didn’t count.
They were her brothers’ old comic books, boxes of them. Next to the boxes of his clothes, school papers, trophies, and all those damn pictures.
If you didn’t know the family, you’d think he was an only child.
She may as well not exist.
She was the one left, the one who took care of the final arrangements for her father last week, saw to it that the bills were paid, cleaned out the attic, and the rest of the house, and finally, today, turned the keys over to the realtor.
After staring stupidly at the blurred words on the laminated menu, the gum-cracking, saddle shoe tapping waitress took her order for ‘just coffee, please.’ She didn’t even drink coffee but it seemed the only way to make the waitress and her scent-shroud of menthol cigarettes and hairspray go away.
The coffee came and she mindlessly dropped a sugar cube in to the cup, stirred.
She watched the street hoping for something to happen.
Something that might tell her what to do next.
She thought about the little pistol. It was weird, discovering her father owned a gun. Why did he have a gun? It wasn’t old, clearly not an heirloom of any kind. Yet, there it was, clean and well protected in its little case.
She took it home the day she found it. The pistol and its pretty little bullets.
Since then, she’d caught herself day dreaming about it. In her mind, the steel glowed, almost too bright to look at, like the face of watch caught in the sunlight.
She could sell it. She should turn it in to the police station. One of those amnesty things. It would be less trouble that way. No questions. No explanations. No admitting that she really might not have known her dad.

She wiped a stray tear away.

She heard someone come in and sit order coffee, like her. She glanced over her shoulder and their eyes met. He smiled, then nodded at her. She tried to return the smile and turned back to her cold coffee.

The waitress returned; asked if anything was wrong with her coffee. She shook her head, and ducked her gaze, as the waitress tucked her bill under the saucer.

She rose to leave, glancing at the newcomer. She avoided his eyes as she passed, but felt him graze her sleeve with his fingertips,
“Young lady? His life is over. Not yours. Get rid of that thing”

His gentle words propelled her out to the street and the tears came.

Finally, a quiz that "gets" me!

Your result for Reincarnation Placement Exam...

Reclusive Artist

We think we've found a place for you.

Your answers indicate that you're very fond of the fruits of civilization... for example, education and technology. But, in some twist of irony, you're not too fond of the pressures of civilization... you know, human beings and crowds and working together. We found you a place where you could enjoy an erudite existence, live a life that's intriguing and not entirely secure -- but far from the madding crowd.

Removed from civilization and humanity, yet educated and sophisticated, you'll make the perfect reclusive artist... An eccentric that produces irresistibly attractive masterpieces. Your art will make people swoon, and yet you will despise your audience. Your audience will probably dislike you as well, though they will go on admiring your work. So it all balances out, and your patrons will leave you alone to shape beauty in the wild, dangerous parts of the world where people won't pester you so much. Probably, you will write under a pseudonym, and mutter a lot when a rare admirer comes calling. If you feel really adventurous, you can pursue the role of a political dissident.

As you age, you will grow into the role of an incorrigible curmudgeon.

You artists, you're all the same.

Take Reincarnation Placement Exam at HelloQuizzy

A guy walks into a bar*

On July 4th 2004 I quit smoking. On July 5th, 2004 I started running.
The first thing was a simple decision to not die before my mother. I simply did not want to put her through the act of burying another child.
Yeah, that's really why I quit.

The running thing was more complicated, one part distraction from grief, one part the not dying before my mom thing, and two parts wanting to do something that was HARD and a little bit like punishment.
I'm currently still saving for the therapy I probably need to sort that last bit out.

I've been struggling with my running since I moved to North Carolina in Spring 2005. I've had one injury after another, struggled with finding a gym I didn't hate, and had a horrible time sticking to any kind of training program. I promised myself this year to get my act together and train for an event.

My life finally feels like my own here. I'm not sure what took so long, the complete career change, the leaving the life/place/friends I've had for 20 plus years behind and moving somewhere I knew absolutely no one. Nothing in that to make me feel little off-kilter, right?
There is no way I can train to run 26.2 miles when my kilter is crooked.

Just after the first of the year I started planning, and I started with the need to lose some weight that had found me. It's funny how when you stop running 30-35 miles a week and don't stop eating like you're still running 30-35 miles/week - the weight just finds you and hangs around.
Literally, around.

This summer I had an annual physical, and yes, for the person that said "don't you think you should be over that by now" four years after losing my brother I get all choked up when I have to talk to a medical professional about my family history. The nurse practitioner I saw said great things about my health, my blood work, my body weight and actually asked if she could record my heart for teaching purposes (Ohhellzyeahyoucan) I'm approaching "a certain age" and so I heard a lot of sentences that started with "a woman your age should..." I'll be unhappy about this another time, currently I still feel too good about the visit to get all weird about growing older.

Somewhere between that and the weight loss meetings I've been attending, I've been doing some significant thinking about my health.
I think it started with my mom, she'll be 76 this year, still drives from south Florida to North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania and/or New Jersey and Massachusetts about three times a year. She walks about 5 miles a day, and runs around after her two youngest granddaughters almost daily. My mom, she is no slacker. My dad is about a year older, and my last email from him said he had just finished his first book (to be released at the end of September), and is going antelope hunting in Montana and deer hunting in western Nebraska later this fall. My dad, not a slouch.

Both sets of my grandparents were dead and gone before I was out of grade school. Two, I never met, were dead years before I was born.

I have no intention of lecturing anyone on taking better care of their health. None. I smoked for years, and have been known to eat a tub of cool whip for dinner. In college I lived on free donuts the cops brought us, coke, stale coffee, Ramen noodles and Hormel chili for more years than I can to remember.

I do want to say this though, just about an hour ago, my sister Karen called me, to tell me she is a grandma. Her son, Matthew and his wife Erin welcomed their first baby girl, Jodi, into the world tonight. My mom is a great grandma. That little baby doesn't have any way of understanding how many people already love her, but I'm grateful to be a part of a family that loved themselves and us enough to take care of themselves so they could be here long enough to meet her.

For all it's warts, and age spots, this life is not so bad, and I'll take the warts to hear the happy in my moms voice when she tells me about her first great-grandbaby.



*I am tired of trying to title posts - I am using the first phrase that pops into my head when I put the blinky cursor in the title box. Deal with it.

Stolen from Mojo...

I've started three blog posts today, and not finished one. So yeah, this is all I have for you.
I hope none of you are laboring on labor day.

You Are a Pistachio

You are funky, freaky, and a total character. You're very different than anyone you know. There's no way you're changing the way you are... Which is good, because no one wants you to change.

a href="a href="What'>http://www.blogthings.com/whatnutareyouquiz/">What Nut Are You?