CANCER (June 21-July 22): Neuroscientists at Britain’s Bristol University have concluded that playing in the dirt can make you feel really good. That’s because most soil is crawling with species of bacteria that interact favorably with the human body, strengthening the immune system and stimulating the brain in the same way antidepressants do. The astrological omens suggest that you capitalize on this discovery, Cancerian. You can obtain great health benefits from playing in a sandbox, wrestling with a friend in the dirt, creating mud pies, or smearing clay on your face. In fact, having any kind of messy, down-to-earth fun is highly recommended.
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September 2007.
Can’t talk – head full of goo, ears clogged, throat sore – too busy feeling sorry for myself..
This guy is very cool for showing a few of his tools, the way he manages to do the “regular stuff” in life, and for his wicked sense of humour in this video.
I love gadgets of any sort – especially reaching tools – and I’m extremely fascinated by tools used to accomodate physical differences between individuals. It’s my personal belief that the world should be as accomodating as possible to as many people as possible.
Earlier today, I made a trip to Old Navy to pick up some “around the house wear”. I don’t normally shop at Old Navy – or any store at the mall, really – but I happened to see a big SALE sign that drew me in.
Unless I’m leaving the house, or someone’s planning to visit, I tend to spend my days wearing jamma pants, t-shirts, hoodies and yoga pants. Part of it is the simple fact that I’m a slacker who values comfort far more than fashion. The bigger part is due to my ulcer – my stomach bloats, unbloats, hurts, aches and generally acts like a big old jerk if it’s uncomfortable in my clothes. Jamma pants and yoga pants do not cause pain. My friends have grown mostly accustomed to my “uniforms”.
The reason I don’t shop at Old Navy is simple: I consider their clothes (and those at the Gap) to be as close to disposable as one can buy in a mall. They aren’t well-made and they’re not well-structured, and that’s why I wasn’t even a little bit surprised to note that pretty much everything in Old Navy was selling for $10 or less today. This is a good opportunity for me, however, because I’m wearing these clothes around the house and if a seam drops it makes absolutely no difference.
(Am I making myself sound REALLY PRETTY here or what?! So fancy! Come on, you KNOW you want to put on your own jamma pants and come join me. Ha!)
The sale enabled me to pick up several pairs of comfy pants, jammas and a t-shirt to wear underneath my hoodies this winter. I came home with a bag stuffed with more clothes than I can remember buying in the past few years, other than my bra/thong/socks purchases at Target. Today I spent well under $100.
And now I have even LESS motivation to wear anything other than slacker pants and that, quite frankly, makes me really really really happy.
The older I get (she says, at the ripe ol’ age of THIRTY-TWO) the harder it becomes for me to be judgemental about.. well, ANYTHING, really.
The child screaming – wailing, flailing, red-faced – in the grocery store no longer causes me to cringe and wonder what kind of terrible parent would allow such behaviour. It now makes me wonder about an assortment of childhood disorders, adoptive families, pervasive delays and autism and how most of these issues are “invisible”.
The person with the house and yard falling down around them used to make me wonder why people didn’t have more pride in their home and their belongings. Now I’m an adult who knows how expensive life is, how small minimum wage really is, and rather than criticizing them, I wonder if there’s a way that I could help them out.
The person with depression, feeling dark and low and finding nothing to feel happy about, used to make me wonder why they didn’t just put some effort into living their life and getting the hell out of bed. Now I know that depression is a horrible, energy-sucking whore that makes everything a thousand times harder. A single step can be like swimming through jello. This one, however, leaves me feeling powerless – because I know that my own depression has, at times, made me angry at those who tried to help. I struggle to be with people who are depressed.
.. And on and on and on…
It’s like the entire world has shifted and now, somehow, nothing is black and white.
It only takes a second to shift from anger, or hostility, to feeling empathy. Everyone – every single person in this world – has their own struggle and if it doesn’t look and feel like mine it doesn’t make it any less of a struggle for that person. Or, for me, even, should I end up in their shoes. I keep reminding myself of this and sometimes I wish I could remind other people, too.
(It’s been making its way around in all the blogs I read so I’m not attributing this as swiped from anyone in particular!)
Ten Blogging Confessions
1. Do you promote your blog?
Other than in my .sig file (email) and when I leave a comment on someone else’s blog, no, I don’t really promote it. Since my blog does not have a “theme” and is either too wordy or too scattered (by my own definitions), I don’t imagine I’m the sort of blog writer that COULD garner huge crowds. The readers I do have, however, are pretty wonderful, so I’m don’t feel like I’m missing much, other than insane amounts of pressure, by not promoting and grabbing more readers. I do have my blog information printed on my Moo cards and on my Facebook profile.
2. How often do you check hits?
I peek at my WordPress stats page once a day, generally, unless I’m tracking a specific ‘trend’. On my old blog I was somewhat more obsessed and checked it several times a day to see who/what/when..
3. Do you stick to one main topic?
Not really. It’s all about me, of course, but it mostly veers around wherever my mind happens to slide when it comes to general topics and themes.
4. Who knows you have a blog?
Quite a few people! I don’t use my last name here on the blog so as to avoid being easily found via Google, but it’s not impossible to locate me if one’s very persistent. There are people reading my blog that I’m not THRILLED to have around but, really, who cares? It’s not like they’re living next door and following me around, y’know?
5. How many blogs do you read?
There are 5 or 6 that I read ‘normally’ and over 300 in my RSS reader, and then about 15 in my Livejournal list. In short, I could easily sit and read blogs all day, every day, as people update. Instead, I do it in bursts.
6. Are you a fast reader?
Extremely. And I love to read – blogs, magazines, books, pamphlets, signs..
7. Do you customise you blog or do anything technical?
I do all of my own work around here these days – with some assistance from Coffee if I get completely confused by something database-related – but I’d love to find someone to do a complete redesign of my blog for me. Sadly, I doubt I can afford most people’s rates. :)
8. Do you blog anonymously?
I have, in the past, but for the most part I can’t resist signing my name to the various things that I write (sans last name, usually).
9. To what extent do you censor yourself?
More than I’d like to, sadly. Part of this comes from my never-ending internal need to justify myself – and my contrary urge to NOT justify myself. It’s easier to NOT justify myself if I avoid the subjects that make me feel twitchy in the first place, y’know? Another part of my reluctance to address certain subjects is that my blog has been used “against me” in the past – and I’d like to avoid that again.
10. The best thing about blogging?
I meet THE coolest people via blogging. Sometimes in person, even! I’m always really shy about replying to comments from new people – especially if I think they’re keen – so it’s all very silly and highschool-esque to me at times. But oh, man, I have made some amazing friends and learned some very interesting things AND I keep finding more groovy people to follow around (blog-wise).. I love blogging. I really do. It’s also a great way for me to sort things out, get great advice and hear other people’s opinions.
Remember, some time ago, when I wrote about how much fun it is to do nice things for strangers? Like holding open a door or offering to help them wrangle their groceries and small toddler into a cart?
Here’s a super-duper easy way to brighten someone’s day – someone who could really use it.
Coffee and I bought two “get well” cards today, wrote a short little note, and will be mailing them on Monday. You should do it too. It’s fun to get unexpected mail – especially when it’s from well-wishers and not the cable company – and when you’re feeling crappy it’s even BETTER to get something kind and thoughtful in the mail…
For the past few days, I’ve been feeling crappy. A migraine has been bouncing around in my head, downgrading itself to a mere headache, then slamming back into my brain as a migraine once again. Add in some sinus congestion that, also, comes and goes, and some serious cramping in my girlie-parts and, well, I am not feeling particularly pretty. I’m hoping this is purely hormonal and not some sort of plague.
Earlier today I did a grocery run and picked up some assorted toys at the local pet supply store for the wild hooligans. For most of the afternoon, Daisy and Zooey romped around gnawing and tugging and chewing – silently – and then they both toddled off to their crates for an extended nap. I looked up and they were gone!
During one of the lulls in my whining and hurting, I also managed to vacuum up the bigger-than-the-dogs-themselves tumbleweeds of dog hair that were making their way around the house. Just getting that done was enough to make me feel like the house was dipped in bleach. It felt a trillion times cleaner than it had 10 minutes prior. Let’s all avert our eyes from the rest of the mess and stare down at our non-hair-covered feet, ok?
Now I’m waiting – as patiently as possible – for my beloved husband to return home. Fridays are his “early” day and that means he’ll be home shortly after 8pm. Huzzah!
I am determined to enjoy this weekend even if I have to get a caffeine IV hooked into my vein to keep me upright.
But I beg to differ. So sweet and so sad.
I’m back to craving cabbage sammiches – perhaps I’m short on vitamin C? – and it’s been wonderful to chow down on something so crisp and sweet.
Have I posted the recipe in the past? I don’t know and I can’t be bothered to look. Here’s the recipe:
Violet’s Special Cabbage Sammiches.
(Serves One)
1. Take one pita pocket of your choosing (but not “greek style” – they don’t have pockets) and cut it in half to form 2 pockets. I like whole wheat or garlic+olive oil.
2. Smear the inside of the pockets with some sort of salad dressing. I like Renee’s Garlic Lovers creamy sauce for this because it’s STRONG and Canadian!
3. Open a bag of pre-shredded “coleslaw” salad mix and fill the pockets with as much cabbage as humanly possible. I like the kind that also includes shredded carrots and has two colours of cabbage – you can buy the store brand and it won’t make any difference.
4. Eat it and try not to make a huge mess.
When I mention this recipe to people they often look skeptical. How can shredded cabbage taste good in a sammich? Just give it a taste. If you hate it, you can always toss the shredded cabbage into soup or make regular ol’ coleslaw. But you won’t hate it. You, too, will become kind of addicted.
Speaking of eating until you explode..
(How was that for a segue?)
There are Bluejays dive-bombing our house. They’re extremely fond of the peanuts I place on the porch each morning and have decided to let me know whenever a) I’m not up early enough to put them out for their breakfast or, b) I didn’t put enough nuts out for the entire neighbourhood’s Jay population to consume over the course of the day.
We’re going through bags of peanuts-in-the-shell like water!
Bluejays always make me think of the autumn season – the screaming, the assorted noises, the shrieking of anger when I piss them off… combined with the half-naked maple tree at the front of our house and the nice cool air flowing through the windows this morning, a girl could get the feeling that fall really is coming.
Speaking of fall, I’ve been getting this strange, foreign, inexplicable urge to have people over to our house for Thanksgiving dinner. Sadly for me (but luckily for my friends) the majority of people I’d want to invite will be spending the day with their own family and it’s a bit of overkill to eat ginormous meals two days in a row PLUS leftovers.
Coffee totally lucks out in this situation, however, because I am absolutely, positively, DEFINITELY making a ginger-spiced-pumpkin cheesecake.
Anyone wanna’ come to KW for Thanksgiving? I might even share some of my stuffing…
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