On Diet or Good Mood:

Let me be one of the first this year to say, out loud, that I am not on a diet to loose weight.

It seems that a lot of people out there dieting since the first of the year.

I have long since past the mark of the big Five-O. I’ve past through and gone on into menopause, and I’m not afraid to call myself old.

I’ve seen cancer and the death of my eldest child. I’ve lost friends and family to death by accident and disease. I’ve lost my hair to chemo and waited until it all grew back.

I’ve climbed mountains and swam in oceans, I’ve sung on stage for money to strangers, learned to dance the tango, mastered in a craft or two and generally enjoy my life.

So, I flatly refuse to make myself miserable by the fact that I’m over weight and having a hell of a time overcoming it.

This does not mean that I am giving up.

I will still exercise because it is good for me. I’ll eat right because I do not want to make the situation worse. But, I will not under any circumstances diet to loose weight ever again.

I may some day loose the extra poundage I have acquired. I also may not. But if I do, it won’t be because I starved myself on some freakish fad diet or popped some pills to get there. It will be because I finally found the balance I’ve needed for so long in my life.

So, until then, I will never again have the excuse that I’m on a diet and that is why I’m so cranky. I’ll just be cranky because I’m in a bad mood.

By the way I’m in a great mood today. Mostly because I’m not on a diet.

On Scheduling, Brought to You by TV:

First let me say that I do know how to tell time. I just didn’t grow up in a household that used clocks.

It was the TV programming that told us when it was time to leave for school or go to bed, not the clock. Once a certain program came on we were to leave for school in the mornings. If the first commercial break came on we had to run all the way, if the next was on we were late and needed a note.

Program theme songs told us when it was time to eat or go to bed. Home work was done before or after a favorite after school cartoon show. Dinner was always tolled by ‘The Flinstone’s’ theme song at our house.

The Television was always on and a backdrop to our days. A force. A constant. A time piece.

“Be home from your friends house by the Evening News” or “Right after “Wagon Train.”

I used to blog in the mornings around 7:00 AM, right after my morning cartoon show. But they changed my morning television line up and I’m a bit lost.

The new time for my show conflicts with my yoga practice and I find myself not getting on the computer until the afternoon now.

This way of telling time is a wonderment to Mountain Man. He laughs and tell me once again that we have no less then six working clocks in the house, not counting watches, and the computers and cell phones also have clocks in them. That it shouldn’t matter what is on the TV. But for me it just does.

The TV as time piece is just how I’m wired since birth. I can’t be the only one. Can I?

On Black Hats Vs White Hats:

I watched a cartoon the other day. It was ‘Pearly.’ This cartoon is about two fairy cousins living in a garden called Jubilee Park. Pearly a bright eyed, white haired, sweetness and light, helpful fairy, and her cousin Safirah (or Mistress by her minions) is a squint eyed, black haired, mean and demanding, greedy fairy.

What caught my eye was Safirah’s clothing. Black and purple and spiders web. Things I myself like. I was hoping that it was not that old cliché of evil/black, good/white.

In this cartoon, Fairy magic is used to make the world a better place. Pearly uses her magic for everyone’s benefit and Safirah uses her magic for her own benefit and to try to make the downfall of Pearly.

It is all evil is easy to recognize. Black and rats and bats are bad. White and flowers and sparklies are good.

Thou the lessons that are being taught about being nice and helpful is better to be then greedy and mean.

The lesson of not judging a book by its cover or that bad things can come in pretty packages is lost. Isn’t that how child molesters catch kids? With candy and fun games or helplessness?

I like cartoons for the most part and prefer the ones that have a life lesson. But lessons of ‘You’ll know the bad guys when you see them.’ keeps kids away from good guys in black hats and playing with the bad guys dressed in the white ones.

A lot of Goths have heart’s of pure gold.

On The Trouble Of Living With Lists:

I know I’ve said it before but my memory is not what it used to be and this gives rise to confusion. Like yesterday for instance.

I had been sick earlier this week and not doing my chores around the house. I woke yesterday morning and got right down to the business of the cleaning list so I would be caught up for the weekend.

Laundry sorted and in the washer, crafting projects straightened and put away, clearing clutter, hanging the clothes to dry by the wood stove, cooking and baking, folding and putting away said clothing…

Mountain Man brought wood in and cleaned out the chimneys, vacuumed and got his clutter cleared away. Dogs were bathed. Sidewalks cleared of snow…

We sat and breathed, happy we accomplished everything on the list.

Except… I hadn’t remembered to turn on the computer. To Blog!!! How could I forget to have fun and friendship yesterday?

I did things out of order to my normal day and I didn’t remember to blog because it wasn’t on the list of ‘cleaning things to do.’

It makes me feel like if I lost my lists I’d loose my mind.

If you still have your short term memory, enjoy it. If not, laugh yourself silly at my expense. We will never remember things, but life will be a daily adventure.

On Pruning Relationships:

So I was sitting in bed for the last few days, with a migraine head ache, and not being able to do anything else I was thinking. Mostly thinking about how I wasn’t as happy lately as I used to be.

I came to realize that I wasn’t as happy as I had been before my daughters wedding. Not because I don’t think it was right for her, or that I don’t like him, or any other negative reason I could think of. I love my new son-in-law like my own children.

I’m pretty sure it was the change. I was expecting some change in my relationship with my daughter, but maybe not so fast or complete.

Though I’ve gained a son I’ve lost some of the closeness to my daughter. A closeness that is already hard to maintain since we live six hours away from each other.

I was looking at the dead flowers of our relationship and crying, and not deadheading them so new flowers can grow. I’ve turned over a new leaf and now that I see want I was doing I’m happy once again because I can make things better and not just let it grow worse.

I’ve cut those old apron strings for myself and I feel better.















The rumbled flower from my Venus Flytrap. It grew into the lid of the terrarium and bent it’s peddles.

On Icy Cold and Windy:

This weekend just flew by and I just never seemed to get to the computer. I like to be busy, but not so busy that I can’t get to visit with my friends on the web.

The weather turned colder and we had a few minor emergencies. Nothing major, just frozen pipes and icy walkways. Cold jobs that take time and then you have to thaw your hands out afterwards.















We did manage to get some silly/sad icicles after the sun came out strong for a few hours the other day. They looked more like something you’d see on the Addams Family home, but I didn’t mind that they came to dress up my house for the day.

We’ve been keeping the wood stove well fed. I, for one, am glad that we cleaned out the chimneys last week and we don’t have to let the fires go out to clean them this week. It is just too cold out there.

Well I have a cup of tea waiting and some more jigsaw puzzles to do. If I work it out just right I won’t have to go too far from the wood stove at all today. May you have a warm cozy corner to curl up into also.

On Happy New Year 2010:

Do Over! Do Over! Last night we played The Catapult game after I put it together, and Mountain Man kept himself busy while I was making it by making himself a paper 1930’s car. (Thank you Raven Blight’s paper toys.)

We set the game up on the floor and lobbed bundles of spikes at a vampire in a vault some seven feet away.

I won by the way. I had a bundle of spikes score a goal when it bounced off the dog as he walked by.

I also printed out a version of a working paper clock last night. I have wanted to make one since I was about eight years old and saw one in a museum. And since I seem to be getting good at making Raven’s paper toys. a clock is my next goal. There are only 160 small to tiny paper parts to cut out and glue together.

The clock I found on the web has a few metal parts using wire for axles, unlike the one I saw as a kid, but I think for a starter project with a free download it will do very well.

Back to the New Years Eve high lights: The pizzas were great and we had sparkling mixed berry juice to wash it all down. I made strawberry chocolate cookies for desert.

We danced the tango through the house to ‘Sally’s Song’ from ‘Nightmare Before Christmas.’ (There is a tango version of the song on the two disk Soundtrack CD.)

At midnight we watched the ball drop in Times Square with the sound down and our own music playing, Mary Hopkin’s ‘Those Were The Days’ and I buried the old year in the paper crypt.

Good-bye and Rest in Peace 2009. We are starting over and moving on. And yes I’ll say it, ‘With time on my hands.’