I’m never going to feel like I’m one of the cool kids. I don’t have a bestie that I can call up to go have brunch on a whim on a Sunday (unless you count my corg)…

That’s the face of someone that loves you… and the food you’re holding. Screw it, there’s love involved, ok?

… and I don’t have a hotly active social calendar that books weeks in advance. I don’t have anyone in my life that I talk to every single day, who knows my every thought and feeling.

Please understand, when I say that, I’m not looking for any kind of sympathy or fake feeling of inclusiveness, and I’m not trying to be manipulative. I enjoy my circle of friends and the interactions we have, and if I’m a little solitary by nature, well, there’s a lot of reasons for it. It took me a long time to learn to open myself up to folks and just be me, and it took me longer to spot the signs of when I’m being used.

And, let’s face it, I can be something of an acquired taste.

My point being, when this mantra came up on my to highlight my day list, I decided to keep it around a little longer than a day, because I like the frame of mind it’s putting me in. I don’t interact with a ton of people (a phrase which should handily cement the crazy hermit lady hiding in her house image I’ve got going), but the ones I interact with deserve my attention and care. They deserve to know that they are important to me, that I’m hearing them and that they matter.

And you know? While it doesn’t change my perception of not being one of the cool kids, it makes me feel pretty damn good about being me. It’s breaking down some more of those barriers of shyness and hesitancy, and letting me show a little more of me underneath. Yes, I can be very polished and corporate appropriate- that doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s ridiculous that we don’t have George Jetson cars with it being 2019, and I think we can laugh about that a little bit before we dive into an agenda. I’m noticing that I enjoy being around people a little more, that I’m getting a little more out of every interaction.

Maybe what I’m saying is, making everybody feel like somebody means I feel more like somebody, too. And for me, that’s a pretty neat thing.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I promised my Bree bestie that we’d go watch our favorite chick flick on the couch.

It’s Armageddon.

And, you know, so are COLDS. But we’ll get to that in good time.

I’m one of those sick in the head people that has to have a certain amount of unclutteredness to feel at peace with myself. Dust is okayish.. but stuff piled on top of stuff just makes me feel out of control for some reason.

So today, to spread the sense of calm, I began by centering myself in my office, and addressing those bits of clutter that annoyed me one at a time.

Out with the trash. Down with the random papers. Away with the chainmail bits. Extra furniture, begone! Roomba knock off, to work with thee.

And before I knew it, I had an hour of activity on my Leaf AND a tidy office.

And it was good.

I was all methodical and thoughtful about how I approached things today- in the same way that I cleared my office clutter, I cleared my work headspace clutter.

And it was good.

And then Rick came home. Early. Sick.

And that was not so good. I may have actually said, “AWAY GERM VECTOR!” when he tried to cuddle. He tried to look all hurt, but I know he gets it. Only half my sinuses work in the first place, so getting a cold or the flu puts an extra little strain I just plain don’t need.

I’m not letting it bother me.. I’m taking lots of deep breaths (away from my favorite germ vector), and I made sure to have something carby for food. After my workout, I’ll have a cup of hot chocolate laced with my infamous rotgut.. for antiseptic properties, of course. Not at all because it’ll be magically delicious.

The other thing I did to enhance my sense of calm- I stayed off Facebook today. I still perused the news, read a couple of threads on reddit, and tweeted about my continued lack of success in getting my Ultimately Annoyingly Unfinished Table of Gaming taken care of.

And I feel okay. I feel like I did good things today, and sidestepped a lot of potential annoyance just by remembering not to let myself go there. Stupid easy… today at least.

 

This one.. well, it always sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Cause everything in life is so black and white, and kindness is as simply spotted as thinking of a wonderful thought… any merry little thought.

Setting the scene- Sunday afternoon, gray, gloomy, lightly misting rain slowly, oh so slowly melting away the now charmless slushy, muddy snow of downtown Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Trash hasn’t been picked up this week because <insert vague weather excuse here>. It’s chilly and wet and dark and a good day to stay the hell at home.

Except.

The evil day has come. We always think it can’t happen to us, and we hedge our bets against it, but somehow, SOMEHOW it’s happened.

I am out of Rock Star.

I know we have to go out. I don’t want to go out. I’m a junkie and I need my fix before I try to go function out in the world without committing atrocities. But I can’t get my fix until I go out into the world and get it. It’s a seamless Catch 22 and I gremble and mutter as I pull on my Stitch hoodie and bearpaws.

(You start to see how choosing kindness may have a few extra difficulties added to my die rolls today yet?)

We get out to the supermarket, manage to park without incident (which is a pleasant surprise after the last few weeks of holiday parking HELL). In we go, and we see… this.

Wings, tail, horns… and fur?

Now, I love dragons.

All artwork courtesy of Carla Morrow of Dragonlady Art, cross stitch was modified very inexpertly by me to be holding a golden apple instead of a globe, original design Dragon Dreams.

So when I saw that there was a Valentine’s stuffed dragon in with the plethora of unicorns, I really wanted to be excited.

But… look at this poor confused little guy. Yes, he has wings, and a tail, and horns… but fur? And soooo much fur!

Yes, I bought an dragon plushie because I felt sorry for it. I know, I have issues. My issues have issues.

I kept looking at it as we picked up the rest of our groceries.. except the frozen Totino’s pepperoni pizzas BECAUSE THEY WERE COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY SOLD OUT OMG WHY DO PEOPLE THINK THEY GET TO OUTLAZY ME TO THE POINT WHERE I HAVE TO COOK?!? /cough

And I kept trying to figure out what the what the designer was thinking of..

a) Had they never seen a dragon before?

b) Had they decided it was winter and therefore the dragon had to be furry?

c) Did they have a bunch of leftover fur that had to be used and decided what the hell, furry dragons! People like furry things! They’ll buy it!

 

Now, even as all these thoughts were going through my head, we ended up at the checkout counter. And wouldn’t you know it, both the checker and the bagger made fun of my dragon.

That’s when it hit me- choosing kindness doesn’t mean you have to smile benevolently upon the world as it’s kicking you repeatedly in the shins. It doesn’t mean you can’t sit there and look at this dragon and go wtf mate… why did someone do this to you?

It means you don’t judge people for what they choose to see value in. Not even yourself. There’s so few things in this world that will truly speak to you- and you may not even know why they speak to you- the important thing is that you listen. And you don’t judge yourself for being touched by something. Sometimes you don’t even quantify it. You just accept that voice and let it be what it is.

This has been my moment of Zen.

 

 

 

 

 

Chaos is.. well, in some ways it’s my bread and butter. It’s what makes for change and amazingness and sometimes art and beauty and wonder.

It’s also kind of hard on a girl when it just. keeps. on. rolling. through. So, me being me, I realized that I needed to put myself back into a better headspace to cope without drinking all the things or killing all the people.

Though those thoughts did occur to me, I’m not going to lie.

Guided meditation is my thing, and the line I picked up from this morning was ‘Let go of anything that doesn’t serve you’.  Anything that isn’t helping me get something done, I started turning it loose. Bye, Anxiety! Bye, Irritation! Bye, Snarkbeastyness!

And you know? It did help. I started finding the humor and love for life again. I started really seeing what and who were around me, and appreciating all of the weird, wild mix that makes up my little corner of somewhere.

Then there was the conversation with Rick-

Rick: how hon
Me: Letting go of all things that don’t help me
Rick: Ok
Rick: Just want to say I help 😇
He really is my favorite person… but let’s keep that between us.

A few days ago, we had a winter storm warning and got the merest dusting of snow. Like not even enough to make good snowballs from.

So when we got another one for last night, we cancelled our going out plans, but didn’t really think much of it beyond that. And then we woke up to this-

Our current snow status- 4 inches or so, we think

Part of me is laughing evilly cause all those kids wanting snow days are SOL- it’s a holiday anyway, bahahahaHA.

In New Mexico, this means no going out, no food deliveries in. The temperatures are so low that we’ve kind of given ground on the rest of the house and are clustered into my office- fewest number of external walls, easier to heat than the rest of the place.

And lots of pups to snuggle down with in ALL the blankies

Luckily, I finally gave in and got myself a new Keurig, so there’s cocoa and tea and coffee, all wonderfully hot without Starbuckly assistance needed. I also accidentally got a package of bake and munch cinnamon rolls instead of crescent rolls when I went shopping last. And some spicy ground sausage, with a good cheddar already grated.

So this morning was Swiss Miss with a shot of Amarula, sausage cheesy poofs, and fresh baked cinnamon rolls.. not a bad way to start any day. In fact, I kind of highly recommend it. Come to think of it, kind of a good start to the year…

What I don’t highly recommend is random power blips, which started about an hour ago. Sad panda. Also feeling very bad for little Bree… while Zoe and Jaina will find spots on the patio to do their business when the weather’s like this, Bree insists on going out into the yard. I saw this little six inch tall corgi squatting to pee in a 4 inch high snowdrift. Yes, I gave her treats when she came in. Yes, she likes the snow in a general way; we went for a walk while the sun was out and she had a blast. She just gets cold easy, so we don’t overdo it.

Pretty sure Rick’s 5 day weekend is about to become a 6 day weekend.

 

Sausage Cheesy Poofs-

1 part sausage

1 part grated cheese

3/4 part Bisquick

Preheat oven to 350. Mix sausage and cheese with a hand or stand mixer. Once thoroughly blended, roll dough into balls and place on a cookie sheet/pizza pan/whatever. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until they are golden brown. Can be served with pancake syrup (maple or boysenberry are both good) if desired.

 

Yay for snow days.

 

Rick- So what do you want to do now?

Me- Why is it always about what I want to do?

Rick- Cause I don’t want to do anything you don’t want to do.

Me- Well, what if I don’t want to do anything YOU don’t want to do, huh?

Rick- We already established that I’m pretty much up for whatever it is you want to do.

Me- FINE! I want you to do the dishes!

Rick- Nope, don’t wanna do that.

Me- /flourishing remote- AHA, tough, cause we’ve already established that I have a certain amount of control over the decisions of others and free will is an illusion!

Rick- Except that you can fight it!

Me- GO DO THE DAMN DISHES! I HAVE THE CONTROLLER!

Current status… dishes not done. Free will exists. Bah humbug.

A long, long time ago, in our very own galaxy, people used to remind themselves that the long, dark, cold season would pass by bringing in boughs of evergreens. It was a symbol that life would go on, that the longest night would break with dawn and spring would come again.

In our home, we celebrate the passing of the longest night with friends, games, gifts, and food- all in the same spirit as those evergreen boughs. We remind ourselves that not only will times of darkness come, but that they will pass- and it is best to get through them by surrounding yourself with life, kindness, and love.