Content/Sidebar/Sidebar

I’m a little slow to post today.  Actually, I’m a little slow at everything today.  This cold has taken a firm grip in my chest and the coughing is just flat out wearing me down. 

I have Alanis Morissette’s song "Isn’t it ironic" stuck in my head since I am ON VACATION and I immediately get sick.   Well it may take a cold to slow me down because I’m finding I don’t do it very well on my own.   I took two weeks off from work with just the vaguest of ideas of how to fill my time.  I have plans to go here and there but what I’m finding is that I feel almost frantic with the need to r e l a x and slow down.  I feel like I need to make the most of this time off and that it is just slipping away and I’m not feeling the serenity I was thinking I would.

Well I did get up and go to the bakery for brioche.  That’s pretty slow.  Next on my agenda is to go an antique store or two and look for some linens.  I’m feeling the need for some old hankies.

(Edited to add:  This picture was a premonition.  This morning I woke up to Belle mewling in that certain way when she has brought us something.  Usually a lizard.  Or the occasional snake.  Lot’s of times it is little birds.  She’s stealthy, that cat.  She doesn’t kill them – she brings them in and let’s them go and we have to deal with them.  So this morning she’s mewling but comes right into my bedroom empty handed.  I get up, have my Diet Coke and write my blog entry for the day.  I was trying to find a vintage get well card in my stash of images but liked the colors in this one.

Well now I can hear chirping coming from somewhere in the house.  I have all the doors wide open hoping it will fly out on its own.  So far I can’t find it.  I also have a confession – I have a phobia of flying things.  More specifically butterflies and moths but birds flying in close proximity to me freak me out. 

What a way to start the day.  For the bird and me.)

This cold has firmly planted itself into my chest and doesn’t appear to want to leave.  I’m moping around the house half-heartedly starting little projects and abandoning them when my energy and motivation wane. 

What my body really wants is to nap and I’m so not a napper.  I hate that feeling that you aren’t entirely asleep and when you do wake up from your stupor you feel totally discombobulated.  I feel groggy and stupid after napping, not refreshed. 

So instead I’ll wander about and see what rooms need rearranging.

It’s funny, my husband, while aware of this blog, isn’t a regular reader.  He’s more of a sporadic reader.  Yesterday he asked me what the URL was so he could catch up. 

He was reading for a while then hopped up from the computer, went back to the guest room and then came back into the kitchen where I was sitting.  "I didn’t realize you had painted the sconces in the guest room." 

The guest room is straight down the hallway and you can see the sconces from the doorway.  He must have walked down the hallway a million times since I painted them.

I think I’ll spend the day changing a few things up and will see how long it takes him to notice.

I read a blog the other day where the writer was commenting on some aspect of her life, in an introspective way.  She had numerous comments of the ‘hang in there’ ‘you are doing great’ variety.  And then there was a reply from one of her readers that may have been well intentioned, or perhaps not.  But the reader was offering up advice on what she perceived the writer’s issues to be.  She was very blunt, she was, and had quite a lot to weigh in on.

Now keep in mind the writer of the blog wasn’t asking for advice, opinions or even commiseration.  She was just writing (okay – that is me projecting but she certainly didn’t outright ASK for any of those things).  What surprised me most about the reader’s response was not so much that she offered unsolicited advice but, more importantly, that she thought she had full insight to the writer’s life and situation and could weigh in on such matters.

I don’t know about you but for me writing a blog is rather like inviting you over for dinner.  What you see when you walk in the door is two hours of frantic dusting and much needed toilet scrubbing.  Oh sure I’d like you to think the floor is always this shiny and candles are always glowing away on the mantle.  I just ask that you don’t look under the beds or too closely at the hall closet whose door is bulging rather ominously.

What you read here is a pretty, dusted off portion of my life.  Oh it’s real all right but it’s not the entire picture.  It’s not like I have any deep, dark secret I’m trying to hide ~ goodness no ~ my life is actually rather dull in that regard.  It’s more that I want you to come back and showing you dust bunnies the size of tumbleweeds (I totally stole that line from someone, I just can’t remember who) isn’t going to accomplish that ~ metaphorically and realistically speaking.

In the same token when I go to your blogs I am honored to read the bits and pieces of your life you have chosen to share.  But I would never presume that it is the sum total of you and that I now know ALL about you.  And I won’t offer any advice or my opinion unless you specifically ask for it.

Now if you want to know how I get my floor so shiny I’m going to have to direct you to my lovely husband.

I did light the candles though.