Lazy, or procrastinator, or ???

Bunch of little, unimportant things happening.

We saw a movie Sunday. (Transformers - Duane enjoys all of these type of movies. I'm maybe a bit more selective - i enjoy a good story line. I thought this one was a bit thin on the story.) We ate out after wards & i cheated & had a veggie sandwich on squaw bread. I need to learn to make it! However, i did find that the bread is not as "puffy" as i thought it was. It is heavy enough that it doesn't rise much & is fairly flat. Not my memory of it. It will lend itself to gluten-free fairly well, if only i can manage to do it.

Duane started the Tue/Wed/Thur schedule this week. I won't start until next week as my office is closed & i'm staying home. I've a ton of things to do. I feel like i've been very lazy & not done much. I'm going to create a list - on that blog - but one of the major things i'd like to have done when Duane returns is to have finished the trim on the front part of the house.

When he gets home we need to decide about the future of our garden. This is another year of container gardening, but lack of planning is the reason for it this year. If i'd worked harder & planned last year, we would have a regular garden. We have plenty of land here (well, it wouldn't seem like a lot to some folks; it is not uncommon here for a house to be on 2500 sq. ft. of land & no room for anything; our place is more than 3 times that size). But, while we have plenty of room for a garden, the way the house is situated limits us in where we can put it. Also, having over 20 trees on this property is great - except that also limits where we would put a garden.

I had a tomato plant that was doing great before we went on our trip, but it was dead when we got home. Could be a number of reasons, but it is dead. We went to the nursery on Sunday & i got 2 other tomatoes. I like to grow them myself from seed i've saved, but haven't been that proactive this year. I also got a sweet pepper plant, & three strawberries.

I dreampt last night that i was trying to warn the high school of some folks who were planning to plant a bomb, but no one was taking me seriously.

I woke (at 4.45 AM) to what i thought were raccoons in our trash. Very noisy. I turned on the light outside our bedroom & the noise didn't stop. So i went downstairs, grabbed a broom, & turned on the outside light & went out. A truck drove off but i didn't pay attention to it. Expected to have to pick up a lot of mess, but found nothing around the box or can. Then i realized that all our returnable-for-money recyclables had been removed from the recycling box. That was the truck. Not raccoons. I suppose they've been doing this all along, but we never knew as we were gone Monday nights.

And i thought of how serious bomb threats were treated when i was in school. I suppose they still are, if they still happen.

Sunday while we were out & about my eyes, but particularly the right one, began bothering me. When we were eating i took out my contacts & cleaned them & put them back in. But as soon as we were home i got them out. And i could tell that my right cornea was swollen. My eyesight was worse than usual (it is about 20/300) & i had trouble reading with my right eye. So i decided to give my eyes a day of rest yesterday. But that makes me even lazier as i am rather blind without correction. I do have a very old pair of glasses i use in case of emergency, but wearing them makes me rather nauseous if i'm moving around. I think my eyes are better today. I'll find out when i try to put the contacts in. If i can't wear them, i suppose i'll have to see the optometrist in town.

I'm excited to be able to go to Farmer's Market today, too. Also that i'll be able to spend some time. Most of the days we will go will be before we head down the hill to work, so it will be a rushed affair. We did do a run of it about a month ago, & found that doing it fast delays us by a minimum of 20 minutes. We can't get there any earlier, really, for they don't set up early. But if i take any time at all, it will delay us even more. But today i'll not have to be rushed. If i ever get up & get going.

Pics here today are Duane's. They almost always are, even when i forget to give him the credit. He's got such a wonderful camera that even when i take pics they usually turn out good. These were taken a couple of years ago at the Getty Museum, mostly the garden.

An interesting thing happened while we were on our trip. I've said before i spend an awful lot of time in bed as sometimes i haven't energy to be up doing things. Duane has often said, "I guess you'll want to go to bed" or be in bed, etc., etc. I suppose i had not been listening very closely. I reacted to those words, but didn't really hear what he was saying.

Anyway, on this trip after a long day of driving, i said something about being tired. Duane didn't understand that, we had "just" been driving. And i replied that it wasn't that i hadn't been doing anything, but that i had simply been upright.

He was surprised, & i said, "Why do you think i spend so much time in bed?"

He didn't have much answer to that & kind of stuttered & i was shocked into saying, "You don't think i LIKE it do you? Do you think i'm in bed so much because i WANT to be? You don't realize that i'm too exhausted to simply sit up?"

I think it was a break thru for both of us. I'd been thinking i was lazy until this trip & i found that i couldn't do many of the things i wanted. That all along i had been doing what my body required & not just been being lazy. Maybe he thought i was being lazy, too, although at some level i know he knew i am limited. But i think it finally came clear to him that when i'm lying down it isn't because i want to be, but because i have to be.

Now i'm in the position to try & balance this. Because now i have "permission" to not see myself as lazy, i have "permission" to rest as i need, it is important not to take advantage of that & just give up. I must do what i can. I am finding it a hard thing to balance.

I am thankful for what i have. And that i am able to get up & do what needs to be done, usually. And that i look "normal." And that even if i have a few limitations, they are not as severe as they could be.

I read the blog of Sara Frankl. A lot of people call her "inspirational," which is true, but somehow it overlooks the challenges she faces & how hard she works. Sometimes i think that word just categorizes folks without ever seeing the truth of who they are or the reality they face. To me it is a word used to segregate someone but not really try to understand who they are or how they live. But i strongly recommend her blog. She has a zest for life that is inspiring. She also needs plenty of prayer as she is dealing with more pain than most of us can imagine. And she rarely writes of her disability. She doesn't want that to be the focus of her work.

I don't either, but i'm struggling here to try to accept where i'm at, what i'm given, & what i'm going to do with it. And i use my writing to try to help me define all of that. So, my moto is that of St. Francis of Assisi:

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change,
the courage to change the things i can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

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