Yeah well. I started the Bujo. Again. But this time I’m making pretty calendars, because the weather has been… yuck. Basically. I did an October one and then thought that page looked very bland and boring.
Something had to be done. So I did a…thing.
And since that thing turned out ok, I did another thing.
As you do. Inspiration came from various places.
I kinda like how they turned out. I’ll do a December on when the mood strikes me. 🙂 It’ll probably be icy snowflakes or something. I better practice drawing snowflakes, ice and snowy things I guess!!
I came across this many, many years ago, and it still makes me giggle. It’s not my story, I have no idea who wrote it, but damn… LOL I thought I’d lost it, but… here you go:
If you have raised kids, and gone through the pet syndrome including toilet-flush burials for dead goldfish, the story below will have you laughing out LOUD!!! Overview: I had to take my son’s hamster to the vet. Here’s what happened: Just after dinner one night, my son came up to tell me there was “something wrong” with one of the two hamsters he holds prisoner in his room. “He’s just lying there looking sick,” he told me. “Oldest trick in the book, son,” I informed him. “You go in to see what’s wrong with the sick one and the other one sneaks up behind you and bonks you on the head. Then they change into your clothes and escape.” “I’m serious, Dad. Can you help?” I put my best hamster-healer statement on my face and followed him into his bedroom. One of the little rodents was indeed lying on his back, looking distressed. I immediately knew what to do. Call the professional. “Honey,” I called, “come look at the hamster!” “Oh my gosh,” my wife diagnosed after a minute. “She’s having babies.” “What?” my son demanded. “But their names are Bert and Ernie, Mom!” I was equally outraged. “Hey, how can that be? I thought we said we didn’t want them to reproduce,” I accused my wife. “Well, what did you want me to do, post a sign in their cage?” she inquired. (I actually think she said this sarcastically!) “No, but you were supposed to get two boys!” I reminded her, (in my most loving, calm, sweet voice). “Yeah, Bert and Ernie!” my son agreed. “Well, it’s just a little hard to tell on some guys,” she informed me. (Again with the sarcasm, you think?) By now the rest of the family had gathered to see what was going on. I shrugged, deciding to make the best of it. “Kids, this is going to be a wondrous experience!” I announced. “We’re about to witness the miracle of birth.” “OH, Gross!” they shrieked. “Well, isn’t THAT just Great! What are we going to do with a litter of tiny little hamster babies?” my wife wanted to know. (I really do think she was being snotty here, too. Don’t you?) “Well, when my parents’ dogs had puppies, I took them up to the grocery store in a cardboard box and gave them away,” I recalled. “So what are you going to do, go up with a pair of tweezers so people can pick out their hamster?” she asked. (Gotta love her!) We peered at the patient. After much struggling, what looked like a tiny foot would appear briefly, vanishing a scant second later. “We don’t appear to be making much progress,” I noted. “A breech birth,” my wife whispered, horrified. “Do something, Dad!” my son urged. “Okay, okay.” Squeamishly, I reached in and grabbed the foot when it next appeared, giving it a gingerly tug. It disappeared. I tried again, with the same results. “Should I dial 911?” my eldest daughter wanted to know. “Maybe they could talk us through the trauma.” (You see a pattern here with my females?) “Let’s get Ernie to the vet,” I said grimly. We drove to the vet with my son holding the cage in his lap. “Breathe, Ernie, breathe,” he urged. “I don’t think hamsters do Lamaze,” his mother noted to him. (Women can be so cruel to their own young. I mean what she does to me is one thing, but this boy is “of her womb”, for God’s sake.) The vet took Ernie back to the examining room and peered at the little animal through a magnifying glass. “What do you think, Doc, an epidermal?” I suggested scientifically. “Oh, very interesting,” he murmured. “Mr. and Mrs. Cameron, may I speak to you privately for a moment?” I gulped, nodding for my son to step outside. “Is Ernie going to be okay?” my wife asked. “Oh, perfectly,” the vet assured us. “This hamster is not in labor. In fact, that isn’t EVER going to happen… Ernie is a boy.” “What!?” “You see, Ernie is a young male. And occasionally, as they come into maturity, male hamsters will, master, er, er, ah…” He blushed, glancing at my wife. “Well, you know what I’m saying, Mr. Cameron.” We were silent, absorbing this. “So Ernie’s just … just…Excited?” my wife offered. “Exactly,” the vet replied, relieved that we understood. More silence. Then my viscous, cruel woman started to giggle. And giggle. And then even laugh loudly. What’s so funny?” I demanded, knowing, but not believing that the woman I married would commit the upcoming affront to my flawless Manliness. Tears were now running down her face. “Just … that … I’m picturing you pulling on its … its … teeny little … ” she gasped for more air to bellow in laughter once more. “That’s enough,” I warned. We thanked the Veterinarian and hurriedly bundled the hamsters and our son back into the car. He was glad everything was going to be okay. “I know Ernie’s really thankful for what you’ve done, Dad,” he told me. “Oh, you have NO idea,” my wife agreed, collapsing into laughter as I gave her a dirty look. (And women have the gall to go though the marriage ceremony with a straight face!)
It’s raining. Again. Well, actually, it has barely stopped since oh… I forget. End of September? Everything is soaked, the fields are waterlogged, the ponds have turned into lakes and what used to be a stream, is now a great big river. And yet, I don’t resent it as much as I might have a few years ago. We needed the rain. Maybe not quite as uninterrupted, but we did need it. Well, we needed rain, and we got a deluge. My poor ninja chickens would like me to build an ark for them. They don’t like wet feet, and right now it’s impossible to take a dust bath…because there’s no dry dust or dirt to be found anywhere near them. (I’m planning to put a sandbox in there, but it would get flooded no doubt.) I had a lake in the chicken pen. Not a puddle. A lake. This almost reached the door. Luckily we moved the chicken house a few days earlier, because it was sitting right in the middle of this. I ended up digging a trench to drain it, but even that didn’t help the whole time. Meanwhile, the pond was filling up rapidly. As did the fields…
The horses were mired in mud, and I ended up slapping down paddock grids so they weren’t standing knee-deep in mud soup. I didn’t take “Before” pics, but this is after I put down 2 rows of grids for them. This was on the 1st November. The soup is worse now, but the grids are holding. Alas, I put a hay net into the field shelter (which also has grids on the floor) and they stand at the hay box… wanting to be fed there with loose hay, instead. They haven’t used to field shelter much, because of the noise of rain on the roof. Instead they stand in the rain and tough it out. Squeaky — not to be outdone — has decided that rain and wind are horrible, and it’s much nicer to come in and hang out in front of the fire.
So yeah, we’re all a bit fed up with the rain now. I think we’ve had our quota now. Time to turn off the tap for a while.
Oz is a mudbeast. He’s a gray horse, who likes to be dirty. That’s just who he is. Take it or leave it.
There is a saying “Be you, everyone else is taken.” But it’s easy to say; much harder to do. Or be.
So, who are you?
I mean, really. Who are you? I know who I am. I’m me. Wrinkles, extra pounds, scars and all. Take it or leave it.
People always say “Oh, just be yourself.” What they really mean is “Oh, just be who I want you to be.” Because that’s what it boils down to. Everyone around you wants you to be what they want you to be. How dare you deviate from that? The phrase “At your age…” makes me want to high five the person saying it. In the face. With a chair.
Jealous much? (Because that’s often what it boils down to.) How many times have people dissuaded you from doing, wearing, wanting something? “For your own good.”? Or because it wasn’t “seemly”? Ever wondered why they thought it was a “bad idea”? Ever done it anyway? And had fun doing it? Positive outcome, and all that? Usually the nay-sayers are green with envy. The dissuasion wasn’t because they really thought you “couldn’t”, but because they didn’t want you to do something they’d love to do — but didn’t dare — usually because someone told them they “shouldn’t”.
There is always a lot of (often well-meaning) advice being given. “You ought to dress like that. It would suit you.” “You might want to do XYZ, it would be good for you.” “You shouldn’t do ABC, at your age.”
I have two words for such advice:
Fuck. Off.
No, really. I mean it. Fuck-the-hell-right-off. Yeah, I know. I ought not swear like a sailor at my age. Well, screw you, because you ought not lecture people my age.
Maybe you’re similar to me. Maybe you don’t like being told you can’t. Maybe you don’t like being told you shouldn’t. Maybe you don’t like being told you oughtn’t. Maybe you don’t like being told you would be crazy to try, at your age.
Can’t, shouldn’t, don’t, mustn’t… aren’t in my dictionary anymore. I can, and I bloody well will, if I want to. There. Deal with it.
I don’t care anymore what people want me to be. If they want someone to be a specific way… then don’t look in my direction. I’ll never be what you want me to be. I’ll never say what you want me to say. I’ll never do what you want me to do. I’ll never dress the way you want me to. I don’t want to be what you want me to be. I’m me, and I want to be me. And if that’s not good enough, then that’s your problem. Not mine.
So if someone tells you, you shouldn’t, can’t, ought not, mustn’t… and you want to?
Don’t be them, don’t be who they want you to be. Do it anyway.
Be you
(Unless you can be a dragon. Then always be a dragon.)
We all wake up one day and think “Whoa. When did I stop being twenty?” You notice hair where there didn’t used to be any, and no hair where there used to be some. Gray, where there used to be color. Skin is looser and has lines. There are aches and pains, and where you used to shake them off, now they persist.
You can lament it. You can cry over it. You can be upset about it. But you can’t change it. It happens to everyone.
You can only accept it, and live with it.
However, how you live with it, is a choice everyone has to make for themselves.
Grow old (dis)gracefully.
I’m not twenty anymore. Or rather, my body isn’t twenty anymore. My mind is a different matter. That doesn’t really get old. My reaction time isn’t what it used to be, but that’s about it. It hasn’t really grown up much. My mind is still as good as ever. Maybe tempered by some life lessons, setbacks, losses; shaped by joys, love, education, experiences — but it hasn’t changed from being naughty, funny, sexy, crazy, outrageous, daring, rebellious…etc. In my mind I can do anything. There are no limits, no boundaries. I still make mistakes and learn from them. It’ll probably never change.
What did change, was the way I let myself be dictated to. I don’t like being told what I should be, wear, eat, say, do, dare, or — worst of all — what I should stop. “At your age, you really shouldn’t…” Oh how I HATE that phrase. At my age? What age would that be? After 40? 50? 60? At what age, exactly, should I stop something? Stop making choices? Stop trying new things? Stop living, perhaps? It’ll never happen. Older and wiser? Maybe. I know I don’t bounce as well as I used to. Does that stop me from riding? No. Does it mean I’ll hang on for dear life? No. It does mean I’d rather get off, than fall off. It does mean I have the experience now to recognize when I need to make that choice. Not because I’m afraid of falling off, but because I know if I do fall off, it’ll take that much longer to get back in the saddle. And, hey, life is short. So I get off and ride again tomorrow. And not in 4 weeks, because I didn’t bounce.
Other people can go hang. Call me a frump, lazy, a slouch, I don’t care. These days, I wear the comfortable clothes, the comfortable shoes, sit in the comfy chair, put my feet up, and have that extra bit of chocolate. I’m comfortable with the way I am. And believe me, I didn’t used to be. I have tons of hang-ups, tons of stuff I’m not happy with. But it’s all superficial. These days, I’m okay with the extra pounds. I’m okay with wearing jogging pants, slouch socks, slippers and a ratty jumper. So what if I didn’t brush my hair today? The only ones around are my cats and my horses, and they don’t care about my hairdo — or lack of it. Who cares if I go to feed my horses in my PJ’s? Who cares if I run out in wellies, a nightgown, and the hairy smelly horsey coat to get the mail? I bet people who see me — if they see me — go “Look at that crazy woman” and yet secretly wish they could be comfortable. To stop worrying what “other people” think. Okay. Maybe not all of them. But a fair percentage long to be comfy and “let it all hang out” and the rest of the world be damned.
We’re so conditioned that we need to be “Fabulous Fifties” or “Glamorous Grannies” that we rarely stop to think if we’re actually comfortable like that. If that’s you, then that’s perfectly fine. Be who you want to be. Whether it’s glamorous, or grumpy. Or both. Who said you can’t be a glamorous crazy cat lady? (And if they did, screw them.) Don’t get me wrong. I like to dress up sometimes as well. I like looking my best when I can. I like a compliment as much as the next person. But I’m not going to start putting on make up, blow drying my hair into some artful coiffure, make sure my pants are spotless and doll myself up just in case someone sees me. (I know there are people who’d never go out without looking their best, but that’s not me.) I’ll end up with muck on my boots, horse snot on my sleeve, and hay in my hair anyway, so what’s the point? First of all, I wouldn’t be comfortable. And by comfortable I don’t mean “nothing is pinching anywhere”, but the “I’m not anxious about how I look” kind of comfortable. Second… If you don’t like me because of the way I dress / look… then go take a long walk off a short pier. There are no fucks given here.
Be you.
I’m me. You’re you. But…are you? Or are you who everyone else wants you to be? So many people hold back their entire life, because it’s expected of them.
DARE TO BE YOU!
Why are you listening to people who tell you what you ought to be? Say? Do? How you ought to dress? Behave?
Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.
Oscar Wilde
Stop being who everyone else wants you to be. Instead, be who you want to be.
By the way… I actually have an “iCAN”.
Into this can (it’s an old food tin, with a label I put on) goes a scrap of paper of something I either want to get or do, with an estimated / actual cost. Could be an outrageously expensive new lens for my camera. Could be skydiving. Wild Water Rafting. Learning to fly a helicopter. Could be a holiday. Doesn’t matter what it is. The only rule is, it has to be something fun. At the end of the week, whatever is left in my wallet, goes into that can. Could be 20 cents, could be 50 Euro. (I tend to get the same amount of cash out every week and try to stick to it.) Any info on the goal in there goes into the can too. (If possible.) But… It’s my iCAN. It’s not my iCAN’T. Because… I bloody well CAN, and I WILL. And so can you.
Whatever you want to do… …ride it like you stole it.
I sometimes feel like I\’m sleeping under a Christmas tree. It seems every device we get these days, has some little LED status indicator. The on/off switch on an extension lead. The charging light on a charger. The on/off indicator on…well… pretty much anything you plug in these days. And that\’s usually fine — until you turn the light off to go to sleep.
Suddenly, it\’s not so fine.
My bedroom looks like a spaceship in the dark.
There are lights everywhere. Bright, multicolored, often blinking…lights. My own fault, I guess. \”Oh, I\’ll be able to see that in the dark.\” Yeah. I will. But when there are 20 things blinking and glowing in the dark, it gets a bit overwhelming.
So what to do about it?
First off, I taped stickers over just about every light. I turn off stuff I don\’t need glowing in the dark — after I sticker over the lights on it, just in case. Not very pretty, not always effective, but better. I have an alarm clock that is — even dimmed — so bright, it lights up the entire room. Even DIMMED. (Whoever thought of what that thing emits as dimmed, is a little.. dim.) Not kidding. I turn it face down. Not quite what the designer had in mind, but there you have it. I was actually quite shocked at just how bright it is. Actually, it\’s back in its box at the moment, because I\’m so fed up with it. There is also a plug extender which is extremely bright. So bright in fact, even with stickers over the LED there is still some light. It got so annoying, I don\’t use it anymore — even though it\’s a great device.
Argh. Seriously.
The Microwave Clock
The Cooker Clock
Some fridges
Some washing machines
Dishwasher
The Satellite / Cable box
The TV
The Computer / Laptop / Tablet
Computer monitors
The router
The Answering Machine / Landline Phone
Extension lead On/Off switches
Games consoles
Electric Heaters
Speakers (usually desktop speakers)
Touch table lamps
Printers
Any charger that\’s plugged in
And probably a million more I could list. All with tiny little LED lights. You name it, there\’s probably a little light on it. One on it\’s own isn\’t so bad. All of them? ARGH.
What about power consumption?
Actually, the power consumption of those standby devices is negligible. That\’s to say, each on its own is negligible. But all of them combined? Yeah, that\’s rather a bit more than negligible, but still not a huge amount. However, you have to take some things into consideration. How much power is consumed in standby? How much power is consumed to wake up from standby? How much power is required to start the device up from cold? My computer uses almost no power to wake up from standby mode – but it uses a whopping amount to start from cold. So that is better left on standby — unless there is some USB device plugged in to charge. Then it\’s a different matter. The same probably goes for the TV. (I don\’t currently have a TV.) Routers tend to be on always as well. And all of them have freaking lights on them. It\’s really annoying.
Still… the light show at night is something to behold. Everything is either glowing, blinking or shining in the dark.
So, if it annoys you as much as it does me — get out the sticky tape and go to town on your \”blinkenlights\”.
I\’m in the process of buying a house. It sits on its own land, there is a well, a pond, woods and fields. We\’re just coming out of a very hot summer, and the ground is bone dry.
See the pond above? The water level should be a lot higher than this, and from the water marks on the rocks, it usually is, too. But it\’s been so hot, and so dry, for just two months… the water has all but disappeared. Duckweed has taken over, making it hard on plant and wildlife to get enough water.
A friend of mine lives in Cape Town, who had a severe drought not long ago. Water was extremely scarce and people were working hard to reduce their usage.
The UN estimates that more than 5 billion people could suffer water shortages by 2050, due to climate change.
Let that sink in a moment. 5 BILLION people without sufficient water in just over 30 years. Water shortages don\’t just affect people who live in drought areas today. Water shortages affect everyone. Everywhere. Eventually.
Scary, isn\’t it?
If it doesn\’t scare you already, it should at least prompt you to maybe start doing something about it. 30 years isn\’t a long time. If you have kids, think about how they\’ll feel if water is so expensive, they can\’t afford to turn a tap on.
Gray Water
I\’m notorious for using the washing up water to flush the toilet. I used the bath water to water plants. (I don\’t currently have a bath tub, just a shower.) When I mop the floor, I pour the dirty water on the flowers outside. Now, I don\’t use harsh cleaning products. (I use a vinegar cleaner for the floor, for instance.) Or harsh washing powder. Or bleach. The house I\’m in has a septic tank, and the one I\’m buying does too. So I make sure what I use is okay for a septic tank. But does the water from my washing machine, shower and bathroom sink really have to go into the septic tank? Not really. It\’s gray water, rather than black water. (Toilet etc)
Gray Water Systems
I\’m thinking of having extra pipes installed in the house I\’m buying. Pipes where I can switch the drainage to a (filtered) gray water tank outside. If I know there\’s nasties that should go into the septic tank, I want to have a diverter valve I can turn to drain it into there, instead. The rest of the time — off to the gray water tank. I would love a system where I can fill the toilet cistern with gray water from that tank. Imagine how much potable water could be saved that way alone. Definitely giving this a lot of thought at the moment, because water isn\’t cheap, and frankly, there is no limitless supply of it, either.
Regulations
But there are regulations to consider. I\’m not sure exactly what they are yet, here in France, but I\’m starting to make enquiries about what is possible, what is allowed, and what isn\’t.
So yeah. If you are able to put in a gray water system — do it. Not only will you save money on your water bills, but you\’ll also help ease, maybe even prevent, water shortages in the future. And quite possibly have a green garden in a drought, without spending an extra penny!
The Questions on my mind this morning…
Do they have parties in Heaven?How about cake?If I tie a chocolate cake to a balloon, will it get to you?Do you get presents?
Today isn’t easy for me.
It’s your birthday, and you’re not here.
I miss watching you unwrap a present, I miss seeing you enjoy the cake.
I miss the hugs, the snuggles.
I miss going to sleep next to you.
I miss hearing you laugh. I loved your naughty chuckle, and I really miss that.
I miss YOU.
A lot.But I have memories… so many of them.Memories of twenty-eight birthdays.Remember when we decided to go down to Cornwall one year?What a long weekend that was, huh?I’ll never forget how hard I laughed when you threw an apple out of the window, at 3am, at a motorcyclist who’d been racing up and down the road in Boscastle all night. Poor bloke nearly hit the bridge, when the apple smacked into his helmet. That was some deadly aim, there, Paul.I also remember how bleary eyed we were the next morning, and made the decision to head to Brixham and stay there, instead.Only to be drummed out of bed at 4 am, by a fishing party who thought we were part of their crew… Every time we were almost back asleep, some other cretin banged on the door. Damn, after the fourth time, we just lay there in fits of giggles, just yelling “We’re not part of the fishing trip!!” every time there was a knock on the door.At breakfast, we decided — just to get some sleep — to head into deepest, darkest Dartmoor, to stay at a B&B in the middle of nowhere. Surely we’d get some sleep there?Remember how you made me navigate? And how we got stuck on a cattle grid? It took ages to get the car going again, but you did. I had visions of spending the rest of my days stuck in that Fiesta, on the cattle grid, forgotten by the world…as it got darker and darker.But we got there, and we had a few pints at the “local” pub…that was about 2 miles up the road, where there were no street lights and we didn’t have a torch. Hiking back in the dark was one hell of an adventure. And you were telling me horror stories about psycho killers running loose in Dartmoor, the whole way!And the night in that B&B… oh my word.The ungodly racket at 4am. But hey, you got the dog out from under that bed, even though you had to dismantle the whole thing. And you did it without a complaint.It was one hell of a birthday and I think we needed a two week holiday after those three days. 🙂I still love you for all those things, all the laughs we shared.We always tried to do silly crazy funny stuff. Sometimes we succeeded, sometimes… not so much.But we always had fun.I hope you have fun up there today, and that some of the angels will have a chocolate cake for you.And if you get presents — I hope there will be NO slippers among them!(Or mugs!)Love you, always.Me.XXX
It is a German “Jagdschloß” (Hunting Castle) in Lower Saxony.
There is a Rocky Mountain Stud there, where I work as a groom, looking after 50+ horses.
(As far as my cat is concerned, my job is to play “Stick and String” with her all day.)
Hard work, I can tell you that much. (Especially since I play Stick and String when I get in!)
My apartment is inside the castle, and things really do go bump in the night — even though it’s usually just the pipes banging / vibrating. Or the cat, trying to liberate something from a cardboard box.
I’ve been here since October 2015, and I’m no closer to figuring out what to do with my life, than I was 5 months ago.
There doesn’t seem to be much point to life, without Paul. Yes, I can go anywhere I want (sort of), do what I like (in a way), and my enthusiasm is practically nil.
I still have oodles of stuff to do, and sort out, and absolutely no drive to do it. I don’t know if others get this way too, but I know I just don’t even want to think about it. I do want it sorted, but I’m far away at the moment and it’s not that easy.
It’s not helped by not having much (if any) help from anyone.
If I didn’t have Pixie and Oz…well. Who knows.
But alas, I’m not sure I’ll ever be happy again. I feel Paul’s loss more every day, and I miss him. God, how I miss him.
Love isn’t physical, you know? Yes, I miss the physical intimacy, the hugs, the kisses. But I miss sharing more. Thoughts, ideas, aspirations, setbacks, experiences – you name it. I so often ask Paul for his opinion, and it hurts not having it.
Anyway, I won’t bore you with all that.
Spring is outside the door at the moment, birds are chirping (much to Pixie’s delight) and the grass and trees are sloooowly taking on a greener hue.
The first foals have arrived. Much work to do!
Which means… it is time to go to work!
So.
Long time no see.
Had to put this somewhere to pin it, so I’m reviving my old ThinksToKeep Blog for the moment.
It’s warm outside.
And I want the door open.
Alas… Warm =
Buzzing. Wanting to come in.
No. Just… No.
I didn’t want to spend megabucks on some ugly fly protection, just to open the darn door on the few days we have enough heat to do it.
I figured there had to be an easier way — and there is:
I used–
2 x Wilkinson’s 60-100cm Adjustable Tension Rod (£3.30 each)
1 x Wilkinson’s “Sheer Elegance” 145cm x 228cm Tab Top Voile. (£6 was down to £4) (57″ x 90″)
Voila.
At first I wedged the tension rods into the doorframe (Pic 1)
Pic 1 – Tension Rods in Doorframe
That was all very well, but not so easy to shift, and it left a little gap.
So I moved the rods into the doorway instead. (Pic 2)
Pic 2 – Tension Rods in Doorway
Pic 3 – Outside View
Pic 4 – Outside, get in and out
Pic 5 – Inside Top
The tension rod sits higher than the doorframe, so there is no gap at the top where creepy crawlies can get in.
Pic 7 – Inside Bottom
The tension rod at the bottom is flush with the doorstep, but you can still move the curtain to the side to get in and out.
Just pull closed after, and you keep unwelcome visitors of the many-legged (and the neighborhood cats!) variety out.
Easy to put up, easy to remove, you can’t really see in well, and it’ll all just roll up and you can put it away.