Tag: around the house (Page 8 of 27)

Quiet winter moments

January 16, 2013 / Lindsey / 4 Comments

Happy Solstice, Happy Winter, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!

I hope you’ve all been well. Did you have a nice holiday season?

It’s been a nice few weeks here. Working hard to get my handmade gifts ready, lots of nice Christmas music (Kohala Christmas is a favorite at our place), multiple trips to the local thrift shop to search out wool sweaters — both to wear and to felt for projects — and then after Christmas some nice down time. Getting ready for Christmas I pushed my body further than I ought to have (I was feeling so good!), and timing being what it is, I crashed on Christmas Eve. So most of Christmas Day was spent on my parents’ apartment floor by the tree, pressing my head to a package of frozen lunch meat to try to calm a horrendous headache. Around five I was feeling a little better, and we opened gifts in the twilight (instead of in the morning) next to the glowing tree — which ended being so enchanting that I think we’ve started a new tradition!

And now the New Year feels like a nice clean slate. Since I have survived (which was a question mark in my mind for some time), and am now healing from, the awful disease that is Brucellosis, I’m beginning to think about what’s next in terms of career and life direction and moneymaking endeavors. Those thoughts are exciting and I have so many ideas, but they can be very overwhelming too, on days when the “what’s next” feels far away and out of reach. As I’m learning, it takes quite a while to rebuild a body so completely exhausted and depleted by nineteen months of unchecked infection and then a further ten months of strong antibiotic treatment. I am feeling SOOO much better. But the rebuilding part does take time. Actually I have to keep reminding myself of this — the big picture of what my body has been handling — because my mind gets easily carried away with activities and cool ideas and thoughts of the future and what I need to be doing to get myself there. But then my body yanks on the choke chain, reminding me that getting back to my old self is not instantaneous and everything will happen in good time (as in “not all at once at this very moment“).

So I’ve been keeping a slower, simpler, more realistic pace when possible. You know how if you work really really hard at your job, and it’s really intense work, and there’s lots of stress, and you don’t have any downtime…how you burn out quickly? Well that’s what happens in life too, I’ve realized. Especially with the pace at which our world moves now. Even though I’m just in my 20s, I feel like I’ve lived several lifetimes already. So much stuff has been packed in. Some of it really fun, some of it really not fun. And when you pack that much in, you get worn out and you start burning out. And if you’re very sensitive (any fellow HSPs out there?) you can get overwhelmed and burnt out even more easily due to the sheer intensity of it all. Being very ill is an intense experience. It taxes you physically, mentally, and emotionally. And so what I’m learning again and again is that I can’t get ahead of myself. Even if I have a million cool ideas I want to follow through with, I have to dial it back and pace myself otherwise I will burn out totally. First things first. My first priority must remain my health. (Health really IS wealth. If you don’t have your health, you have no energy to earn monetary wealth!) When I’m frustrated and tired of that being my #1 priority, I remind myself that it’s an investment in my future. I must get fully well NOW, so that I may be who I want to be and do the things I want to do in the future. If I don’t address the physical things that need attending to right now, and let my body fully heal, then things could be a little dicey down the road. Best to address it now.

So I’ve been staying quiet, moving (when I remember to) at a slow and deliberate pace. Doing one thing at a time (like drinking tea and doing nothing else during that time), and taking the time to do things that make my spirit happy. My appetite for anything techie has been minimal, so my computer has been off a lot. It’s been nice. I’ve enjoyed keeping more of a “1972 pace” rather than a “2013 pace” if that makes any sense.

And now, onto some pictures…

*****

A Good, Beautiful Tree

December 14, 2012 / Lindsey / 2 Comments

Thanks to an afternoon with my mom and her car (thank you Mom!!!), we’ve got a big beautiful charlie brown tree in the corner of our living room. I think one of the very best parts of Christmas is having a real live tree in the house.

This morning, to the soft sounds of Christmas music I remember from childhood, I strung the lights and laid out the ornaments. It’s cloudy today — a rarity that I cherish in this very sunny climate. Clouds make the day cozy and peaceful.

Tonight my Honey and I will decorate.

Assuming the ornaments remain intact till then…

*****

Surprise Snowfall

December 11, 2012 / Lindsey / 2 Comments

I love surprises!

Last night I kept looking out at the streetlight, expecting to see snow falling. We weren’t forecast to get any (that I knew of), but the color of the light and clouds were what I always associate with snow. But I didn’t really think twice because it’s been such a stingy year for precipitation and the weather forecast was nothing but little sunshine icons. And so once again, life is at its best when you have zero expectations!

I woke up this morning and I gasped with a big smile as I saw what had fallen overnight! They were snow clouds!!

The sun in shining though, so it won’t last long.

But there’s nothing like snow and cold to remind you what season it is, and I’m thinking it might be time to get a tree pretty soon…

*****

Sand + Jar = Candle holder

December 6, 2012 / Lindsey / 0 Comments

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The other day I found my baptism candle in some old stuff.

I tossed it in the trash — no need to keep that.

But then the next day I had a cool idea for a candle holder, so I poured some sand into a jar and fished my candle back out of the garbage.

I’ve never liked tapers because they’re so tippy and drippy, but this holder is the solution! The sand keeps them stable no matter how thin or wide they are, and it catches all the wax drippings.

Now I’m sure this idea has been thought up before by someone, somewhere — but I’ve never seen it done.

And so now that I’ve found a good way to hold tapers, I’m going to use them a lot more because they seem to give off more light than pillars or tea lights — maybe because there’s less wax in the way.

And I do like the simple aesthetic of the sand and the jar and the warm glow of a candle…

*****

Autumny things, Leaf acquisition, and Taking it slow

November 13, 2012 / Lindsey / 4 Comments

Autumn evening: Mugs of tea, a sleeping cat, reading the neighborhood newsletter, soaking feet in hot water, PBS on the TV....

It’s been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone. (Is Prairie Home Companion even still on? Gosh I haven’t tuned in in years… I loved that program…) Anyway, that’s been our Autumn — quiet, restful, and in keeping with the shift in season to colder weather and a reduced number of daylight hours (which I welcome!). F is still on leave from his job, resting and rehabbing his broken arm. It’s so nice to have him home here. We’re both just resting, which was so needed. I’m continuing to get weekly acupuncture treatments that are really helping to flush out my body and liver from 10 months of strong, toxic antibiotics — and probably also the megaload of endotoxins created by the Brucella bacteria itself… and probably also the antivirals I was on when this illness was still in its misdiagnosed-as-something-else phase… and probably also the narcotics from two really painful surgeries before that. Yikes. It’s an unpleasant process and I get impatient, but overall I’ve been hanging low and trying to let my body do its thing.

But let’s move on. The day before Halloween I got crazy (well, in a Bob Ross “Let’s get crazy” sort of way) and decided to make decorations for our house even though we weren’t going to hand out candy. I raided the rag box and made ghosts, and then drew a bat pattern and made a couple bats out of cardboard which I painted black. Then I wired some branches together to display my seasonal flags. I’m really happy with how the little flag pole came out! It was therapeutic to lose myself completely in a creative and totally frivolous activity.

While I was decorating, the neighbors across the street were raking leaves from their two maple trees. I watched with interest, because this past summer I ran out of autumn leaves for mulching my gardens and I really missed having them. I was determined to collect as many leaves as possible this autumn. I’ve never met these neighbors before, and normally in these situations my shyness overtakes me. But determined to break from my comfort zone, I walked across the street, introduced myself, and asked if they were going to throw their bags of leaves away (yes) and if I could have them (yes). And so by simply gathering my courage and asking, I ended up with eight bags of gorgeous maple leaves, ready for next year’s garden.

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And then this past Saturday, I was whipped into action by snowflakes falling much sooner in the day than I expected, so I raked up our own maple leaves, jumping in the piles just as I did when I was a kid, inhaling their earthy sweet scent — one of the few things that hasn’t changed one bit in all these years.

Some of the leaves went into bins for composting later, and the rest went onto my garden beds for the winter.

And then the snow began to fall harder…

Time to go inside for some hot vegetable soup.

And then some hot chocolate. I’ve found a good way to do hot chocolate — something I actually rarely drink. I bought a quart of Kalona Supernatural chocolate milk, froze it into ice cube trays, and when I want a small mug of hot chocolate I pop a few cubes into a saucepan with some water (because I like it on the dilute side) and a dash of cinnamon, and warm it up until steaming. Delicious! (And don’t forget to add stale marshmallows to your hot chocolate. My bag of them, which must be at least two years old, somehow made it into the moving box instead of the trash can this summer, but now I’m glad I have them! I always did like ’em better stale…)

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Later in the day, heating milk for yogurt making (I’ve learned to babysit milk, because the moment you step away from the stove it will begin to boil, rising up very quickly in the pan and spilling out everywhere)…