Nature Songs ~~~~
“Blessed be childhood, which brings
down something of heaven into the midst
of our rough earthliness.”
~~ Henri Frederic Amiel
April 1, 2001 - April first is here and guess the first April Fool joke I play on myself without any intentions of doing so. (A throw-off from all those teaching days and enduring that infamous fun day of the year - ;o)! ) by not sleeping! I rested some yesterday afternoon and it was no excuse for me to stay awake. I did all those little tricks of my own trade with mind games to help me relax to induce that floating stage of putting myself into that state of suspension from reality verses wakefulness to no avail. Sleep was not to be found even though I had been yawning for much of the afternoon and evening. The music playing in the background throughout the darkness was rudely disrupted by one of those powerful buy-me-I’m-fabulous-infommercials at 6 a.m. and I knew to drop off in a brief nap would even be impossible, so here I am with my handy laptop which stands at attention on the nightstand always ready to use.
To be late for my appointed date this morning is inexcusable, but knowing me, I’ll do well to arrive five minutes late which seems to be on time for me. I haven’t given any thought as to what to wear today and my mind is blank on that matter even now as I muse over it. Guess whatever I touch first in the closet will be the choice of the day. I’m not one to worry away the time trying to make a choice on clothes which is a throw-off from being tall and heavy with few choice in years past. I wear whatever happens to be at hand. (Thirty minutes has passed and already another of those high pressure sells pitch is being made for those Sunday morning TV watchers with time on their hand on the weekend and money to spend for just one phone call. The channel is being changed for a less pushy background noise. The all-the-time advertising channel has music as the advertisements flash by.)
Our new pastor will take on his new duties on the first of May. I heard that he was in Hickory this week house hunting for his family. Word is that he will be coming to shepherd our flock while his wife and girls will remain in Ohio until the end of school since it is so near the end of school and the oldest girl will be graduating from high school. That will give him his undivided attention for nearly a month to learn the church , it’s people and workings.
Now the alarm has to be turned off that is supposed to awaken me and let me know the time has changed.
My brain must be short-circuiting on me! I can’t believe I went through the motions of shutting down the laptop before arising to turn off the buzzer on the radio. (The music on the radio is better than the music on the TV.) Now I go through the motions of restarting the laptop and lo! My entry does not show up on the menu as usual! April Fool on me! Thank goodness when I open documents I find it is safely saved and I don’t have to redo it.
Charlie has announced he found something outdoors to report from his sentry at the front window. I talk to Oreo and he leaves his perch long enough to trot into the bedroom to check out how much attention I may be giving Oreo and then hurries back to watch for more movements outdoors. He let’s few activities pass his inspection and approval.
Thinking back, I remember how Cotton used to collect hats and caps of every size and description. She would get up in the morning and decide which hat she would wear for the day and that hat or cap would set her mood for the day. It was always a good indicator of how she may be feeling or what mood she was in. Some days you knew to leave her alone. She didn’t want to be bothered! Strangely enough, I’ve noticed in my writing that I have a way of setting a mood or action for a day as well. (Hummmm wonder if she picked that up from me?)
A news bulletin on the nightly news gave me a good “out” for why I may be overweight. Seems that in a study being done in a university up North that it has been determined that when you lose sleep it disrupts the internal system, including the brain. One of the by-products of that deprivation is being overweight! Some sort of something is missing in those that don’t sleep enough and by studying mice it has been noted that being overweight is among the factors. I can see it now. All I have to do is go around and tell everyone that I am overweight because I don’t sleep as much as I need to at night. Yeah! Sure! Everyone would understand perfectly! (If I did that today, they would all think I was playing an April Fool joke on them. It is an actual fact and not a joke. The only thing is that it will be years and years down the road before the issue will be tried on the humans.)
Mother wants me to take “her money” and buy her a new television for her room like the one that quit working that has the video part built into the same system. She feels that it will work better for her and she can do it by herself. She will not ask one of the CNAs to help her put a video into the machine so she can watch it. It will be a bother and she rather do it for herself. I know as many others do that buying another TV will not solve her problem. After all the other one tore up because she was having a problem with working the remote. A new machine will not take care of her ability to work the controls. I can only hope that maybe something will come along to get her mind on other things. It’s a waste of money to run out and buy her a new TV when the one she has works as well for her as a new one would. Perhaps she would attempt to use a larger crochet needle and do some crocheting? That would work ...
If I take my handful of meds now and get dressed I will be to Hickory early this morning. Now to just carry through on that thought and make it come true. I CAN do it ...
Okay ... A few minutes was shaved off my time of arrival this morning, so that is good. The interim pastor did an excellent presentation of his timely message this morning. The more he got into his sermon, the more actual sound effects reinforced his words. The harder he preached, the darker the sky became and the winds blew. Soon he had a full blown storm raging outside our building. There was even hailstones pelting against the stained glass behind our pews and upon the rooftop. No pun intended and no April Fool’s joke to it, he did preach up a storm this morning in reality.
The news service was reporting later about the storm and the damage done by downed trees, water, hail and high winds. It was a quick moving storm and by the time church was over, we had the sun breaking through the clouds. Charlie spent the afternoon disturbed by the high winds gusting through the tree tops. He did more growling as he listened than actually barking much. Wonder what he would have done if he had been outside while the wind was blowing so much? Come to think about it, he generally does not go outside during times the wind blows hard. He only runs back and forth through the house looking out the windows.
With the time all messed up for the day, there were blunders made by all those taking part in our morning worship service and then our Sunday School Teacher was sort of in slow mode. The rest of the day seemed to be the same way. For some reason it always takes a while to make this one hour changeover as it throws our systems helter-skelter. Tbird and I ended up meeting over at Mother’s after 7 PM to share a plate of Japanese food between us for supper as we visited with Mother. I took Mother some grapes to munch on while we ate.
NascarKid was with his Mother and was thrilled to show off his hair. The very tips of the top of his spiked hairdo had been lightened some so he would be like the other guys. DynoKid wanted his hair done, but it is already light and trying to lighten it any more would be difficult to do other than to completely bleach it out. I suspect that NascarKid’s hair may take on more of a red tint as the days pass. He has some natural red in it and the red makes it difficult to change the color to a lighter shade.
April 2, 2001 - March came in like a lion’s roar with more cold and windy days to contend with throughout the ensuing days than the warm woolly, cuddly lamb’s days. It went out with a den of lions fighting with such fervor that one would not forget too soon how damp and cold the month was. How the weather could jump so high on the thermometer scale and drop so quickly and so low is more a mystery or work of a magician one would think. Sunday was only an extension of March. Many robins were out and about yesterday following the sudden storm. Maybe one or two pairs will decide to settle in my yard this summer.
This morning I have a class I signed up for back around the first of the year. It is on the use of anti-oxidants and herbal use if I remember correctly. It should be good. Maybe there will be some ideas of things that will help me along the way. Tomorrow is the day the weight-loss group will meet. I’m curious as to how many of us will be working together and how we will do with the class. Hopefully we can come up with some helpful ideas too share with each other. I’m in need of some friendly, but firm persuasions for preparing foods at home to eat with recipes to share about cooking for one or two. Cooking one day a month for eating the month would be fine, too, if the foods could be changed enough to keep from repeating the same old thing over and over. That would be easier than trying to cook in such small amounts. My kitchen and utensils are not geared for cooking smaller portions of foods. My mind-set is not in the right gear for cooking for one either. Guess I could be like my recent guest who cooked food for her Afghans each evening and I could cook foods to be shared with Charlie and Oreo. Time will tell.
A message was waiting for me at the desk to call Tbird after my water workout. Hubby is sick today and she wants me to pick up the children for her this afternoon since his appointment is at four. No one mentioned that Little Miss Giggles had fallen Friday and skinned her nose. She had a great big scab all over one side of her nose where it went sliding across the pavement, which glared out in contrast to her delicate pale skin.(I’m out of the habit of this doing schoolwork in the evenings thing.)
Mother was sick today and was not out of bed at all. There was no way to get by to visit with her any, but that may have been better for me if she happened to have picked up the flu bug. Seeing her would have been less strenuous than keeping pace with the two-year-old. ;0) !
April 3, 2001 - Tuesday, already? Am I ready to begin keeping track of what and how I am feeding myself? Will I be able to follow through and be faithful to the cause? Would breaking down to ask the doctor for something to help me sleep a little better help any? According to what I am hearing and reading about, they is a correlation between not sleeping enough and weigh gain because the body loses its normal balance. There are some sleep aids on the market now that are less dangerous than those that have been available. It would be wonderful for me if I could get only six hours a night of rest. This memory thing that I keep referring to as “Senior Moments” could be sleep deprivation instead. I have loss two prescriptions that I was going to have filled closer to when the meds ran out. Where I placed them, I have no idea. Perhaps the place will come to me soon ... than again, they could be with the TV remotes ... other things are lost as well.
Now off to see what is on the schedule today in the new class.
The new weight control class had a dozen of us there to see what we could do together to help ourselves. We each weighed in and received forms to work on during the week. First was the guide to use that best fit each of us for the calories to work around and to record our food intake. There is a booklet to use as a resource with keeping count of our foods. Finally, we each got slips of paper on which to record our goals to work toward each week . All of this is for our personal use and we do not have to share the results or facts with anyone else. Different areas of concern will be covered weekly as we progress through the program and hopefully have the support we need to make life-long changes aimed at improving our lives.
Belk had a 30% off sale today and those of us with credit cards with Belk got an additional 10% on top of that. I went in to look around. I looked! I found! I bought! At least I bought only a little - a summer sweater to wear to church which is sort of dressy and a summer shoulder bag to carry instead of the navy one I’m carrying now. Together they were less than the sweater by itself would have been without the sale. Later this evening I was back at Wally World to buy Mother a few more dresses for summer and several Capri length stretchy pants to use when I workout in the water. I do better with the pants on my legs since I feel the exercising more as I work out. So much for trying to save any money ...
©2001 by Stormy Jeanne
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