Day in the Life

I thought it would be fun to do a "day in the life" post because those are one of my favorite type of posts to read.
0645:  Ugh... I don't want to get up because it's cold and wet and foggy but I have to take the little person to school so I wake up the supposed "right way" with lemon water.

It's too dark at this ungodly hour to bother with decent photography.

After breakfast and walks to school, I have a debate with myself whether or not I actually want to go to the gym.  The gym usually wins because a workout cancels the guilt on those days when I eat Cheetos and iced coffee for lunch.

At least my gym shoes are cute.

My gym is across the street from a pond, so I get this view on the way out of the parking lot.  It's usually less foggy and I like to watch the resident geese strong-arming the park goers for food.

Yes, that's a pile of dirty snow.

When I get home, I shower and make myself a quick Tofurky sandwich for lunch.

Optical illusion courtesy of my sushi cutting board.

The long, boring drive through nothing to the next town to get my teeth cleaned. I hate getting my teeth cleaned. I never got over my childhood dislike of the dentist.  Also, the half hour drive through dairy farmland doesn't sweeten the deal at all.

I truly live in the middle of nowhere.

I didn't realize I had to have x-rays taken so I reward myself with a little trip to Dollar Tree.  There was a couple shopping in the store with a toddler and they were being incredibly loud and making completely inappropriate comments to one another in front of their kidlet.  I was embarrassed for them.  And it didn't help at all with the migraine I could feel brewing in my temples.

I absolutely love this signage for the Sands Center.  So cute!

Coffee for the drive home and to try and ward off the aforementioned migraine.  Why would I bring medicine with me?  That would be too much like preparation. 

I'm in park, I swear.

By the time I got home I had to walk over to the school and pick up the kiddo and, by that time, my head was throbbing and the day ended on the couch wrapped in my Snuggie.  Sorry, no pictures.

There's a starman waiting in the sky

I didn't realize the impact David Bowie had on my life until, suddenly, he was gone.  My mom would rock me to sleep as a baby by singing "Young Americans".  In elementary school, my dad played guitar in a cover band.  During their rehearsals, I did my homework on a couch and listened to countless hours of "Suffragette City" and "Ziggy Stardust".  Labyrinth is still one of my favorite movies of all time.  I spent my teenage years with my BFF (one of the biggest Bowie fans I know) riding around and listening to David Bowie.  The opening piano notes to "Life on Mars?" still give me chills.
Thank you, Mr. Jones, for making up a huge portion of the soundtrack of my life. 

Helloooo, 2016!

Dear 2016,
I'd really like to stay organized this year.  Especially when it comes to blogging.  Every time I got on a schedule last year, you threw a wrench in the works with a barrage of doctors' appointments or something would break or one of the animals would get sick or injured.  Could you maybe keep everyone healthy this year?  At least the animals.  They don't have health insurance*.
It would also be really nice if you could make this new medicine start working for me.  Being exhausted and in pain isn't really my bag, ya dig?  Please and thank you, of course.
I really liked having a planner last year and even though some planner-less haters might think it's silly, decorating my planner and sitting down and really planning out my week helped me stay focused and helped me schedule in some downtime for myself.  Overdoing it is not my friend!  (Except I may have forgotten to pencil in "blog, dammit".  My bad.)
Speaking of planners, I decided to jump on the bullet journal bandwagon.  I love making lists, so this seems like a good system for me.

I already decorated my notebook because plain black is not my thing.

Aaand, speaking of lists, I decided to list all of the books on my shelves and in my Kindle that I have not read.  I also made a list of all the bath and beauty products I've hoarded purchased over the past year because one of my few resolutions is to use up what I have before buying anything new.  So please don't tempt me with so much cool shit this year, ok?  At least not until I read these thirty or so books on my list.

This is just my non-Kindle list.

I guess I'm ready for you, 2016.  The real question is:  Are you ready for me?

*And of course I want everyone to be healthy.  Just a little joke. 

Peace out, 2015!

I wouldn't say 2015 was terrible but it wasn't awesome either.
I was locked in a battle with my doctors as I watched my health deteriorate only to be told that it was "anxiety" and "all in my head".  False!  After arguing and demanding a second opinion, I saw a rheumatologist who diagnosed me with rheumatoid arthritis.  Basically my immune system is attacking my joints.  Thanks immune system!
In July I said goodbye to my bestest furry friend of 11 years.  I still don't have words for the pain it put on my heart.
2015 decided to go out with a bang and gave us a blizzard of biblical proportions:  cars trapped under snow drifts,  people snowed into their houses, roofs collapsing under the weight of our belated white Christmas.
Oy...
But it wasn't all bad.  I like my rheumatologist.  She actually took the time to listen to my concerns and wanted to help me start to feel better.
I saw a lot of good movies, watched some good shows, listened to good music, and played some rad games.
And, finally, in November I found this little noodle head on the side of the highway.

What I'd like for Damn Fine Coffee in 2016:
I really hope to write more posts, especially more personal posts. I feel that personal blogging has really sort of died out as more and more bloggers hope to monetize their "lifestyles". I don't think I can single-handedly revive personal blogging. I'm just doing it for me and that's what matters.
I'd also like to talk about RA and treatments and supplements and what is working for me in case there are people out there, like me, newly diagnosed and searching for answers.

So, that's it.  I hope everyone has a fun and safe NYE celebration. 

See ya next year!

What I did on my blogging vacation

Don't let the title mislead you.  I didn't actually go on vacation.  I just took a mostly involuntary vacation from blogging.
So what have I been up to?  How about a bullet list?

• Personal life stuff:  I said goodbye to my bestest furry friend of 11 years in July.  Unfortunately, he was suffering from some degenerative mental issues which were making him aggressive towards our other dog and people.  Also, I've been ill with a mystery disease that the doctors here aren't that eager to find the cause of/treatment for.  *sigh*  I see a specialist in December because he's booked until then.  Small town life.  Gotta love it!  Anyway, I've been tired, achy, and just generally feeling like I'm coming down with the flu.  I have had the downtime to read and watch TV, though, so it's not all bad.
• Reading:  I've been reading lots of books on Buddhism lately.  My two favorites so far:  Transform Your Life:  A Blissful Journey by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso and Buddhism:  Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen. I also read a couple Ann Rule books and I'm working through a book of Anne Sexton poetry.
• Playing:  I've been farming it up on Story of Seasons but then Happy Home Designer (an Animal Crossing spinoff game) came out and I've been spending my gaming time designing houses for adorable critters.  (Expect a full report at a later date.)

• Watching:  Season 6 of The League, season 4 of Once Upon a Time, season 1 of The Following, and season 1 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  I've also been re-watching all the Star Wars movies which has incited a household feud of which movie was better:  Return of the Jedi or The Empire Strikes Back.  Obviously Return of the Jedi was better because Ewoks.  Duh!

I hope to get back to blogging, even if it means I only crank out one post a week.  But I'm going to shoot for two because dream big, right?

Bad blogging

Loyal reader(s):

Please excuse P from blogging this week. The creative part of her brain has melted thanks to a faulty air conditioner that still has yet to be repaired.

Seriously, though. Luckily our air conditioner was under warranty which means instead of the 1 million dollars it costs to fix it, we will only pay half that amount.  Lots of people live with only one kidney nowadays, right?
I'm also going out of town and I had scheduled some posts but somehow I ended up deleting the edited drafts and I don't have the time or patience to re-edit them.  Yes, I'm a bad/lazy blogger but I swear I will make it up to you! 
I have posts written (that need polishing) and posts in my brain queue waiting to be written. 
Hopefully you'll have a great week without my witty insight but, just in case you need a little to get by, go watch Daredevil on Netflix. 

Fangirling: Anaïs Nin

I thought instead of reviewing a book or movie or game, I could talk about one of my favorite authors.
**Full disclosure:  I wrote this post forever ago for my old blog but my AC has been out since Thursday, and I think the part of my brain that is capable of stringing together coherent sentences melted and ran out of my ears at some point yesterday afternoon.**
Is there a book you could read over and over again?  One of those books, for me, is White Oleander by Janet Fitch.  One of the main characters, Ingrid, is a poet and often "prescribes" books to her daughter Astrid to help her cope with her life as a teenager.  One of the authors she brought up was Anaïs Nin, and was immediately curious.  The only thing I'd ever heard about her was that she wrote dirty books.  Why would a mother tell her teenage daughter to read smut?  I had to know!

While Ms.  Nin did write a few volumes of erotica, her published diaries are where the really juicy stuff is hidden.  (I swear I'm not a perv!  Maybe a little bit of a perv.  But a harmless perv.)
A few years ago, I picked up a copy of Anaïs Nin's journal Henry and June and fell instantly in love.   The writing is both poetic and raw and her journaling draws you not only into her life but into her brilliant mind.
I'm going to assume 
Anaïs never fell victim to a boring day in her life.  Not only was she a writer, but also a dancer, an analyst, a mistress, and a muse.  A combination of lover and muse for the author Henry Miller.  She was married to a somewhat reserved banker, but desired her independence during a time when women's desires and dreams were often put on the back burner for household duties and child rearing.  She wanted to venture out to the dive bars, the whorehouses.  To experience life on the fringes while knowing she always had a comfortable house with servants and hot food and clean sheets to scurry back to when shit got real.  She was the queen of slumming it.
I am into my fourth diary now, and I've found them all hard to put down.  While I don't agree with her extramarital activities, her story-telling and poetic language captivate me.  She lived life fully, but she also observed and recorded every tiny detail.  I think writers, with their observation skills and seemingly photographic memories, really know how to exist in the present moment.  
I only wish I could write/blog/journal half as beautifully as Anaïs did.  Or travel the world.  Or be able to pick the brains of sculptors, poets, musicians, actors...
But a little vicarious living  never hurt anyone.



Help for the Self

Last summer I got sucked into a vortex of self help books that spit me out sometime around October.  They mostly centered around positivity and affirmations and the oh so "secret"  law of attraction.  I read so many, in fact, I'm completely confident I could write my own.  Then I thought "You're much too lazy to write an entire book".  Then I thought maybe I could inspire others to write their own self help books.

I'll CliffsNotes my expert advice for you now:

First things first, are you a life coach?  I won't say it's a necessity but how can you expect to be taken seriously if you can't share anecdotes about your life coaching clients?  Life coach=life expert as far as I'm concerned.  If you have a couple hours and $100 bucks to spare, you could get our life coaching certification online right now.

If you don't have the word "positivity" in your book at least 2000 times, you're probably doing it wrong.

Other expressions you should overuse:
Being present
Limiting beliefs
Intention
Consciousness
Visualization
Grounding
Intentional grounding  (Oh, wait.  That's football.)

Leave lots of blank pages after asking open-ended questions.  You shouldn't have to do all the writing work, amirite?

Be vague.  Write about a point in your life when you felt down, low, and miserable but never share the details.  You wouldn't want to connect to your readers on a human level would you?  You should leave them wanting more so they subscribe to your blog, your Instagram, your Facebook, and follow you on Twitter.  (PS-  You should have all those accounts anyway.   How else are people going to find out about your life coaching services?)

You could actually use the opposite approach and be very specific about a sad time in your life but make sure it makes you appear over-privileged or completely out of touch with reality.  That time the Corvette dealership was out of black cars and you were completely devastated for that month it took to have one special ordered?  You should totally share that.  People going through a divorce or the death of a loved one that have picked up your book for comfort are sure to relate to your struggles.

Have you thought about a cover for your book?  How about a flower?  Or your face?  Or your face superimposed on a flower?  Or you on a beach.  Dangle a crystal between your eyes.  Hold a yoga pose.  While balancing on a dolphin.  A dolphin that is riding on a rainbow wave of cosmic energy.  I mean synergy.

Batman:  Self help guru  **source**

And, finally, talk about yoga. If everyone did yoga they wouldn't need self help books.  Because yoga.

First Post Jitters

Even though I've written blog posts before, I still had some misgivings when I sat down to write this post.  Should I write an introduction post? Should I just write like this isn't my blog's first post ever?  Should I just open up Tumblr and look at Supernatural gifs for an hour?
Obviously, I decided to go with the introduction post.  After that hour of fangirling, of course.  If there's one thing I'm good at, it's procrastination.
Truth be told, I've had this blog sitting here ready to be written on for months now.  I had the design, the header, the widgets linking to a blank Twitter account but I didn't have anything to write about.  I would look at that little cursor blinking away and think "Holy hell my life is soooo boring.  No one wants to read this junk!"  To an extent my life is a bit boring.  I live in a small town with limited entertainment and social opportunities.  I don't DIY or create recipes or run a photography business.
Dammit!  Why can't my life be as cool as everyone makes theirs out to be on their blogs?

When you right, you right, Teddy.  

So maybe my days aren't exactly Instagram worthy.   I watch a lot of Netflix, I haunt the book aisle at Goodwill, I'm always on the hunt for The Zombies on vinyl...
"Watched 40 episodes of Friends today and may have forgotten to shower" probably isn't the most riveting of blog content.
Then I had an "ah ha" moment.

Lightning has just struck my brain.

 It hit me when someone asked for documentary recommendations on Facebook and I gave him a list of ten, and that little voice in my brain that gets excited about things began yelling at me:
"Holy crap!  Maybe other people want your recommendations?!?!?!"
"Instead of boring people on your Facebook feed, you can broadcast your opinions upon the unsuspecting masses via that poor neglected blog you started!" 
"Hey!  You can talk about video games, too!  You play those."
"And, hey, you can tell everyone about all that Charmed you watch!"
**On second thought, maybe keep all the Charmed watching to yourself.**
"And books, yo!  You read a lot of those!"

So if you need a brutally honest book review or find yourself unsure of which show to binge watch next weekend, you've come to the right place.