Tag: city living

Halloween is over

I know, it’s a Thursday and it’s not Halloween.  But last week I didn’t post and tomorrow I thought I’d hang with my mother and today I’m feeling quite useless in the grand scheme of things so I thought perhaps I would blog. I actually did write a blog earlier this week but ended up not posting and here’s the thing about this, if I don’t post when I write it, well, then I think it’s stupid and I don’t like it and then I don’t post it. So I have to publish right away or I will overthink it. However, since I had these Halloween photos ready to share I thought at least I’d do that. And just a quick recap – my neighbor (who is actually no longer my neighbor and hasn’t been my neighbor since I moved from Mt. Washington) has these elaborate Halloween parties. This year she had this gigantic witch in her foyer (see featured photo) and our entertainment was a group of 4 ukulele players. These four musicians entertained us and then they brought ukuleles for everyone and taught us a song. It was so fun. Our host (my neighbor) makes about 8 courses of food, everyone gives each other a gift (guess what I gave everyone..) and we end up staying for hours and hours and lugging bags of food and gifts home. I mean it, and she, is/are something. I struck gold when I befriended that neighbor (all my friends are gold but just happy to have found this one too)

Here’s something I’m doing.  I started making a PowerPoint presentation from a book.  I mean, what is wrong with me? I sat here this morning designing a graph. Does this mean I miss work?  What does it mean?  I bet it means I am a frustrated jar maker who has put all her jars in boxes and in the closet and has sworn off craft shows. Will they end up at Goodwill? I’ll wait a year before I decide that.  My part time job asked me to create an Excel file and I am having fun with that.  This office, where I am working, was founded in the 50’s and the office processes are pretty much still there, in the 50’s.  Maybe the processes are more like the 70’s because at least there are computers but honestly…The guy (a boss) came out of his office yesterday and said he was going to dictate a letter to me.  I gave him this look and said “you’re really testing me…” I mean, come on. Just type the dam thing out. Right?  That’s what I ended up telling him in the end. Since I have forgotten all my shorthand (although I would love to learn it again) I said next time I’ll just type out as he talks as I can type much faster than handwrite. I thought at one point I should be a court stenographer because I type so fast…maybe I could still do that.  Hmmmm. Wouldn’t that be interesting?  Except I’d probably make too many noises with my reactions like saying “yea, right…you’re a liar” out loud. Then I’d have to keep typing “strike that.”

In other news, well I don’t have other news, which is a problem for a blogger. But here are today’s thoughts:

  • Do I give up on having Thanksgiving decorations and just surrender to the early Christmas décor?
  • Will I get my Christmas tree up in the window by the official lightup night (Nov. 18)
    • If Christmas day festivities are moving to my son’s new house, do I even bother with Christmas décor? (other than the one in my window)
  • Should I give up on moving OUT of the city and embrace city living even more by selling my car and becoming a real city person and using my free senior citizen bus pass to travel.  The only place I couldn’t travel to would be the North Hills (sorry Jean – you’d have to meet me at a Park and Ride!)
    • Thankful for Aldi’s Instacart if I go this route
  • Or do I want to buy (living in my head) a 5-bedroom house and join this Facebook group called Host a Sister and then open my house up to weary sister travelers.  Then I could cook for these “sisters” and use all my dishes instead of boxing them up and donating them to Goodwill?
  • Do I get off this chair and do yoga for 20 minutes?
  • Should I shower today or tomorrow?
  • Do I need to clean before my Medicare home health visit later today?
    • This may be the answer as well to shower today or tomorrow.
  • Do I have anything to eat?
    • How bad is it really to live on brownies?
  • If I sat here long enough and looked at my computer would a new book idea pop into my head?
    • Conversely could I continue with one of my many other book ideas I’ve already started.

The answer is to start with 20 minutes of yoga and then shower and then decide on the cleaning up idea.  Do I really care what a home health nurse would say to my throw blankets that are not folded properly and put aside? 

And I will continue on the Paint By Number. I think I can maybe even get it done by this weekend.  If I get off this chair and away from the computer…

xoxoxo

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Plant Milkweed and other thoughts

It’s Friday. Time for my report. Here’s what’s been happening this week:

My back is so much better.  The pain has localized into like a side “stitch” kinda thing. I mean, Advil is still my friend, but compared to last week I can’t believe how much better I feel. I read something I thought interesting enough to share…so, on an emotional level it says when we are faced with an emotion, like anger, frustration, guilt, anything really, we are supposed to express it.  Not suppress it. The author suggests doing something physical to release the anger or whatever it is, i.e. punch a pillow, throw something (but not at someone) go for a walk, a run, do pushups, something to release it.  When we don’t do that, express it,  the emotion goes into our subconscious because we have to get rid of it somehow, and then the subconscious releases it back into the body.  Now….isn’t that interesting?  I mean, isn’t it? That does not negate the fact that I was throwing around a suitcase for 5 days that was most probably too heavy, and that drugs and chiropractors and yoga are not helpful, but I just thought that was fascinating enough to share.

Okay what else?  Lantern Flies. I mean What are these things? First it was stink bugs that seemed to be randomly deciding where they would invade.  Some houses FULL of them and the next-door neighbor would have nothing. I haven’t seen a stink bug in years. Now Lantern Flies are invading the city as if God has sent a plague.  Or is it the Chinese? I thought I was safe up here on the 10th floor keeping my window cracked open but noooo, they are now getting up this high and yesterday I had to shoo one out. Luckily I caught him as he flew in.  Then I shut the window.  I mean how sad is it not to have that nice fall air coming in your window? As I googled, I found out they are known to “swarm” at night so no cracked window for me. And then with the window shut I look up and see one crawling up the wall.  The M.F’er. So I hit him with a broom, grabbed with a Kleenex and into the garbage.  THEN I was reading more about the effers and was reading how they are hard to kill and even if you think you got them they spring back to life and wouldn’t you know I went to the garbage can and that little sucker was all back to normal, alive, so I flushed him.  I check the toilet every time before sitting.  You know just incase they climb back up.

The city is inundated with them.  Look at this:

Every time I walk outside I get at least one flown at me, into my face, into my chest or arms, and those are the ones I catch enough to shake off.  The other ones seem to love flying into the back of my neck and hair. I mean every.single.time I walk outside.  And you know I walk to work so I’m fighting them always. They seem 100 times worse than the stink bugs were.  They’re much bigger and they’re harder to kill because they jump.  Here is one little tip for you homeowners that I picked up: Plant Milkweed.  They are attracted to the scent which is poisonous to them, although some articles say this is not scientifically proven.  I hope the city takes note and plants milkweed all over the city.  The little critters seem impossible to keep up with and apparently they can be frozen and then come back to life.  So even a hard freeze won’t help. If you don’t have them yet, you will.  I would start planting that milkweed now if I were you.  And here’s another fun fact: the first one in the US was in Berks County, Pennsylvania.  I don’t how they know that kind of thing but that’s what I read. 

Ok and my last thought I had just today: are we, or are we not, a society of instant gratification?  Like on Instagram, we scroll through photos or “clips” – I think Snapchat is even quicker?  I don’t know as I don’t have Snapchat but my point is we are a society of quick hits and then we keep scrolling.  But when I go to read a news article it seems like forever long. Like even longer than my meaningless blog posts.  I keep thinking the article is over and it keeps going on and on and on. And as a writer I think “you could have cut out half of this and it still would have been effective” but no, on and on and on. I can’t really balance/make sense of these two extremes in my head. I like to be informed but sometimes I just want it to be over.

Like this blog is.  Over.

xoxoxo

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It’s Friday

In the old days I had a reminder on Fridays to blog.  I totally ignored it. But last week after I posted a blog (after a 2 month hiatus) on a Friday, and then Janelly said she missed my blogs, I thought “maybe I’ll try blogging on Fridays again” – just for Janelly. And then I totally forgot about it, until now.  It turns out, as is consistent with my life now, and maybe always, that the best laid plans…

Next Thursday I’m leaving for San Francisco.  I have a lot to do to get ready to go. My Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are all booked with various commitments which left today to pack, etc. AND get ready for the craft show that will be on the Saturday when I get back.  I get back on Tuesday night.  Work Wednesday and Thursday which leaves Friday to pack the car to be ready for the 8 am craft fair on Saturday.  So I was looking forward to getting my act together today. And then….

Last night, coming home from mom day (the day I visit mom) pulling into my city garage, that is under construction, I did not judge the entrance around the construction barriers correctly and caught the corner of the barrier and it popped off the corner of my bumper. I mean talk about WTF. So instead of coming into the apartment and getting started on “stuff” I needed to get done for my busy busy week, I sat on the couch, pissed off, and ate M&Ms. I was asked to send a photo of the bumper to a friend who thought her husband could fix it but I wasn’t going back over there last night.  This morning I didn’t even want to get out of bed and think about it.  BUT I did get out of bed and walked over and took the photo sent it to her and then decided to send it to another friend who works at an Auto Collision Repair shop.  She told me to bring it on in.  I did and they popped it back into place and used a zip tie. I mean talk about God being good but so is Janice, James and Tony at the Collision place. After that problem solved I came home and got all the clothes out for the trip.  AND, AND, I was able to get all my stuff in ½ of my suitcase.  So the person I’m going with can hopefully get their stuff in the other half and look at that, saving money and luggage space. Now, at 4 pm, I’m in my P.J’s and have a little bit of time before my evening commitment and out comes a blog.  I mean, how productive was I today even with an unexpected car incident.  Don’t you wonder sometimes how you get it all done? I do. Like when I’m entertaining and I have lofty goals for a menu and somehow, miraculously, I get it all done in time.  Although I don’t entertain very often now, like never, I still remember how I used to pull it all together.

Speaking of that, I am wondering if it’s time to part with all my dishes. I have 7 or 8 sets of dishes.  Mainly just different dinner plates, not like total sets.  But living in this stupid city really limits my entertaining options.  Nobody wants to come in and risk getting shot, although I’m starting to think as long as they are not selling crack they’re probably going to be okay, but I can’t promise that. I really, really want to move out of the city.  REALLY.  But in the meantime my part time job is just a walk up the street and my rent is paid for another month so I’m here until at least October.

The moral of the story? There’s always time to blog. Or maybe it’s that things always work out? I don’t know, but here you go Janelly. Just for you.

xoxox

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Welcome to Retirement

Welcome to retirement and the conundrum of what to do next and or what to eat next.  With more time on my hands and more options I am more stuck than ever. I seem to have a good wake up routine and a good morning breakfast (juicing) thing but now it’s lunch time.  It’s also Farmers Market Day.  But it was raining and I didn’t want to go in the rain.  And now it’s noon and I don’t feel like fighting the lunch crowd.  Which made me think of lunch.  And I sure don’t want to go over to the Farmer’s Market when I’m hungry so I should make something here.  I have tons of healthy food but what should I eat?  Make a salad?  Pickled beets and eggs? Put the pickled beets and eggs ON a salad?  And then there’s the chores around the house.  I have yet to go through my closet.  Why?  I need a day.  I don’t have a whole day yet.  Every day has something planned.  I don’t want to start it because it’ll be such a mess and I won’t know what to do with the piles of clothes.  I have to do that on a day when I can take them straight to my car (no easy feat going across the roads to the garage..#cityliving) and then take them to where?  Goodwill? Salvation Army? Those two are the closest although most people prefer St. Vincent DePaul. And then there’s just general picking up shit around this apartment and moving it to another corner.  Is it time to put mother’s cards away? Maybe I should put some of the jar candles that I’m not using in a drawer to clear the clutter.  Now that I’ve renewed my lease for another year maybe I’ll put some more pictures on the walls. I also want to move my bed over, just a few inches but it’s not easy to move.  Do I wait for the kids or just use my feet and push it over and quit being a whiny baby? I have a stack of magazines.  Do I save them for my next vision board or do I pitch them or do I find someplace to donate them.  OR am I saving them because there is some great recipe in there? Maybe I need to look through them again. While scrolling through Instagram I saw an ad for Macadamia Pineapple cake on Harry & David – so I looked up a recipe to make my own.  That would be a nice thing to make for my mother. I wrote the ingredients down.  I could walk over to the Farmer’s Market and go to the little grocery over there and pick up the couple items I need for that and walk through the Farmer’s Market at the same time.  I can’t make the cake today as I have a 3:00 appointment (hospice) and then I have to be at the rowing place at 5:30.  See?  Always something.  Tomorrow I am on mom and Mya duty (babysitting this weekend) so still not a good time for clothes….unless I can take a load on my way there.  I could make the cake in the morning and while it’s cooking go through some clothes – not all – and then transport the cake, the clothes to give away, my weekend bag to the car and then to Sewickley where I will undoubtedly whine about how hard it is to go anywhere when you have to lug your shit across the Blvd of the Allies into the parking garage.  See what I’m saying? Retirement is not for the faint of heart.

Or I could order Pizza and watch TV until my 3:00 call.

The choices are endless.

xoxox

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I’ll worry about that tomorrow

The sun is shining (first, a rarity in these parts) and it is shining just so on my TV and TV stand and there is so much dust there that I can see now because of that rare sunshine.  I am sitting here pondering.  Do I get up and dust now?  Get the Swiffer out?  Or do I write a blog? Notice, the Blog has won out.  I mean I really should dust there, and if I start there, then I will end up going all around the room and once I go around the room I will probably go into the bedroom and dust in there.  But I do not always keep going. More often than not I will stop and decide to dust the bedroom tomorrow. I can dust that tomorrow.  Not only because it’s Sunday but because now all my days are Sundays.  I have recently asked Alexa to tell me every day what day it is and what day of the week it is.  She didn’t get it and told me the weather.  But still I need some sort of reminder. Working at home this last year I would wake up and have to purposely stop and think “is this a day I have to get out of bed?” or “is this a day I can roll over and go back to sleep?” Now I can roll over and go back to sleep every day, but I don’t.  I still have a couple lingering commitments, i.e. a 10 am call on Tuesday, a noon call, every Wednesday, this past week I had a 9 am call on Monday.  I know.  I really had to get up that day.  And now that I have the days to myself I have noticed I am getting up earlier, so I can enjoy the day! I don’t want to waste the days away.  I want to enjoy them.  But I obviously haven’t included dusting in that equation.  I’ll get there.  This is apparently a process.

One thing I have added to my day, every day, is Yoga.  EVERY morning before I leave my bedroom, even before I have tea, I do 20 minutes (or 15) of Yoga.  I mean all on my own.  I’m not even forcing myself.  I’m not even doing it because I think I “should” – I’m just doing it. I know it’s good for me, but I’ve always known it’s good for me.  I was shaking my head thinking about last week’s yoga was 15 minutes (this week 20) but how easy would it have been for me to include that in my morning before work.  You’d think it would be super easy, working from home.  Roll out of bed and do the yoga and THEN turn on that stupid computer. But I was under so much stress I couldn’t even allow myself that 15 minutes.  I mean how crazy is that?  No one put that stress on me.  No one ever said “be at your computer by 8 am” – No one. I did that to myself. I’m not spending too much time wondering why.  I’m just accepting the fact that my stressors and my limitations and my unhappiness was all brought about on my own. The only thing that helps is that I’m not blaming anyone and not mad at anyone.  I’m not even mad at myself.  I’m just glad it spurred me to move on because I can not tell you how happy I am not having those stressors, whether or not they were self-inflicted they are just gone now and I spend an awful lot of time smiling.

I have heard from a few co-workers these past two weeks.  Mostly saying hi, how’s it going.  One guy I told him I was born to be retired and he responded that it was nice that I found my calling.  How apropos. LOL. I met another friend for lunch and she brought me this huge present I was not expecting.  That was fun. And I did hear from one PIA asking me where there were extra keyboards.  You can tell by that question that he is one of those people that does not look before asking.  Like your kids when they say “I can’t find xyz” and you respond “If I come up there and find it I’m gonna knock you out” because you KNOW they didn’t even look. Of course you don’t knock them out, but it did sometimes work that they would then quickly look before I got up the steps and would say “never mind!” Dam Kids.  Anyway, so when this guy asked if I knew where the extra keyboards are and I said “my” desk drawer – well obviously he didn’t even look before the text. If he would have said “I looked there” then I would say “then how the fuck do I know?” but I didn’t say that.  I was nice, because I am nice. But really I wanted to say, are you kidding me?.

I’m not gonna lie though, I did kind of like that he asked me.  AND that I knew the answer. I mean it was a stupid question but I still knew the answer.  It hasn’t left me totally yet.  Work stuff.  As for the hard stuff (questions) we will see if anyone asks me a hard question if I have retained any of that.  Jordan suggested a month or so ago that I return to Point Park (college) and resume my old position of doing contracts.  And you know what?  I can’t remember how I did them.  I know there’s a spreadsheet and a macro and some finangling – but that process has left my brain.  As it should.  It’s been 8 years since I left there. I’m sure it would come back to me but I don’t need to find out.

This is a weird weekend in the city.  It’s race weekend.  The Pittsburgh Marathon.  So they have closed all the streets around me.  It is so quiet for the city.  There’s no people sounds and not a lot of traffic sounds because they can’t get here! But that also means I can’t get out.  I had thought I had until 4 am to get my car out and come back but they posted a notice that I couldn’t get out this afternoon. I had plans tonight too so that was a pretty big disappointment. BUT I am learning to roll with the punches.  And that isn’t even a punch.  It’s just a thing.  Which has caused me to sit here and write a blog and to ponder the dusting dilemma and to listen to the quiet and to think about getting out tomorrow and seeing those runners. You’d think the town would be hopping with runners but it’s just so quiet.  Maybe they’re all carbing up somewhere. Or would they have done that Friday night?

Well I’m stuck in the city regardless.  I guess it’s as good a time as any to get the Swiffer out and watch the last season of Grace and Frankie. Maybe start a movie. OR better yet maybe wait until tomorrow since I can’t go anywhere and watch a movie tomorrow.  There’s something about allowing yourself a whole lazy day that is so decadent.  A whole day.  I think that day could be tomorrow.  After I go cheer on a couple runners of course. THEN I’ll watch a movie.  Ohhh I can’t wait.  A reason for living.  There are so many reasons now.

Xoxoxo

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