Another day of Life... choices

Good morning Peeps…. Choosing to appreciate another day of life… there is a bird song concert going on in the trees… love that sound… gonna grab the cockatiel cage and set them outside for a bit… so they can enjoy the outside before any thunderstorms come up… glad that cage is not overly heavy… although when I first started carrying it outside and back in it felt like it was… hmmmmmm… suppose I’m getting physically stronger… this would be a good thing.

I was pretty exhausted most of the day yesterday… combination of emotional and physical exhaustion. Meeting via the phone with the rrb and my case manager the day before. In depth interview…. Looks positive but not counting on anything… which in itself is exhausting. Panic attack before meeting…. I still made it to my case manager’s office for the phone conference. Exhausted… rattled … but there… and able to actually speak… dealing with the rrb brings the trauma of losing David front and center… for several months I would lose my ability to speak when trying to deal with them…. And get very shocky… as in go into shock. Do not misinterpret… the lady we have been dealing with has been human and professional… it is not her… it’s the link up with the trauma.

Taking the omega 3’s have made a huge difference… boosting my serotonin levels… of course omega 3’s are not the only thing that effects serotonin levels… but in my case there was a marked change in the depth of depression I was having to deal with… of course I still miss my mom and my husband… as well as the friend that passed last weekend. However the overwhelming immobilizing depression that was stacked on top of the grief is lifting… I am coming back into myself…

Pretty amazing what a simple chemical imbalance can do… omega 3’s who’d a thought… glad I know now.

Yes there is still anxiety… and panic attacks… grief… sadness… but I am functioning… not caught in that swirling black hole of depression… whoop whoop! Raising the serotonin levels was huge… something else that is huge is making the choice as to focus. When my serotonin levels were too low… the depression was immobilizing… physically… emotionally… mentally… now that my chemical levels are in a better range… I am more able to choose my focus. Yes I am still working through things… of course I am… the difference… now I am able to work through things more …. Rather than being caught in a tide of misery and pain… immobilizing desolation. That is not something I miss… I can tell you that…

Each morning I am “making the choice” to appreciate the day… to give thanks for another day of life…. Sooooo… with that in mind…

Cloudy with a threat of thunderstorms here today… have the house kittens… Larry, Curly, and Mo, out in their kitty run… gonna have to take some more pics… I love the beautiful arch of their necks… beautiful characters they are… lol….

The mastiffs have had their breakfast… raw egg and kibble… the house Pominators are out zipping about the yard… doing their morning inspections… yes they check the yard perimeter… and everything in between…

I am having my breakfast… coffee with cinnamon and creamer… and a half a toasted blueberry bagel with cream cheese… no I am not starving myself… that is all I want right now… I will grab my vitamins and such and swallow them in a bit…

Planted my tomatoes yesterday… I have 6 large pots that I put 2 plants each in… don’t have my garden space prepped yet… sooooooo into the pots they went… noticed 2 more peonies that were planted last fall have come up…

I did get most of my cucumber patch cleared of grass… it’s cheat grass and field grass that comes back in each year… if I have enough energy this evening I will clear the rest of that patch… got some of the mustard weed mowed down… ugh… did as much as I could do and still get back into the house and take a bath… nose and throat were on fire… drank another shot of apple cider vinegar to stem the allergic reaction… as well as slow down the muscle spasms… I am either going to get stronger with more endurance … or be fertilizer somewhere in the field grass….. Focusing on getting stronger… healthier…

Heading out to freshen the dog waters… then a full day ahead…

May you walk in peace…. What do you see… a cracked sidewalk with a weed… or life bursting through the rubble… same picture… different view… your choice…

Mary E. Robbins
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Good morning peeps...

Good morning peeps... busy day today... having breakfast and some coffee...actually my breakfast came fresh out of the hen house... yes eggs not my chickens... and toast... freshened all the dog waters this morning... perfect morning... birds singing... wonderful temps ... has not heated up yet... lovely... could do without the wild mustard... sneeze sneeze...

Yesterday was a day of ups and downs... but I was given a gift... and I chose to accept it... the pleasure of seeing a bit of the life around us...

The mastiffs were barking last night at dusk… I stepped out to see what they were after… thought perhaps that snake had come back to the yards… if he/she had I wouldn’t know because I did not see a snake… what I did see standing on the crest of the ridge to the west was a herd of deer. We were looking at them… they were looking at us… I stepped back inside to get my camera and of course they were gone when I got back outside… was a treat to see them though.

May you walk in peace...

Mary E. Robbins

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Good Morning... and a Baby animal rant...

Good morning peeps… no dream enlightenments last night. Just some vague recollection of some mess being caught in the screen of my kitchen sink drain. If there was a message in there… I did not get it. Bright and sunny… the house crew are all outside… Pete and Blue (cockatiels) are singing enjoying the morning sun.

Curly decided to zoom about the lower yard for a bit before zooming back to me … last night when I was bringing the kittens inside… little white cat with it’s tale on full fuzz alert… sticking straight up in the air puffed out as big as she could get it… she zoomed here… she zoomed there… she zoomed back to the kitty kennel… saw her friends were not there and zoomed to me… after she was put in their indoor kitty condo with her sister and brother they all curled up in a ball of sleepy kitties and were off to sleep…

After curley finished up her zooming routine and was safely in her kitty condo I let the mastiffs out of their dog run into the lower yard… they did their perimeter check …. Yes they patrol the perimeter of the lower yard… looking for anything inside or outside of the yard that does not belong there. If something is outside the fence that does not belong there the bark alarm is started… if it’s inside the perimeter… it is just … done. I am not going into details on that… use your own imagination.

I am always on the look out for rattlesnakes and any critter acting inconsistently with what it normally would as I do not want them being bitten by a rattler or something rabid. This is why I wanted the yard fences… not because they are convenient but because I did not want to step out the front door to some critter and surprise it or be bitten… or surprise some range cow with a calf and get stomped.

By the way… if you are out and about where there are baby wild animals… or calves… foals… whatever… leave those baby animals alone. Wild animals should be self explanatory… but every year people disturb fawns (baby deer) baby antelope and so on thinking they are helping when all they have done is take them away from where their mothers have put them while she is grazing.

Bear cubs, cougar cubs, bob cat kittens, wolf pups, coyote pups, skunk kits, …. Baby animals are adorable… leave them be. When you mess with them…you endanger them… and you endanger you. Yes even calves and foals… if those animals… adult animals do not know you… you risk being seriously injured or killed.

Yes even cats and dogs… you are not part of their pride/pack … if you are at someones house and there are puppies or kittens … let the owner hand that puppy or kitten to you… that baby’s mother’s instincts are to protect it’s young…. And you risk being clawed or bitten.

Oh yeah… baby pigs too… make that baby pig scream and it’s mama is coming after you… and not to shake your and in friendship either… soon to be cadaver.

By the way… if you do get clawed bitten or stomped… it is your own fault… they are protecting their young… what would you do if a stranger tried to grab your child… it is the same thing…

For that matter hummingbirds will nuke you if you get too close to their nests… learned that one the hard way… made me very glad I has glasses on… for there was a very pissed off little bird going for my eyes… because I stepped to close to where her nest was… she really surprised me as I did not know her nest was in that lilac… it was at my Pop’s place in Minnesota years back… she never bothered with him… knew he was not a threat… but she did not know me…

Moral of my rant… be respectful of other creatures… if you are out and about and want to see baby animals or take pictures of them when you see them… hey… carry a telephoto lens and take the photo that way…

Ok… done with my baby animal rant…

I was kinda bummed… saw this beautiful little blue speckled egg shattered on my front walk… wind must have flung it out of it’s nest… or another bird switched out the eggs…

There was a full on bird song concert in that evergreen tree last night at dusk… beautiful… 

 May you have a glorious Saturday…

Mary E. Robbins
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A realization… of benefit… maybe yes…maybe no…

“I’ve come to understand that contained within each moment is the decision we have, as divine beings with free will, to either live in love or fall into the trappings of fear.” ~Carol J. Obley


Yesterday morning I was asking how do I stop the anxiety… panic attacks… outright fear… that I wake up with or slide rapidly into each morning…the icy night sweats of night terrors… and so on… This question stuck with me throughout the day…rattling around in the back of my mind.

Especially as I was running head long into a brick wall… so to speak… trying to help another that is mired in depression, anxiety, grief, fear, agoraphobia, panic attacks… she had gone into hiding with her speech geared down to one word monosyllabic words… after several days of unsuccessfully trying to reach her she finally answered up her phone. (On a positive note she called me later in the evening.)

I tend to be a “fix it girl” if something is askew … or something needs to change… what can we do to make that happen. (I am better at it for other folks than I am for myself) I had come up with some possible options for a situation that is looming over her… all of which were rapidly shot down… then my next impulse is to just take care of it for her… however at this point in time I am not in a position to do so…so that is not going to happen. Then I thought wait a minute… what are you doing? This is her life… these are her choices… you can not “fix” it for her… you can be there… with your hand out (either literally or figuratively) but she has to make the choice whether to reach out and take it or not. It’s all about the choices.


Then I thought about another dear friend of mine that came after me when I was burrowing myself into a black hole trying to pull the top in over me… right after David died. She kept after me… trying to get me to come out… brave woman she is because I was like a snapping screaming weeping pissed off cougar in a cave… she kept at it … letting me know she was there… offering her love and support… but she could not pull me out of there… each of us has to make that decision… choice… no one else can do it for us… nor can we do it for each other… as much as we may want to.

Before I went to bed last night… I had chosen to venture forth a bit on a project. Then of course I started second guessing myself and falling into fear. I was worried as I went to bed… I felt a panic attack coming on and got up to get some rescue remedy… took it and went back to bed. Mind you I have been taking rescue remedy a good bit of the time when I go to bed at night… I’ve noticed that I sleep better when I do.

Then here come the dreams… I do not remember the details of all of them… but the theme… message… was consistent throughout… what? You didn’t get it that time… Wham… here it is again… need it repeated again… ok…here it is… Choice.

Ok…. That pissed me off… What the $%^# do you mean I am choosing panic attacks?! Seriously!? Yeah I woke up rather torked off. But it stayed there… bouncing around in my mind… whispering… think… understand…

This is not blaming you for depression, anxiety, grief, fear, agoraphobia, panic attacks, night terrors, whatever else is going awry…

This IS EMPOWERING YOU …. Over depression, anxiety, grief, fear, agoraphobia, panic attacks, night terrors, whatever else is going awry…

In one of the dreams there was this woman… she was standing there… with a falconing glove on… sending this bird out to hunt prey so it could eat… but rather than going out to hunt… it would fly up… then dive and attack her… ripping pieces of her flesh away… devouring it… yet she still stood there… arm out with the glove on for it to land on… over and over it tore at her flesh while she stood there… coming back to land on her glove…

Then I heard it… she is choosing to stand there… all she has to do is choose to send that bird away… it is her choice.

That is when I woke up… go back to sleep … same scenario … wake up …. Go back to sleep…I do not know how many times it repeated…


Then as I was having my breakfast… half a toasted multigrain bagel with cream cheese and coffee with cinnamon… one of my books jumped out at me… It had been catching my eye as I was putting the mastiffs outside to run… then the trio of young cats (Larry Curly and Mo) … then the Pominators… this book kept coming into focus… mind you I am a bit of a book freak… so there are many books here… yet this one kept leaping into my line of sight from the pile…

I sat down my bagel and walked over to pick it up … brought it back to the table and flipped it open… it came open to a page I had marked… then for some reason I flipped back a couple of pages and this phrase jumped out at me…

“I’ve come to understand that contained within each moment is the decision we have, as divine beings with free will, to either live in love or fall into the trappings of fear.” ~Carol J. Obley

Frankly I was still rather pissed. Then this quiet thought came back again… this is not blame… this is EMPOWERMENT… you can choose to send it away… it is up to you… this does not have power over you… only the illusion of power over you… you have the power of choice… you can choose to send it away…


Depression, anxiety, grief, fear, agoraphobia, panic attacks, night terrors, whatever else is going awry… all of this is rooted in fear…

The life events that triggered… continue to trigger… these things… we may not be able to do anything about. They are what they are… and many are cumulative…

If those cards are in your hand… then they are… one of the cards in my hand is David’s death… not a thing I can do about that… it is what it is… but how I play those cards… how you play those cards… that is up to you… we are not powerless… although often there is the illusion… that we are… note that word… illusion…

So how do we do this… step by step instructions please… hmmm… well I don’t have those… however… sometimes just the realization that we can… makes all the difference…


It is what it is… it is not what it is not … if it is useful to you use it… if not then toss it away… either way… here it is…

Mary E. Robbins
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