July 3rd, 2013... a day in the life...

6:30 a.m.
Good morning peeps... house critters are all outside enjoying the morning temps... I've had my toast and coffee... heading outside to start up the big mower... miss my Hubs... we used to sit at the table and have coffee and eat breakfast... and visit... sometimes just be together... we walked up on the taller hill behind the house and watched the 4th of July fireworks from a distance... we could see some from the various towns in the distance...

We cherished the times we were able to spend holidays together... because most of the time we could not... he did not lie to get off work... so most holidays he was out on the trains... I am thankful for the love and time we had together... we were going to grow old together...

David went on ahead... I know he is ok... whew... ok... deep breath... and another... heading outside to run the big mower... it really is beautiful outside this morning... heard the pheasant calling this morning... the cockatiels ... pete and blue... are singing greetings to the morning...

Greetings... to the Morning...

11:30 a.m.
Well my plans got changed... I was filling the gas tank on the dr mower when my back decided to spasm... grrrrrr... spilled some gas but at least I did not drop the can. Then I went to start the mower... dead battery again... ugh... so the charger is on it... when I park it this time it will be either in the quonset or close to it... with a maintenance charger on it. We'll see if that works.

Mowed down some more grass and weeds down between the quonset and the chicken run... made a bit of a mess out of the mower blade. It still works but is pretty dinged up... It will take quite some time... but I will be glad to have the iron and stuff gone off this place... or all piled together... at least there will be no wild critters hiding in thigh high grasses as I walk by there.

the muscles around my rib cage did not hold long today... used up about all they had knocking down those last weeds and trimming the base of a tree. Thought I'd rake a bit... but that did not work... will have to wait for another day.

going to try the dr mower again in a bit... I know it will be hot out but perhaps I can manage to get a bit mowed. probably not a good idea... but if I can control the mower I am going to give it a go.

have dishes soaking in the kitchen sink... stripped the bed and put the sheets in the washer... dog laundry half done... the pads for the mastiff's beds still need washed.

I did not sleep well last night... woke up every hour... has left me rather tired. A soak in an epsom salts bath may be a good idea after I have done the dishes and folded some laundry.

Not sure what I am going to do for the 4th of july... if anything special. Fireworks are so hard on the dogs I will not be having any here... do not think I would risk it as dry as the grass is in any event. Torrington announced that they were cancelling theirs... I believe Scottsbluff is still setting theirs off... not crazy about driving home after... I've been staying very close to home at night since David passed.

In time perhaps my adventurous spirit will return... One step at a time...

1:30 p.m.
 I did it! I got the dr mower started… I followed through and mowed one of the driveways … walked it for an hour… and an added bonus… I stopped at an hour. Celebrating stopping after an hour may sound silly… but it is not… let me put it in perspective for you. I tend to get out there and just keep going until I can go no longer… now you would think that would get more accomplished. Well it does not! When I keep going until I can go no longer, it is literally until I can go no longer and I end up unable to function for days afterwards. So pacing myself and stopping in a prescribed amount of work or time actually allows me to accomplish more. Hopefully without the injuries to my body I usually incur.

Peeled my sweat soaked clothes off… after I pick the cheat grass heads out of my compression pants I am going to do a load of colored laundry and wash the sweat and dirt out of them. Rehydrating with a greenberry Shakeology smoothie. Going to cool down… then get in a tepid Epsom salts bath and hopefully start on my inside list again.

I blew it yesterday after working outside and crashed when I came back inside. Giving myself some time parameters today to try to keep focused on the various tasks. Perhaps that will help to keep my mind focused and away from grief … anxiety… panic attacks… and the rest of that nightmare as well.

I choose to function…. I never really thought of that as a choice… but I have discovered it is an active choice for me these days… often a determined one to actually make it come to pass. Who’d a thought.

Take 30 minutes to drink Shakeology smoothie and cool down… then bath… then it’s off to town to take care of some business that needs to be done today and refuel the jeep and get chicken feed. Oh yeah… the girls gave us 5 eggs today. YaY…I got them before whatever else is eating them. No broken egg shells in the chicken house…

Then back home make the bed, wash some more dishes, fold some clothes, get online and do some research.

Winding down… truth be told I’d just as soon curl up on the couch and take a nap… but that is not for now. I want to be able to say to my self… I did it at the end of this day.


May you walk in peace...

Mary E. Robbins
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Shakeology: 

 

Celebrating a Victory!

I did it! I used the push mower for an hour on heavy grass and weeds on very uneven terrain… yeah baby! I am thinking I’ve gotten a good workout in for today. I used the small mower because most of this was close work around fences and junk… the DR mower is to big for me to handle safely on that close in work. Really do not want to destroy it’s shaft or blade because I ran it over some old equipment buried in the grass…. Ugh… so it’s the small one that is not self propelled. Between the kennels and the mowing I was outside working around 3 hours… lots more to do… but if I am planning on being able to function at all tomorrow… it’s time for me to stop on the majorly physical stuff today… need to put these legs up and cool down and rehydrate. Sure feels good when I look at all the mowing I’ve gotten done… tomorrow… the drive ways again… that will probably take all the time I am allocating for mowing tomorrow.

Then there is some work I want to do on the computer… prayers that this works out well… thanks…

My tomato plants have 4 or 5 green tomatoes on them… YaY! And lots of blooms… loving it… the rest of the garden… well that did not really happen… have a few cucumbers planted. Ah well… will try to keep the peonies alive this time around and soak my mums, asters, grapes and see if I can keep the aspen trees alive that I planted last fall….

Have the radio station set on a positive upbeat station… what a wonderful difference that makes…

What a difference a few hours can make. This morning I woke up in a fit of terror. Major anxiety… panic attack setting on in full force… talked to my cousin a bit then took my omega 3’s, saint johns wort, and rescue remedy… ate breakfast and headed out the door to do kennel rounds. Before I went out I set the radio station on a positive station… that helped as well… there still are no clear answers to how things are going to go from day to day… but my mindset is much better than it was this morning… and I actually accomplished something rather than crashing and being nonfunctional… this may not sound like much but it is so very very major….

Celebrating a Victory….

Life is a journey...  one moment one breath at a time...

Mary E. Robbins
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Journal… awareness

Good morning Old Friend… we’ve been together for a very long time… from writing stories on wide line paper… to small journals with silly locks and wild ramblings of a teenage mind. Over the decades bits and pieces of you have been torn… wadded up… burned… deleted… posted… and saved… yet you are still with me… in all your varied forms….from a small child’s coloring book to 53 year old adult’s computer, facebook, blog postings.

I remember way back in the day… a teacher standing in front of the class teaching us how to write the alphabet. I heard her say write b d …. It would seem I heard something different than she said because she was not happy with what I wrote… bdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbd…. It seems she had actually wanted bbbbbbbb or ddddddd frankly I cannot remember which. She did not bother to ask what I had thought she said… she just scolded me and told me I was wrong. I remember I was happy and proud I had completed what she had assigned… then sad and afraid.

I wonder if she had any idea the impact she had that day… I knew the difference between b and d… the lesson she reinforced in my small child self was if you are happy and they know it… they will take it from you… don’t let them see what you care about. Don’t let them see you… hide.

I watched the series Prison Break on Netflix this past week… and I saw the same thing over and over. Find what they value… be it a child, husband, wife, family, friend… whatever they love … and threaten to take it away from them if they do not do what you say. Make examples of various people so the others realize you will actually kill their loved ones. Or beat them for a minor infraction.

I remember hearing spare the rod and spoil the child when I was growing up… children are meant to be seen and not heard was another one I heard…

Then all the arguments over to spank or not to spank… discipline vs lack of discipline.

I learned a lot from my mom… some good some bad. It wasn’t until now that I realized part of why she was the way she was.

Mom was afraid to be happy. Her love… happiness… had been used as a weapon against her. It had gotten to the point that she could not say what she wanted directly. Even ordering a meal off a menu in a restaurant she would sidestep and not get what she actually wanted.

It was as if … if she did not show what she wanted… what she loved… or valued… then they couldn’t take it away from her. The truly sad thing is that she turned into “they” repeating the pattern throughout her life. Continuing the punishments devaluations that started so young in her life….

I saw the same patterns in my Uncle Gene’s behavior… over and over… find something you love… or someone… then destroy it or drive it away… over and over… punishing himself….

I wonder how many generations this has been repeated. Curse of the parents upon the children… I remember when I first heard that… thinking why would God curse the children. I now think it means something different than what I first thought … when I heard it as a child and it made no sense to me. The curse of the parents often does go to the children and the children’s children and so on… not always… sometimes you can break the patterns…whether they are behavioral patterns embedded in a child’s mind so deep they are not even aware of it…. Or sometimes the genetic patterns come together a bit differently and some genetic mess the parents’ had is not evident in their offspring … nurture and nature so to speak.

So how did I escape this mess… I didn’t. I have repeated these patterns as well. I have always been curious about the “why” behind things… what is the logical explanation… what happens if this variable is changed… and so on. When it came to my family… my objective as a teenager and young woman was to escape. I did… I went 800 miles away to go to university. Then I missed them… and much to my surprise… I took the behavior patterns with me.

The beginning of the change… I was fortunate enough to see that not everyone else lived the same way I did. I was fortunate to come in contact with people from many varied cultures … countries… and layers of society from around the planet. My mom actually gave me this great gift… I went to the university she wanted me to go to… no it was not my first choice… but it was a good thing. There were students there from 30 different countries around the planet. This was a great gift indeed…. Coming in contact with various peoples from around the planet.

This was such a great thing… the beauty of the various shades of skin color… eye color… hair… patterns of speech… languages… cultural beliefs… modes of dress… the differences… the similarities … and the why’s behind it all… I remember walking across campus and hearing the different languages being spoken in clusters of people walking about or sitting and studying.

My perspective is different now than it was then… at the time I had no idea how great a gift that was.

Another great gift I received while at university… was contact with a particular professor… oh how I hated him… yes… hated him at the time. I don’t remember the man’s name. I have an image of him in my mind’s eye… I saw him once… that I remember away from campus…. Hot disheveled … wrinkled shirt with the shirttail hanging out… a cig hanging out of the corner of his mouth … seems he had a brief case in one hand and a stack of books under his other arm… the course I had him for a was an intro to church related counseling course.

I was very set in my way of thinking at the time… in how I approached my classes… gather info… and spew it back in the form the teachers/professors wanted it. This did not work in this man’s class…. And I was mmmmmm…. Shall we say angry… and rather confused … this particular prof had taken a mental pry bar and shoved it in my ear… so to speak… to pry open my mind… his entire objective was to get us… us being his students… to … are you ready for this… to actually think… to form our own opinions… and voice them in written form. That is what he assignments and exams were based upon. …rather than spewing back the status quo.

My modus operandi for survival from a small child on… had been … find out what they want… give it to them… or an illusion of such… shield yourself… hide who you actually are… and move on… do not draw attention to yourself.

And here was this ….. mmmmmmmm…. Ok… person… not accepting my offerings… trying to pry off my mask… to see what I actually thought. GGGrrrrrrooooowwwwwllllll….. humph… shall we say I was a “bit” resistant. We both won this battle… He won in that I actually did write what I thought…. First time ever where another person could actually read it… In so doing I showed part of who I actually am…

I won… in that I learned that my thoughts do have value… that it is ok to have a difference of opinion… I learned to think and question… this was the beginning of my becoming aware… the beginning of me seeing the familial patterns. ..the beginning of an awakening… that has been a gradual learning process over the years…

Such a great gift… perhaps he knew he was giving such a great gift… perhaps he did not… I do not know. But it was a great gift indeed. Sometimes I wonder though… how different my life would be if I had not “become aware” if I had just lived with the status quo… thinking it was the only way to be… not seeing the many different possibilities…

Click... BOOM...

Good morning peeps…

It’s been an “interesting” few days… geez louise … I could seriously do without this. It’s been tip toe through the tulips and flowers on a path I thought was cleared… safe to walk…and skip along… then click… BOOM… an anxiety land mine went off… take another step… click… BOOM … a grief land mine went off… click boom… chest pain… click boom… vision cloud in … click boom … heart racing… click boom…pain everywhere… click boom… click boom… click boom… click boom… aaaarrrrraaaagggghhhhhh!!!!!!!! Like a cartoon character being blown this way and that.

Coping mechanisms seemed to go out the window… and I hoovered everything in sight… snarf snarf snarf… hmmmm what else can I pork out on…. like that is going to help anything…. Well perhaps the large sized clothes manufactures… but that is all…

I actually had a day or two of being almost me…. Then yee haw … here we go again.

Ok another patch to work through… what’s the trigger… recognize it… cope with it… sounds simple enough… be grand if it actually was…

So… what has been happening… anxiety has been building over the past couple of weeks… with some severe spikes.

June is the month my Dad used to come and stay for a few weeks. He would be at his brother’s right now… and would be here mid June until sometime in July. I treasured those times… Pop and I did not get to know each other well until I was an adult…. Then we became very close. I am thankful for those times… sitting in my front yard having a cigar just sharing some time. Pancreatic cancer took him across a couple years ago…

David used to try to get vacation time in June so He and Pop could spend time together. Those two loved each other. I loved to sit and listen to them tell stories to each other… Such different men… but both very good men.

I loved them both… still do… and they loved me…just as I am… none of the conditional crap that so many pile on… it was such a gift…

We did not deliberately tear each other down… either directly or in the guise of a jest. People that do that are so exhausting. Some are very skilled at it… masking their words with kindness or a smiling face.. Oh that was only a joke… when in fact it had cruel intent behind it.

When we disagreed… and there were times we definitely disagreed… we agreed to disagree. There was no condemnation of the other because we did not think exactly like each other.

This past week has been a slog through a toxic marsh of unless you believe and live as I do you are evil and condemned. You are this … you are that… they are this they are that… they are evil… if you defend them you are evil… my way is the only way…

I wonder if they have any idea how hateful and judgmental they actually sound… not only sound but are being… I wonder if they have any idea just how toxic an atmosphere they are surrounding themselves with. It is truly exhausting being around them.

It also triggers back to my childhood. Do as I say or get whipped… be what I say or you are evil… and worthless. Oh you thought you were doing a good job… all you do is run your mouth… you should be seen and not heard… you are just like your Dad’s mom… and everyone called her old Satan… she was evil… you are just like her.

The only actual memory I have of my Grandma Sadie (my Dad’s Mom) was of her down on the floor… I think we were under a table… not sure… playing with a robot with flashing red eyes. I loved it… and I loved her… There was some kind of connection between us even across death. She died when I was very young… not so long after we played with that robot.

I don’t know if she did the things she was accused of or not… I just know that she loved me. She lived a lifestyle that was different than those accusing her…. Walked a different path.

I often wonder… if those that say their way is the only way to be… are so sure of their path… if they are indeed… why is it that those that walk a different path scare them so much. Is their fear blinding them so much that they can not see that their words and actions are dipped in a toxic bath of hatred laced with fear.

I wonder is it their intent to spread hatred and fear… or are they simply pawns babbling their mouths…

Pawns or not… there are times I would seriously like to silence their hateful mouths. Open your mind and learn or be silenced. But it is not my place to judge… nor to carry out judgments. Frankly it is a good thing that it is not my place…. Such a huge responsibility… requiring much more knowledge and perspective than I have.

I actually remember back to a time when I sounded much like those I was speaking of… much earlier in my walk… as I continued on … often times kicking and screaming at the changes and the pains of growth… my view… perspective changed… shifted… age seems to have little to do with it… minds open at different places in this walk of life… and sadly some never do…

May you walk in peace…

Mary E. Robbins
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