Monthly Affirmation

may I be I is the only prayer - not may I be great or good or beautiful or wise or strong. ~e.e. cummings

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Where Am I?

This blog needs to stay around for me but I fear I may be going silent on here. In the repairing aspect of this journey I have to move on a straight and narrow course of weight loss. I have to and I will not subject my body to more surgery to do this.

So now my focus is here. Losing it by focusing one day at time ... even one meal at a time to lose just 1 lb at a time.

Also as co-chair of the Lupus Walk next year with Sarah I have to focus here on that journey. The dates have been finalized and as soon as I see that they are officially announced I need to update and start running with this.

I also work very hard to post at least a picture every day or every other day here. This blog I fear will eventually morph into something else or a true website as I contemplate taking my enjoyment in photography to a new level.

But this blog needs to stay around. There are hefty chunks of discovery that I went through after having two strokes and I often reference them. It may however go silent in the future and I turn it over to where I only can see the posting.

So I am still here but really over here, here and here! Love you all.

Namaste.

Friday, September 16, 2011

accoutrement

Tis with heavy heart that I say good bye the week that has past. Heavy because of all the band aids holding it together. Wow. It has been a pricy week full of material destruction and personal brick walls. But it is at an end.

It was not the theft of the prescription sunglasses and Garmin device that hindered my week. Lord knows what else was in my car that was stolen that I have not recognized yet that began my Monday with a flourish. Neither was it the little matter of the fact that to do this they pulverized my window to pieces. No it was that the yellow roses withered in my office due to the fact that I could not get to where I needed with them in time due to the previously mentioned annoyances that placed and aura of frustration over the beginning of the week.

Oh well. After that point it became a roller coaster of delightful instances mixed with climatic issues for the rest of the week. I think I posted a little accordance of this thing called life on facebook as: "A chaotic cacophony of choices leads to obfuscatingly obscure occurrences and hugely hilarious happenstance. Wait, isn't that life?"

Geico was remarkably easy to deal with and set up everything for me in regards to the car. Only a slight smidgen of expense there. While setting this up I thought about the fact that if they wear my prescription sunglasses they might get a headache. This made me smile.

While I left my car at work in the capable hands of the companies fleet of security personnel, sometimes they find themselves challenged to find a simple pen but surely they could not misplace a small SUV, I found delight in my friends that came to my aid. Who sheltered my wounded soul (boy am I milking this or what) in a ride home and then an angelic presence coaxed me out of my house to a session of activity in the gym.

Tis nice to have friends that will gladly drag you around the city and escort you to devices designed to accelerate your heartbeat into catastrophic levels so that you feel alive. Seriously I love it. I do.

Then Wednesday came around. Deep sigh. The day passed with trepidation about the late afternoon adventure. How have the eyes fared? Alas the ability to register light continues to dim slightly, slowly, ever so slowly stripping away my sight. So now we begin to work on a process of hindering the damage that my oh so sensitive pale blue eyes from a northern climb suffer from in aspect to light. Especially sunlight.

Upon hearing my tale of invasion and loss of my glasses the kind ladies of the center took pity on this mortal soul. Your plan will not cover it but we will slash the price ... not 40% not 50% but something higher. The necessary polarized lenses and frame squeaked down to the margin of right at $200 and I believe that was close to 60% off. In light of what I had just learned I had to do it. Shifting finances will be the next course of action.

But they know I am a photographer as a passion. We took some goofy shots in the darkened den ... they get a kick out of my twisted flirting. The giggles and smiles I illicit from these wonderful ladies just makes me smile. It is either smile or cry. The tears can be hid in the kleenex given to wipe the dyes out of they eye they have used to see the scaring and sun damage.

So we trudge wearily into Thursday. Car fixed. Glasses ordered. Just help me get through the day and the aches of the grueling circuit routine from the gym the night before. Had to get out that fear of going blind in the gym .. both a good and bad option. I was only supposed to do 6 minutes in that last session on the bike and I think I got to almost three times that. Focus ... well that was the issue my mind collapsed inward and focused on something, blocking out all else.

Now Friday is here and fading quickly soon to become yesterday. I met Canada today in all her glory ... both the good and the bad. Started early this morning but finally after 12 hours we won for the moment. At one point I think I posted in the groups im thread "orchestrating chaos can be totally exhausting". But the day is done. Dinner invitation for the weekend was accepted yet not finalized. The stumbling block was do I drive over to the northern realms of the twin city or does she saunter on down here.

I have lost my ability to deal with directions since the stroke. I guess that is one of the realities of having your perception center scrambled for a while. I have come to depend upon the Garmin to assist with direction in those realms I infrequently travel. Ah but I was violated in that aspect earlier in the week by some cretin whose mamma is so proud of right now.

So on a whim and knowing that I had to eventually get a new one I ventured into a store that holds the key to removing money from my wallet. Best Buy. To my amazement ... yes I was truly amazed ... I found a NUVI 1450LMT (that is lifetime maps and traffic updates) that was almost $100 off.

It was like those 12 or so people who lifted a car off of the motorcyclist at the beginning of the week - or the friends who approached me about making sure I had the ability to get where I needed without me asking - or those ladies slicing the price of the glasses for me to save my eyesight - or my Gecio representative on Monday who went out of her way to tell me it was only going to be fifty dollars and all I needed to do was let her handle it ... It was the capper on amazing that I had been the recipient of and witnessed through out the week.

I had to get it. I need to know how to get where I am going. It has a larger screen than the others I have had, which is probably a good thing in light of my eyes. I even bought a little traveling case to keep it in so I can take it with me. Plus I just updated the lifetime maps and software.

So it was a week. So maybe the entire week has made my heart heavy with a fair amount of love and kindness band aids as well as the essential leaps and hurdles of life's abrupt lessons this week. It was only material issues, those accoutrements of my world, that were destroyed or lost and the little hiccups in my well being are going to be addressed. I have my eye drops, I have my shades coming and I have my marching orders. I can potentially hold in stasis right now, probably unable to reverse but who knows what medicine will give me in the future.

Chin up. Soft smile on the face. Love in the heart.

Good night. Aloha.

Namaste.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

...

"When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways - either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength." 


- Dalai Lama

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

That was a doozy



yep .. felt just like that. hinted on Friday that it was coming, I popped a couple of tylenol.

Hinted during class that it was knocking at the door on Saturday morning that it was ready to come in. I used food and caffeine to keep it at bay.

Halfway through the wedding shoot it said "loooocy I'm home."

Lord did that last hour and a half feel like torture.

Home ... download shots so I would not lose them and then hydrocodone doze all day Sunday and most of Monday.

Today the doctors office and clinic visit. Nastiness going on in head and drugs to help bring me back to earth, without the doom doze during the day.

So back to the real world and getting stuff back on track tomorrow. Yehaw. Ain't life grand.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Homework


Which do I take home tonight? The IT Managers handbook to review SLA creation or the entire two day vendor meeting review?

Choices.

Have to do now as class Saturday morning and wedding shoot Saturday evening and night.

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Friday, August 12, 2011

insomnia

ninth day now. I have been doing everything I should and no change. I am pretty sure there is a tipping point with this and I fear two to three hours of sleep a night are making me walk that edge. So a doctors visit lookz like it is in order for me. Ugh.
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Thursday, August 11, 2011

News F*L*A*S*H

The heat broke today .. thank you clouds. Almost spent a month and a half in 100ยบ+ weather to top a record to have it pulled out less than 36 hours away. And people are pissed about that. Don't worry folks that extreme heat will be back by Saturday and then you will all be whining about it.

Sometimes I just don't get people. Actually most of the time. I study them. I analyze them and I think I have them figured out ... then wham - bam - thank you ma'am. I am shut out, dazed and confused. I did not even smoke a joint to get there.

Oh well. Back to the daily miserable grind. I need a reboot on this month I am beginning to realize as I am going broke slowly but surely and the end is not even in site. (not really that bad but it is feeling like it)

So here is to another day, another challenge, one more claustrophobic nightmare of a day at work and then it is rebuilding all the cubicles for the team at work on Saturday. Nope this month is never going to end.

Sigh

Aloha

Monday, August 8, 2011

so waiting



i know one day it will rain but we are all so so so so soooo waiting for it.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

right now



this would be the ultimate smile right now ... and I am sure somewhere in this world someone is riding a wave right now and this makes the little boy in me totally happy

Watch OUT (Minefield Ahead)


You ever had one of those days? Weeks? When what is happening is really not all that bad but on the other side of the coin it feels totally horrible. I mean ... no milk! The world is ending. But what if you were only given a little bit of milk each month and someone drank your allotment - would that end in a feud? In a war?

Oh this is a new week and last week is over. Thank goodness. I have had no time for any of my blogs as I am exhausted at the end of the day. I don't have milk in my fridge but I don't drink much of that anymore. It has been a challenging week and I often wonder if I put caffeine back in my day as much as it used to be if I would make it a little bit further into the evening hours.

Oh I have drifted outside of the posting I know but then again you did not know that until I made you realize that milk was in short supply. The week started with a breaking of my heart, a realization of the role that I will play for the rest of my life and acceptance at that, a letter from the Diocese up here that they are done with the collection stage of my annulment, this reminded me that they dissed my foray into priesthood once again and potentially set the stage for me making a couple of tactile errors at work that went right up the food chain and crashed down on my head. All this before the middle of the week.

Sigh. Now where is my caffeine, let alone my milk. At least I drowned my angst at the pour house (I have to watch that as I once mumbled that and people thought I said the whore house - tsk tsk), watch a movie that was truly a movie purely for having been made as such and not much else. I ended this roller coaster of a week with half a think crust lotsa meat pizza watching House with a sexy gal Friday night.

Problem is that I am wrapping my head around lots of things in the waking world but my subconcious is failing in the dreaming world to get everything in line.


Leaves me a little bit lost and distraught during the waking hours. I mean I know what all the freaking ex-girlfriend dreams/nightmares are about - I am coming to terms with the fact that I will be able to totally love a child as a father should but only in the role of an uncle. An uncle I am destined to be for the rest of my life and quite frankly I can deal with that. I don't need to be a dad, I don't need to be a husband. I may end up loving someone again but I rather doubt that. That is not my role in this world. Also this freaking annulment process. Right now I am a bit pissed off and the aforementioned person in the second sentence really pushed me on that process thus the connection with her in my subconscious sleeping mind.

As I mentioned it brought up that annoyance with me about the church somewhat dismissing my attempts to look into the role of priesthood again. I had almost gone that way in the '89-90 years. I looked into it again as a potential calling around '06 and felt a nudge again this year. Obviously the nudges are now just annoyances to me as I have been pulled away after being pushed toward three times now. One of those enough is enough moments. Stupid letter opened up what I thought was closed in my subconscious.

So I sit here, totally exhausted in the blazing 110 degree weather with my thermostat set at 88 so the drain on the blooming grid is not affected by the fact that no matter what - in an apartment built in 1997 - the air conditioning will run all day long in the afternoon unless I turn it off and open the windows. I think in that case I might get to the point where I snap.


Does it really all matter though? I just need to get the freaking subconscious to sync up with what the conscious mind is already moving forward on. I mean I am realizing what it is that I do like about the work role I have played for the last 25 years in all jobs I have had. I am also realizing what it is that I do not like. So now I need to see what it is that I may be able to do that is more in sync with the likes. So I am moving forward on that but I am sure the freaking background mind is going to have a fit. CATCH UP. I can't wait for you to reboot and I am not standing here forever holding the door open.

It is Sunday - new week ahead. Let's see where we end up and yes I have to either get some almond milk or almonds to make my own. Wait I better buy some as I know Wednesday night is going to be tremendously long at work and Thursday morning is going to just roll right into it.

Good day - time to go finish my chores.

.

"The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly." – Buddha