Autumn, and particularly October, best time of the year.  Windows open, nice breezes, fresh air, it’s all good. That’s not my picture, btw.  Found it I forget where.  Sorry.

Turns out I am going to get a new disposal after all.  Yay maintenance guy, who seems to be able to convince owner to do the right thing in spite of himself.  🙂  I like the maintenance guy.

Had a pretty good day, in spite of not sleeping well.  They are working on the intersection again, all night long.  No idea what they are doing this time.  It was funny last time, because after nights and nights of digging and heavy equipment noises and bright flashing lights, I missed it when they were done.  So it’s not so bad this time.  Just had to close one window and face away from the wall the lights were flashing on.  Homemaker came, place always looks much better after.  Got the wet paper towels and stuff that I drained overnight in the tub out of here.  Just keeping cupboard doors open to let it dry out in there.  Think I will wait awhile before putting things back, just to dry it out even more.  Trying to not get toxic mold, if it’s not already growing in there.  The bottom board really needs to be replaced, but seriously, that is just not going to happen unless I do it myself or pay to have it done, or call the board of health and then endure Landlord Reprisals, 53 episodes and counting, with my luck.

Finished watching The Small Animal Hospital with John Barrowman last night.  He is just so full of happiness and joy and uninhibited love of life.  Makes me happy just to see him.  He has enthusiasm.  I have enthusiasm when I’m not feeling total crap.  People don’t always understand enthusiasm, and tend to think you’re either crazy, or just a pain in the butt.  Do I look like I care?  I do not. Enthusiasm is what makes life worth living.  Finding joy in the littlest things.  Me and The Barrowman.  We have something in common.  LOL Seriously, how can you not love that face? The horse was standing on his foot at the time.

Just past 5, and the trees have lost the sun for today.  Dark is getting earlier and earlier.  All that ‘days are drawing in’ as they say in books.  Probably said before, it just makes me think ‘fireplace, hot tea, blankets, cozy and warm, snuggling up on the couch with the cat, and reading, reading, reading’.  All happy-making things that come with the changing of the seasons.  It’s lovely, isn’t it?  Course I do the reading every day regardless of the season, but still.

So the maintenance guy came, the disposal is leaking.  Landlord doesn’t replace those, he just takes them out.  Can he do that?  That was part of the deal when I rented.  A working frig, which took over a year to get a new one when the freezer stopped working, and now no replacement disposal?  The dishwasher is probably 20 years old or older, and if it goes, he probably won’t want to buy a new one of those either.  Please get me out of here, someone.  My life is hard enough, without idiot greedy assholes making it even harder. Frustration R Us.

After being up for three whole hours, I needed to lie down and fell asleep for another three hours.  So now, I’m having a bit of energy and think I will cook something.  Yay, me.  Realize stove is kind of messy from yesterday, which I totally did not even notice before now.  Go under sink to find spray cleaner.  Under sink is very organized, everything in containers, etc., so I had not noticed (again with the not noticing) until I was moving something that every container is full of water, and the bottom of the cupboard is awash.  Haul everything out, try to wash some things off that aren’t ruined, throw in 7 bazillion paper towels to soak up water in bottom, give up on the whole cooking/eating idea, because who needs food anyway?  Right?  Any energy I may have had for food prep has gone right down the drain with the water from the containers. Items are spread out all over the teeny tiny kitchen floor.  It has to be that when the mainenance guy replaced the spray attachment, he did it wrong. Light bulbs are okay, stuff in their own bottles are okay, replacement sponges I may run through the dishwasher.  Fortunately there was nothing powdered, like DW detergent.  I buy those little packety things now.  Easier.  Easier rules my life.  So tomorrow, get presentable, call maintenance, hope guy can come that day.  Nothing ever just works.  Have you noticed that?  Nothing is ever just easy?  Oh, well.  It’s a gorgeous if too warm day.  Still hoping for rain.  Going to go bang my head against the wall now. Later.

Update.  Lo and behold, I was not done in by plans going awry.  I cooked/am cooking after all.  Frying up some bacon that’s been in the frig waiting, waiting, waiting, scooped out and heated up my baked potato from yesterday and baked an egg in it.  Yum.  And if the energy holds, I am going to bake a custard pie.  I know.  Premade crust, so not much work.  I have not made a custard pie in years and years.  It would be coconut custard pie if I had coconut, but since I don’t….   So all is not lost.  I really am better some days.  It always surprises me.  Put all the crap in the dishwasher, too, and am running it.  I am going to leave everything out from under the sink til it really dries out.  Think I will pour some white vinegar in there, too, to kill any mold, because you know there will be mold.   Fun times, people.  Fun times.

Thank goodness.  Not quite doing the happy dance, but not this close to the black hole, either.  Homemaker showed, place looks much better with vacuuming and all.  I also did a few things.  Used the hand vac to clean behind the left-hand fireplace bookshelf and moved everything back after I had to replace the old and overheating power strip.  Sewed a bit more on my bathrobe.  One whole side to go.  And now I am cooking.  Chicken sausages, onions, fresh sage leaves and apple cider, and baking a sweet and a white potato in the toaster oven.  So real food tonight.  The white potato I will save to scoop out, add an egg to the cavity, and bake it all, scooped stuff too, til egg is to my liking.  This is a really easy and tasty meal.  S and P, a dab of butter, and eat. The sweet potato (I love sweet potatoes, grew up eating them baked, dabbed with butter when done oh yum) I will have along side the sausages.  There will be leftovers, too.

So knowing I will be seeing another human makes a big difference to my mood. and it’s very gray off and on and looks like rain and I love rain, and I feel like I’ve accomplished things, and seen a human and had a conversation, and I really, really need someone to push me to get dressed and go out and interact.  I always manage to talk myself out of it.

I sometimes think that if I didn’t live alone, and had someone to encourage me and give me a little nudge here and there, and even to walk with me, I would do much better.  I am good at taking care of people, but I am really hopeless at taking care of me.  I did really well when the PT guy was coming several times a week, but on my own, I just can’t seem to work up the motivation to overcome the social anxiety and get out there by myself.  Oh, well.  If, if, if.  I choose not to live my life with if, what if, if only, why me.  It is what it is, and it’s up to me to do what needs doing, and if I can’t motivate myself, well it’s my loss.

Anyway, better, better, better.  It’s a good thing.

I had the fireplace on a couple of days ago, and now I am melting from the hot and stickies.  Climate change.  It’s a real thing.  No pictures today.  I am jumping up, tending my dinner, and too lazy to do a picture search.  Sorry about that.

BTW, big thank you shoutout to the one person who comments on here.  Cannot tell you how much I appreciate that.  Just knowing that my posts are not just floating away on thin air is very gratifying.  So thank you, and you know who you are, Miss Tasmania.  🙂

Another BTW. Dinner turned out spectacular.  Brown 1 lb fully-cooked chicken sausages, set aside, cook chopped onions til tender and transparent, return sausage, add 5-6 fresh sage leaves, 3 cups cider.  Remove sausages and keep warm after ten minutes or so, cook rest down til syrupy.  Oh, yum.

I am circling it.  Had a bright spot when my lovely child came down and we went out to dinner.  Other than that, every day is tighter and tighter circles into the black hole of oblivion.  Reasons?  I like to try to figure out the whys, so  let’s see.  My homemaker, the one that is okay but no substitute for my Traci, missed the entire week, and I had a fill-in for an hour, who actually would be more like Traci.  Quite liked her. Someone to look forward to.  No ‘Oh, poor you.” or freaking out over nothing.  I was yawning the other day, hand over mouth, you know, politeness and all.  She comes into the room, “OMG what is wrong?”  “I was yawning.”  “Oh, I though you had bitten your mouth and had your hand there to hold in the blood.”  Seriously, person?  Fucking seriously?  Alarmist, anyone?

Plus, the unreliability of people just forces me to realize how totally unable to manage my life by myself I really am.  Can’t do this, too much pain to do that, not enough energy for whatever else.  Quit fighting.  Just accept it, lay on the couch and read Torchwood fanfiction.  Nothing really matters anyway, so why even bother pretending to care.  I have one friend left, and even she is withdrawing again.  People don’t really want to be around someone who is in pain and can’t do the things that people want to do.  The fun stuff, like shopping, or walking, or sight-seeing.  Maybe I’ll go back to the Trazadone, even if it does make my brain buzz.  Drug-induced well-being is still well-being, isn’t it?  Someday, it will all just be over.  I look forward to that. I don’t have any fight left in me, it seems.

This is a jellyfish.

On a more positive note, I recently read three books by this guy, Kevin Wignall which were in Kindle Unlimited.  If you’re into spyish, hitman-y, not the least bit formulaic books where you don’t know from one page to the next what is going to happen, I highly recommend this guy. Reflective, not action-oriented.  Good stuff. I read A Death in Sweden, The Traitor’s Story, and The Hunter’s prayer.  All different, all very good.  Been watching some movies, too.  Astronaut: The Last Push was weird, intense, and quite good.  The Fundamentals of Caring, which was a feel-good, tug-your-heartstrings movie, but okay anyway.  Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day was excellent.  Cheering myself up a bit here.  It’s a good thing.

A bookstore did this.  Found on twitter, I think.

I just keep fighting, it seems.  I guess it’s a good thing.  The black hole is not a good place to be.  I know.  I’ve been there. Please, nobody feel sorry for me.  I hate that.

Little update:  Scrolling Tumblr, came across this from QuoteMadness, and it’s true, because just posting about stuff makes me feel better.  I bring my own light.  🙂

Just a reminder. It’s getting close to the day.

I am not an artist. I am good with dirt and can tinker with a computer to figure out what’s wrong and what to do about it, I am search with google, but art is a definite no. But tried again. Needed to add the other arm, but I haven’t had coffee yet, so you can’t expect too much of me. I am not sleeping well and the cat is not helping by yowling for five minutes straight at 5am. Why, Gertrude? Why? You are old and spayed, so I know you’re not in heat Just shut up, please? Oh, never do a post before your brain starts working. Anyway, here is meant to be someone (me) hanging off of the stove because standing up is just too painful. My life is so fun.

Oh, turned the fireplace on yesterday, and again this morning. Got cold in here fast. It was just hot a few days ago.

Thought we needed some color. This is from a local news channels website. Don’t know who to credit it with, but it’s definitely not mine. Somewhere in Rhode Island, I think.

Today October 10, 2016

Today is a gorgeous, windy and cool day.  Yesterday was a gorgeous, windy, gray, and rainy day.  Both are good.  So much for weather.

Yesterday, October 9, 2016 Rainy, windy, gorgeous.

Illness.  Tried taking half the anti-inflammatory, as per doctor’s suggestion when asked if I could stop taking any of the ten bazillion pills I’m taking every day.  No.  Was up at 3:30am breaking up Tylenol (I’ve mentioned they work better and faster that way) because can’t sleep for pain.  Eventually slept, woke up in pain, pain, pain.  So no half-pills.

I know there’s an anti-inflammatory diet, but you have to actually prep food, and cook food, and clean up after prepping and cooking food, and I am so not that person.  I can barely stand for two minutes without major back pain needing me to lean on something or just go sit the heck down.  If I do cook, it’s do one thing, go sit, do one more thing, go sit, rinse, repeat.  Cooking anything can take a very long time.

It’s awful, how awful I am at art, isn’t it? LOL This is meant to be someone hanging off the stove, because standing up is just too painful. There aren’t a lot of pics of ‘cooking while in pain’ out there. I looked.

I really am much better in general, for whatever reason, and if I could only get past the back pain I would be able to do a lot more.  Unfortunately, a side effect of the anti-inflammatory that helps with the all-over pain, is lower back pain. So in addition to having lower back pain, I take a pill that causes lower back pain. I love modern medicine. Going to call doctor to get me into pain clinic at local hospital. Maybe they can help.

Hope everyone is enjoying whatever season they are in at the moment.  I am loving Autumn, it’s the best time of the year for me.  Always been my favorite season, because leaves to shuffle through, color, fresh breezes, chill, promise of snow to come later on.  I love Autumn.

From John Oliver, about orange gas-bag man (Trump, in case you are from Mars or somewhere):

“The human embodiment of every backwards, condescending, madman-esque boy’s club attitude that has ever existed, rolled into one giant, salivating, dick-size referencing, pussy-grabbing warthog in a red power tie.”

I could only stand to read part of a live-blog of the debate before my brain started trying to leak out my ears, and I don’t envy any of you who actually watched it.

Having a chronic, debilitating one is so fun. Fortunately for me, I do not have every single one of these.  The illness manifests differently in everyone, just like meds work/don’t work differently in everyone.  Every morning I am feeling like trucks, actual huge semi’s, have run over me. My brain is in a fog, my body aches all over, my back hurts, and I sit here at the desk reading on the laptop until something actually decides to work as it should. Some days this never happens. I’d like to wake up feeling raring to go. That would be nice. It’s all I can do some days to remember to brush my teeth before wandering dazedly to the kitchen to make the coffee. Which is so much easier and safer with my electric kettle. How I love that thing already. I was steaming broccoli and then beets day before yesterday and realized I may not have put enough water in the pot. Boiled some up in the kettle in about two minutes, and poured it in. No waiting for it to come back up to temp, which would have happened if I’d just added tap water to the pot.

Signed up for bloglovin’. They apparently send you emails with posts from blogs of their choosing??? First email  had a sponsored post from Dunkin Donuts. Live bold. All I could think of was, ‘Live bold. Eat donuts.’ Not sure if that was their intention, but I guess it does work. Eating donuts can be a bold move, because you might as well just eat sugar out of the bowl, and we all know how unhealthy that would be. If I’m going to eat a donut, which I almost never do, it’s going to be from Honey Dew, anyway. They make good donuts, which don’t all taste exactly like every other donut like Dunkin’s do.

We used to watch Briscoe County, Jr. with Bruce Campbell. Every week they’d have a little in-joke. One week he was sitting on a bench and a boy came up and handed him a bag. Brief convo, and as boy is leaving, Briscoe says, “Thanks for the donuts, Duncan.” I still laugh at that sometimes. Yes, I know. My sense of humor is weird.

It’s a beautiful day again, Severalth in a row.  I didn’t count how many.  I want to go outside, but just getting dressed seems like a monumental task.  So here I sit.  At least there’s tons to read.  Blogs, FB, Tumblr.  I read a variety of blogs.  I like tech blogs a lot, because I’m always learning something new, whether a new app, a new trick, a new browser to try, how to fix something.  I have learned a lot from reading tech blogs.  The more you know, the less you panic when things go screwy.  It’s a good thing.

Oh, I discovered I can email a fan fiction link to myself, and then read the fic on my phone.  How cool is that?  I usually covert them to text and send them to my Kindle, but the multi-page app that converted all open tabs into a pdf, which I could then covert to text, was taken down by the creator.  Why?  I used that thing all the time.  Otherwise, you have to save each page as text, then cut and paste them all into a notepad page and save that and send it to Kindle.  Very time-consuming, but Kindle does not do webpages or pdf’s well at all.

I need to pay my bills today.  I need to bake that cute little buttercup squash I bought.  I need to, I need to, I need to.  I want to make this apple pie bread pudding I made a week or two ago.  Simplified the recipe, because I am all about the easy, and omg was it ever delicious.  Okay, went to look, can’t find recipe.  Just shoot me now.  This is my life.
I need to go lie down now.  And here’s Gertrude.  Needs some food. I don’t even want to feed her, because she just keeps upchucking all the time, but I can’t starve her, either.  Poor baby.  I don’t know what do to, because vet was NOT helpful and very, very expensive.  Oh, well.

was a gorgeous, clear blue sky, low dewpoint, fantastic autumn day.  Went shopping with my friend Tess, first to Cartridge World for, you know, cartridges.  Refilled ones, not brand new.  Four cartridges cost 33 dollars.  I remember paying that much for just one at Staples or wherever.  Then we went to a grocery store that is quite a hike, but so worth the trip.  Store brand is better than local store brand, and better than name-brands as well.  Produce was fantastic.  I bought, cooked, and ate the freshest, tastiest broccoli I think I’ve ever had.  The end was not even slightly hardened over, it was like I had just cut it myself.  Made broccoli salad.  I love broccoli salad.  Steam broccoli, meanwhile mix equal parts plain yogurt or sour cream, mayo, and grated parm.  Keep adding parm til it’s to your taste.  More is better. When broccoli is just crisp-tender, dump it into the mayo mix and stir gently.  Eat hot or cold, delicious either way.  That was my dinner.  It was a small head of broccoli. 🙂

Today I am having recovery day, but that’s okay.  Still getting things done.  Sit, pop up, do something, sit, rinse, repeat.  I do my best work this way and am so happy to be able to do this again.  Except for that time in June, it’s been quite a long time.

Trying hard not to get worked up about politics.  Went through an OMG period there, but now I’m trying to go with ‘whatever happens happens, and we’ll go from there’, but I don’t even want to think about what could happen if orange gas-bag man gets in.

Here are some pictures I’ve taken recently.  The trees are from yesterday.  I love that one tree.  It is so perfect.

Just figured out you can caption pictures. Who knew? Not me, obviously.

October First

Just liked the street lights

The tree in spring

October 5

And again

You forgot the ‘spying on our users’ bit in your Mission Statement.

Deleted my account.  You just cannot keep colluding with those who would spy on us, even our own government.  It’s wrong, it’s not the ‘American Way’, although that American Way has gone completely off the rails.  It keeps getting worse, people, and we need to not just stand by and do nothing.  Get out and vote, please.  Please vote Hillary, even if you hate her, because the alternative is unthinkable.  Third party and no-votes will give the majority vote to the orange gas-bag, and this is the scariest thing I’ve come across in my life. Please vote.

Been off it several days now.  Yesterday I was really, really sleepy most of the day, and actually fell asleep about three or four times before actually going to bed.  Only woke up two or three times during the night, though.  Today, I am no longer hyper at all, not typing 90 mistakes a minute, but am feeling in general much better. I am actually sitting here scrolling Tumblr, reading blogs, etc., my usual morning activity while waiting for my brain and body to actually work.  Yes, I know it’s technically afternoon, but the point stands. I just realized I have been popping up every few minutes to actually do something.  Measured out the ingredients for nut butter balls, washed my new bras, rinsed my new bras, did a couple other things I’ve already forgotten.  This was me in that brief period in June where I was pretty much a ‘normal’ person, only without  the physical strength to do some things.  If I could get past the back hurting whenever I stand for more that two (literally, two) minutes, I would be jumping for joy, if I could actually jump.  So whatever is going on, I am pretty pleased with things today.  Just thought I’d throw that out there.  Yay, me.

I know I just had this on here, but I really, really like it.  So there. 

The sun is now so low that the trees across the street are in the shadow of my building.  It’s 10:15, so pretty late in the day for that.  First day I’ve noticed it this season.  My windows face a little East of North, it seems.

I am much clearer-headed since going off the Trazadone, but not sleeping as well.  Trade-off is the name of the game with meds.  And life.  Hoping to be a little more in control of myself, as well.  Buying everything in sight, although I must admit that almost everything I’ve bought has been because it is replacing something so old as to be practically disintegrating.  Some things are because I really need to get on board with needing easier ways and less ‘remember this or that’ in my daily life.  So I bought an electric kettle, for one thing, and am asking myself why I hadn’t done it ages ago.  Been thinking about it for a couple of years.  What a difference.  It heats the water so fast that by the time I’ve got the filter rinsed and in the cup and the coffee in the filter, it’s almost ready, and as soon as it comes to the boil, it shuts itself off.  No more nearly burning out the kettle, as I did once.  Totally forgot, and it boiled dry and oops.  I now have a whistling one, but sometimes the spout cover gets locked in the up position and I don’t always notice.  Morning is not my best time of day.  So no more worries.  It’s stainless steel, too.  I like stainless steel.  No weird tastes in things.

I also bought one of those juicing things that Martha uses:

I have a small one, but it’s barely big enough for a large lime.  It is so easy to use, though.  I was amazed at how little pressure it takes to squeeze all the juice out of something.  I love it.  Also stainless steel.  No getting groady like aluminum does.

Don’t lemons always cheer you up?  They do me.  I love yellow, because it’s sunshine and joy and happy.  ‘Happy, happy, joy, joy, happy, happy, joy.’  That’s from a jingle for something I forget.  LOL

It has occurred to me this morning, while reading blogs, that I cannot see or hear the word ‘risotto’ without , “Oh, risotto, risotto, risotto” and David Tennant running across my mind.  Here’s why:

I’m sorry, but it just cracks me up every single time.

So overall, I am feeling much better than I have been.  If I could only get this mess taken care of, life would be much better and simpler.  Clutter really messes with your mind, and I have been physcially unable to deal with for so long, that I have become mentally unable to deal with it.  Help!  Someone!  Anyone???  Right now, part of it is some boxes that I am hoping to use to get rid of it.  You can’t deal with clutter without first having more clutter, it seems.

Hope my readers, (I know you’re out there) are having a wonderful autumn day (or spring. I have a reader in Tasmania which makes me very happy for some weird reason.).  It’s a good one here in New England.