August: Vacation/Staycation

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August comes in like a lion and out like a lamb.

That’s April.

That’s not right.

March is the lion and the lamb.

August is hot.

It has no personality of its own.

It’s school supplies already gathering dust.

It’s vacation.

It’s my wedding anniversary.

It’s an oven that doesn’t work, but if it did work, I’d complain that I’d have to turn it on in August.
It’s lazy and hazy and the air is muddy like April’s boots.

It’s melancholy and lethargic.

Or is that just me?

But it’s not all that bad, I suppose.

The birds are noisy, the grass is green.

The spices are fragrant.

The whirr of the air conditioner.

The hosta petals on the ground, and bunny prints in the drying rain.

I guess we’ll give August a chance.
Let’s go.

This is Not Normal, Resources

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Use this chart to help you determine if the news you’re getting is accurate and free of bias. That doesn’t mean that some sources shouldn’t be opinionated, but they do need to be clear on the difference between their opinion and reporting the facts as well as the tools they use for their analysis. MediaBiastChart (c)2018

Links below cut

Original Opinion and Resource List

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July: Sum Sum Summer: Quotations

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​The first two really spoke to me during my weekend retreat. The subject was losing the clutter in order to be closer to G-d. I’ve realized a lot of my mental clutter, and physical, is unintentional procrastination and leaving things aside creates this weariness that is much more than too-little-sleep tiredness. These three quotations give me something to ponder and hopefully begin to break out of the suffocation of clutter, both in my physical world and my mental.

“Our greatest weariness comes from work not done.”

-Eric Hoffer

“Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.”

-John Ruskin

“Fear stops a lot of people. Fear of failure, of the unknown, of risk. And it masks itself as procrastination.”

-Lisa Anderson

The Road to Recovery is Paved with Good Intentions or Something Like That

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​The biggest difference between a recovery and a cure is with a recovery there is no end. Whether that’s with chronic or terminal illness, alcoholism, or depression.

People who don’t have first hand experience with depression think it’s a mood that can be changed by a good night’s sleep and a journal, a glass of wine and a walk in the woods, shopping therapy, but it’s really so much more complicated than that, and the person with the depression is tired of explaining it and the person listening is tired of hearing it. 

I can do this; why can’t you?

Even when they  don’t say it, it is heard.

And then there’s that one person who’s like but you’re on medication or they didn’t need medication or some other sabotaging dig that really means buck up, pull up your bootstraps, we all have depression.

It’s been two weeks, and it wasn’t that I didn’t have anything to say or a planner filled with mediocre posts for you, but I just couldn’t sit down, couldn’t clean off the table, couldn’t wake up early enough, and it wasn’t that I ignored all of this and didn’t care, but I can’t say that I mulled over it either. It wasn’t until the first week blended into the second that I recognized this for what it was.

I still had stuff to do.

Kids had to get fed.

Doctors had to be visited.

My annual GISH scavenger hunt was this week, and I was not feeling it.

This weekend is a retreat at my favorite place, and while I was looking forward to it, I am also so, so tired. The kind of tired that sleep won’t fix. I forgot my notebook to take notes in, and my tea (!), and my hairbrush, and without a recent haircut that is practically a necessity. I’m usually quite organized, especially about packing, and i literally tossed everything into my suitcase and zipped it up. Half of it wasn’t folded, and I’m not sure if I have enough shirts and I definitely don’t have enough pants, but for some reason I have six pairs of underwear, so I guess I’m ready for next time.

Maybe I could change my meds, but I don’t want to change my meds. I’m pretty self-aware, and this retreat is all about self-awareness and mind-clutter as well as physical clutter and it’s exactly what I need, and maybe meds do need to be adjusted, but I think I can muddle through for the moment.

Lists are being made, and some are being ignored. Bills are behind, and have been, and that’s part of that helpless feeling.

I think I can force myself to be somewhat productive this coming week, and I’m hoping that might jump-start a little something.

Between now and Tuesday, I plan on catching up on my posts – the July quotation, the August blurb, possibly a travel post, and on Tuesday, as much as I know it contributes to how I’m feeling, I will have a resource post to add to the political one from a couple of weeks ago – a few more recommendations of reliable political thinkers and speakers.

I know it can be draining, but stay aware of the world around you. I’m sure you have been tempted, as have I to hide under a rock for the next two years or more, but we are needed, here at home and in community.

Just being here lightens my load. Now to see how to bottle it and take it with me when I leave.

This is Not Normal

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​Everytime I sit down and try to write about the ongoing crisis in this country, I choke up. I get sad. I get furious, and I can’t write or even think about it. I try to avoid the pundits, but this week, everyone sounds like a pundit.

My aim with this post has been to provide places to find out information apart from Fox News and dog whistle sites that stoke the fires of fury and hatred.

Everyday, a friend on my Facebook shares lies and misinformation, not because he wants to create dissention, but because he truly believes the nonsense. This isn’t just one person’s opinion. We all have opinions, but as the saying goes, you’re not entitled to your own facts.

I will not abide the both sides argument. 

Fox News and the right wing media are so far gone it’s moved beyond false equivalency. Whenever the left is told to meet in the middle and compromise, the right forgets that we’ve moved so far right to get along, to meet in the “middle”, to compromise that center is right, and it’s still not good enough for the right wing.

In 2009, during the health care reform debate, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan said, no compromise. Now, with a Republican President, they’re all about compromise.. They don’t care how hypocritical they are or how their ignoring more than half the country feels. And to be honest, they don’t care. They want what they want, like a child having a tantrum, and they don’t care who they have to bulldoze to get it.

Democrats are inclusive. We don’t always agree on everything because we are so diverse. We want to, and always try to include conservative priorities, but it’s hard when the GOP continually changes it’s mind and the goal posts. President Obama’s health care reform was originally a Republican idea that was admired by the most conservative of Republicans until Obama adopted it.

They, Mitch McConnell, and his complicit Congress, refused to seat President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, refused to even vote on him, but now, with a President, who just two days ago, on international television put, not only a foreign government, but a hostile foreign government who attacked our country over our country, they’re moving ahead with the least popular Supreme Court nominee ever. The President defended the Russian election interference, and disparaged our intelligence agencies. I would have never thought I’d see the day that the Republicans would side with Russia over the United States of America. And after seeing his lukewarm “clarification” a day later, it only confirms many of our worse fears.

We are the majority in this country; why are we the one who are always expected to compromise? The right should move left to meet where the country actually is.

The rest of this post is a list of recommended readings and Twitter/social media followings that you should try to check out. It is important to each one of us to gather the information from reliable sources, and extrapolate our own opinions.

Later in the week, I will share the recommendation portion of this post for anyone who wants to share it without my above opinions. After all, I can tell you what I think, and where I got my information from; I can debunk and correct, but I can’t make you think. I can’t force the truth upon you. That is up to you to accept, but I also don’t have to listen to the lies and I won’t accept half-truths as truth.

The first section are political books that I’ve read this year and last that I would recommend. Some are very current as to the Trump Administration, what’s going on right now, and since the 2016 Election, and where we go from here. 

After that, I’ve included the sources I read, primarily on Twitter, including some pundits from both sides of the aisle to check out to get the full story of what’s going on in our country right now. I think it’s telling that most of the news shows I watched today included significant video of Fox News sounding remarkably like MSNBC.

If you look at a resource on this list, and think they are too liberal or too conservative, take a look anyway. Give them a few days to get a feel for how they address issues, and what they say, and then decide who you want to follow to get your information.

For a daily wrap-up, MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Brian Williams does a nice roundup of the day’s news so you can catch up and hit Google after or in the morning for more in-depth information.

Lastly, I would highly suggest that you read, or re-read George Orwell’s 1984. I re-read it at the end of 2016, and I had forgotten most of the story. It was eye-opening, and chilling.

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July: Sum Sum Summer: Reflection

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​July has sped along, and it hasn’t been bad, or terrible, or really all that hot. Some really hot days, and really hot steering wheels, but I can’t complain overall about the nights. I was just mentioning today that the last couple of years it seems that August is the hottest of the summer months, thank you very much global warming for screwing up the norms.

From the end of the school year until just after Independence Day, our family is in flux. Some days off from work, some, if I’m being honest, a lot of, lazy days, some pajama days, not always planned until we wake up and don’t feel like getting dressed, but it ticks along until we get into some kind of schedule that works for everyone. Usually after my husband’s birthday.

I have implemented a points system this year for my kids that appears to be working. More or less. They don’t know what they’re working towards or what the points can be traded for at the end of the summer yet. Neither do I. Yet. But with my husband working from home, it’s really helped them declare their own independence while letting me work in my bedroom for most of the morning. Instead of bothering him, they get their own breakfasts and set about doing their busywork, whether that’s YouTube or games or books. They quietly feed themselves with whatever we have, and they’re old enough to microwave or use the tea kettle and toaster, so their breakfast and lunches (peanut butter for one, Nutella for the other) gets them through most mornings without rancor.

For me…I just don’t want to do anything. I think it’s part of a mild depression. I don’t feel that things are impossible or that I’ve reached desperation, but there’s something just bleh that I can’t shake. I’m tired but not in the needing rest sense. I know that current events and politics are feeding that tiredness and anger and frustration. 

I want to be in church for mass, but I don’t want to actually leave the house to go to  mass. 

My husband organized a spontaneous road trip to Destiny USA on Cayuga Lake in Syracuse, and it was cheap, which is always a good thing. I mean it cost next to nothing, and it was fun. It was adventurous for the two of us in the family who need plans and lists and things. But it was still something of a struggle. It was a very conscious effort to be there for everyone and everything. And the amount of energy it expends to be that self-aware and that self-censoring is really quite exhausting.

I want to write, but I don’t want to sit down and get to the process of writing. I have so many things that need to be written and then posted or filed or edited, and I can’t decide on which is the most important, and then I get paralyzed with indecision and do nothing. I have yet to continue the journal I want to write for our family trip to Ireland. It’s almost a year since we went and came back. Part of that, I know is that we probably won’t get a vacation this year, but part of it is also that I want it to be perfect for posterity and summer at home is too noisy to just sit and reflect quietly on that very special trip. Unsure about a vacation this year with too many other monetary priorities plus a mistake with our taxes that refunded us significantly less than I had anticipated. Trudge along, though. That’s all any of us can do. Trudge along.

I did see my therapist a couple of days ago, and that helps; not just the going, but the anticipation of going. It’s like a balm. If I’m feeling anxious, I look at the calendar and see the appointment and I can get through a minor pang of anxiety.

I think July is just more of my cranky month than the others. The kids home more than usual, the air hotter than usual, less money, more expectations, anticipations of so many things to do, and then having to live up to those expectations.

Well, let’s think positively.

Let’s see what can happen.

July: Sum Sum Summer: Recipe

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Homemade Popsicles. (c)2018

One way to have fun and beat the heat is to make homemade popsicles. We tried this earlier in the week, and it was fun as well as refreshing.

I bought the popsicle makers for 99¢ at Wal-Mart. I’m going back for another one, maybe two. They’re an easy to use contraption. You could also use ice cube trays or silicone ice trays in different shapes. We found mini watermelon shapes in the dollar section at Target.

The flavors we used were Simply Lemonade with Raspberry, and Hawaiian Punch Fruit Punch. The latter is a favorite of mine from childhood. I almost never drink it because it’s just too sweet, but it has the perfect fruit punch taste, and it reminds me of being a kid in the summer heat.

What fruit juices or drinks do you recommend for freezing into popsicles?