Brain Surgery

I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately as to what career path I should take, and last night I had a dream that I was performing brain surgery.  Apparently, I had become a neurosurgeon?   But I had no clue what I was doing and faked my way through the whole thing.  It felt so wrong.  I was so happy and relieved afterward that the guy was okay that I held his face in my hands and cried.  Even though it all turned out okay, I think it’s safe to say that there’s no future for me in neurosurgery.

Other things happened in the dream too that give me cause to ponder and reflect on, but what I come away with in the end, is that I should do something that feels authentic to me.  Something that I am equipped for and gifted at – unlike brain surgery.  There’s a no-brainer.   😉

Ever since my divorce back in 2011, I’ve been wondering what I should do with my life.  Thankfully, I’ve had an income from my divorce settlement, so I’ve been able to take the time to try and figure that out.  But the interesting thing is…  that while I’ve been wondering what I should do with my life, I’ve realized that I’ve already been doing it all along.  Living each day, being open, listening.  And I’m so grateful for all of the experiences that I’ve had over these past 6 years – even the sad ones, because I’ve grown so much through it all.  But the time is nearing that my settlement will go down to an amount that is no longer sufficient to support me financially, so I will need to find a job.  It’s exciting and daunting at the same time, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what to do.  What to do, what to do?  I might need brain surgery after thinking so hard trying to figure it out.

A few of you know, but I haven’t shared here publicly yet about the total knee replacement surgery I underwent this past September.  The recovery has been really slow, gosh what an ordeal it’s been for me, like seriously, wow, but the surgery went very smoothly and I haven’t had any complications, so for that I am truly grateful.  I’m scheduled to have my second knee replaced at the end of February, and my hope is that once I’ve recovered, I will have more job opportunities available to me with two fully functioning knees.  The sky is the limit really, and I’m completely open.

Well, open unless it includes performing brain surgery.  😉

But hey, maybe the meaning of my dream was more about how I can do anything – even brain surgery.

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Wordless Wednesday

 

Because sometimes it’s the non-words that describe things the best…

 

I think we would all do well to make this sound more often about a good many things, don’t you?

“From the mouths of babes…”

🙂

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Misadventures in Caulking

If you read my last post, you know that we had a bit of snow this past weekend.  But what you might not know is, that in addition to my wonderful nature adventures outside, I also spent time inside having a few other misadventures.  In hearing that snow was expected in our forecast, I figured that would be a good time to buckle down and finally try finishing up some of the home improvement projects I have going on around here – one of which being to caulk around the tub/shower and the sink in the upstairs bathroom.  It was a tremendous amount of work for me, but was made much more bearable with the helpful assistance and comic relief of my sister.  And my Mom’s cat, Gus.

In case you or someone you know is considering doing a caulking project with a sister or a cat in the future, I’ve compiled an easy set of step-by-step instructions to help you get started.

But not really.  😉

 

Caulking with Cats: In Three Easy Steps

Step One:  Before beginning your project, be sure to leave the door open for proper ventilation so your cat can come in and inspect the area.

Step Two:  Clean all surface areas cat thoroughly.

It is a bathtub after all

Step Three:  Cover the tub drain to prevent any debris from going down the drain.  i.e. Let your cat cover it for you.

Because it obviously amuses him immensely

Additional Tip:  Even though it’s very distracting and may cause long delays in the final completion of your project, it’s good to allow your cat as much time as he requires to frolic around in the bathtub, as this provides cheap entertainment for you, makes the job more enjoyable in the long run, and ensures a good, positive attitude should difficulties later arise during your project.

 Which they most certainly will…

 

Because seriously, who knew caulking would be so difficult?  I sure didn’t.  I had never done it before, so I went and watched this YouTube video… “How to Caulk a Bathtub with Beautiful Results”  ‘Beautiful results’ my foot!  The lady on the video made it look oh so easy, but it definitely wasn’t.

The part I struggled with the most was that damn caulking gun –  for the life of me, I couldn’t squeeze the trigger hard enough with my weak girlie hands to get the caulk to come out.  My sister even had trouble doing it, and she’s one tough broad.  After quite a bit of effort on her part, she was able to get it to come out, however, she couldn’t aim it properly and the caulk was kinda going all over the place, so I had to get into the tub with her to help steer the tip along the edge of where I wanted it to go.  It was extremely awkward with the two of us trying to maneuver in the tub with a messy caulking gun, it sorta felt like we were playing a game of Twister, and neither of us is as flexible as we used to be.  It was funny though and we laughed a lot in the process.  My sister always makes things more fun, and I’m so grateful for her help.  ❤

Another problem I had was trying to remove the old caulk, it was easy enough taking off the most recent layer which had greatly deteriorated, but since the layer previous to that hadn’t been removed, it was hardened like cement…

In the video, the lady used a dremel, and that worked pretty slick, but I didn’t have one of those and didn’t want the added expense of buying one, so I used this totally worthless tool instead…

I didn’t know it was going to be worthless, it came in a caulking kit I had bought previously, that also included edging tools for sealing the caulk without leaving seams – those were equally as worthless.  Oh well, live and learn, right?  I ended up using the tip of a tiny screwdriver and was able to remove most of it with that, but it was beastly work.

The one tip I was most grateful for from watching the video was that she taped it all off.  I’ve always loved painting a room and enjoy going around and taping over everything beforehand, but I hadn’t thought of taping for caulking.  It really helped with the mess from the excess caulk as I was going over it with the edging tool.  My sister snapped this slightly awkward angled photo with her phone while I was in the tub doing some of the taping.

We ran out of caulk partway through and had to take a drive to The Home Depot to get more.  I decided I was done working with that damned caulking gun – it was much too difficult to use and I didn’t even want to imagine the messy job we would do with it in trying to complete the finer detailed work I needed to do around the sink area, so I bought small hand-squeeze type of bottles of caulk instead.  They were much easier to work with, but way over priced compared to the tubes that are used with the guns.  That pissed me off a little because it felt like I was being penalized for having weak hands.  Plus, they contained much less of the product, and if there’s less product, it should cost less, not more.

Anyway, I guess it was worth it to me though because everything went real smoothly after that.  Literally.  See the nice, smooth finished line I made with it…

Unfortunately, I have a lot of other areas that aren’t as smooth, and I’ll need to go back over them and try to fix/touch them up because it got really sloppy in some spots, especially in the corners.  I’m embarrassed even showing the crappy job I did here…

Smudged up that corner for sure.  Oops!

But in the end, I’m pretty dang proud of myself for tackling this project. And I did a fairly decent job for someone who had no clue wtf they were doing.

Of course it helped a great deal to have my big sister and my mom’s cat lending me a hand paw.  😉

 

The next thing I want to do in the bathroom is re-grout all the tile, but we may need to hire a professional for that because I’m not sure I could do a good enough job, and I have serious doubts that watching a YouTube video on how to do it would be a true representation of how beautiful the results would really be.  Plus, nearly the entire bathroom is tile and ‘thatsa lotsa mozzarella,’ not only for my weak girlie hands, but also for my knees.

I’ve been working on this bathroom off and on for a of couple years now.  That’s a ridiculous amount of time for such a small room, I know, but I do have other things going on in my world as well.  Also, we needed to hire some painters to fix the drywall underneath the wallpaper I had removed (See: Misadventure and Mixed Pleasures in Wallpaper Removal), and they had to come back several times over the course of several months because they screwed up on some things and needed to fix them, and they kept blowing us off.  That was a nightmare all in its own which I won’t go into, but suffice to say, it’s not just my slow pace that has made this such a long process.

Anyway, thanks so much for taking the time to read about my latest misadventures in home improvement, I really appreciate it, I know it’s different from the things I usually post.  If you’re interested in seeing what else I’ve been doing in the bathroom (I mean aside from the ‘usual things’ people do in bathrooms), you can click the post I linked above or see Remodeling and Redecorating: The Story Continues.

Have a lovely day…

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Remove Children

I went to the Whole Foods Market in downtown Minneapolis with my sister this past weekend, and I have a random tidbit from that trip I’d like to share…

Maybe I was already in a silly mood, as is quite often the case whenever I’m with my sister, or maybe it’s just my odd sense of humor, but this sign struck me as so funny when I saw it atop an escalator, and I made my sister take a picture of it with her phone…

The funniest part about it was that the sign was animated, and there was just something about watching the stick-figure parent repeatedly taking the stick-figure child out of the cart that tickled my funny bone in a special way.  Yeah… it doesn’t take much, I’m often easily amused.  😉

Or maybe it was because it said “remove children” and that just sounded so dang funny to me for some reason.  Still does.  And who knew there was even such a thing as an escalator for shopping carts?  I sure didn’t.  But perhaps the more important question here is… who would need to be instructed to remove their child before sending their cart down in such a contraption?

Although… I do have to admit, it did sort of remind me a bit of an amusement park ride, and part of me wanted to take a little ride down it myself.  Of course, I’m much too big to fit into the child seat of the cart, otherwise, who knows… I just may have been tempted to give it a try.

After all…

 

I have been known to do strange and unusual things where other stick-figure instructions are concerned…

Can’t remove the child in me!  😀

 

Hope you have a wonderful day, and may you come across random things that amuse you too…

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Tis the Season to be Stressed Out Falalalalalalalalah…

I saw this the other day and thought, “I can relate.”

The holidays can be such a busy, stressful time for a lot of people, but it’s not just because it’s the holidays that I’m so busy.  Things just seem to have been hoppin’ in my life for quite some time now.  I keep waiting for things to settle down, but then something else comes up, on and on it goes, and now it’s Christmas time.

I have always loved Christmas, absolutely everything about it.  There used to be a time when my daughter was little (and when I was younger too ;)), when I was all finished up with the “busy stuff” of Christmas before Thanksgiving.  Gifts wrapped, Christmas cards addressed etc. and I would just spend that time in between Thanksgiving and Christmas baking, decorating, being festive, and just enjoying the company of friends and family.  But now, after more than just a few major life changes, everything is different, and my perspective on things has changed a bit, and not just about Christmas.

But either way, I’m totally stressed out right now and finding that I’m having a bit of trouble feeling that ol’ Christmas spirit.  I’m really tempted to rebel against all the Shtuff* I have to do and take that nap instead.  But for the sake of my family I will suck it up, take care of everything that needs doing, and make myself be Merry and Bright (right after I finish complaining ;)).

But I really can’t complain because even despite life’s difficulties, busyness, pressures, and stress, still all I can see is how totally blessed and fortunate I am.  Truly.  I have only to look outside of myself at the others around me out there in the world to realize it.

In moving back home and being in my “old neighborhood” in the inner city, I see so many hurting people who are in true dire situations and struggling just to survive.  I think I have stress?  This is nothing!  At least I have a nice warm bed to take that rebellious nap in if things get too overwhelming, some of these dear souls around me don’t even have a place to rest their weary heads.  Shame on me for complaining about anything!  For real.  Oh, am I having trouble finding my Christmas spirit?  Am I stressed out?  Boo who, suck it up and count your blessings Missy!  Indeed.

And here are a couple of them ~ my precious daughter and my dear mom…Haha yeah, you should see our other attempts at trying to take a little family photo in front of the tree, we so totally fail!  Maybe they would have turned out better if we would have had a person taking them for us instead of using the timer on my daughter’s camera.  We tried to take a few with our 3 cats in them with us too, but those all turned out being just a big blur.  There is one semi-nice posed one of us that my mom intends to send out in her Christmas cards this year, but this one was my favorite because it’s a better example of our typical behavior.  😉

~

To be completely honest, I guess I should mention here that even just trying to take those photos was a stressful ordeal, that’s probably why I like that particular shot because it was one of the moments during all of that where we were having fun.  And that’s what it should all be about.  I love my little family.  ♥

Well, I’m off now to go and run a myriad of errands.  Christmas Eve is only a week away!  No time for naps!  😉

But when I do lay my head upon my pillow, I will count my blessings instead of worrying…

~A very Merry Christmas to you and yours~

Oh Those Pet Peeves…

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming of gardening adventures and remodeling projects to bring you this special report…

Well, it’s not really that special.  😉

Ordinarily, I’m not the type of person who gets easily annoyed.  There are the important things in life and then are the insignificant things, and I know the difference between the two.  But we all have those pet peeves and thanks to the plethora of memes and funny internet pics, this post is going to express a few of mine…

Hey, people can dress however they like (I do), but I just think this is the most ridiculous “style” I have ever seen.  The other night while my daughter and I were waiting at a stop light, this guy walks by (if that’s what you call it), he was sort of hobbling and was all bent over to one side.  My daughter let out a small gasp and said “Oh my gosh is he okay?”  As we continued to watch him cross the street in front of us, we realized he was just trying to reach down into his pocket (which was at his freaking ankles) to get out his phone.  Wow, what an idiot!  We laughed the rest of the way home…

~

I’ve realized that quite a few of my pet peeves are in regard to grammar and punctuation.  Not that I’m an expert by any means, I use tons of tilde (~) and ellipsis (…) when I write (and not properly, mind you ;)), but these two just really bug me…Seriously, it’s really not.

Oops this one has a bad word in it.  But you get the point.  I must confess, when texting in a hurry, I’m guilty of sometimes using ‘ur’ for both meanings.  Don’t hate me because I’m in a hurry ~ or because I used a bad word.  😉

And this one isn’t really a pet peeve, but when I saw it I thought it was funny.IT SAVES LIVES!!!  😀

~

This one is HUGE!  I’m sorry but this is just sooo frustrating to me!  People who are in the customer service field really need to be capable of pronouncing the English language in a clear and concise manner!

~

This one isn’t really a “pet peeve” just one of those ridiculous things that sort of annoys me.  I mean, most scary movies are stupid enough without adding to the stupidity.

~

Grrr politicians!  I hate listening to any of them.  I just don’t buy anything they are saying.  All I hear is Charlie Brown’s teacher’s voice.  Wha wha wha wha…

~

THERE IS A CAR RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, where exactly is it that you expect me to go for crying out loud?!

~

Here’s another biggie for me.  Some people love to cry out about all of the intolerance of certain groups of people, but more often than not they are guilty of being that exact same thing themselves.

Dontcha just love Morpheus?!

~

Nearly every time I have to buy toilet paper, I am completely disgusted at the price!  It is literally just flushing money down the toilet.  Gah!  And being a girl, I want the soft stuff and that’s usually the most expensive.  It’s so annoying!

~

Well, thank you for joining me today and allowing me to express these pet peeves and certain annoyances.

“We now return you to your regular scheduled programming…”

Stay tuned for:

My Mom’s Bedroom Floor is Trying to Kill Me

and

A Storm Destroyed My Bell Peppers

~

Adventures in Gardening Part 11 ~ Darn Squirrels!

Don’t let this cuteness fool you ~ squirrels are pure evil!

Okay, I’ll admit… I may over exaggerating just a tad, and this is a really super cute photo of one (just look at its wittle questioning face ~ who me?  evil?  no, not little ol’ me, I’m innocent), but I’m not buying it.

I am not a fan of the squirrel.  I have nightmares about them, actually.  I know… squirrels?  Why would a person have nightmares about squirrels of all things?  Heck if I know… maybe I’m just mental.

When I was a little girl, my dad used to take me and my brother and sister to the park to feed the squirrels on Sunday afternoons.  It’s a very fond childhood memory of mine, so I have no idea where the nightmares stem from.

It’s a recurring nightmare where I am surrounded by dozens of creepy diabolical squirrels and I’m holding my dog; trying to protect him from them.  I’ve had several dogs over the years (all small breeds) and the dog I’m holding varies between them, as does the location where the event is happening, but it’s always the same …  scary freaky squirrels are trying to get my dog.  I seem to know this is a recurring thing because I always think to myself “Oh no, not again!”  Sounds dumb, but it’s seriously really terrifying.  Fortunately, they never succeed in their evil plot for world domination ~ er, I mean in their goal to get my dog, which must indicate something positive in the grand scheme in the dark reaches of my psyche.  I haven’t had the nightmare for quite a while, so that must be a good sign too.

But now I’m afraid these nightmares may take on a new dimension (in reality) because squirrels are digging in my garden!  When I went to check on the progress of my little seedlings the other day, I found several holes in various places throughout my garden, including finding one of my zucchini mounds ruined!  😦  Even though I didn’t catch the culprit in action, I know it’s a squirrel because last year when my brother was staying at my parent’s house, he had a squirrel that he was feeding on a regular basis while he sat out on their patio.  The dummy!

In all of my years of gardening I’ve never had a problem with squirrels before, so I’m kinda clueless as to what to do about it.  I went online this morning to find more information just in case this little wicked friend of my brother’s decides to make a regular habit of being a nuisance, but aside from chemicals and traps (neither of which appeal to me) it doesn’t sound like there is much you can do that will result in any great success.  Squirrels = pure evil…  like I said.

On a positive note…

I found that my lettuce seeds are sprouting!

~

And my spinach were tall enough to be thinned so I now have 5 separate plants…

~

I also found more peas sprouting ~ all 13 of them in fact!  Who says 13 is unlucky?  😉

~

It may be silly, but I just find it really exciting to see all of these little greenies popping up! ♥   I’m still watching for my carrots and zucchini to come up ~ can’t wait!

And next week I can plant my cucumbers!

~

“Mary Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow?”  Hopefully without an invasion of squirrels…

Thoughts While on the Potty

You know how they say that some of your best ideas come to you in the shower?

Well what about thoughts while you’re using that other item that is in the bathroom?  The one that is for sitting on?  You know… the thing off in the corner… it’s not really just for sitting, but is used for another word that rhymes with sitting and has an H in it.  Okay I’ll just come out and say it… the toilet.  The potty.  I guess just going ahead and saying toilet is actually better/less crude to say than describing the word that rhymes with sitting anyway.

Not that I ever actually use the toilet ~ because we all know that when ladies use the bathroom… it’s only to powder their nose. 😉

Anyways…moving right along…

The bathroom in my apartment has one of those frosted glass type of windows.  It’s really awesome because being as huge of a fan of natural lighting as I am, it’s nice to let the light in and still have the privacy that a bathroom requires without wasting electricity.

So while I was in the bathroom this morning ~ ya know… just powdering my nose, I had a few thoughts and realizations about my life come to me when I was looking out the window.  If you can call it looking out.  Which I guess is what the realization is about…

My life right now feels like I’m looking through frosted glass.  I can see that there is light, I can see the outlines and different shading of things, but I can’t see anything clearly.  I’m so thankful for the light ~ that there is even a window at all, but I want to see clearly.  I want to know what the shaded images really are.  I want the frosted film over the windows of my eyes to be removed.

Maybe the problem here is that I’m in the bathroom.  The bathroom of my life?  Well isn’t that just great?!   I thought it smelled bad in here.  Not from me of course because I’m just in here powdering my nose…

We’ve all heard it said that as we go through life ~ that there are different seasons… Well perhaps there are different rooms as well.  The nice thing about being in a particular room is that unlike seasons ~ which are out of our control (unless we are God or a mad scientist experimenting with methods for controlling the weather), we can simply choose to move into a different room.

Well, the bathroom is a room we must revisit frequently.  We have to go in there to wash.  To clean off the dirt and grime of life.  And we have to go in there to… um… powder our noses and stuff.  But we don’t need to spend too much time in there.  Well, unless we ate something that didn’t agree with us ~ then it could be a while.  Maybe we should be more careful what we eat and what we dirty ourselves with so that we don’t need to spend a lot of time in there.

But sometimes it can’t be helped.  We fall down and get dirty.  Mud gets thrown at us.  We might have to walk through some pretty messy situations that take a while to wash off of us.  And we might get an upset stomach from all of that and need spend some time on the toilet (or leaning over it).

So at different times of our lives we may have to be in the bathroom for a while.  And while we’re in there ~ we have to look through the frosted glass.

But notice how there is still light coming in?  Although we may not be able see clearly until we finish our business in the bathroom and move on to the next room (and hopefully it’s one with big rose colored glass windows!), lets be thankful that there is still some light coming in while we’re in the bathroom times of life…

Yay it’s Monday!

Yay it’s Monday!  Monday =  funday!  Despite the comic above, I’m not being sarcastic here, I’m actually serious.   Yeah, I know you’re probably thinking…  “what are you lady, crazy?”  Yep, apparently so!  😀

Can’t help myself.  There’s just something I’ve always loved about Mondays…

I guess calling them “fundays” is pushing it quite a bit, but my point is that I do enjoy them.  I think it’s because I like new beginnings.

Most people dread Mondays and having to drag themselves back to their jobs/school after the weekend, but not me.  Well, especially not me at the moment because I am currently unemployed ~ but even when I was working I always approached Monday with a positive anticipation.

It starts on Sunday night… I start switching gears in my mind and thinking about the upcoming week.  What do I have going on, what do I need to accomplish etc.  I admit there is much less of either of those two things now while I’m not working, but I still enjoy planning for the new week ahead.

I’ve always liked structure and routine.  There is definitely a sense of comfort in both of those for me.   And I like being organized too.  Makes me feel like I’m on top of things.  On the ball.  Ya know?   But I’m not a control freak by any means ~  I am very good at being flexible and even flying by the seat of my pants when the need arises.  I guess Monday is kinda like a chance to regroup, see where I’m at, and start off with fresh motivation to accomplish stuff.  Stuff like… just not failing in my everyday life, for example.

I’ve never met another person who likes Monday.  And many people have told me how weird I am for liking it.  Most people like Friday.  Hey, I like Friday too!  It’s my second favorite day of the week.  Mondays are a new beginning and Fridays hold the excitement of having some free time for a few days.

Monday is always what day it is when I decide to start something new and if a Monday happens to fall on the 1st of the month, that’s even more motivation for me!  Not that I’m all that greatly disciplined at sticking with/following through with whatever new thing I start ~ I lack that significantly as a matter of fact.  But hey that’s why Mondays are so great… they happen every 7 days so I can always try again!  It’s all about not giving up, right?  😉

So what’s on the agenda for this Monday and the week that follows?  Attempting to clean my poor neglected (and somewhat filthy) apartment, finishing putting up the Christmas decorations (even despite my daughter repeatedly playing “You’re a mean one Mr. Grinch” as I’m writing this), getting my finances in order (the end of the year is nearly upon us), finally cracking open the new book I bought, and trying to figure out ways to mend this broken heart of mine.   Just to name a few.

How about you?

“What’s in your wallet?”

Moral of this story:

Don’t be hatin’ on Mondays ~ you’ll give them a complex…

Come on they’re not that bad ~ besides, they hold the promise of a new beginning!

And now to put an annoying tune in your head for your Monday…