Category Archives: Random Thoughts

Care for Fabric and Life

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It was a thrift store find. $4.99, with a purple tag, which meant it was 50% off. I tried it on in the aisles, and it fit. I read the tag: “Genuine leather shell” and “Over for care”. I thought I’d turn over care of my new garment to the dry cleaners. After all, I’ve wrecked fabrics less valuable than leather.
I didn’t plan on the dry cleaning place refusing to take it. “We don’t have very good luck with leather, so we contract our leather work out to a professional leather cleaner.” She quoted me the price, I cringed, and she showed me the car instructions on the tag. Apparently, she thought I could read these and handle the cleaning process myself. 
So I did, and it survived, and I’m thrilled with my “new” jacket. Pink leather jacket, a good pair of jeans, my snazzy boots, and I’m ready for…. well, I’m ready for a day of meetings and training at school. Oh, well. My thrifty coworkers will love it!
But wait – there’s more. Did you see it? The second tag in the first picture? My fabulous deal came with its own fortune, sans cookie.
I might have phrased it differently so that the singular “everyone” makes a better match, but “their” will do.
A new jacket, a fabulous deal, and sage advice as well. For 50% on a $4.99 jacket? Can’t be beat.

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Random Leftovers, thoughts, and reactions

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For lunch I reheated leftover Chinese take-out from last night. The fortune cookie said “Your dearest wish will come true.” I’m still waiting for one that says, “Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.”
Heard on Twitter: “Just because it’s stormy doesn’t mean you’re not headed for sunshine.”

This might just be a new variation on the old —
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”
Either way, the grammar leaves a lot to be desired.
Speaking of errors, yesterday I saw a classic example of poorly used spell-check.
The student meant to say ridiculous. Instead, his answer used the word reticules.

I had a strange dream last night, too. I dreamed I lost my wallet – it was stolen. When I got it back, the lovely embroidery and needlework was in bad shape. Threads of many colors were hanging loosely all over. In my dream, I found most of my money still inside the wallet. That which was missing had been replaced by (are you ready for this?) lottery tickets.



I suggested the loose threads are a metaphor; I have too many loose ends hanging that need to be tied up and secured. Chuck nodded and then added, “The lottery tickets were just a reference to last week’s big jackpot.” I suggested, “Maybe it means I should take more risks.” He shook his head vehemently and replied, “No.”
Okay. I’ll refrain from Megabucks for a while.

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>How to Adjust to a New Sleep Medication

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>Disclaimer: Adjustment Daisy style does not replace or even supplement real medical advice. This adjustment addresses the woozy feeling in the morning, sometimes called the Hangover Effect.

  • Have coffee with a friend. The coffee will infuse caffeine; the conversation will be enlightening.
  • Snuggle a blanket. This acknowledges the desire to sleep again while not giving in completely to the call of the pillows.
  • Put pots and trays of seedlings outside. Between the sun and the cool temperatures, nature helps wake up the soul.
  • Blog. But be careful; proofread later when feeling less loopy.
  • Feed and pet a rabbit. This is a valid strategy for almost any condition. Rabbits are magical.
  • Watch the weather channel or CNN, depending on the mood.
  • Avoid game shows on TV. The over-animated applause and the bells & whistles are annoying and all too often generate headaches.
  • Contemplate changing timing of taking medication at night to allow for successful awakening in the morning.
Readers, can you add to the list?

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>Insomnia

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>Two bad nights in a row. That’s unusual. Most of the time one bad night will leave me tired enough to sleep the second. Not this time.

So far:
  • no naps
  • keeping busy outside (re-potted tomato seedlings)
  • half-caff coffee, none after noon
  • keeping busy inside (laundry, a necessary evil)
  • keeping mind busy – this is the toughest element in the list.
My brain has been linking memories and concerns with connections that just don’t make sense. Round and round, circular motion, or is it a spiral? If it’s a spiral, I wish it would spiral out of my mind and let me sleep.
Social networking is coming in handy. Online friends have recommended:
  • melatonin, in small doses
  • meditation
  • notebook next to the bed for writing concerns, even poems
  • Music: when I’m obsessing over regrets from the past, remember “Let it be.”
  • Music: “Morning has Broken” to ease me out of bed whether I’ve slept or not
One major decision: Do I call the doctor? And if so, the family doctor or the psychiatric NP with the several-month long waiting list? I’m not eager to start Ambien or any other sleep aid. I fear the addiction that I developed last time Ambien was part of my routine.
Well, dear readers, I’ll take any advice you have for me. If I could just shut off the part of my brain that keeps replaying regrets and mistakes and — that’s it, just and.

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"No."

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Two-year-olds are so good at this. They say no easily, and mean it. They’re not malicious, they’re not mean, they’re just sincere in their right of refusal.

Take my niece for example.

SIL: “Eat your soup, Audrey.”
Audrey: “No. Hot.” — stated so seriously and in such an adorable voice that we knew she meant it.

At Christmas, after opening a present containing her new Aaron Rodgers jersey:
Brother: “Audrey, would you like to try on your new shirt?”
Audrey: (looking at her tummy, putting a hand on her sweater) “No.” –again, very logical. Why would she put on another shirt, no matter how special, when she was already dressed? Geez, these grown-ups lack common sense.

Grown-ups do indeed lack common sense at times. Teachers, parents – nurturers, especially, have a hard time saying no. Put in extra time to finish progress reports? Of course. Bring in a couple of side dishes for the pot luck lunch? Naturally. Take on additional students for a day? Not a problem.
Sooner or later we run out of hours in the day and energy with which to productively fill those hours. We keep saying Yes because it’s expected, because we feel we must. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to channel our inner two year old. Calmly, logically, seriously, and in such sweet voices that no one can resist, we need to say it.
No.

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>One week away —

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>One week from now, our community and state will go to the polls. Highlights? Lowlights? I’m glad you asked.

We’re electing both new and experienced supervisors to the County Board, due to redistricting. Chuck and I have talked to the supervisor who represents our neighborhood. We’ve also helped a friend with her campaign.
Wisconsin holds its presidential primary. Some time in the next week, I expect Chuck to get called out to drive the satellite truck to a rally or two or three or four.
My fair city elects or re-elects a mayor.
Wisconsin holds its presidential primary. I am getting really good at keeping the TV remote near me so I can mute campaign commercials.
My local school district, a.k.a. my employer, chooses two candidates out of three who are running for two open seats on the school board. The two incumbents are good people; the potential newcomer holds some dangerously narrow views. He’s already made clear his opinions on the freshman reading list. Let’s just say his point of view is different from mine.
Wisconsin holds its presidential primary. Robo-calls, campaign calls, and survey calls will keep my phone ringing. Thank goodness for caller ID.
And when it’s over, all over, we’ll turn our attention to the upcoming recall election in June, when the divisiveness hits the polls. Our state will be divided for a long time. I will keep working to elect legislators who cooperate and think carefully before writing and voting on bills. To me, that’s the biggest problem facing our divided legislature: the poorly written laws being rushed through the Assembly and Senate.

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>Inviting a Blizzard? Moi?

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>Remember Chuck’s threat last week? His warning not to take any garden talk seriously, and most certainly, not to go outside and work in the yard?

He gave up.
He noticed our neighbor, our ever-conscientious neighbor, taking care of his yard – and mowing the lawn. In mid-March. In Wisconsin. This, my friends, goes way beyond planning the garden or even buying seeds.
To show you how much this disturbed him, I just need to tell you this: Chuck’s response was in Haiku, followed by limerick.
Garden prep, lawn mown,
Spring is in the air.
Blizzard Marches in!
Description: cid:image002.jpg@01CD01E4.14A325A0
A warm March day in the air,
Lawn mowed, garden planted out there;
Her hubby did warn
Of inviting a storm
Now she’s freezing off her derriere.
I must respond.
Dear husband, the one I adore,
I might play a little outdoors,
But all I will do
Is grow food for you
And can homemade goodies galore!



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>Sing it with me: Saturday at the O.K. Chorale

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>On the to-do list:

Remind Amigo to do his laundry. Why can’t the kid do it himself? He can. He needs the reminder to actually throw the clothes in the washer and deal with it.
Plant seeds and hope they’ll grow. Most of these seeds are a year old; I haven’t bought new ones yet. We’ll see if they’re any good. Still. Yet. If they grow, it’ll look like salsa again in the O.K. home; I planted lots of tomato and pepper plants.
Stir the compost. Shh: don’t tell Chuck I played in the compost. He’s convinced that anything resembling garden work will cue Mother Nature to send in a storm.
Make ice cream – hopefully with Amigo. It’s easy and fun and he’ll love the results.
Set aside a Care Package for La Petite. She’ll be back for appointments on Monday and Tuesday, so I’ll send her a bag of food to fill her pantry. I can’t help her find a second job, but I can feed her.
Draft a letter of support for a local candidate. If this is really the year of the progressive woman, she’s perfect.
Check out the latest news on the local private school that lost two thirds of their teachers due to conflicts over paychecks – namely, the lack of them.
Look for ways to streamline the family budget. Headlines today noted what we’d all expected, but dreaded: my colleagues and I in the local public school district will face another wage freeze along with a higher deductible in our health care coverage.
Keep cleaning the house and purging it of useless items. Sell or donate; make space for what’s important instead of storing junk. At the most, we may get a few bucks for some of the stuff. At the least, we’ll have less to clean.
In a related category, reorganize the canning supplies. At this time of year I have more empty jars than full. How to store them until I need them – that’s one dilemma. How to make more room next fall for the full jars – that’s another. It feels like every year I make a little bit more. Well, if my pay is frozen, at least I can still feed the family.
I guess all this means I should get offline and do something. Here goes!

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Writing is therapeutic. Email? Maybe.

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Blogging is therapeutic. Email can be therapeutic as well – sometimes. Within reason. Occasionally. With very little editing, just enough to protect the innocent and not-so-much, here’s an example, courtesy of Chuck’s challenging day at work.

Me: Northern Wisconsin has 16 inches of snow. Madison and Milwaukee have sunshine.

Chuck: I’m being snowed under sorting out the incompetence from the non-functional.

Me: There must be a Dilbert-style quote or post in there somewhere.

Chuck: Department motto – Our perfection has to overcome their incompetence.

Me: I still like “Engineering: We put the fun in dysfunctional.”

Chuck: Now we’re applying soothing unction to the dysfunction.
Then we both got busy and went back to work.
On another topic: blogging has been therapeutic, too. A coworker asked how I keep up with everything. She was referring to the fact that I helped out in high school English for a few days, submitted a blog post and wrote a new profile for our national office’s PR department, while still somehow managing to do my own job and do it well, too. I stopped in my tracks. This is such a huge dramatic change. It’s a change back to normal, whatever that is.
One year ago, I was blogging my way through the worst depression of my life. This illness had me knocked out, incapable of working, and barely functioning. Thanks to many professionals and family and friends, I’m now back in the land of the working and the happy and the energetic. Wow, I thought, maybe this is what healthy feels like.
Then a dangerous thought crossed my mind. Would a collection of my posts be of interest to other people suffering the same way I did? Knowing I wasn’t alone was such a comforting feeling. Battling the depression demon was long and difficult, but possible. The long and winding road (uphill both ways, of course) can lead to health and success.
Well, readers, with a little revision to protect myself and others, could the Compostermom Chronicles become a journal of healing? Share your thoughts, readers, and I’ll start giving it some thought myself.

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>On teaching, voting, and cooking supper

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>Election Day wasn’t bad, all things considered. My ward has a lot of well-informed and politically active people, including our representative in the state assembly. We found the new poll location, pulled our photo IDs out to prove we are who we are, the poll workers blinked at my double name (older people: most young ones don’t even notice) because it didn’t match the poll listings exactly. It was close enough that they let me vote.

Yesterday I wondered why the meat was taking so long to cook. It looked done, but the meat thermometer kept giving me dangerously low numbers – at least it did until I realized what was wrong and turned the temperature readout back to Fahrenheit. Shhh. You’ve done that, too, haven’t you?
I must learn when to sit on my hands and keep quiet. We are short a teacher temporarily at school, a high school language arts teacher. I’m not a high school teacher, but I do know much of the literature at that level. I offered to help out. I haven’t regretted it yet… but remind me later that no one forced me to do this: I stuck my neck out and offered.
Back on the topic of Election Day, my fellow blogger and good friend Green Girl made it through her primary election for school board. Now comes the real work: the main election. Readers, head over to her blog to congratulate her; she deserves it! Instead of complaining about the local schools, she has taken action to make the situation better.
Making the situation better: that’s what running for office is all about. Go Green Girl!

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