Happy Poetry Month!

April is National Poetry Month!

It's high time I started doing some posting again, don't you think?  I doubt I have many (if any) readers left, but just for my own personal growth I am going to post again, perhaps.  You know, when the mood strikes.

Today, a poem by e.e. cummings:

you shall above all things be glad and young.
For if you're young, whatever life you wear 

it will become you; and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love 

whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time 

that you should ever think,may god forbid
and(in his mercy)your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge life,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation's dead undoom. 

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

I love that final couplet.  It speaks to me in so many ways.    Do you have a favorite poem?  A favorite poet?  Do you write your own poems from time to time?

Eat Whatever You Want

I have to rant, and in an effort to keep my Facebook Page rant-free, I will rant here.

I don't care if people marry other people of the same gender.  I have friends in long-term same-sex relationships that are more loving and compassionate than many marriages I've known.  My own marriage was not threatened or weakened because of those relationships.  In fact, my personal relationships are stronger and more meaningful because of the friendships I happen to have with several people who happen to be gay, lesbian and bi. 

I don't care if a business owner spends his profits on a lobby group.  I may care not to spend my money in that business if I don't want my money contributing to that lobby.  I may wish to spend more money in a business if I find that they are spending their profits to support causes that I, too, support.  I applaud people who make choices this way, even if their choices are not the choices I would make.  I admire personal integrity, being true to your own beliefs.

Free market is all about choosing where you spend your money, for a variety of reasons.

Can we please stop hating now?

A country divided cannot stand.

I am proud to live in a country where each of us is free to believe according to our own choices and act upon those, as long as they do not impede another's rights.  We don't need to bully or berate one another when they feel differently from us, do we?  What is the purpose of doing such a thing? 



 Although I am a person with strong personal faith, I will not try to make others follow my own moral code with legislation.  The Government really has no business deciding who can marry whom, IMHO.  They have no business deciding who can have sex with whom other than to protect children and victims of rape and other violent crimes.

All I can do is strive to live life according to what I have been taught; treating others as I would like to be treated.

Remember the phrase "we'll have to agree to disagree"?  That is what we need to do.  We need to AGREE that it is OK to feel differently about an issue.

Do it, or I won't let you have any cookies after naptime.

Alone Addendum

I am glad I posted when I did last night because soon after that our power went out.  We've been having big power issues in the state since the big storms and heat wave.  Our house has been lucky, though, and we've not lost power at all.  Until last night.  At 11:11 pm last night our power went out.  I didn't panic, I just texted Si and I opened the windows. 

Thankfully the power returned about an hour and 10 minutes later!  AEP must have just been working on something.

I can't imagine how there are still people without power after more than a week.  I have friends who went 5-6 days.  So much heat, too. 

I am very blessed to have power again after such a short loss.

Alone

I have been thinking lately about how I have to learn how to be alone.  I've never been a big fan of being alone, and really, it's not as bad as I once thought.  Chances are that in about 14 months, my son will go off somewhere to college and I will be in this house alone.  It's hard to even get my mind around it, but at the same time I think about it a lot.  It's like a scab that I can't stop picking at. 

Take tonight, for instance. I worked my 9-6 at The L, and my son was gone by the time I got home.  He has a play tonight, and after he is probably going to go out with his friends.  So I came into a house with no humans in it (2 cats), and I warmed up some leftovers for dinner.  I chose to listen to my current audio book while eating, which was nice.  It's The Rook by Daniel O'Malley, and it's good, but once my hands were no longer busy with eating I decided to get online.

And here I sit.  Bored.  The house is a mess, so there is no shortage of chores to be done, but I am tired from a long day at work and I don't want to clean.  I could watch TV.  I could put a movie into the DVD player.  I could get out one of my instruments and play some music and sing.  I could pick up a book, or turn on the audio book.  I could knit.  I could find a way to combine 2 or more of those activities.  Still, I am sitting here, thinking about how I'm alone in the house.

It's nice to have some quiet.  It's nice to have complete control over my environment.  I could go to bed (I am very sleepy, having stayed up too late last night).

Oh - that's another thing.  I have trouble going to bed at night when I'm alone in the house.  What is that about? 

You think about it and get back to me.

I'm going to just sit here.  And think.  About being alone.

Customer Experiences

I did some serious grocery shopping on Saturday.  I shopped at Trader Joe's first, took that all home and put it away, and then went to Kroger.  It was astonishing how different the two experiences were.  Here are some things I noticed:

Trader Joe's:

• Smaller selection, but generally all high quality items.
• A lot of organic things, although that doesn't matter much to me.
• Many smaller portion items like marinated meats in smaller packages, produce already cleaned and packaged, etc.  
• Did you know that you can sample any item in the store?  You can ask at that booth at the back and they will open a package and give you a taste.  I usually just take it home because I know that I can take things back if they're lousy, but I have yet to find anything that isn't tasty.
• The staff are all friendly and helpful, and will even ask you if you need anything (without you begging!)  And there are a lot of employees around, plenty of people so that you don't have to search for help when you have a question.
• If you bring your own re-usable grocery bags you enter into a drawing to win a gift card - I hope I win!
• When they bag your stuff in your re-usable bags they fill them really well, and they pay careful attention to put fridge items into your insulated bags.
• Even these specialty items are not priced exorbitantly.

Kroger's:

• Larger selection of items, but some of them suck.
• Store size is very large - more walking here than at Joe's.
• Can buy in bulk - huge packages of cereal, toilet paper, cheese, etc.  if you need quantity over quality, this is a better choice.
• Fewer samples.  This depends on the Kroger location, of course.  The one closest to my house has very few samples.  The one is Graceland, which is further but nicer, tends to have nice food samples out.  They don't generally let you sample whatever you want, though, just deli stuff.
• Staff can be friendly, but there are fewer staff per customer here.  I've had to wait up to  1/2 hour at the deli to have lunch meat cut for me and the answer I get when I ask about that is "this is the new norm".  LOUSY!  If you have a question about where something is, you have to track down an employee and they will give you an aisle number IF you're lucky.
• You can bring your own re-usable bags, but you need to alert the bagger quickly because they're not used to it.  Also, this Saturday, the Kroger bagger put all my frozen things into a regular bag and put other things in the insulated bag.  DUH.
• Also, when using my re-usable bags the bagger only filled them about 1/3 of the way - crazytown!
• Kroger's was also very LOUD.  The customers were loud, talking loudly, shouting, etc.  It was odd.  I noticed the same behavior at a McDonald's near my work this afternoon.  So loud I could barely hear my friend speaking to me.  Why do people do that?

All-in-all, I'm switching as much of my shopping to Joe's as possible.  The only things I'm still getting at Krogers are those bulk-type items that my son eats in huge amounts (Cheezits, milk, Coke, sharp cheddar cheese, pork loin and beef on sale).

So, how am I doing on my goals?  Last month I set 5 goals out on my blog, and I have some quick reporting to do.


1.  Exercising - I have been out walking 3x/week that past 2 weeks.  Yay!  Thanks to Darla, Josh, Linda and Vicky (and the boys), I've been doing pretty well on this one.  I'm keeping this goal for a while so that I can continue to meet/exceed it for a while.
2. Reading - I've been turning off the TV and computer when Si is out of the house and reading books again.  LOVELY!  It's so much more peaceful!
3.  Finding ways to get out of the house and do things - I took Si to the zoo (that is one of the big walks, with Vicky and her boys, too.  and Si and I went to the Columbus Commons for lunch last week, and those other walks I've taken have helped, also.  All good things.  Also, I've been going to church Sunday mornings quite regularly . . . when I don't work.
4.  Practicing my instruments - this is a bust.  Haven't done a thing.  Boo!
5.  Budgeting - I haven't really done much, but I have been listening to The Money Class by Suze Orman, and it's been getting me ready!  I have canceled all but basic cable, though, which should help, and Si and I are starting to really talk about the truth of where we are financially.

So - 4 out of 5 of my goals have seen some movement.  Yay!  I am proud of that!  I'll check in again in a few weeks and let you know how it's going on them.

20 things

15 Things That Are True About Me Today

1. I am learning to be single, which is really weird.  Sometimes I hate it and sometimes it's not so bad.  Mostly, it's just weird.
2. I never feel like I have enough energy to do what I know needs to be done.  Cleaning, sorting through things and getting rid of stuff I don't need, etc.
3. I love to knit.  It's creative, colorful, production and doesn't require a lot of physical energy.
4. My health is not great.  
5. I need to lose weight and exercise more.
6. I hate exercising, but my friend Josh and I brainstormed about 8 ways I could get some socializing in while doing light exercise, and that sounds appealing to me.
7. Today my intestines hate me.
8. I am often afraid of not being good enough.
9. I love watching my son turn into a man.  I wish I could make it easier for him to transition, but most life lessons have to be learned through experience, I've discovered, so I watch.
10. I am a "fixer" in that I always want to fix things for people I love instead of letting them figure it out themselves.
11. I don't judge very often, but when I do I feel ashamed.  If a child is in any way suffering or not living a good life, I tend to judge their parents/caregivers very harshly in my heart.  I still try to treat them with compassion, but it's a challenge for me.
12. I believe that each one of us makes a difference in the world and it's up to us to make choices that nudge those differences into the realm of improvements, rather than influencing things poorly.
13. I wish I had never colored my hair brown, but I did it to cover the weird yellow and blue from last year's Summer Reading Club stuff, and now I'm in "growing it out" transition and I don't like it.
14. I find it challenging to be the only grown-up in my household.  It's also freeing, in a way.
15. I wish I wasn't so emotional.

5 Things I Want to Work On

1. Exercising.
2. Actually reading (not just listening to) books more often.
3. Finding ways to get out of the house and do things with Simon.
4. Practicing my musical instruments.
5. Budgeting.

Getting By

Firstly, I notice that my Reading Challenge 2012 widget isn't working for me.  On my computer, when this page comes up it says I've read 0 books in 2012.  This is patently untrue!  I have, in fact, read 69 books!  I started with a goal of 100 for the  year, but I've increased my goal to 120 just to see if I can reach it.  So, regardless of what that dratted widget may say - I AM READING!  Well, listening to audio books, at least.  Reading some.

Sometimes life is very hard.  Divorce is very hard.  Dealing with lies, betrayal, adjusting to being a single mom, handling finances alone, trying to make ends meet, being the only grown-up in the house, all of that - very hard.  Sometimes, I have to be honest, I just sit down and weep for a while.  It sucks.  But today, in the pit of depression, losing my cool in a big way, I realized that I have lots of friends.  I have people I can call.  I didn't know who to call to talk about my woes, because frankly, I feel all talked out.  Everyone knows my situation is complicated, and I know that there are any number of people who will help if I have specific needs.  What I realized today is that I needed to stop spiraling into my own depression and think about someone else.  I called a friend who is going through a really hard life thing, and I asked her how she is doing.  And you know what?  I felt so much better.  She  talked to me, I talked to her, and there you go - we were both a little better than before. 

Now - I need to remember to keep that lesson and act on it again.  And again.  And again.  Just because I'm in tough circumstances doesn't mean I can't still be a loving, caring friend.  It's totally win-win.

Maybe tomorrow I'll try getting some housework done and see how that does at improving my mood.