In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of ritual and self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
Feeling very disoriented! Yesterday I was astonished to learn that it was Thursday, when it couldn’t possibly be.
Today I’m just kind of generally confused about everything. But here we are! I’m chickening, so it must be Friday, right? Or thereabouts.
The hard stuff
The giant gaping hole where the bathroom sink used to be.
And then the time, inconvenience and general /hassle until said hole was taken care of.
Ah, Hoppy House.
Ow.
Many bruises.
Mostly from tripping over things, sometimes literally and occasionally not.
Everything hurts!
Got a cold.
In July. It’s stupid.
Recovery sucks, just in general. I don’t know why I forgot that.
I need more downtime after last week’s Rally.
Too much working, not enough playing.
Timing. And guessing wrong.
I was working on an aspect of a project that ended up taking about five times longer than I’d estimated.
This totally threw me way off track. Not just with the project, but in all sorts of ways.
Wanting.
It is a known thing that longing for something you can’t have is a colossal waste of time.
But somehow the knowing of that doesn’t seem to be all that effective in terms of being able to stop wanting the un-wantable.
The good stuff
Oh! This is so great!
So last Friday (on the chicken!), I told you about the Shiva Nata Snack Preview class that I’d just set up.
By Monday it had SOLD OUT and people were still wanting to get in — we now have a ridiculously long waiting list.
There are still a couple spots for the August series but those should be gone soon too.
This was really exciting, especially seeing how exuberant people are feeling about this class. Yay. And yay for more shivanauts hanging out at the Playground.
Getting so much done. So much!
After a unlikely and complicated slump (tiny pockets of slump mixed with long periods of process-process-sleep-on-it, which are not slump-ey at all), I had a big run of outrageous, unstoppable DOING.
Specifically PLUM DUFF!
I was pretty sure we wouldn’t be able to get it ready in time, since it has to brunch on Monday morning.
But guess what?! We did. Incredible.
And I will even whisper-link to it (password = extraraisins) even though it’s not supposed to be live yet.
Credit for getting this done goes to the OOD and Cairene and last week’s Rally (Rally!) and all of the crazed shivanauttery we did there.
It was drizzly this week.
And I liked it.
It kind of reminded me of Berlin, which can also get chilly-wet in the middle of summer.
I was happy when the sun came back too, of course.
And happy for the things the sun is bringing (amazing blueberries and tomatoes in the Hoppy House garden, raspberries from Dana’s garden).
But the drizzly was lovely.
The Shiva Nata iPhone app finally approved!
Still not in the shop.
But we got the approval. After months and months of run-around and absurd tribulations.
So close!
Excitement.
Yoga again.
Well, I’m always doing yoga and living yoga, but when it comes to the physical practice, usually I’m practicing old Turkish lady yoga or teaching it.
This week I took some classes out in the world again and enjoyed.
Internal relationships.
At my Kitchen Table program we’ve started the summer quarter, which is on the theme of relationships.
And I taught a class on internal relationships.
The KT mice are so wise and creative, and have become so knowledgeable and well-versed in what I teach.
So we’re able to run classes at a super high level now. I was really impressed by the smart, thoughtful questions and the different situations in which people were able to apply what we talk about.
Very reassuring.
Bridge walk! And then Sunday parkways!.
I’ll be walking all weekend.
First at the Bridge Walk.
And then at Sunday Parkways.
Who’s coming with me? If a bunch of us do it, I’ll even bring the Schmoppet!
Reconnecting with an old friend.
And laughing laughing laughing.
My new favorite website.
It’s the make everything okay website that… wait for it… makes everything okay.
Thank you to the Frolicsome Bar (our facebook page) for sharing it with me.
And also I am loving loving loving this (thank you, Liz!).
And … playing live at the meme beach house it’s the Fake Band of the Week!
My brother and I have this thing where we come up with ridiculous band names and then say in this really pretentious, knowing tone, “Oh, well, you know, it’s just one guy.”
This week’s band:
Dramatic Swiss Marmot
I even have a video clip. And it’s the best video clip ever.
Catch them at the Meme Beach House all week. Except that it’s really just one guy.
Tiny little pre-annoucement? Plum Duff! Plum Duff!
Officially I’m not supposed to announce this online until Monday morning when the actual brunching happens but the fact that it is almost-here makes it too exciting to not tell you about.
Especially since it’s up and ready now* so you can sneak in if you like…
* Password = extraraisins
I would love some cheering and sparklepoints and general joyousness for this!
That’s it for me …
And of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments if you feel like it.
Yes? Anything hard and/or good happen in your week?
And, as always, have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come. Shabbat shalom.
p.s. It’s okay if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — you can join in whenever (or not) and it’s no big deal.
Follow
the hard: hosted a monster potluck, and each monster brought an anxiety pie or DOOM cassarole, each with it’s own special seasoning of doubt, fear, and judgment.
the good: deciding to allow a safe space for their party, and thanking them for bringing something to share, and being curious about what it was. . . and permission to not feel guilty about not eating it.
more good: getting ready for some serious and playful gwishing!
Ooh, Plum Duff Days! I love it, except that my monsters were all over me for taking advantage of it.
THE HARD:
The GF is having a rough time and we are fighting and solutions are hard and he’s thinking that maybe not being in a relationship would be easier, though likely not better.
I need so much sleep. My monsters think I shouldn’t sleep.
My Monsters and especially the critic think I should also not draw. Something I was wildly excited to start up again.
Fighting made me miss yoga today.
Also I feel judged by one of the new yoga teachers at the studio, which is probably just my stuff showing up.
Lots of my stuff showing up and I’m not sure that some of the things I accuse the GF of aren’t really reflections of past experiences with the ex onto our current relationship.
Wanting lots of alone time and not getting it.
THE GOOD:
I got my crafting tumbllog working (makingofthings.tumblr.com)
and made a shiny new header for my blog after hanging out at Reba’s Navigating by Heart blog.
I played with shrinky dinks and made a little tool kit to deal with the drama when it shows up.
I crafted some more with the leftovers.
I started learning Level 1 Shiva Nata legs and ended in fits of giggling trying to combine it with arms.
A wonderful yoga Nidra session.
That wanting to type the first Hard up there made all these Goods assert themselves in my mind.
Maybe signing up for a NVC course in October
Meeting with a friend and starting lots of good talkings that will be continued on Tuesday in an open-ended cooking event.
Hard:
-A sort of multi-week morass of foggy stuckness around *everything*. The less said about that, the better, really…
-Plumbing woes
-Heatwave
-Work being done in the yard waking me and my partner up two or three hours early every morning
Good:
-Remembering that I *can* be something other than stuck. And gently figuring out how to get there and slowly moving towards it (rereading many Havi things!)
-Plumbing got fixed! AC installation happened!
-Sketching interesting things in my notebook again.
-Clearing a path through the tangled code I’ve written helps me see things so much more clearly. This may well yet become a calming garden instead of a scary swamp.
Forgot to say that it was STEPH H who told me about Make Everything Okay! Thank you, Steph!
But somehow the knowing of that doesn’t seem to be all that effective in terms of being able to stop wanting the un-wantable.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yay for plummy goodness!
Hard:
* so much dog hair and dust and clutter
* allergies galore
* so much time on things other than what I’d planned on devoting this week to
* godzilla-sized iguanas
* fretting re possibly not saying right things + saying wrong things, with “must deal with now now NOW” monster jamming onstage as well
* [redacted profanity], how is it almost 1 pm (CDT) already?
Good:
* Postagram in my mailbox!
* printing my own postcards here at home
* fitness bootcamp + hiking
* progress on projects and planning
* feeling ok about splurging on treats such as green-tea melon paletas
* nice, patient lady at makeup counter, and non-goopy foundation
* good conversations
Shabbat shalom, all y’all.
The Hard:
-Serious irritation and annoyance and intolerance.
-Feeling a bit distrustful of people.
-100 degrees + gads of humidity = the above issues.
-Stiff and sore lately, despite massage.
-Realizing I need to live in harmony with all the garden bugs.
The Good:
+Working out again and moving my body. Will be a long process, but I feel better.
+My feet *seem* to be doing better, although I’m scared to write that since it may just be temporary.
+Garden bounties!
+An open weekend ahead of me that I get to spend with the animals and my lover.
+Maybe I’ll make some scones.
Oh Friday, how do I love thee, let me count the ways:
Loving:
– my new sparkly cocktail ring!
– 3 new bras!
– rose’ wine & restocked the rum supplies. Happy pirate ninja.
– central air conditioning in my apartment.
– match.com date last night that was good and maybe there will be another.
– giant straw hat so I can go boating.
– friends & fun!
– a stocked kitchen
– the settling of things
– the planning of things
– the opportunity dropped in my lap
Pondering:
– the Match man
– what I want
– who I am
– who I want
Chicken Chicken Chicken Chicken … chicken
The Hard
-Emotional family stuff that I don’t actually understand and it’s not over yet
-I thought I scheduled bank payments, but then they didn’t happen. One card being frozen until I got it straightened out. Ugh.
-Feeling like I’m tired all the time and a lack of decision about what to do next
The Good
-Bus Adventure Day! I’m now over my bus insanity, so yay!
-I got Staying Sane and Being Social relaunched
-And now I’ve got the free In Bud Sessions posted for when people sign up for Inching Along. Both of those took forever to get up and I’m so relieved to be able to focus on something new now.
-Hula Hooping!!!!! It was great and I’m going back, again and again.
-Also, I found a dance studio that has almost all of the classes I want. No pole dancing, but if I decide it’s that important to me, I can do that separately somewhere else.
Oooo yay for this week!
And yay for Plum Duffs!
The hard:
A discouragement fest on Wednesday – everything I’ve ever done seemed totally pointless.
Not hearing back from any of the jobs I’ve applied to, including the voluntary ones.
Stupid and incomprehensible hosting issue, which means I will need to start all over again. But hopefully with a company that can tell its arse from its elbow.
I need to go and think of meals for next week, and right now my brain is in zonk out mode. (Maybe more of a whinge that a hard, but whinges still count.)
The good:
Exactly where I wanted to be with novel/dissertation. Have a first draft of the dissertation chunk, and really enjoyed writing this week. It seemed to flow much more and I actually feel that I’m going to finish it.
Books from the library. Yay! So much brain goodness.
Talking about goodness, I’ve eaten particularly well this week – yummy fruit, delicious meals.
I have been in a really quiet mood this week – not really wanting to interact with anyone apart from one or two people. Instead of trying to force myself, I’ve just been going with it. It feels good. Kind of restorative.
Also the KT call fabulous. And I remembered to have a sketchbooks and pens so I could draw while I was listening, which for some reason makes my brain understand things easier.
Getting back into 365 stride.
This week has just been a lot calmer and less angsty than previous weeks – I seem to be strucutring my days in a way that works better for me, and focusing more on what I actually want/need.
And of course, my mind is being blown (in a good way)by my giving to myself experiment.
And amazing Shiva Nata. Mirrored, in Mandarin, with Lydia Lunch playing. Fun! Ephiphany central!
And and and my gorgeous and so comfortable blue new yoga mat.
And ballet!
Yeah, most of this week has been fabulous. Feeling like a very lucky person indeed right now.
Have lovely weekends and weeks everyone. xx
Hard:
–Hot, hot weather. Bleah.
–Scary deadline LOOOOOOMING.
Good:
–My wonderful, sweet partner has taken the initiative and come up with a financial recovery plan for our household, and he’s managed to do it in such a way that doesn’t make me feel pre-empted or dismissed. In other words, he’s done the work that was making me feel overwhelmed, while leaving me entirely in the loop and sovereign as far as the actual implementation is concerned. I am so very grateful to him for this.
–Plum Duff Days!
–My music therapy client who had been doing very poorly and really not seeming like himself is doing much better now. I’m so glad, for him and for me!
–I get to start using my new journal today. It is shaped like a purse, complete with a beautiful beaded handle, and has a picture of Marilyn Monroe on the cover. I get to carry it everywhere and be a glamorous goofball!
–I am loved, I am loved, I am loved.
The hard
– bike made weird (scary) grinding noise and stopped shifting right.
The good
– i wrote my hello day letters, and somehow everything seemed to go well this week or i managed to handle in stride. this makes me happy.
– bachelorette party on Saturday was awesome. Little sad that all the girls from out of town left early instead of spending the night, but it was totally awesome. Went someplace I would NEVER have gone on my own and bought something.
– We are eight (8!) days away from race day. You have no idea how mind boggling it is.
– job interview on Monday. Went awesome. Fingers are crosseded-ed.
– bike’s weird grinding noise was easily fixable (cable stretch… again/still) and i still have a free tune up which I am using next week right before race day.)
– but wait there’s more. This week was really awesome. I am writing and stuff. Planning things. Also, I will fly a kite tomorrow or sunday. I bought two (yay dollar tree) and I will fly the kite with or without small children.
Ch-ch-ch-ch=chicken!
This week’s hard:
– Ridiculous sweatiness. Like, not just it’s hotter than hell sweatiness, but egads what’s wrong with you sweatiness. Ugh.
– Watching someone I love going through a very hard time and not being able to help.
– My cousin had her surgery today. Fuck cancer.
This week’s good:
– Was able to say no to a project I really didn’t want to do with no guilt whatsoever. That might be a first.
– Inventory revealed that I have a lot more stuff than I thought I did, so the scramble to get ready for next weekend’s show won’t be quite so scrambly.
– Crazy storm just came through and dropped the temperature 26°. Love watching lightning.
– Girls-only party at a friend’s house tonight with rum & juices and a blender.
Happy Friday, Chickeneers!
Chick-a-chicks!
This week’s hard:
-Hot HOT hot HUMID – and the house A/C system is out. Using fans (which are good!) but today’s still the worst yet (Arizona-like, and I’m in Maryland). As soon as I dry off after a shower, I’m damp again.
-Too hot to do any work on projects at home … of course I’ve been procrastinating, but now that I can’t really drag myself away from a fan (which would blow all the paperwork around), I really really want to work on them! (I will have to think about how to use this in the future.)
This week’s good:
+Acupuncture appointment.
+New bras fitted and special ordered.
+No power outages (so far).
+Spending the weekend with my cousin, whose A/C is working. Birthday party for her!
+Bought a window A/C which I will be able to install in my bedroom next week after it cools down about 10 degrees.
+Plum Duff!
Happy Friday, chickenistas!
Very excited about the Plum Duff Days!!!
The Hard
Travelling while not feeling terribly well
Some uncomfortable moments around money not being where it was needed, and feeling dumb about that (oh, hello monsters)
The Good
Having a wonderful time at a close friend’s bridal shower & bachelorette party last weekend, especially nice since I hadn’t seen her in 7 years
Finding a car to buy that met all our criteria and was under our spending limit – and getting an interest rate and a monthly payment that were both lower than I was expecting. To top it all off – my husband took care of the whole thing with a minimum of nagging and poking for me – sparklepoints for both of us!
Pennies from heaven creating more financial ease
Going to bed early – and in my own bed!
Happy Chicken everyone 🙂
Hard:
Hot. Hothothot. 110F heat index today.
Sudden attack of allergic conjunctivitis yesterday/overnight. Woke up at 5:30am with my eyes stuck together. 🙁
Waiting.
Sales were off 30% at last week’s vending event. Discouraging.
Finding out my coaching client is probably taking August off too.
Good:
Air conditioning.
Sulfa drops for the eyes. I can see!
Consulting with the coffee shop I bake for and guiding their new paint choices. Now if it looks good, I can ask them to hand out my business cards to consult with other peoples 😉
Coffee monies for the consult. Yay!
We finally got a front page up at my website (http://www.stitchcircus.com ).
Using happy colored papers to plan the website.
We finally got my other website up (http://www.embellishmentcafe.com)
Surprise interview for DH on Tuesday. Which led to the waiting.
College orientation for DS#1 went really well. I was disappointed when he didn’t get into OU and had to go to the local community college, but they were so much nicer and inclusive than the big college was for the similar program.
“Pluck a Duck” did engage people at the vending event. (I took very small rubber ducks and wrote letters on their bottoms. Then I put them in a drawn pond. For $2 you could pluck a duck to find out whether you got a bookmark, pin or magnet.)
It’s Friday!
so from your description of Plum Duff, it sounds the same as what my (english) Mum would call Spotted Dick- always a big source of amusement around our house…
Bk bk bk bkaaark…
Hards this last couple of week:
– the fight to end all fights
– feeling off colour and spewy… ewww
– life. It is intense. Yes. And timing. It is ironic… (Not ACTUALLY ironic, but that *thing* that the word “ironic” means nowadays, thanks Alanis Morrissette).
– feeling far away from whatever my thing (thing!) is going to be. Someday. When I get to it. After all these LAYERS of personal crap and all the STUFF that gets in the way. Yay stuff…. Stuff is okay… I like stuff…. (Gulp.)
– oh yes, the Things Need To Be Perfect First monster. It’s been sounding very convincing. Concurrently with the Oh My God So Much To Do When Are You Going To Get On With It panic/alone monster. They are a very disempowering duet.
– job applications remaining unwritten and staring at me, iguana-like.
– little lad’s obsessive streak asserting itself again. Guilt that what he really needs is more one-on-one playtime and there is so much work to do!!
The goods….
+ the fight seems to have ended all fights? At least, shifted something into a very different place. Differences seen to add value rather than create conflict. Ummm…. love conquers ????all????
+ not panicked about the implications of spewiness…. Wow… See also, above…
+ some cash money back from kafka-esque bureaucracy. Half of debts paid off. Aaaahhhhh!!! Spacious!!!
(Mind you I got the NEW rates notice the same DAY I paid last years off… Again, the Thing-That-Is-Not-Irony *siiigh*)
+ Remembering important things that make occasional f*ck ups not (such) a big deal just part of the journey. Re-remembering. Deeper. More cellular.
+ didn’t end up needing to write job applications after all as the Next Perfect Job finally ended up landing in my lap after all. Phew, had started to think I’d lost my Perfect-Job-Segue mojo… But no, still in-tact, re-employed in my ideal circumstances without skipping a beat. Yay.
+ little lad’s team are brilliant and he is thriving with the intensive support. And his obsessiveness just means that he is going to end up being an eccentric, artistic genius. Just the kind of person I like best.
+ checked out where the big project I left (along with the job) in Feb had got to and felt highly relieved that my replacement has managed to do a great job with the mess that I’d left it in. Wrote to tell her so and she wrote back saying that it hadn’t been such a complete mess anyway. Yay, especially in light of vast improvement in little lad’s abilities since I’ve been able to focus more on him. #priorities #planBworksoutjustfine
+ the first good again. Cos it’s an important one.
Cluck. xox
Chick a doddle -dooo!
The good:
Lots of swimming, yoga, shivanata
Declutterings – major de-piling and going through old stuff
Good conversation with grown son
alone time with Adman
The hard:
Going through old stuff – literally and well….
Dealing with “late mid-life astonishment” (isn’t that a great name for realizing that old age is close and time is much shorter at the end than the beginning? I didn’t make it up)
It’s much harder than I had hoped – see above – especially when I’ve avoided my feelings about it all for a long, long time.
Cheers Chickeneers!
The Hard:
– not enough sleep in not-my-own bed
– rain with cold wind when I need to be walking around outside
– days with too much work
The Good:
– hanging out with friends I haven’t seen in a year because they moved to Germany
– European road trip!
– forward progress on a baby step for a big project
@Havi, totally agree: a cold in July sucks!
My hard:
– a feverish cold that made me miss my last farewell opportunities at work and farewell drinks with my favourite colleagues.
– 10 absolutely wonderful months are coming to an end.
– don’t see how the time between jobs will be sufficient to make me recharge my batteries.
– summer trying to disguise as autumn.
My good:
– a week of hugs and lovely farewell activities.
– the past 10 months created new perspectives.
– husband here to pick me up.
– 5 days in the countryside with internet and mobile phone sabbatical coming up.
Yay for Chicken Amnesty! Because on Friday I was on the road most of the day and had no time over the weekend to chicken.
The hard:
– heat and humidity
– long road trip: bright sunlight tiring my eyes
– sudden drops in energy, at least partly due to heat and dehydration
– didn’t finish my crocheted top after all because I left the beads somewhere
– constantly forgetting things, especially when I was interrupted in the middle of something
The good:
+ audio books and cruise control make long drives much easier!
+ family wedding
+ the dress and shoes I wore to the wedding
+ no health problems
+ restful sleep!
+ lack of television exposure
Rally-Effects! I Rallied at home last week, and felt the effects continuing this week. I got clarity about some things that needed to happen and took steps to make them happen. I overcame a huge (I mean HUGE!) iguana early in the week and have gotten information, made arrangements, and taken steps to deal with other iguanas and to make progress on several projects.
I’m going to need VPA amnesty too, till I recover from late-arriving at home and can figure out what I want to ask for this week.