less power than was needed

not only is my mobile on the blink, but my broadband connection too

I don't rely on either of them - noone really ever texts or calls me and I can always go to an internet cafe, can't I?
.

however when the person who does text is Mini-Teen and she needs something and when I don't reply and she phones and I don't even realise my phone is playing up, that's a tad annoying
.

and when the internet seems irretrievable from the ether that exists between my laptop and wherever the internet actually comes from, and this happens when The Teen's not here to sort it out for me, that's a tad annoying

.

weird, how one comes to depend on these things - to "need" them in one's life in order for one's life to function at the degree that one is used to it functioning at - and when they are suddenly not there, to find that one is more than a tad annoyed

.

can one be "more than" "a tad"? I wonder if "tads" are incremental - if they were, on a scale of one to ten for example, I'd say that if normal service hadn't resumed itself - thank you chosen deity on my behalf, please, it was nothing to do with me - I'd probably be eight-out-of-ten tads* annoyed

.

*not much really. . .
. . .in the big scheme of things
but I'm glad everything is back to normal
(whatever that is for me)
again!

asking

for help

is not something I'm good at

in fact it's something I'm not good at, at all

wasn't able to as a child, didn't know there was any; wasn't able to as a teenager, there wasn't any; wasn't able to in my 20s/30s (altho lots of people relied on me for it - how is that? that the one not able to ask a friend for help becomes the friend who can always be relied upon to dish it out?) (I know there's an answer to that one, I'm just not sure what it is)

and as for my 40s, I haven't been able to ask as often as I've needed help - there's a bit of a chasm still

today was probably the Most Difficult Day I've had since I came out of the Head Clinic

I'm still here,
which is something
I suppose

I'm mainly only still here because everysingletime Mini-Teen has had a tricky time recently (she's had more than I've written about) (so many that I'm totally exhausted by her) I am so so so so glad that I am still here for her; everysingletime Teen Too has looked at me with that teen 'oh g*d mum, you're so embarassing' horror on his face, it a fascinating thought that he is growing up and finding his own way finally not in his brother's shadow and on his own terms and no mine and I'm honoured to be a witness to the process; and everysingletime The Teen walks in the door he shouts out hello? to check if I'm in and then proceeds to tell me how crap his day was and how everyone hates him but that's ok cos he hates them and what time is dinner and what is dinner and oh why? do we have to have that? can't we have something else? and oh by the way how was your day. . . I'm just glad he's speaking to me again

I'm also mainly only here because I did ask for help today and I received help. . . got thru a half a box of Kleenex getting it. . .

now my eyes are puffy
and I need my sleep

X

it's so quiet when the children are gone, a sort of

vacuum of time and in space is created

where it feels like the insides of one's brain are being sucked out to fill the external void (a bit like blogging, eh)

perhaps I should assemble the little stereo* and put on some music? (*in a bid to kick start the economy XCH recently bought me a replacement CD** player and two mini speakers, as he took his with him 18 months ago) (**if only I still had my vinyl)

but to achieve that I'd have to move all the boxes of board games and the shelf of children's books (the really beautiful hard backed ones) out of the way; of course the children don't play the board games anymore and they have moved on in their reading habits, so they'd miss neither

but I haven't the energy to relocate these items to somewhere else in the house, and there is no spare storage anyhow; maybe I should just make a random pile somewhere of the old "grown-out-of" stuff, in order to make space for the new to-be-grown-into-stuff

or perhaps I'll just light the fire and curl up in front of it really close to the grate with a good book

remember I said the tunes were deserting me?

well I had the radio on the other day and listened to a random selection of music (why do DJs rarely tell you the name of the song and the band which is singing it?) and scribbled down some lyrics and googled them (to find out what the song that I liked was) and really quite liked one of the songs and then on the news last night I discovered that the song has been at the top of the charts all year and the band are becoming really famous and were even interviewed during the news (excruciatingly badly, I have to say) and I thought that was really odd - that the one song I remembered was really really popular. . .

. . .and, strangely, just writing that has brought a tune to my head! now, should I choose one or the other, or offer up both?

after yesterday

I'm exhausted
.

and I'm out of fags, coffee, milk
(how and why do I keep letting this happen?)
..
(HOW does one stop oneself making the same "mistakes"
OVER and OVER again?)
(is a choice a "mistake" only when the consequences are
NOT GOOD?)

..

when I've sorted out the essentials,
I'll be back

..

in the meantime,
enjoy

..

(-:

shredded

tinsel can you ever have too much of the stuff?

is it only right in traditional seasonal colours. . .

is its place just on the tree, perhaps around pictures, or bunched up in a big piles all over the place. . .

is it right to compromise its shredded simplicity with other things - leaves, stars, different coloured strands. . .

did you know that originally tinsel was made from strips of shredded silver? silver tarnishes (and is not cheap), so alternatives were designed. . .
.
my mother had the same xmas decs for as long as I can remember - each year she used to hang strips of silver tinsel from the picture rail in the living room and tie little baubles onto the end, to decorate the mantel piece above the fire; on the tree the tinsel was only allowed to go deep into the centre of the trunk and branches so the otherwise dense green foliage would twinkle with the reflections of the fairy lights; we only had silver tinsel when I was growing up - I don't even know if coloured versions were produced, but perhaps if tinsel was originally made from silver she was a true traditionalist to the core; she also had these probably just post-war decorations for the hall, which were long lengths of spirals made from crinkled silver foil - each year she would take each length out of the xmas decs box, and gradually stretch them out along their central string (which must mean that at the end of the season she must have carefully squashed them together, but I don't remember that) and once hung along the picture rail the spirals would gently twist and twirl. . .

.

yeserday the children and I found the box of decorations that we must have packed up after our last xmas in The Village (they were in storage last year) - so many memories

.

part of Christmas is memories, eh,
and, each year
making new ones

cuckoo

clocks that is

I have one - did I tell you?

not quite the same as that, mine is all white (no painted detail) and has two more birds on it

it's a cheap modern version, battery run (not wound up by the chains) and most of the time the "cuckoo" is turned off (the children don't find it as amusing as I do)

weirdly - but not suprisingly in these modern techo days I suppose - the "cuckoo" sounds like a recording of a real bird in a wood, it kind of echoes too

have you ever walked in a wood and heard a cuckoo's "cuckoo"? it's one of the more identifiable sounds, a little like a woodpecker's hammer or a pigeon's "my toes hurt polly"

I miss watching the seagulls wheel about above the shore, and hearing their screech. . . the house is full of birds tho - seagulls in the living room (remember the art that yearned for me?!) and in the kitchen (a series of etchings by one of the artists on my course). . .

and birds flying up to the boys' rooms on the third floor of the house - I found these really cool decals for brightening up dull walls and bought them way back in the spring, I discovered them the other day when I was tidying and sorting. . .

ours are black and grey and white birds tho. . .
I'm very tempted by this one:
.

(but I'll wait until the new year and
see how far my decorating budget stretches)
.
(check out the Supernice shop tho -
the decals are such fun!)

in the mean time, the children aren't here to hear so the cuckoo is keeping me company today

hope you have a good one

am I here?

well, this is really weird. . .

I can write things
and I'm told they are published,
.
lost a whole load of things from yesterday
but then I probably blab on too much anyhow
.
but I can't get to my little chink of cyber space to admire the view. . .
..

*SOBS*

..
but if you can read this,
I must be back. . .

exposed

so, the house is a semi, and thus only has the one adjoining wall. . . consequently it is exposed on four sides (east, south, west and the flat roof)

consequently in weather like we're having it's bl**dy freezing. . . there is a fire in the sitting room, but I feel so guilty about my carbon footprint that I don't light it until the children settle in for the evening

it's weird how guilt can stop you doing things that might be good for you

I think my brain has frozen up - if I thaw, I'll be back
.

hope you are somewhere
warm and snuggly today

well I was ready for everything, something,

anything (or so I thought). . . but not the exhaustion

my candle is still flickering, even tho it's being burnt at both ends at the moment. . . what I have to think and focus on is that this is my future, not my past. . . there's no rush to unpack (which is just as well, as there are still boxes of things here not yet unpacked from the move out of The Village, eighteen months ago, let alone the move from the rented house nine months ago). . . I have time

I do have time

so if I don't have the energy right now, but that doesn't matter - does it? the washing machine works and there is food in the fridge. . .

it feels as if I have descended to the bottom level of Maslow's hierarchy (without the sex, obviously) altho if truth be told I am probably fortunate enough to be hovering between the second and the third (without the sex, obviously). . .

I never had much truck with Maslow, to be perfectly honest, since I discovered that he'd dismissed a huge swathe of the population from his work (on the basis that "the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy") (which may or may not be bollocks - but in my humble and honest opinion you can't conduct a study and come up with a psychological definition of humanity and all it aspires to be if you ignore one of the basic aspects of being human) (can you) (can you?) (seriously, I'm happy to quibble over this) (well, obviously Maslow could, but thereby lies its flaws, as far as I'm concerned) (at least he admitted to them tho, I guess)

where was I?
oh yes, unpacking. . .

the good news is
I've found the Christmas decorations!

see, there's always a bright side - even in one's darkest hour. . . and that's the trick to coping, remembering there's always a bright side. . .

(*queue Eric Idle*)