Celebrating The Last Day

A toasty animated fire warms my 'innards' as the last day of January begins.

There is something to be said about the relief that goes with it being the one day of the month when I am absolutely free to do what I want.

It is too late to pay any more bills this month, and the next month's bills haven't begun yet, thus the immediate lack of societal pressure. I can breathe!

And now that the furnace works enough to warm up the main floor area and I have a facecord of dry hardwood to heat the basement, I feel like I am living the best of both worlds.

The permafrost feeling I used to have in my extremities is finally beginning to abate, though I find I am still particularily sensitive to the cold. It will take some time to 'thaw' completely, I think!

I have been working on the basement over the last few days, and I've been getting into the various undone projects around the area; finally putting plastic on a drafty window and sweeping the bark littered floor. I have a long way to go before I can claim real progress, but I am enjoying working on it.

Unfortunately, my three teenagers at home all seem to be going off the deep end lately. One after the other has had an emotional outburst, and it's been very challenging to know what to do to help. Mostly I just listen. It's time consuming and draining, but I am at a loss for what else to do.

I saw a 'Shalom in the Home' segment on one of the talk shows in which a very righteous sounding jewish man goes into American family's homes and determines what is wrong and how to fix it. On the show that I saw him on, he talked about how American families are failing, and how us parents are 'checked out' concerning our kids.

I would like to know how my 24/7ness with my own kids translates into emotional deprivation. I do acknowledge that I have set boundaries when I'm working on the computer or taking a rest (or I would never have any peace!) but every day I talk with all of the teens and spend time with each of them, whether I'm working in the basement or upstairs.

As you can see, I wasn't taken with Mr. Perfect Family on the talk show!

Anyway, I'm in a great mood today. I have been lonely for a friend to talk to, but it has afforded me the time to work on my psychic skills when I'm alone and to be more in touch with my higher power.

My health has been so-so. I get a very sore neck and shoulder when I sit at the computer, and I've been stumbling a lot. I have gotten used to semi-staggering when I am in a hurry, though then I trip on everything. I have a thyroid checkup appointment with my Quack doctor on the 2nd of February, and I've decided to keep my mouth shut about my health. I give up on trying to get help for my health issues from the medical community!

Well it's time to stretch and get the kink out of my neck, so I'll sign off.

It's almost February!

OH HAPPY DAY

A dancing happy face guy rewards me tonight for the long (long!) stretch of hard times that I have been enduring, now that my furnace was fixed today (!!) and the house has actually warmed up to the point where it's comfortable to walk around in.

I realize it's been cold one way or another in here since last summer. No joke- not even the blazing woodstove and the cranking furnace could really heat the house all the way through, because the furnace had only been partially working for months (I learned this from the furnace repairman today).

Whew. We've been toughing it out in a big way!

This is the first time also since I moved my computer downstairs that I haven't ended up being too cold to work on it after only a couple of hours. It became almost common to go upstairs and run my hands under tepid water to warm them up after such a run.

Most of the time I couldn't get warm enough even doing that, so when I could I crawled under the covers and tried to get warm enough to keep going.

So, tonight, having a warm house like this has caused me to be beside myself with joy. I'm crying tears of relief, gratitude, and faith.

Of course the kids all seem relieved too- excited and playful with eachother for once, instead of their usual testy interactions. That's nice, too, though it may simply be due to it finally being the weekend.

Sometimes survival is the goal in this life I lead, but tonight I am absolutely basking in luxurious warmth, and incidentally, I'm thawing quite nicely too!
(Below is a gif (t) for everyone's enjoyment)




(and oh, by the way, Lord, THANK YOU!)

Action Over Panic

It's Wednesday, January 17th, and the 'Doomsday Clock' moved forward 2 minutes today because of the twin nuclear threats of North Korea and Iran, and also for the first time, because of the threat of sudden climate change.

This morning I was in Wal-mart and I looked up to see 100 plus TVs all showing previews for Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth". I had such an eerie feeling of being subtly warned by even Walmart about how the next ice age could happen at any time now.

But that's not new. Everytime I comb the internet on my chemtrail hunts, I find scientists, organizations, even governmental agencies talking about global warming and what it could potentially lead to. There are failsafe programs being implemented as I write, in areas that you would never think of, all without a pause in thought. It's as though it's just another fact in our lives, as though if we follow some strategy or some plan it will all remain 'normal'. But it's anything but, with our Nation's security in jeopardy and now, especially, with conspicuous white lines crisscrossing the skies, right in front of everyone.

All this afternoon the fading blue skies above me were barraged with long white snaking jet plumes, in every direction, that seemed to immediately fan out and blend in, until the skies were no longer blue. Instead, it had become a strange white bathtub of wispy chemtrails with long wide arms stretching everywhere. And even as the sun was setting, the spraying continued on, with fresh clean lines of 'contrails' boldly crossing the horizon. It was unnerving, it was so bold and 'in your face'. It did not help my mood one bit.

All afternoon I took dozens of pictures of the planes (or whatever they were, they were flying extremely fast and high), as a rising panic in my throat seemed to grip not only myself, but then my children as they returned home from school and saw the streaks overhead.

Not wanting to show my fear about the chemtrails, I gobbled a Valerian root capsule and blamed my irritability on broken appliances and my overdrawn bank account. Taking deep breaths and forcing calm thoughts into my head, I promised myself that I would spend this evening's research time hunting for the elusive Michigan connection, and in the meantime, I would put on a brave face for the kids.

After all, I reminded myself, what I saw today was REAL. It wasn't just commercial airline 'traffic' in the skies, not with the obvious thickening of the contrails and the simultaneous planes flying in all directions and at all angles. It was something else., and I have got to be able to find SOME link to what I saw today.

But inside I'm feeling like the world is falling apart and I'm somehow caught in the crosshairs, as being an American and living beneath the ever present chemtrails in the skies, is reason enough.

I have a mental image of a big old boat tipping in a vast ocean, many voices screaming in fear and everyone is holding onto the edge of the boat for dear life. I am in that boat, and I feel damned helpless about now.

Couple that with President Bush's absolutely reckless abuse of power involving Saddam Hussein's hanging, his unyielding occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and ultimately, his dismissal of the nuclear wielding President of Iran, and I think the boat is America.

Trouble in Paradise

Just before I went upstairs to go to bed last night, I noticed that the furnace wasn't working, and when I went to restart it, I realized that it was a useless action- I remembered how last winter the furnace had done the same thing and how I'd had to have a furnace person come in and diddle with this and that to get it up and running again.

Well, I have some wood left for the woodstove, I thought, so I stuffed the already running woodstove with as much leftover wood as I felt was safe, and I went to bed and tossed and turned for a while, worried.

This morning I awoke with a cold nose and I remembered that the furnace is out, so I threw on three layers of clothes, my winter boots and hat, and I trundled downstairs to get the woodstove going again and to try my hand at getting the furnace to work.

No luck. I called my West End friend and asked his advice (always a good thing to do, as he is nearly always Mr. Information) and then I went back to my immediate task of getting the woodstove cranking.

Well, it's been about 3 hours, and I have managed to get a facecord of wood (in transit as I write) but I have given up on getting the furnace fixed today.

The furnace person is apparently out of town until tomorrow, so all I can do is run the woodstove. Oh well!

At least it's been sunny outside today, and the kids are back in school after yesterday's snow day (14 inches of snow), and I am looking forward to breakfast time when I can enjoy looking at the dozens of different birds that come to my outdoor birdfeeder.

Still, I wish I could get warm! Cheez......

Introspection

It's almost been a week since I posted in here, and even I have wondered why it's taken so long to write about my life lately.

Well, I haven't been working on any art projects, or even photo editing lately. I know I switched to another operating system on the computer and it's taking awhile to adjust to the new way of doing things, but that doesn't explain why I keep passing up terrific photo-ops with my camera and chances to get more art supplies.

Perhaps it's because I tried to forget the whole ugly scene with my old high school boyfriend (hitherto known as 'no one special') by immersing myself in internet research and mind numbing music, I don't know.

But then tonight I realized that deep down I have been really hurting about the cruel things he wrote in his e-mails and I really haven't been myself ever since.

I looked at the photographs and the art that I've done over the last few years on the computer, and I started to get angry.

I felt angry at 'no one special' for trying to tear down the talented and caring person that I have become, and angry at myself for trying to take away my interest in doing such intriguing things with simple images.

It kind of reminds me of what happened with my music career; how I allowed others' jaded opinions of me destroy something beautiful that I alone had crafted. No one else could duplicate the music, just as only I can create the type of images that I make.

But back then my music had become a business, and had become a weapon in my 2nd husband's hands. The lyrics of decades old songs drove him into jealous rages everytime I sang them.I ended up quitting my career, as I couldn't get hired with a crazy man flying off the handle in the middle of a song. By the time we were divorced, I was too afraid to sing in public again.

And now, the pictures and paintings that I have created reflect a different love; that of simple things and everyday objects in my ordinary life.Taking the pictures and painting the Art was an act of passion for those simple things and a belief in the value of such things as they relate to my life.

Would I ever be happy denying myself creative expression again, and could I justify the understandable emptiness and lack of meaning in my life? So what if 'no one special' thinks that I am a bad person or that my work is boring!

I really like the pictures that I've made, and I don't believe that I'm insensitive to people or deliberately hurtful to anyone.

But I do recognize that I need to take some mental actions to change my distorted thinking. I've got to push through this inertia and get back to taking pictures and creating Art. It's who I am, and I seem to be pretty darned good at it. Plus it's fun!

Ishpeming Buildings With Style

Today I am featuring the detail on a couple of fascinating buildings in our town of Ishpeming, Michigan.

I start off with a picture of the face of the Butler Theatre, which has been demoted to an antique store, but which still survives as a centerpiece of the downtown area.

Note the beautiful scrolling on the upper edge of the building, and the colors!

I think it's really neat how the builders put in little details, like the yellow 'ribbons' featured to the right.

I have no idea who designed or built this beautiful building, but I'll bet they were proud when it was all finished and they stood back and looked at their work!

Another interesting building is a corner stone structure. Although I've never been on the upper floors, I'll bet that there is a 'secret' third floor just to access the turret type structure!

Unfortunately, this building has been for sale for a number of years, and just hasn't been able to make the transition into the new millenium. I hope someone buys it soon, though, so it can be updated!

I've been very intrigued by the number of downtown buildings that sport iron edging, such as this curious feature on one of the buildings. It makes me want to clean up the metal and get it shiny again! Can you imagine how beautiful it must have looked when it was new!?

Finally, I showcase the unusual detail in another building's design. Although the building in general isn't unusual, the brick upside down triangle detail on the side is.

I wonder if there was one bricklayer in the area who did this type of work, or whether an outside contractor was brought in.

In any case, it sure makes our little downtown a fun place to walk around in!

In With The New....

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2007!

Today I spent a number of sunlit hours taking down the Christmas tree and packing up all of the Xmas related decorations.

I figure I made it about 1/3 of the way through the immense project, with huge boxes stacked in the hallway with both the Christmas and post holiday seasons, and I'll work on the kitchen tomorrow.

This place is such a mess, with Christmas vacation and my distracted attention, that I created a debris monster that will take days to get under control.

To help get organized, I sat down at the kitchen table and wrote out a list of 'work' and 'fun' things that I would like to do, now that the holiday season is over. I filled up the whole page, though I wonder if I will be have the energy to do it all.

I didn't even get to how I want to go camping at the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin, or to how I want to learn a program called Quark Express so I could get a job in layout design!

I know I need to think in bigger terms, which will probably require another list.

Up until now, I've been trying to just live in the moment, but I have to admit that my moments are often filled with menial or thankless work. Hopefully I won't get stuck in the same trap in 2007.

In fact, the closest that I came to having some sense of personal fulfillment in 2006 was working on "The Blanket Effect" weblog, when I got so into researching weather modification that some weeks I spent well over 40 hours at the computer.

I am still looking forward to working on that project, though I had finally gotten enough information on the site so I can coast for a little while. Plus I really felt frustrated how much information is blocked with passwords, as it meant I couldn't pin down the exact source of the ongoing chemtrails over the United States.

Anyway, I really like the idea of having a fresh start. I've never seen 2007 before, and already it promises to be notable.

Oh, my digital thermometor said that it was 51 degrees outside! WOW!! I'd better add 'Survival Materials' to my list of things to collect this year if this keeps up!