Another reason I was ‘off’ was because I was a little depressed.  I kept seeing all the fun through FB posts and tweets that everyone was having at BlogHer 2012 and I smacked myself in the head multiple times for not going as well as stopped even getting on Twitter.  I cut myself off from the social media world.  At times if felt good but then also, I would feel tremendous guilt at not posting.  The thing was I did not feel guilty for not posting for others (let’s face it, I don’t have a huge draw at the moment) but I felt guilty that I was letting that part of my brain atrophy.  That is really what it felt like.

So I am writing today although it feels more like rambling.  It is kinda like when you get back into your exercise routine, you need to do SOMETHING before you lose all you have worked for.  See – ending a sentence in a preposition.  I need to get back into writing mode.  Also, need to start exercising again, eek.

Also, here is a random pic of some Queen Anne’s Lace I took while on vacation.  It is a fave of mine and it never grows this well in my neck of the woods/nape of the way.

Anticipation is the prompt for today.  I was going to write about staring at said bird feeder but decided on this instead…

This is a funny prompt because every year when I get back from vacation it feels like the summer it over for me and I just want fall and the cool weather to get here.  This is unusual for me because I am not crazy about the fast passage of time.  I am one of those anxiety ridden individuals who seems to live and die by the clock (and weather channel…come on…it’s how I figure out what to cook on a weekly basis).  I have been trying to get over that part of me.  I think it goes back to being a kid and DREADING going back to my private all girls catholic school where the nuns were scary and the uniforms were double knit polyester.  I used to think as we left the Cape all I would have to go through and it was depressing.  Coming home signaled the end of summer.  Now that we go in July instead of August, I think I am selling my summer short.  I should be enjoying the hot, humid, sticky weather.  I should enjoy sticking to the seat in my car.  Yeah…no…bring on fall and sweaters that hide a multitude of sins (cheese being a big one).

I am still alive.  I did not abandon my new site.  You see, I was away on vacation.  Every year I get to visit my soul for about 10 days.  I am then tragically ripped away from that which defines me to return to the daily grind that is work, house stuff and doggie mama (not complaining about doggie mama by the way, I missed them like crazy).  If you are new to my blog, I am referring to my yearly pilgrimage to Cape Cod, East Dennis, MA to be more precise.

East Dennis is home to Scargo Lake, Scargo Tower and my namesake’s home if you had not figured that out already.  It is where my soul dwells.  I am not joking or being some sort of New Age loon.  There is something about the place the pulls me in and grounds me.  When I cross one of the bridges over the canal my entire self changes.  It is difficult to explain.  Imagine being sore and weak from a hard day of physical and mental labor.  The feeling of peeling off your dirty clothes and sliding into a shower and watching the grime slide away and feeling your muscles begin to loosen as all that is mean and dirty is washed away and replaced with a calm serenity that usually lasts until you realize you forgot to bring a towel into the bathroom.  That feeling stays with me the entire time I am there.  It is where I am actually meant to be 100% of the time but sadly, I am not.

When I try to explain it people think it just has to do with being ‘on vacation’.  It is not.  It is so much more than that.  When I am there I am grounded and it is almost magical.  I am me and all that came before me.  I can feel my past and my present combining.  When I say my past and present I mean that if I had a past life, it was probably lived there and I can feel it.  What I cannot feel is the future and I am almost positive it is because I have not tried very hard while I am there, probably out of fear.  It might also be that I don’t need to know it.  What ever I need is usually provided by just being there whether it is a gorgeous day to sit and let the ocean ease me into meditation, a rainy day to get lost in a book and early morning to pick blueberries or smile at the bounty of a farmers market.  When I am there and fully aware of me, I know what I need and it seems that the Earth does as well.  I don’t find that anywhere else.

When I was younger, I had more time there; two or three weeks each year.  Now because of the American way of working yourself to death, I take my meager vacation days and spend as many of them as I can there but it is never enough.  When it is time to leave I cry.  I cry every time.  It is not something I can fight.  I know it is because I am very aware of what I am leaving behind.  I leave the real me behind every year, the me that is whole.  I bring a few pieces back but they are not ever as full and rich as the whole.  It’s not the loss of ‘vacation time’ it’s the parting of the person and the soul.

This is why I have not blogged.  When I sat down to do so my mind just didn’t want to do it.  It would tell me to get away from the computer, pick up a book or go sit outside and listen to the gulls and birds and ocean.  I would do that and then find joy.  I did wonder if I would be able to write about it when I got back.  I am sure that I have not done the explanation justice but you will have to take my word for it.

Everyone has one.

When is it ok to have an opinion?

I have been told that I am opinionated.  I actually think it is a nice way for people to call you a bitch who don’t share your opinions.  As a woman, it is something we sometimes hear from misogynistic men who think we should all just keep quiet and get to that ironing that’s waiting in the laundry basket.  I mean when was the last time you heard someone call a man ‘opinionated’?

Is it ok to have an opinion when you don’t have the facts?  I think it depends on what you mean when you say ‘facts’.  If I have read something or observed something I might have an opinion.  It’s ok to share that opinion as long as I am ok with someone disputing it with more information than I have.  For instance, I feel pretty good about calling Tom Cruise a lunatic.

I mean Scientology and the whole put your kid on a boat thing so they can be brainwashed into being a devout Scientologist…  Um…run Katie and Suri…RUN!  It sounds like extreme CCD (for my Catholic/recovering Catholic friends).  That is my opinion.  If someone came to me and said that Katie was the crazy one, they have disputed my opinion and I expect them to back it up with why they think that way. If it is because they liked Tom in Top Gun, I’ll simply roll my eyes and change the subject to something they can handle, like ice cream flavors.   (We all love the volleyball scene and all but it’s not like Tom is even tall enough to carry off a good overhand serve.)  If it is because they are a Scientologist I would back away slowly…then start carrying garlic and a switchblade in my pockets (those people are crazy and I hear they don’t like garlic).  Bias plays a part in opinion forming and that’s OK because your opinion might have to do with something you strongly believe in, just make sure that you have more information to back it up.  You should anyway if you believe that strongly.

When someone tells me that I am not allowed to have an opinion because I don’t have firsthand experience of a situation, just information, well that is a different matter, one that boils my blood.  For instance, if I am of the opinion that the Colorado wildfires are a terrible situation, I am forming that opinion from the knowledge that the reports have shown people’s homes burned to the ground, thousands of animals killed and terrible conditions faced by our brave firefighters.  That is a horrible situation.  If someone has a different opinion and they live in that state and I don’t, why should their opinion be better than mine?  I have not even gotten to the actual information but they consider their opinion more realistic than mine because they live in Colorado. I mean seriously, out of control wildfires = bad, in any state.   The only reason I can see otherwise is if for some reason all the zombies of the world were concentrated in that wildfire area and it was started to prevent a zombie nation.  Even then it would probably be a controlled burn like they do in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, you know, so they don’t kill the New Jersey Devil considering how important he is to tourism.

Sounds ridiculous, right?

To me it is about as ridiculous as telling me I can’t simply have an opinion about the wildfires because I am not a firefighter fighting the wildfires.

Here’s the deal, you write for 5 minutes, with timer.  No editing, no nothing.  A prompt is presented but you do not necessarily need to follow it, just go with the free flowing mind you have.  Today’s prompt:

Write about a time that you were challenged.

Ready? Go!

I feel challenged every day.  Not really in the best way though.  There is a constant battle in my head about what I should accomplish that day, what I should or should not eat, whether I have done enough.  It is exhausting and I know I do it to myself.  This is not something someone has put upon me.  At work I am left to my own devices for the most part.  I am good at my job so I get it done very well.  I know this.  That is something that I usually do not worry about.  I mostly worry about the challenges that make me feel bad about myself; my weight, my social anxiety, my laziness.  These are things that haunt me.  A challenge should feel empowering at times.  To me it feels like I am starting from behind.  My belief system is such that I need to believe in myself first, then we’ll see about everything else.  I think that is the biggest challenge I face on a daily basis.

As I walked this morning I saw the usual decorations and I also saw the results of neighbors out late, taking advantage of the following day being a holiday.  As I rounded the corner I saw a couple guys getting a car ready for the big parade.  It was decorated with bunting and a nice sign that said “Support Our Troops!”.  The car was not just any car but an old war Jeep with what looks like an old rocket launcher attached.  It is usually a fixture of sorts in the parade.  What struck me was not the fact that it was a wonderful relic of wars past, reminding us to be thankful for those who help keep our liberty safe…

It was the fact that the driver was wearing a clown costume that kinda threw me off.  WHA?

With that said, this was the prompt for this week: What does it mean to reinvent yourself?

I am not sure about ‘reinventing’ but I think I am in a constant state of invention.  Reinvention sounds very dramatic (not in a bad way) and I don’t feel the need to do a 180, at least not at the moment.  I am constantly looking for different ways of doing things while I try to figure out what kind of invention I am.  I think it’s a life long process or at least it is for me.  I am sure there are people out there that have their paths set and they just take off.  I am not sure that I have found that path.  I am not even sure there is just ONE for me and instead of backtracking, I just move forward, looking for what will make me happy in terms of life in general, not just a job or past-time.  Paths cross so there probably does not need to be just one for me.  It’s the journey not the destination, as the saying goes.

The farmer takes a wife

The farmer takes a wife

Hi-ho, the derry-o

The farmer takes a wife

What happened to courtship and and a ring and maybe ASKING the woman to marry you?  Hey farmer, take it elsewhere.

The wife takes a child

The wife takes a child

Hi-ho, the derry-o

The wife takes a child

So where exactly is she taking this kid from.  Hello?  DHS? Child Protective Services? 911?

The child takes the cow (2x) . . .

Alright, you know how it goes now.  I see that they’ve got the kids stealing cows now for this fledgling farm? Excellent parenting.

The cow takes the pig (2x) . . .

I’m sorry, what? Cows are taking pigs?  Taking them how?

The pig takes the dog (2x) . . .

The dog takes the cat (2x) . .

“Dogs and cats, living together!  Mass hysteria!” – Bill Murray as Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters

The cat takes the mouse (2x) . . .

Um…this is a strange freaking farm.  It is more Island of Dr. Moureau.  I mean if all these animals are ‘taking’ each other the way the farmer took his wife, we are going to have some seriously crazy creatures running around.  The USDA, FDA and ASPCA might want to look into this place.

The mouse takes the cheese (2x) . . .

I see the mouse still likes cheese.  I was expecting it maybe to have started grazing like a mouse-cow or something.

The cheese stands alone

The cheese stands alone

Hi-ho, the derry-o

The cheese stands alone

The cheese does not know how good it has it.  It won’t have some funky DNA mixture of animal offspring and according to the rules (on Wikipedia), it gets to be the next Farmer.  Not sure how that works exactly but I am sure that Dr. Moreau figured out how to create a man out of cheese…isn’t that how Wayne Newton was created?

Today’s trip down memory lane was brought to you by:

Take a walk over to her blog to see what other nursery rhymes people are turning into a cause to call your therapist.

But tonight…

These are the words I think about as I sit out on the patio at 8:30pm with 0% humidity and 79 degree loveliness.

Gauzy, wispy, watercolor skies, breeze tossed, clean, clear, firefly, bat swoop, moonlit, bird chatter, lullaby, float, lightly tread, soft grass

AND WHY DID MY NEIGHBOR’S A/C JUST KICK ON!?  OPEN A FREAKING WINDOW!

Reverie interrupted…

Work was work.  Neanderthal Co-Worker was loud today.  He also repeatedly asked our other office mate to rub his hamstrings because they hurt SOOOOOOO bad…while also insisting that because neither of them was gay that it was ok to do.  When I say repeatedly, I mean every five minutes.  So, that plus the on line training I had to do with the WORST voice over person in the world made it a trying day to say the least.

I was so tired driving home I actually tried to think of excuses to get out of cooking dinner… and I like cooking!  I powered through and made it to the kitchen, yoga pant clad, free of binding office clothing, ready to go.  I went outside and took some aggression out on my basil plants and chopped up the insane amount of garlic scapes I had accumulated.  Then, something happened.  The smell of the basil and the chopped garlic scapes completely energized me.  Sun streamed in the window the way it does in the evening and a gentle breeze washed over me.  I let the food processor do the heavy lifting and watched the gorgeous green color move in waves as the blades did their work.  My headache began to lift, the pasta bubbled away and the sauteed zucchini and onions sizzled with the garlic and olive oil.  I was happy.

Sorry basil! It was for a good cause.

I took my bowl of pasta and veggies and sat in the last bit of sun heating up the patio and sighed a happy sigh of relief and relaxation.  The only thing that would have made it better was a glass of wine…my martini head said no.

My headache actually stayed gone just until my husband joined me outside and used odd words to calculate whether or not I would be…ahem…visiting Aunt Flo on our upcoming vacation…you know…because he knows my body better than me.  Oh well, 20 minutes of bliss is better than none at all.

Lunch to make coworkers jealous…ha ha ha (evil laugh)