ALL OVER THE PLACE

(If you came here looking for anything slightly resembling humor, encouragment, enlightenment or something of merit,  do yourself a favor and shoot yourself in the foot instead.  Consider yourself warned.)

I noticed recently that the fact that I’m feeling very restless and unmotivated  could very well be the direct result of not having written much here in the past months.  Too much baggage in mah head.  I’ve totally lost sight of the reason I started blogging in the first place.   This therapeutic cleansing of the clutter clogging up my skull was the coolest cure I could come up with. (check out the alliteration, literary bitches!) And I’m still not exactly sure why I’ve quit slowed down to almost a trickle.  Yeah, I’m addicted to the instant gratification and the convenience (not the word I want) of places like Facebook.  It’s quick and easy to jot off a few words off the top of my head a few times a day as opposed to sitting in front of this BIG white box screaming at me to fill with whatever is swimming around in my brain. I come here at random intervals and am filled with a compassion much like sitting facing an old dear friend who says nothing but whose eyes are filled with a look of questioning.  I’m not sure what my friend needs or wants me to say and not sure what I’m willing to share.  Maybe not so much willing but wondering if what I have to say is what the friend wants to hear.  Is this what writer’s block feels like?  I’ve been blogging nine months short of 5 years and don’t recall ever being at a loss for blog fodder.  That really doesn’t sound like such a long time.  In reality, though, it has felt like such a big part of my life for so long that it seems much longer.

This could also be explained by the fact that my life feels to be at a standstill.  The winter thing… not just the season of the year but nearing the “winter” stage of my life.  Many things that have happened during the last year or so have forced me to slow down, made it necessary for me to let go of some “things” that kept me going full force.  We all age.  Normally it’s so gradual that we barely notice the changes.  Being that I’ve never been one to do things in a normal way, (and not always by choice) it so happens that my “gradual” was more of an instantaneous thing.  Not that it happened overnight, of course.  A bunch of events occurring and overlapping created a kind of chain reaction which resulted in a kind of head-on collison.  Much like a snowball rolling down a hill into a brick wall.  Working all that gawdawful overtime for so long caused me to get behind on so many things and that shit doesn’t just go away.  It accumulates and that glob becomes a mighty big monster.  And working long hours for a year without good sleep takes a toll on a body.  I’m not even going to address how it affects one’s state of mind.  It’s all connected.  Throw in a broken bone, a kidney stone and a drop in income (post OT) and see that glob monster?  It still doesn’t go away.  Then, gloriously, up pops a major holiday that you’re not entirely prepared for but welcome the festivities for the mental and emotional boost it provides.  Then the holiday is gone like the wind and what you’re left with is basically, a big mess,  a financial dent and an empty quiet house.  Which I could handle, as I do every year except that this year there’s an added anti-bonus.  A ton of snow and little or no sushine. (my other god.)   So if you’re reading this and “seeing” me devoid of most of what I need to get by, your picture is accurate.

Okay, so I’m experiencing a low point.  Maybe I just miss my kids.  Maybe I am just completely pissed at myself for lighting a cigarette after 6 days of cold turkey.  Maybe I simply need a new haircut.  Maybe I can’t force myself to take down my Christmas tree. (I know…)  Maybe I need medicated.  Maybe I wish that was me snowboarding in the Olympics.  Maybe I should replace my favorite jeans that are falling apart.  Maybe I should just shut up.

(I hope none of this shows on my face. I have to get my driver’s license photo taken in the morning.  Ha!)

HAPPY FRIDAY

I’ve had all kinds of stuff to talk about but due to a heavy work schedule, I haven’t been able to find the time to post anything.  Cramming 10 hours of OT into 4 days and then work tomorrow has put a rather large dent in my life.

So what do you have planned for the weekend?  Or are you going to try and catch up on sleep, like I am?  I hope your plan is more exciting than mine.

CRAP FOR TODAY

So how’s your summer going?  I apologize that I haven’t been to visit anyone’s blog this week, it’s been crazy here.  It’s been all I could do to hop on Facebook and Twitter for a few minutes to try and catch up.  So if there’s anything important I’m missing, let me know here and I’ll come and see you on the weekend.  I picked a pretty lousy time to commit to posting every day.  A friend more or less said that he’d rather put up quality than to throw out crap just for the sake of writing every day.  I have to agree with him…

I WAS THINKING…

… about the theme for this post, “Tomorrow” and I seemed to recall a George Carlin quote that I thought had to do with Tomorrow never coming because once you get there, it’s now Today.  But of course I was all confused and the quote I was thinking of doesn’t even mention the word Tomorrow.  The quote is, “There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past.“  I’m going to assume a little literary license and adapt it to suit my need here…

“There is no Tomorrow.  There’s only Today and Yesterday because once you hit Tomorrow, it becomes Today and… blah blah blah.”

And of course there is “Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.”  Dale Carnegie said that.

I’m not thinking about Tomorrow today.  Yesterday I didn’t think about today, let alone Tomorrow.  Tomorrow is Monday and that brings about thoughts of getting up at an ungodly hour and starting the work routine.  I’ll worry about that tomorrow but not today.   This whole time thing is too much for Sunday morning relaxation. Besides, my BOLD button is getting tired.

End of post.

WHADDYA SAY?

Since I’m finding myself with more free time due to the inability to do much more than SIT, I actually could be posting more… if not daily, almost daily. But the thing is that my brain must have been in my ankle and now that it’s broken, I can’t think so well.  Besides, it’s buried underneath all that elastic and hardware.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m not getting inspired to write much.  So I’m appealing to you.  What would you like to hear or read or know?  Tell me and if something clicks in my foot head, I’ll do my best to accomodate.

I’m not even coming up with any suggestions.  Everything I think of, I already wrote about.  I guess that happens when you’ve been blogging for as long as I have.

THE HOUR MY BRAIN FORGOT

Well, it looks like I’ve gone and done it.

“What?”  you ask?  I forgot about THIS.  And I feel like such a loser.  Thanks for reminding me, y’all.

Which reminds me, I have towels in the dryer that need folding.  So I’ll make this fast…

I have part one of my rant finished.  I just need to do a test run on the password protect thing.  I keep figuring it out and then I come on here and I’m clueless all over again.  M+ explained it to me in an email. I guess I need to go read it again.  After I do my towels.

Give me a couple days and then come back.  Ok?  Bye.  In the mean time, here are some ugly pictures of my grandkids for you to scream and run from.

Here’s Andrew Wyatt, who’s two years old.

This is Madeline Grace, soon to be four.

And this is Julian Michael, my hero. He’s nine, going on twenty.

COMPLETELY RANDOM

Not much going on around here.  Rather depressing but it seems the temperatures are expected to rise and we did have some much-appreciated sunshine today.

I swore my blogging efforts would never fall to the point where I would discuss the weather.  That was before I became a zombie.

I went to the drugstore today and grabbed up some discounted Valentine candy.  Sheesh, my quality of life is plummeting.  I buy my clothes at the thrift store,  my snacks on the clearance table.  Next I’ll be… what do they call that?  Dumpster diving?

PD is rewiring the electrical outlets in the downstairs.  I have no idea why.  They seemed perfectly fine before.  I think he was really excited that the price of 12-2 wiring finally came down and he bought a bunch.  You should see my downstairs, furniture (and plaster) all over the place.  Not that that’s such an unusual occurrence…   I really should take the time and get the Christmas tree down.  No, you didn’t really just read that.

We got a little reprieve at work this week.  8 mandatory hours of over time instead of the usual 10.  They thought we’d appreciate the break.  That’s all I have to say about that.  Except that, yeah,  I appreciate those 2 hours.  I’ve already used them up cleaning snow off my car.  That’s not counting the time PD was kind enough to spend doing it too.  Love that man.

I have a little time before bed.  I’m going to go play around with some photo editing.  No, I don’t have PhotoShop but I’m going to pretend.  If I come up with anything interesting, you’ll be sure to know.

SNOOZY SATURDAY

I was too tired last night to do much of anything so I snuggled up in bed and turned on the TV when I couldn’t fall asleep.  I started to watch 20/20 and was lying there in tears watching.  It was all about really poor people in the Appalachians who spent what little money they had on drugs to get them through.  It was appalling. Most of their kids were raised on Mountain Dew and their teeth had rotted by the time they were teenagers.

Before I got through the whole show, I had a toothache that had me on the verge of tears, itself, and I was convinced that the reason so many of the people in Appalachia were addicted to Oxycontin was because of the pain they must have endured with toothaches most of their lives.  I think I would have spent my last $120 on some last night…

At any rate, I didn’t get much sleep.  And I have some advice for y’all.  If you ever resort to treating a toothache with Ora gel, keep in mind as you’re slathering it on your tooth and gums, that if you happen to swallow any of it, it numbs your throat and then you can’t go to sleep because you’re afraid you’ll choke to death in your sleep.

So I spent the better part of the morning today at the dentist’s office having some temporary shit dental work done.  Then I spent a couple of hours thrift store shopping just because I could.  Then I came home and ate a sandwich and have spent the entire rest of the day on YouTube and buying music on iTunes.

Now it’s almost 6pm and I have nothing to show for my day.  I think we’ll order pizza for dinner and watch a movie tonight.  Something sweet and romantic in honor of St. Valentine.

Speaking of,  we got some wonderful homemade Valentines  today in the mail from the grandkids.  What a way to put a smile on your face on a dreary February snoozy day.

YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE

We all have to make choices now and then. I’ve decided that since I don’t have a life anymore that I can share with y’all, I can do one of two things. I can abandon my blog (there’s nothing interesting to write!) or I can keep it up and run the risk of either running you all off or putting you all to sleep.
I’ve opted for the second choice and have two things to say to you:
1) Bear with me, reading about the loss of my life is nothing compared to actually having lost it.
2) You’ve been warned so don’t get all droopy-eyed and fall asleep and drool all over my blog.

When I’m done posting this I’m going to dig through my pictures and maybe put up a new banner. Hopefully something bright and cheery to keep you awake.  It’s me and our dog, Shep, when I was about 4 years old.  I still need to make a banner that identifies me as One Wink at a Time.  I’ll do it in my spare time.  Update:  That photo is gone now. I found time to put up another.

Here is what I’ve been up to the past couple of weeks (since the episode with my mom, anyway) : I get up every morning at 4:30. I never always hit the snooze. I get up promptly at 4:30 4:45 every single morning. more often than not.  I leave the house at 5:30 after having a cup of coffee and something small and quick to eat, checking mail (usually) and washingfacebrushingteethgettingdressed and all that.  I start work at 6 am and finish at 4:30 pm.  I drive home.  I check mail and have dinner and before I know it, it’s shower time and I try to be in bed by 9 pm.  Sucks.  Weekends are spent cramming in everything that didn’t get done during the week due to time constraints and/or tiredness.  I not only sound like a broken record, I feel like I’m living one.

And to make matters worse, I’m afraid I already told you all this.

Anyway, I went to bed last night before 9:30.  Unheard of on a Friday night.  I don’t think I’ve been in bed at that time on a Friday since I was, like, 9  for crying out loud.

Right now it’s still relatively warm out and I’m going to go for a little walk, check out the stars and maybe find my way to the garage and see what kind of trouble PD is getting into out there.

Don’t you wish you could get back that last five minutes of your life???

Oh yeah, the choice you have to make- Do you want to keep coming here wasting 5 minutes of your life over and over again?

MY LATEST

I honestly thought that I would be finding more time to spend on my blog when I got used to these long work hours.  It just ain’t happening.  I tried to find a way to get health insurance and an income from this blog that would enable me to live in the manner in which I’ve become accustomed and it just isn’t there.  Ok, I didn’t really but the thought crossed my mind.

I don’t have anything to share because nothing is happening in my life except work and weather.  Sunshine and 40 degrees today have me smilin’ from ear to ear.

I have been relying on my music pretty heavily lately, so I will share a few songs that have been in my rotation since we talked last.  Don’t ask for anything more from me.  You can’t get blood from a stoner.  Did I say stoner???  Feels like that some days…

Passion is Accurate ~ The Kills

Sour Cherry ~ The Kills

Your Heart ~ Donavon Frankenreiter

Harmonium ~ Rogue Wave

Very Loud ~ Shout Outlouds

Have a Little Faith in Me ~ Michael Franti and Spearhead

Our Swords ~ Band of Horses

Ain’t No Easy Way ~ Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Unsung ~ Plus/Minus (did I post this before?  sorry if I did)

K. Y’all go and have yourself a good week.  And if you’re one of them Stiller fans, enjoy the game.  I hear them Stillers and them Cardinals are openin’ for Springsteen.  I’ll most likely be shawpin’.  And hopin that infernal Groundhog does us a favor tomorrow.