Thursday Night

I'm not sure why I'm blogging tonight. I don't really have anything witty to say. I probably don't even have much of anything of great interest to say. Still, here I am at my computer again. What I do feel tonight is grateful. For the past couple of weeks I've been sliding in and out of some sort of melancholy, mostly due to the overwhelmedness I've been feeling in over all of the things coming at me in my life. We need to move, business has been crazy, I don't have much time for myself and that makes it hard to cram in time for my artwork (although I've been getting better at it), we keep going through this, "We should buy a house; we can't afford to buy a house here; we should move away; moving away is scary because what if we can't be successful with the business if we move away; we should rent a house; renting a house will mean we'll be dumping too much money into rent that we should be saving to buy a house...." Yada yada yada. I'm frustrated with it all right now. Some days I miss the times when life was simpler. Of course, back then I wanted everything I have right now; right now I want everything I have right now. I just want us to be able to figure out exactly what the hell it is we want to do. I've been really drawn into the field of art therapy. I think it's what I want to do with my life after my little one starts school and I'm looking into what I will need to do to make that happen. I mentioned it to N and he mentioned being a teacher again. I don't want to be a teacher. Schools are too scary nowadays. Well, now I can't blog either because little one is screaming. See ya'll later.

Much Adieu About Nothing

Thankfully, Ernesto fizzled out before it reached the coast of Florida. All we got here was some rain and a little wind; it was a grey and rainy day today also. We now have a great supply of bottled water and I have to put the plants and furniture back out onto the balcony. I'm grateful that we didn't lose our power or suffer any damage to our vehicles or, more importantly, to ourselves. I'm hoping that the remainder of the hurricane season will be uneventful. N and I spent some time today looking for a place to rent. We checked out a cute little house in a nice neighborhood, but a walkthrough showed it to be too small for us. Also, it didn't have a yard and I would like to rent a house with a yard for Little R. Otherwise, I'd rather rent in another apartment complex, where we'll have a swimming pool and a gym like we have here. Anyway, I'm super tired today from being stressed out yesterday, so I'll check back later...

Tropical Storm Ernesto

So, here we go again. This is the third year in a row in Florida that we've been plagued by hurricanes. As I sit at my computer Ernesto is unleashing his fury over Cuba, whose mountains have calmed him a bit but probably only temporarily. It's predicted that once the storm moves out over the warm ocean again it's strength will increase and by the time it arrives on the mainland of Florida it could be a category one or two hurricane. Only time will tell what fun we'll be in for here in the sunshine state. I have already visited my local Publix to stock up on water, bread, and other supplies, but the lines at the gas station were too daunting for me to brave. Plus, I believe I would have run out of gasoline before I arrived at the pump to buy more. The lines at every station I passed were down the street; with a car full of groceries and a hungry and fussy almost two year old in the back seat I wasn't willing to wait for my fill of petrol. I'm frustrated to be going through this mess again; last year we lost power twice due to the storms, once for two weeks (and we were lucky; some were without power for a full month or more) and it was no fun. Where we live, all that's necessary to knock our power out is a strong wind. Since I'm not that hip on living in this state to begin with, having yet another hurricane only makes me want to take off for my western heaven even more. If it was possible, I have no doubt that I would pack up everything we own and leave for Colorado next week. Maybe G-d will bless us with that possibility at some point. For now, I'm a sitting duck waiting with the other sitting ducks for the storm to arrive. The news just said that probably the storm will reach us as a tropical storm rather than as a hurricane. I hope, I hope, I hope.

Monday Monday

Okay, AndyT13 had this on his blog so I'll bite. I don't have anything much to say tonight so here goes.

2 moments in your life you’d like to erase

1.Standing in the cemetary staring in disbelief at my father's coffin in the ground.
2.The night of his accident; okay, so I wasn't there, but it still effected my life hugely, as well as the lives of everyone around me, so it counts as a moment in my life.

4 moments I like to relive

1.The first time I set eyes on my newborn daughter
2.The most special intimate times with the loves of my life (tho' I'm married now, so that wouldn't be right)
3.The first time I saw the view from the top of a mountain
4.My first trip to Rocky Mountain National Park (heaven on earth!)

2 places you wouldn’t want to go again

1.My old High School during the 80's
2.To one of the most heartbreaking times of my life back in 2003, when I broke up with the guy I'd thought was "the one".

4 places you can’t wait to visit/visit again

1.Colorado
2.Ireland
3.Back home (Massachusetts)
4.Israel (yeah, I know that right about now that's fairly crazy)

2 foods you can’t stand

1.Pulled pork sandwiches
2.Meat if it isn't cooked right (ie, dried out, overcooked steak)

4 foods you love

1.Pizza
2.sushi
3.ice cream
4.Big gooey cheeseburgers with fries

2 current songs that make you change the station

I can't think of anything, but I'm not a big fan of top 40 or a lot of what they play on the dance/rock stations here in Florida. I search out what I like in record stores and play what I want on my cd player.

4 current songs you play over and over

1. Marvin Gaye: Let's Get It On
2. Anything by U2
3.Black 47 (pretty much everything they do is cool)
4.Any of the many Irish music cds currently in my possession
(so, I know that none of this is current, so to speak, but it's what I like)

2 books you’d never finish/read again

I can't think of any titles although I know that I've dumped quite a few books after reading a couple of chapters and flipping ahead to realize they were never, in a million years, going to hold my interest. The thing is, if the book didn't captivate me enough to keep reading, why would I remember the title?

4 books you have read more than once

1. "Toward a Meaningful Life"
2."Rebel Hearts" (about the IRA and the troubles in Ireland)
3."Whoredom in Kimmage" (about the travels of an Irish American woman in Ireland)
4.the Torah

Current mood: Content and sleepy

Yahoo!!!

Finally, finally, finally, I woke up yesterday morning and the depression had been lifted. Just like someone had pulled a veil off my head, suddenly I could see the world in all of it's brilliance again. And I mean that seriously and sarcastically. Once I'm out of the black hole I can really focus on what got me there in the first place and work on whatever issue is getting to me. I started reading a new book yesterday, one that I purchased recently, called "Jewish with Feeling" , and so far it's been really great. It's about understanding our spiritual path apart from the dogma and the rituals that might not be working for us. Even though at the moment I'm not really having a problem with either of those things I definitely believe that religion is just a pathway to our spiritual center and a pathway to our connection with God, and this book so far is awesome (and I've only read 16 pages). Some amazing things have also happened which support the direction I want to take in my life, although I have no idea how that direction will be manifested. I only know that life is a series of steps. Sometimes we just have to keep walking and doing the right things. Over the past couple of years I've had life take some twists and dips that I never saw coming and never could have anticipated, but they lead me to wonderful places. That's all for tonight. I'm off to have dinner at the beach with my family. Peace y'all.

Friday...

An unoriginal title, I know, but I'm still too depressed to think of anything creative. I don't know what's wrong with me; I feel like a whiny beeatch. Pretty soon I'll be tired even of myself. I know this will pass, but when I have no idea. But these sort of moods always pass, and then I'll have an upswing of emotion. I'm going to go to synagogue tonight, if this health insurance guy N scheduled to come over is gone by then. He's coming at 6:30; almost the worst possible time on the worst possible day. The problem with interfaith relationships is that it's hard to have any real feeling of the religion you want to bring your kid up with unless the other person is into it. If they aren't, then you end up feeling like you're forcing it on your spouse, so you end up trying to back off, and pretty soon you aren't into it anymore either because you've gotten so far away from it, and then you resent that. It's a no win situation and I've never been able to figure out the answer to it. I guess I'll wing it tonight. I'll light my candles after the guy leaves but I doubt we'll be able to have the Shabbat dinner that I've been trying to do each week because there won't be enough time left over, and anyway I don't think N is into it so I'll probably just end up aggravating him with it.

Hmph

I am in such a bad mood today. I don't know why; maybe I'm just annoyed that all my friends seem to be taking off for other parts of the country just because they feel like moving someplace new and I'm still in Florida. N stayed home for most of the day today trying to get some work done and that screwed up my groove with the baby a little bit. I wasn't able to take her anyplace and she gets a little crazy when she is cooped up all day long (as do I). I made a big pot of chili and don't have the appetite to eat any of it. I'm stir crazy, restless, irritable, somewhat discontent, and just in a general F- it mood. Sorry. That's just the way it is today. Someone keeps posting a link of which I have no interest in my comment box, so I had to change the settings on my blog to accept only registered users of this site. No offense to anyone who doesn't have a blog here, but why don't ya'll get one??? I don't have time to peruse junk mail and have no interest in gambling and other such useless sites. Hell, I barely have time to even be on the computer, so my time here has to be well spent. I'm the type of person who pretty much only reads books which can teach me something (and, I read A LOT) so why would I want to check out web sites that are basically just trying to sell me garbage??? Anyway, enough of that. I want to be in Colorado right now, maybe hiking in the woods someplace. It's around 2:15pm there right now; that would give me a little bit of time out in nature. I need Colorado's vibe in my life right now. So far, over the past three or four years two good friends of mine have moved there and now my closest friend in Florida is considering it. If she goes I swear I might just go over the deep end. I'd be glad for her but wondering why it feels like God is dangling this huge carrot in front of me all the time. It's like, I'm supposed to go there but I have no idea how I'm supposed to get there. Every time I push my longing to move there into the back of my conscious mind (I suppose it is always in my unconscious mind, which is what is giving me all of the trouble) someone brings it up that they are moving there, that they know someone who just moved or is moving there, or I get an email from my girl friend out there, or I see an ad on tv, or, well, you get the picture. I'm probably just going mad, is all. Just going mad...

Attitude is Essential for Survival

I love Madonna. Maybe I'm just a child of the 80's, but I love her for her intelligence-she knows how to make people think by stirring them up emotionally and she knows how to stay on top of her game by constantly evolving and changing. She started out humbly and worked her butt of to get to where she is now, and I love that she has never let anybody stop her from being successful. No matter what people say about her, she keeps pushing forward; she has chutzpah. I might not agree with everything she does, but at least I can respect her drive and tenacity.

My car wouldn't start today when we came out of the supermarket. There I was with my daughter in the 90 plus heat, trying in vain to get the engine to turn over. I called DH, who told me he would come to help me get it running via a push start, but after 45 minutes I decided to try getting it started again ( I actually tried twice before also) and, voila, it started up and I was able to drive home. Of course, by then DH had arrived; he was right by the market when I called to tell him we were okay. I was grateful that it started at all. I need to take it to the shop on Friday when hopefully they will fix it. And this, of course, is a minor annoyance in a world where there is much trouble abrew.