Finding Balance

It is amazing to me how easy it is to lose one's self and get out of balance.  Something begins that seems really awesome, whether it's a job or a friendship or just whatever. I tend to throw myself 110% into a new project only to find that it's often not as shiny as I thought it was in the beginning.  It takes something traumatic or self destructive to make me realize I have made a mistake sometimes, but I usually manage to figure it out before any real harm is done. 

I have been going full bore for so long, I don't even know what it is like to stop.  Every time I think I'm going to have a weekend to myself I end up giving that precious time away to do something for or with someone else.  I recognize that this needs to stop and that I need some time just to exist.  I had that for a few hours in the horse trailer when I was locked in several weeks ago, but I didn't carry it forward.  I need to rely on myself and my own instincts and move forward with my own goals, whatever they are...heck, does it matter that I don't know what my goals are right now? I'm thinking maybe I don't need any goals for now except to find peace and relaxation in my heart.

The past six months has taught me to steer my own ship a little more effectively. I have learned to stop asking advice and to tell people when I think they are wrong (though I do try to be kind) I have been learning not to care about other people's opinions quite so much and to figure out what it is that I want out of life.  Sometimes this is really hard because many people in my life have very strong opinions.  but I am learning and feeling stronger every day. I have learned that I have good instincts and thought not always popular, I really am in pretty good control of my life.

This week taught me how quickly life can turn on you.  I spent a lot of hours in a the hospital with a sick friend and I sacrificed some of my own work for it. He had thought he was healthy, just going through a time of stress, but instead he had had a heart attack.  I discovered that he didn't have a lot of people there for him, and I tried to take some of his stress off of him.  Unfortunately, it backfired on me, and I made a client angry in the process. Honestly it was someone I didn't enjoy seeing anyway.  and now I can start a little later, relax a little more, work a little smarter. I had no free time on either end of my day trying to work late and start early. I could not have continued to work that way in the long term. Now I only have to be anywhere early one day and I can work later the other days knowing I don't have to get up at the crack of dawn. I can fully begin to embrace my night owl self. 

I also learned how many things people don't know about each other.  No one ever knows what motivates you. No one can know what your stress or comfort is and most people don't want to share this part of themselves.  It's so much easier to hide  yourself than to risk judgement on both sides.  I have begun to wonder if we can ever really know someone.  I came to see that someone can have an absolutely good side but then they can have a bad thing that is a deal breaker for the entire relationship.  It's why we should all be careful what we say to each other and how we treat one another because we never know what another person's safe place or deal breaker status is.

Today's song (this week really) has been Landslide...not the Stevie Nicks version, but the Gweneth Paltro Glee Version. I can't get it out of my head. There is a message there.

How to save a life

How to Save a Life is a song I have always liked. When I listen to it I hear it from both an artist perspective and from of therapy perspective. In the song someone is having trouble and someone else is trying to help them. It's hard to tell if the person having trouble really has a problem or if the person trying to help is putting their own map on top of the other person. I Envision this song as being someone having an alcohol or drug problem and their loved one is telling them to get their act together or get out. But I also realize it could be that the person singing the song is saying get your act together, the other person being talked about doesn't feel like they have a problem at all. And they may not. They may be living there life the way they think they should it's just that other people see them as having a problem. The song may not actually be that complicated this is just how I see it. I have always wondered what was the intended meaning behind the song.

So often I find this happens in life as well. We live our lives the way we think we should and people come and go from our lives and try to help us or we try to be a help to others. However, the way we see things often does not match the way people see a given situation. I may feel like I am on a good path and other people may think I'm on a bad path. If they try to save me and I reject that I need to be safe then they either walk away or stand beside me. That is our choice all along. We can walk away or stand beside. 

But how do you decide what is the right thing to do? When you want to help someone and they reject your help how do you know how to behave? Do you accept that your health is at once or do you continue to be steadfast and continue to offer help? 

I have never known how to just be. I have a problem with offering advice when it is not wanted. I do it in the Name of Love but often the person I am trying to care about does not accept my help or my love.

It works from the other side as well. People offer assistance when it doesn't seem like the right kind of assistance it is hard to accept. What is the right kind of assistance? I asked this question legitimately because I do not know the answer. Sometimes in offering assistance we make the person we are trying to help feel worse or more helpless. Sometimes I recognize that all we can do is love and stand aside and let the person know that we are there for them while they are working out their own reality.

What's cooking?

About the only way I cook anymore is in my slow cooker. I do occasionally pick up cool salmon things from HEB but the slow cooker pretty much always wins. (As a sidenote, one of the best parts about living in Bluffdale and driving to granbury every day is getting to shop at HEB. They have the best produce the best homemade tortillas the best everything. Fortunately for cost savings there is also an also across the street. ).

Last night I impulsively picked up a flat of chicken breasts. This means I have to do something with the chicken breasts. I spent time researching today to find some crockpot the freezer meals that I can make without going back to the store. While buying chicken breast for $1.98 a pound is definitely a find, coming up with things to do with the chicken before it goes bad can be a challenge. I have found several simple freezer crockpot meals that I can split the breast into, chop up some of the fresh vegetables I bought and throw them into the freezer.

Unfortunately, this presents me with another challenge. I have an entire 10 pound bag of ice in my freezer because I don't have an icemaker. Ultimately it's dumb to worry about the bag of ice. I'm going camping in two days though and I keep thinking if I can just hang on and make it fit for two more days then I can just put it in my cooler. Ice is begun to be ridiculously expensive. I mean, come on people, it's just frozen water. Why is it like gold in cost?

So I think I found one meal to make tomorrow. It is called coconut chicken. Well that's easy. I have about 12 cans of coconut milk in the cupboard I have all the things the recipe calls for. However, it wants me to make a sauce after the chicken is cooked. I'm thinking, not. I think I will just throw all the ingredients in the slow cooker and set it up to cook while I'm gone tomorrow. And then of course I can't really just make it the way the recipe says. I; instead I have to monkey with a little bit. I'm thinking of adding some peanut butter and some extra red pepper flakes to go with the apricot jam. And I don't actually have apricot jam, I have mango apricot jam, but what the heck?

The other things I think I will make is called pepper chicken. Let me see: this calls for, chicken with peppers. Check, have all that in the house. There are couple other recipes I can make if I go get lemon or lime juice. Of course there's always the famous mushroom chicken which calls for mushroom soup and chicken. In any case I should have the chicken accounted for pretty quickly.

I've been going to make something on Thursday using some venison cube steak. I kept thinking I would make chicken fried steak but that's not happening. Instead I'm going to put it in the crockpot with onions and mushrooms and brown gravy sauce. These things will give me food for the weekend, food for the freezer, and food to take for lunch.

One of my goals for April is to eat out only very rarely. Unfortunately, I have eaten out twice this week. It wasn't on purpose, though. Honest! Yesterday I got a salad because I realized that the food I had brought for supper was suspect in a period today it was just because I wanted lemon pepper wings from wing stop. Well, and the food I brought to eat had not thawed out yet so that was kind of a problem. I'm working on coming up with cold lunches.

Today my food went great because I started out with a huge bowl of oatmeal. Thank you Kate love. I had remembered fond times of eating oatmeal at your kitchen table and it has spurred me to get back in the habit.I am also down 2 pounds from last week. Go me! This is a turning point since I have put on a few pounds since Christmas. My Christmas weight gain does not concern me terribly because it coincided with going back to the gym. I think I have been putting back on muscle because all the pants are actually still getting looser even though I have not gone down another size yet.

This weekend brings us to pull Canyon Ranch. It is probably my favorite place to ride. Maggie is coming to volunteer and we are bringing another friend to come check out the sport and to volunteer also. We will leave early Friday morning and come back early Monday morning. Maggie was okay to skip school but she has to be at work at noon. So Monday will come very early. Liberty is ready, as always. I am not, as usual. It has been a busy month and I have not written near as much as I would have liked.

Over the last six weeks I have discovered that some of the goals I had at the beginning of the year aren't as important as I thought they were. It's not that I'm not still interested in pursuing them I just think maybe next year will be better than this year. I'm still getting settled in to my new house and I love my house so much that I find I don't really want to leave. Traveling used to be so much fun but now when I get to the weekend all I can think of is collapsing in a puddle and watching agents of shield.


Sent from my iPad

And now for something completely different

It has been almost a month since I posted in the blog. It is been a month of a lot of growth and a lot of time spent in thought. I have cut back on my workload a little bit which will make life somewhat simpler. I have started one relationship and ended another. I'm still in the process of growth. But aren't we always?

Most people know by now that you are and I are in the process of getting divorced. This is not been an easy decision nor has it been one I have taken lightly. It was a long time coming. My understanding is that he is not happy that this is happening and I am sad for that, but for me it was the only thing that I could do to continue being me. I would have preferred to be able to stay. I would've preferred to keep the house I've lived in for the last 14 years and to have continued to have health insurance covered by his job. And for my daughter to not know the pain of having to live elsewhere when she would really prefer to live in the home she is familiar with. I would've rather been able to keep things status quo and just kept on, but I can do this no longer. He and I are the only ones who know the reasons we have now separated and are in the process of divorcing. People want to know details and the people who need to know know. No one else but the two of us need to know. These details are private. However, I have noticed that many people like to butt in. They like to tell stories and they like to cause pain and strife. There are people that have told Peter things I am doing with my time but he does not need to know because it is either hurtful or just simply none of his business. I have made an effort to not ask too many questions about what he is doing because it is none of my business. I would like to stay friendly with him and I would like us to be able to attend different events that involve photography and horses and have it not be awkward forever.

Today, I had an uncomfortable conversation with him that told me we are not as good as I thought we were. I hate that because in my mind he is not the enemy. Things that have happened in the past are in the past and I only wish to move forward. I also know there's nothing I can do about this. In the future, I will date and he will date. One or both of us may find new mates for our future. However, that again is private and is not important for the general public to know about or to approve of.

However, I am happy to be on the path that I am on. I love my little house in the country. I love waking up to my horses in the yard. These are things I have always wanted and needed and their things that would not have made Peter happy.

I'm sure he feels differently towards me since I'm the one who moved out. I was tired of living in town I was tired of living without my horses. I was tired of lots of things as I am sure he was as well. We did not mesh well and it is unfortunate that things have ended this way. I wish him only the best and I hope that we both have happy and productive lives in the future. I wish us both nothing but the best.


Sent from my iPad

God told me to stop moving

My day began innocently enough. I was getting ready for work and I went out to the horse trailer to get grain for the horses. Because of the rain they had not come up in several days and I had not been able to drive the seed down to the barn so I went inside to fill a bucket with their feet and walked to the barn as they followed me. I let Bailey off the chain, where she has been tied up since Monday when she got in trouble for getting into the neighbor's truck and tearing up their trash. I put Hammond on his electric collar to test it and see if he would stay in the yard as we walked away. I went into the trailer and scooped out the feed and went to the back of the trailer to leave, only I couldn't. The door to the trailer blew shut in a gust of wind and latched.

My first thought was darn it I'm going to be late. My second thought was how am I ever going to get out of here? My other thoughts went rapidly from there. At first I decided to make use of my time and clean up the trailer. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, Maggie has already done a really good job of cleaning the trailer so there wasn't much to do. I took down the hanging storage rack that wasn't doing me much good and cleaned up all the little odds and ends I found. I made a pile of trash. I decided to assemble the little wheelbarrow Maggie had bought for me, only to discover it didn't need any assembly. I decided to set at Maggies panic so I could at least have a comfortable place to sit and or lie while waiting to be rescued. Only I couldn't get it to set up properly. I read the back of the feed sack and beet pulp sack... Fascinating.

I was starting to get a little chilly so I picked up Dixie's blanket. I had come out in my PJs and some tiny little shoes so I wasn't really dressed for anything other than going back into the house to take a shower. I had a bale of alfalfa and a bale of hay. I wrapped myself up in the blanket trying to find a comfortable position for which to spend my time. I was happy it was not raining.

I remembered the time at a natrc ride when Elaine had been locked in her trailer during a storm. She had gone through from the living quarters and gotten stuck there. She spent the night but there were people around and so she got out relatively soon the next morning. The reality of the fact that I live completely alone started to set in. While I have giggled many times about what happened to poor Elaine, I doubt I ever would again.

I began to realize how precarious my situation was. Eventually some of my clients might miss me. But would they know who to call? 1 hour became two and stretched on.   I started to panic because I did not like the feeling of being trapped in there and having nothing to do. I realized that God wanted me just to sit still for a while. So I did.

I spend some time praying about what I should be doing and how to carry on with some relationships that I have. I came to the realization that certain relationships need to go but I also came to the realization that it is never easy to let these relationships go.  In this case I care about the person very much I just realized that they are bad for me right now. I have baggage I am working through but they also have baggage. Their baggage is something I can't help them with. The other day they were complaining to me about how I am too busy for them and they are too busy for me. I realize that it's all true. But how do you explain to the person that you care about that you can't be together even if you care for one another. How do you give up friends who have been such an important part of your life  because it's time to move forward? I practiced this conversation over and over but of course the people I need to talk to weren't  there so I could only imagine their part of the conversation would go. In any case it did not go well.

I thought about some new friendships I have and how I hope that they take off and become more. I wondered how you know if someone is a good person to date or not. Or when I should date if ever. If I ever want to get married again or if I always just want to be single from now on. I wondered again how long it would take for someone to realize I was missing. I found myself wondering if I would matter when people realize I was missing. I realize this was just a moment of self-pity but I still wondered it and it was still not a good feeling.

Having just watched an episode of the agents.of.s.h.i.e.l.d where a character realized she could go one hundred hours without water, I wondered if I would be stuck in the trailer for 100 hours. I realized that it was most likely the neighbor would be home when school got out and then I would hear him come back and that I could shout for help then. I also thought that my phone would probably quit working and then people would know I really was missing and hopefully they would call Teresa who would come down and check on me.  Mostly I just realized how bored I was without something to read or crochet or watch or listen to.

So I prayed, and rehearsed conversations, and cried, and finally napped. I was very happy to have the blanket and then also a pad to put over my head as I got pretty chilly.   I thought about how people with no homes must feel when they don't have anything except newspaper or maybe some cardboard the cover up with. I did it try to get out of the trailer but could not figure out a way to trip the latch from the inside. Note to self: next trailer needs escape door. And even better a walk through door. Of course both of them may have been left unlocked as well in which case I would have still been screwed.

About 12:30 p.m. I heard Bailey bark. She had stayed in the yard, under the truck the entire time. I heard some banging from up the hill and started to holler. Josh, my neighbor,  heard me and came down and let me out of the trailer. He asked me how I came to be in there and I told him. Poor guy he could not help himself but laugh even though I was pretty stressed out. I came in the house and had 7 messages left for me on my phone from people looking for me. As I called each one back they could not help but laugh as well. I agree that it is funny and I think that I will be able to laugh eventually. But right now it doesn't seem very funny I felt pretty alone and worried that I would be stuck there a long time. In retrospect part of what bothered me about being left in the trailer was not being alone or even not being able to call out and talk to anyone it was having nothing to do. But that was probably part of the lesson I needed to learn. I discovered it was possible to sit And not have anything to do but yet not sleep either. I did a lot of good thinking and I have made some decisions that I have to move forward on even though they will be uncomfortable.

And now I am taking the rest of the day off. I will catch up on the Agents of Shield and I will crochet and by evening I may even do some paperwork. But I really believe the lesson here was that I have too many responsibilities and that sometimes I have to just tell the world that I have to get off and stop

Life among the herd: people are like horses

This post involves something I have been spending a lot of time thinking about and meditating over the last month.  I have had to face some tough decisions and decide who I am and how I am going to live my life.  I have been deciding who my friends are and who they are not and who is going to have a say on how I live my life. 

It has become clear to me that I have had a false sense of security and popularity. I have been secure in the knowledge that I had a tribe, a crew, a clique, a group.  I had been of the belief that those people were my people and that they loved me and would flow with me into this next phase of my life. I thought we were all for one and one for all. Even in minor skirmishes, I had the innocent, child life belief that it would all be ok in the end. They were the ones who encouraged me to get divorced and seek out a new place to live.  They were the ones who told me in no uncertain terms they were tired of my whining and I should get on with life.  They are also the ones who told me to get out there and date and experience life as I never had before.   (but not till after I was divorced of course) I should taste all kinds of different fruit/experiences as well as spend time alone so that I can truly know who I am and be comfortable just being with me.  These are all good pieces of advice.  Alone is good, being with people is good. A balance between the two is important. Other people have said that being alone is over rated and go have fun. I have done some of this as well.

Evidently I was really supposed to be spend more time alone. I heard endless lectures about why I should be alone more and why I should not date after being told I should go have fun...I understood (and understand) the point of view that says to be alone and rediscover one's self and ones true nature. I love to be alone. I love to come home to the quiet and not turn on a TV. I hate having the noise of a radio or TV just for noise sake. I can go days and days without a TV. I do like the company of people.  I like to connect and hear what they are doing, the little stories of their days, and share mine.   I overshared...Maggie tells me this is a problem of mine, especially since I have become single.  It's one I think about sometimes, but then in my zest for life and trading of information I forget myself and get carried away as I did in this case. I would given anything to go back and remove the blow by blow I gave of some of my situation and circumstances.  As I have moved down the pike in this experience I have realized I said way too much about things that I knew little about in an effort to better understand them. I should have written them in my little paper journal and kept all those vomitous thoughts to myself evidently.  I made a lot of wrong assumptions but I also learned a lot in that time frame.  However, I can't take back the wrong assumptions.

I need to learn to be happy within myself and not worry about the acceptance of others. But as a pleaser this is is so hard to do.  My friends' acceptance or lack thereof has been such a catalyst for change or stability through the years. It's very hard for me to say "this is my decision and I'm sticking to it" especially in light of being told that I'm wrong.  When people tell me I'm wrong about my feelings it makes me angry because no one can know about my feelings. I might be wrong about facts, but feelings are subjective and don't have a right or wrong.  When a seemingly small decision turns out to be a catalyst for a huge blow up it's hard to know what to do or think. I can either do what I'm being told to do or I can stand firm and do what I want to do and each has consequences. 

No man is an island so the cliche goes, but sometimes it feels as though I am.  I want so badly to be included and be part of something bigger.  I want so badly not to care what is being said behind my back or the behavior happening just out of reach that I know is there, but hidden from gaze. I have spent years working on this weakness and felt like I finally achieved a confidence that allowed me to stand alone, only to find it's all a lie. And then as you try to gain facts and puzzle out what's really going on all you hear is "let it go". My life is more than a trite Disney song. And how do you get back to the solitude you used to have before you had a group or tribe. I never had it before. I was an outsider, a band geek...then I belonged and now I don't seem to.

It's safe to say when several people or a group rejects you that you bear the brunt of much of the blame...after all if you have lost so many people then it must be your fault right? I mean, it must be if "everyone" reacts the same way. However, I'm not so sure anymore.  In my mind, a mistake was one decision, but probably it goes back farther.  It was probably a series of confident decisions I made while feeling good and strong and independent.   I have learned that whenever you believe in people (over God) too much, someone is going to let you down, as you will let other down as well.  There is no one is yours as an adult. We are all fallible. We all make mistakes, even those people who will never admit it.  But loyalty is something I Have prized highly in fellow man/woman and it's so hard to come by.  Since people are like horses in a herd, when one herd member changes or evolves or another herd member ends up with more power things shift and change and the herd redevelops differently.  You add a person or take a person away the entire dynamic changes and the relationships are forever different.

All my life I always wanted someone who was "mine"  either a husband or a best girl friends.  The person with whom you share everything and it doesn't come back to bite you. The person who reciprocates a mutual love/friendship.  This could be a husband, or more often girls have a best friends. I don't think men do this as much, but they are different...they typically don't tear each other down behind their backs.  I do have one friend like this. We have been friends since we were girls on the swim team. Even if we don't agree, I never doubt that she is there. I know she has always got my back.  When it comes to other people in the world we are always for each other.  I thought I had some of those people now but I"m finding as we get to be adults and everyone has an agenda it's hard to have someone that's yours.  At least, it's hard for other people to be "mine"  I do this for people all the time. I am a good friend and I make an effort to be there for people. I'm brave enough to say the unpopular because I love you and even if you don't like my opinion to don't leave. I may roll my eyes (not so privately sometimes) but I don't leave.  I'm there to pick up the pieces when people need that done too.  I would like a friend like this locally. Someone I know well enough to know what they are up to and they know what I'm about as well. I read books with characters who are these friends, but books are not real life.

After weeks of an impasse things are quieter. I'm learning to accept that it's time to move on. One friend recently told me that she makes it a practice to never tell anyone her business...ever...I guess that's a good policy though it seems a bit lonely. I love input, even when I go another direction, I still love to know what people thing and feel. Even when I disagree. 

I saw a meme the other day and I will post it here. It's becoming my mantra...


This is more who I am unfortunately.

So, moving forward and moving on. Some days will be harder than others and it will get easier with time I guess.  I'm so grateful to the people who are in my life and that I have such an awesome place to live with good friends here in Bluff Dale.  I have my horses outside my window and in spite of almost falling asleep driving home last night, I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be.

I saw this on Facebook recently and I'm trying to take in the meaning behind it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-P0S0XDazA

Playing catch up

As I sit here, still in bed on Sunday morning, I realize there is no way to catch up what I have been doing since I posted last, almost 6 months ago. So in a nutshell, I have moved to the country with my horses (October). I have lost 50 pounds and I'm now a size 12 mostly.  Thanksgiving was spent with Maggie and some other friends. I have been feeling odd and dizzy since last Tuesday when I went to the chiropractor. I think that I was so out of adjustment my body hasn't found its  equilibrium again. It's raining like mad and I have 4 wet and nasty dogs outside, but my kittens are keeping me cozy. The farrier is coming at around 2 pm and I'm not really looking forward to having to go outside.   I think that wraps it up for today ;-). Back to my book and my coffee.