Witty Title Here

I wish I could tell you that this was going to be an exciting or witty post, but, in all fairness, it's probably not.
Today would have been my kid brother's 41^st birthday, had he made better choices 22 years ago AND survived the military action that was going on at the time, since he was a United States Marine. This fact is not particularly relevant to anything else I have to say today, it's just a little tidbit I thought I'd toss out there. 

In the last couple of weeks since my last post, I've been working on getting paperwork together for a couple of things.

1. SNAP (AKA Food stamps)—I've been approved, pending paperwork processing, which, really, I've turned in already, and am now just waiting to get notified that the money has been put onto my card. I can only purchase non-taxable food items, which is fine with me. Since I have been a responsible person and not had any children that I cannot afford to support, I am limited to 3 months of assistance every 3 years unless I am working at least 30 hours a week, earning minimum wage or more. The problem I have with this plan is that if I had a job, even at minimum wage, I would not so desperately need the assistance! The past twenty-odd years that I have been working and paying taxes which support this very program that will provide seemingly unlimited assistance to women who prefer to keep having children that they cannot feed mean nothing when I am the one needing assistance, apparently.
2. Workforce Investment Act—I have been approved to get into the program, and I had to apply for a Pell Grant, even though there is funding available from the state to pay for my schooling. I was denied the Pell, because, well, I have a Bachelor's Degree, which, after spending $25K of loan money, plus 4 years worth of Pell Grant, is not actually worth the paper upon which it is printed. I've left a couple of messages for the coordinator of the program at the Workforce Center, and expect to hear back from her tomorrow.

I have resigned myself to living with a catbox on a table at the end of the bed, since it will save my mattress, as well as wear and tear on the sheets and mattress protector. My body is adjusting to sleeping on plastic tablecloths between the mattress & mattress pad (yes, I'll take all the defense I can get against cat pee on my 2 year old, $900 mattress!).
I've been working on my faire calendar, and hoping that I'll have managed to come up with some money to spend, at least for admission, at said faires. First up is Middlefaire, which will likely be the first weekend of October. It's sort of become a tradition for some of us who have birthdays that first week to celebrate at Middlefaire that weekend. The following weekend I'm hoping to be able to make it down to TRF for their opening weekend with friends that are planning to go then. It seems that as long as I'm living here at Castle Wford, sharing responsibility for HoBBiTcaTs & WaveorgoNaked,Sphynx either I can be gone, or the roomies can be gone, but we can't all be gone a full weekend at the same time. I'm planning to make Dickens on The Strand again this year, which makes missing the 3 day weekend at TRF easier to bear, cuz I really don't need to be gone two weekends in a row, and the roomies will be in Corpus for Thanksgiving, so I'm staying closer to home. I hear that there are a couple of Pirate invasions planned at a local garden area, but don't have dates on those yet.
I'm also brainstorming ideas to make this space a little more interesting (thus drawing more readers and hopefully ultimately some advertising revenue), as well as helping to give me a goal to meet each week… maybe a photo of the day, recipe, quote, or something, I just haven't figured out what I really want to do, other than aimless rambling. Any ideas would be most appreciated!
 

Update & stuff

Last week, I was without internet access at home, which, in all honesty, had me a little VERY freaked out. The only reason my sanity was intact (well, as intact as it ever is these days) is that I could at least text and check Facebook & email from my phone, thanks to my pastor's generosity and willingness to lend me the $ to get a metro PCS phone. I didn't do much posting or answering email, simply because the phone is a no-frills, basic model, without a QWERTY keyboard, and it's just too much work to try to email or post much of anything using a phone keypad.

Yep, my phone is only marginally bigger than my iPod.

As it turns out, a mouse had chewed the wire along the wall for the DSL line. Damned mouse! Apparently caged cats are no mouse control whatsoever… hmm. A friend said to me "Kitties are not doing their jobs." I pointed out to him that there are only 2 cats in the whole house that think they have a job other than breeding or looking precious, and those two stay locked up in my bedroom, which is NOT where the DSL line is located.
Today, as I was cleaning the kitchen, I moved the toaster and found, what we can hope was the offending mouse.  S/He was fried and toasted, having chewed the toaster cord in at least 2 places.  Serves the little bastard right! Not only did it cost us DSL, but we are out a toaster now too! But we do have more kitchen counter space...

I did manage to get a few things handled last week, using the computers at the Workforce Center and Public Library. I've applied to Weatherford College, to enroll in an Associates of Business Administration program. It will get me some more accounting, HR and Payroll experience, and hopefully, make me more marketable than my Bachelor of Arts in History/English has. The Workforce Investment Act should cover the costs of school, supplies, and fees. I have an appointment with the HHS office for some public assistance, after spending an hour standing in line, having filled out my application manually (since they chose to ignore my online application for some reason).

I finally (I hope) broke the shortcat of her penchant for peeing on the bed. Granted I am living with a small, covered litterbox on an endtable at the foot of the bed, and a folded over plastic tablecloth along the foot of the bed, just in case, but I no longer have a huge cat crate taking up half my meager floor space, and I don't have to wash linens every day.

Today I managed to get my bodhran moved to where I've wanted to put it since I moved into this room, and put a bamboo shade on the west window. That window's shaded partially by a tree, but since we hit our 10^th day in a row of 100*+ temperatures, the partial shade is NOT keeping much of the heat out. The shade isn't a perfect fit, there are a couple of inches on either side exposed, but for the most part, my window's covered, I've got more privacy than the sarong that was hanging up there before afforded me, and my room stayed much cooler today, with the a/c unit on low and on a more mid-range temp than the colder one I use when I'm in here at night. Tomorrow I am going to locate a hammer and get a couple of other things hung up and get the room into a little better shape so it doesn't make me want to scream when I'm in here for very long other than to sleep.

And now, if you'll excuse me, the shortcat is demanding her turn on the computer…

the Awful, Terrible, VeryBad, NoGood Day!

Today was a HORRIBLE day… when I first woke up, it wasn't so bad, and then I discovered that the DSL modem seems to have died. AGAIN. Now, this would not be a HUGE tragedy, except for the fact that for about a week and a half, I have been without a phone, because I could no longer afford the plan that I had, and my provider wanted almost $500 to turn it back on, including last month's bill, this month's bill (which wasn't even due yet when they shut the damned thing off), and a deposit equal to a little over a month's bill, plus a reconnect fee. Well, go ahead and try to collect… what's that you say? If I don't pay you, you'll cancel me and charge me an early termination fee? Yeah, good luck with that. I didn't have the $140 for last month's bill before you sent the bill for this month, what makes you think that I'll have another $250 on top of the $500 you've cut me off for?
Immediately, I'm stressing because while I was phoneless, I did have my computer, and access to the internet, day or night, and, actually, most of the people I talk with regularly I can talk with via email, so I while my contact was sort of restricted, it wasn't totally cut off. Until this morning. I went BERSERK! In retrospect, I probably did overreact, which I am prone to do these days, but you know what? It just seemed like the straw that broke the camel's back… cutting me off from the world, unless there is someone else home, with their phone, I AM cut off from the outside world. Several weeks ago, when we moved rooms around, and I moved into the small, back one, for more privacy, I knew that part of the price of that privacy would be a feeling of isolation. That is part of the reason I don't spend a lot of time in here, unless it's bedtime, or first thing in the morning. I go about my business, getting dressed and getting my face on to go to church. And I notice shortcat looking at me with a smug expression… and I realize, she is peeing on the bed… AGAIN! I snatched her up, and put her back in the crate, stripped the bed, and stomped out to wash my sheets and mattress pad for the ummm, 4^th time in 9 days. Of course, the person who started laundry at midnight last night, didn't bother to move their clothes to the dryer when the wash was done (and I KNOW they were still up and about when the dryer buzzed with the load of cat bedding they'd put in it. AND they used the last of the laundry soap, without tossing the bottle or leaving a note for anybody. Fortunately, we had some Borax, which, along with the wee bit of detergent I managed to get out by adding water to the bottle and swishing it around, sufficed for the first load.
My bitchiness was met with distain and not much sympathy from the only other person up and about before I left, and I can't say I blame her, but a bit of sympathy would have been nice. By the time I got to church, I'd dried my tears (though I did fail to look at my face and sat through Sunday School with mascara streaks down my cheeks, and nobody said anything to me about it), and put on a bit of a brave face. I made it through church without completely going to pieces, and after services were over, talked with my pastor for about an hour or so… mostly with me bawling like a big baby, out of frustration, anger, depression, disappointment, and on some level shame. I HATE for anyone to see me cry (which is probably the main reason that I didn't go all to pieces during church), I suck at asking for help, and I'm at a point where I don't know what else to try to get my world back on the proper tilt. God bless her, she loaned me $ to get a phone that is contract free, and a manageable rate for me, bought me lunch, and promised to look for a DSL modem that she no longer needs, so we can get reconnected at home.
By the time I got back to town to get the phone from a local provider, I was overtired and getting cranky a bit. And THEN, my car wouldn't start. Yeah, phone has no charge, no car charger (and isn't activated yet anyway, since I need to charge it some before I spend the time on it to activate it.), and I don't have my old phone (with numbers in it) with me either. I scrape up enough change to call the roomies and leave a tearful message about where I am stranded, and hope that they will check their messages before they just leave to go to the naming ceremony & drop the boy off at some friends' place so he can hit the road in the morning for a couple of jobs. And I return to my car in the 105* parking lot to wait, and hope that they check messages soon. Luckily, it wasn't long before they arrive, we got my car moved so it could be jumped off, and I was on the road to the house while they went in and picked up a couple of last minute things for the excursion to our friends'.
I spent 20 minutes on the phone to activate it, and the programming fails. Dinner is ready, so I go out there and eat before I try again. 3 tries later, I finally wind up with someone real (as opposed to a computer) who tells me that I need to call from a phone other than the one I'm programming, because the programming failed the first time around and must be done manually now, which can't be done if the phone is in use. NIIICE. Yeah, that was the whipped cream on top of my SHIT sundae, and almost did me in. I talked with one of the priestesses, and the father of the baby being named, and excused myself from the circle, as I knew I was too upset and raging to be able to contribute to the peace and love of the circle. Instead, I offered to stay on the porch and take photos with my camera, since it was the only one at the event for some reason. It was a lovely circle, and I will gladly take part in another, given the opportunity.
I finally managed to borrow my friends' landline and get the phone programmed properly, and am no longer totally out of touch with everybody. It's a TINY phone, not much bigger than my iPod Nano, and it doesn't have a QWERTY keyboard, so I'm having to learn again how to text from a phone keypad… fun times. I don't think it's Bluetooth capable, which is a sucky deal, but I guess if I have to use a wired headset for a little while until things balance back out better, then I'll have to do that.
And the CHERRY on top of today's SHIT Sundae was the fact that apparently part of our neighborhood is without water. And the city "has made a note of the problem". Yeah, I guess it's just as well I had my shower this morning, and that I washed the sheets/mattress protector this morning before I left…
I'm not totally sure why it ALL came to a head today… although it is the first of August, and August always sucked for mom, and maybe I'm kinda missing her. Who knows, hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Faith

Faith. It's defined by Merriam-Webster thusly: 1 a : allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b (1) : fidelity to one's promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs <the Protestant faith>
I was raised to be a Christian, from very early on. As an infant I was baptized in the Lutheran church, and honestly, I don't remember going to Sunday School & church when I was small, though we must have, because I knew that the Greek Orthodox church our Greek friends attended did things differently than "our" church. Even when we returned to the States, and moved to Kansas, I recall going with my friend next door to her Presbyterian church, and it being a little bit different, but more like what I was familiar with. I always knew that Christmas was about the birth of Christ, and that Easter was related to his crucifixion and resurrection, even when we weren't going to church or Sunday School regularly. When we moved back to TX, we first joined a Lutheran church in our town, in what I suppose was Mom's attempt to try and salvage her marriage and hoping that we would attend church "as a family". Yeah, that didn't last terribly long, a little over a year, I think. Eventually she gave up and we returned to her United Methodist roots. I got involved in the youth group and made friends, went through confirmation classes, and joined the church. For the past 30 years, I've been a Methodist. I haven't always been active in a church, and many times my membership has been at a church nowhere near where I was living, simply because I didn't move it, either because I was lazy, or because, well, the church I found that I was most comfortable in just wasn't quite home.
In 1987, a friend and neighbor invited me to a Bible Study, held in her home, led by a member of her church, for young adults. By the beginning of 1988 I had joined her church. Epworth United Methodist Church. Immediately, Epworth was more like home for me than even the church I first joined upon completion of confirmation, a church I was active in for several years. That summer, my younger brother died in a motorcycle accident, in the wee hours of a Sunday morning. After blood family, the first people I called were those neighbors who had introduced me to Epworth. I made that call as soon as I saw a light on at their house, shortly after 7 a.m., I think. Before 8, my pastor had arrived at my house. Note that I was the ONLY member of my family who attended Epworth. My mother, grandmother & brother had all kept their memberships at a larger Methodist church in town. By the time I arrived for Sunday School, the entire congregation had heard the news, and was praying for and with me. Those same people, fewer than a dozen of whom had ever met my brother or my mother, filled the sanctuary to overflowing, practically, for his funeral a few days later. As much as I was loved at my first "membership" church, Epworth has truly been family for me, for many years now.
Over the years, my faith has remained strong, despite hardships and sadness. My beliefs have evolved, and I've come to a point in my life that I embrace and incorporate bits and pieces of various belief systems into my daily life and it works for me. I try very hard not to be judgmental, especially of other people's beliefs. It is not my place to judge. Your salvation or future lives are between you and whatever deity you choose to worship. Personally, I think that we are all worshipping the same entity, it's just that we visualize and refer to that entity in different ways. My beliefs are not any more right/wrong or valid/invalid than yours.
Through some personal experiences, and experiences of those close to me, combined with some study on my own, and talking with people with other beliefs, I've come to the conclusion that I am a Methodist, and that at least as long as my Christian journey continues, I am always going to be a Methodist. I am always going to have a preference for a traditional service on Sunday mornings when I'm in church, complete with piano or organ, hymns that I know and love and can find the words and music to in the hymnals in the pews, rather than a contemporary service with a bunch of amplified instruments, words to the songs on a screen, and a show.
I have never understood why I needed to go through anyone else to talk to God… I was taught from early on that I could talk to Him whenever I wanted or needed. I have never understood the mentality of roles in the church being defined by gender. I have never understood why someone other than the actual parties involved in a marriage having any say in the religious upbringing of the children born of that marriage. I have never understood excluding anyone from church based on location, color, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, parenting status, clothing, living situation, or anything else.

Many years ago, I went to church with a guy I was dating. It was a relatively conservative, small church affiliated with a much larger VERY conservative denomination. The Sunday School teacher went on and on about "ritualistic churches, such as the Methodist church." Uhh, what??? Because my boyfriend was divorced, he was not allowed to be a greeter, usher, read aloud, or lead a prayer in church. The fact that he thought they "loved and accepted" him completely baffled me.

This past weekend, I attended a small church out in the country with some friends. Friend A is a member there, and they've been wonderful to her over the years, so I understand, and she loves it. So Friends C & D met the pastor at the funeral for A's husband in the Spring. Friend C went a couple of weeks ago to the regular service, and LOVED it. Since then, she's said to me a few times "I really wish you would come with us one week, I think you'd like it for the times you don't make it to Epworth". So this weekend, C&D decided to go again, and I went with them. NOT my cuppa tea. I DID have a bit of background: Pastor was raised in a conservative (and in my experience largely judgmental and closed-minded) denomination, and spent some time on the country music scene. The church looks much like a warehouse or industrial sort of building from the outside, with a steeple on top. The inside has some lovely woodwork, and the altar area seems more like a stage than an altar. There was a drum kit, an electronic keyboard, an electric guitar, a bass, an acoustic guitar (plugged in), and a fiddle, in addition to a half dozen microphones. It really felt like to me, after a few minutes of initial hellos and visiting with a handful of people who welcomed us, that we'd been dropped into an old-tyme country gospel show… There were maybe 3 songs that had the words projected onto a screen above the pulpit, but much of the music was the musicians/singers (pastor, 3 other instruments, & pastor's wife singing). I will say that everyone up there is talented, though country is NOT my choice in music, unless the only other option is rap. The men were invited down to pray at the altar prior to the sermon, though at one point there was an invitation for anyone to come down. The message was good, about having people around you who will have faith FOR you during those times when yours might falter, as the man who was lowered through the roof by his friends who were trying to get him in to see Jesus so his paralysis might be healed (Mark 2:1-12); as well as being one of those people for others in your life. I just don't think that church needs to go on for an hour and 45 minutes… especially when close to 45 of those minutes were a country gospel show and included 85% of the music for the entire service. Yeah, NOT going to be going back there, probably EVER. I don't think that it's wrong, or bad, or anything like that, it just doesn't appeal to me, and as sweet and welcoming as the people were, it's not going to meet my needs on those days I can't make it to Epworth.
It did remind me, again, that I am blessed to be part of a church that is at least as welcoming as that little country church. We have awesome kids, and awesome adults, and an awesome pastor. We are small, some would say we are old-fashioned, and we are family, and I like that whole family thing. 

Hoarding

Hi, my name is Raevyn, and I am a recovering (I hope) hoarder. I have entirely too much stuff, and when I think back to what I inherited 8 years ago, when my mother died, I am appalled! I have blogged in the past about the amount of stuff she had… Some was hers, some was what she had inherited from her mother in 1992, and never dealt with. My mother admitted her packrat tendencies, and I've always been pretty honest about mine, but my grandmother absolutely denied that she was a packrat until her dying day. Yeah, that's why, back in October, as I was preparing to clear out of my last place, my sister, brother-in-law & I threw away receipts and paid bill notices older than I am… Edie was the 4^th of 8 girls, raised in the country. Even now, many families with 8 children, who are not selling their stories to the highest bidding television network, manage without a lot of extras. She raised her family during the Great Depression and World War 2, she learned to conserve, and, I am sure, save things that were likely to be useful later. I understand jars, dishes, and the like. I even understand tax, real estate, and major purchase papers for several years back, but at one point (before Mom died), I shredded 2 file drawers full of tax returns from the 1950s & 1960s! Over the past 8 years, I have done several purges, and I've gotten a good bit of it under control, and begun to put into practice "If I am not willing to dust it regularly, or actually USE it, I don't need to keep it". I still have some boxes to unpack and put stuff away out of in my bedroom, but by the end of Saturday, I WILL have that done, and be in the process of making my little room into a home for me and the heathens, small though it is.

I have a friend, who is a dear sweet person, and having seen her space, talked with her about some of her things, and having a bit of other background about her situation, seeing her issues objectively, has allowed me to both rationalize some of mine down, and put mine in perspective at little bit better.

For whatever reason I believed that I was in control of the material things in my life, keeping them scattered and messy, because it is my life, and I don't have to arrange my things to suit anybody but me. I rationalized it by saying that I was controlling the chaos. The reality is that the chaos has ALWAYS controlled me. For as long as I can remember being directly affected, there was some sort of chaos, either physical, or emotional in our house. After the divorce, especially when we moved out of the house we lived in when we came back to TX, there was always an area of unused, or rarely used stuff. Baby clothes, outgrown toys, more Christmas stuff than we could EVER use. Sometimes it was in the attic, out of sight, out of mind. Sometimes it was in a closet or a storage building (again OOSOOM). Our 2 car garages NEVER held 2 cars that I can recall, though they usually held one. For YEARS, I moved boxes, unopened, from the house, to a storage unit, to the next house (in the storage building behind it), and to the next house (again, in a storage building). I have gotten rid of (or am in the process of getting sold) the 'heirlooms' that either I don't love, or I'm fairly sure none of the next generation is interested in. I have no need for a bazillion baby pictures of myself, or my kid brother who died 21 years ago. Our genetic line ends with me. I've kept a handful of photos from various time periods, my sister has some, and our brother has a few as well, I'm pretty sure. It was so very important to my mother to keep the past, and to hold onto those material things from her past… clothing, photos, costume jewelry, books, vinyl records, inexpensive artwork from the places she had visited, trinkets from the places she had been. Those were HER memories, they are not MY memories. My goal is to be able to store, once I am back into my own space that consists of a whole apartment or house, no more than my garb for faire and my holiday items, both of which are seasonal, instead of using only a small fraction of what I own.

I have spent years compensating for whatever it is that I was missing at that moment, by surrounding myself with things, and running away from the clutter and disarray that has been my home. Sometimes that has been a love interest, other times Mom, other times a family of my own. That run ends now. I am taking control of my space, accepting some responsibility for helping to maintain the rest of the house, and figuring out how to dream again.

Tomorrow morning I will be up at a reasonable time, and until we leave to go help our friend work on her clean house adventure, I will be in my room, getting things unpacked and arranged so that it's a pleasant and welcoming place to be, rather than the cluttered cave that I've allowed it to be for the last week.

It’s Something, Anyway

Yesterday our modem decided that it needed a vacation day… or something… A call to the ISP netted nothing more helpful than "we are sorry ma'am, but your modem is dead, and out of warranty, if you want to have internet service through us, you will have to buy a new modem, or upgrade to a new, more expensive plan, at which point we will GIVE you a new modem." Umm, yeah, right, isn't that handy, if we agree to pay you at least 50% MORE than what we've been paying for the last 14 months, you will GIVE us a new modem… it's only going to cost us an additional $10 and change a month. THAT'S NOT A GIFT YOU TWERPS!!! Fortunately, this morning, after leaving the modem off for 24 hours, we were able to get it restarted, and working just fine. So, we are going to try to keep it somewhere with a little better air circulation so it doesn't get quite so hot and need another vacation day.
In the meantime, we managed to get the carpet pulled up in the front room. Utter NASTINESS, let me assure you. Based on the orangey color, and the patterned shag nap, I am gonna venture out and say it was installed sometime in the, ohhh, late 1960s or early 1970s. Since its installation, it had multiple animals, plus an old Mustang, I think, engine restored while sitting on it. The padding was rotten, and almost as orange as the carpet. HUGELY gross, stuck in many places to the linoleum. We scraped, swept, vacuumed, scrubbed, and mopped as much as we could up, and then commenced moving most of the furniture we planned to put into the room. Unfortunately, as the prodigal adult kid has returned, and requires a spot to bed down (and I'm now in his old room), a couple of pieces we planned on putting in there just won't fit. It's fine, those pieces are not really in the way where they have been for months.
Today we sorted through no less than 5 mail totes, a couple of laundry hampers, 4 milk crates, and a couple of cardboard boxes. Toys, clothes, linens, books, videos, video games for obsolete systems, video game boxes with no games in them. Yeah, in the end, I have 2 boxes of toys/misc household stuff, 2 big bags of clothes plus a few hanging pieces, and 2 big bags of linens that I'll take to Mission Arlington tomorrow afternoon after church. We won't even go into what all got trashed because it was clearly broken or otherwise ruined, rendering it useless. My room is still a pile o'stuff, but I can address that once the public areas are handled to the point that I'm not needed out there to be working on that stuff. I will have 5 days while everybody else is gone next week to get my room under control and get more fully settled.
I am also working on carving out a time in my day to sit and write regularly. Honestly, much of it may be rambling nonsense, more journaling than anything else, but I am hopeful that as the habit develops, my writing will develop and improve. I am going to look next week into perhaps some HR & business classes, maybe some creative writing courses or something at the local college. I'm not having much luck finding work, even at minimum wage, perhaps a course or two would add to my skill set, make me more marketable, and give me more of a creative outlet. For now, it's time to snuggle with the kitties and watch a little Northern Exposure.

Sometimes Things Have to Fall Apart.

One of the things I did manage today, between moving stuff and trying to keep the cats somewhat settled down, was to discover & read the blog of one of my kids from church. I call her one of MY kids, because back in, 2007, she was one of the kids on my first mission trip since I was a youth. Except for one of them, who was a senior, and one who was a junior I think the rest of them were on their first mission trip, since they'd just finished 7^th grade. She (and our Senior) were on my workteam, and, like all of the kids, were awesome! I knew, back then, that she is something especially special in my world. Over the last 3 years, I've read her blogs on her MySpace & Facebook, always marveling at her gift for writing. She's a wonderful public speaker as well. She's started a new blog… one with its own space, not a page on MySpace or Facebook. As I was reading several entries on her blog, I was struck by this paragraph

Sometimes things have to fall apart to fall into place…And when they do fall apart, it doesn't matter that everything's in pieces. What matters is how you carry them. God will let you carry your pieces however you want. But me? I want some help with mine. So I vote we remember our windows, put less stock in our lights, and carry our pieces towards the Lord, because once you remember he's there, he's a lot easier to see.  Marianne Brown, 2010

Recently, I have felt very much like things in my world have fallen apart. I suck at asking for help. I know this. I suck at asking the friends I can see, and the ones I can't. My faith has always been a big part of my life, and while it's fundamentally still pretty much what it has always been, I've learned that I can successfully incorporate some other ideas into the mix, not be wrong, and still be loved by God. Perhaps I've been the strong one for too long… I need to let God help carry my pieces.

It's been over a year since I was employed for anything longer than a couple of months. There have been ups and downs, frustrations beyond belief, and some wonderful revelations along the way. Several weeks ago, tensions came to a head and seemed to be at an impasse with regard to my living situation. This resulted in a frantic search for somewhere I could go, and, knowing that none of my options for MY bed could include my cats. I was fortunate enough to find someone not only willing to foster them for me, but also willing to drive a couple of hours to meet me about halfway between our places to make the exchange. Many tears, frustrations, and a bit of a hollering match later, we reached an accord that will benefit all of us in the house, preserve a friendship, and let me keep my cats with me.

See, we live in a house that was originally built in the 1880s. Yes, that is correct, the house (parts of it anyway) is over 120 years old. There have been a couple additions over the years, rendering parts of the house more energy efficient than others. The room I'd been in since November is part of the original house. There are 4 windows in that room. 2 face WEST, and, if not original to the house, are at least from the early 20^th century (I would say maybe 1930's at the most recent) They are the old double hung sash type windows, that either have to be hooked open (there are eyebolts on the tops of the part that raises/lowers) or propped open with something. To help keep the cold out over the winter, we put some heavy plastic up over them. The other 2 are on the front porch, and face south/southwest. That room is also over a basement shop that isn't used except for storage probably 90% of the time. Also, the tree that's on the west side of the house provides NO shade to that bedroom. Yeah, cooling it in the summer is F.U.N. let me tell ya… especially with a window a/c unit. The other drawback to this room is that it is the public path to the only downstairs bathroom, and the only public bathroom in the house. Now, if I was in there asleep, nobody ever tried to come through, and for the most part, my privacy was respected, with a couple of exceptions. Oh, and I am TOTALLY not a neat freak. I can absolutely organize and clean someone else's stuff like crazy, but my own stuff tends to be fairly haphazard & messy (although I generally know where in my "mess" things are)

Upstairs, above the front room (where I was), is the master, which has a total of, umm, I think 7 windows. Some very old, some new, and honestly, since I don't spend a lot of time up there, I couldn't begin to say how many of each. At one time, there were 2 bedrooms in that space. 2 of the windows face WEST (and only one of those MIGHT get a bit of shade from the tree, but it's minimal at best). 3 face south, and 2 face north. Also up in that room are the cats which make up the "stock" of the cattery owned by one of my friends. Because they are mutant cats (yes, hairless is a mutation), they tend to be a bit more delicate, as a regular cat's fur helps to regulate its body temperature, that is likely the most important space to control the climate. Being that we are in TEXAS, in probably the hottest summer since 1980, plus the fact that that's an older (though I'm not sure original) part of the house, it's upstairs, and heat rises… well, the AC unit runs pretty well constantly up there to keep the room around 78 degrees.

Also upstairs is the teenager's bedroom, which has either 3 or 4 windows, facing east and south, and 2 cats. That room I KNOW is part of an addition from, I think around the 60s or 70s., and is above our living room & dining rooms.
Before the major heat hit, we were already running 3 a/c units, and hadn't even turned on the ones in the living/dining room.

There is also a small bedroom downstairs, with lots of natural light (nearly a whole wall of windows facing north, and a couple facing west that are mostly shaded by the tree outside, which I think is part of the 60s/70s addition. The west windows also have storm windows. It's almost half the size of the other bedroom, but it's not the smallest bedroom I have ever had. This shift allows me more privacy (nobody has any need to come through my bedroom to get to the bathroom, and the laundry room has 2 entries, so nobody has to come through my room to get there either.

The dining room can be moved into my old bedroom, along with several other things that have been sort of crowding the living/dining area because they needed to be where we could access them, but aren't things we necessarily use every single day. Those things don't have to be constantly climate controlled. (We are now up to 5 window units… 1 for each bedroom plus 2 for the living/dining area). The cattery stock can be moved into the more accessible former dining area (which is going to be climate controlled anyway because we usually have someone in that part of the house during the day), and we can stop running a/c constantly at such a level in 2 rooms. It is going to allow us to reduce energy costs, PLUS it will give the cats more socialization because they'll be where there are people all the time, instead of upstairs on their own.

So yesterday we finished getting the stuff (largely junk & such that will be either sold at a yard sale, Ebay-ed, or donated to charity if it's in decent condition, otherwise the trash men are gonna have a big load from us one of these days! Actually, a recliner and a coffee table got put at the curb last night, and picked up with the rest of the trash today. I vacuumed thoroughly (the last one living in it was a 20 year old boy, who wasn't exactly a clean or neat freak), and shampooed the carpets. This morning the carpets were dry enough, and we moved my stuff in. Before I moved anything in, I smudged with my sage stick to cleanse the energy (and the smoking boy aroma), rang my tingshas and burned a bit of purification oil to fully prepare the space.

There's still a table in the other room, which will go to storage, and a glider that will wind up in the living room, because, well, we can use another comfortable chair in there! My Ebay shipping supplies are also in there, but hopefully they will be able to stay, because, even once I put all the stuff I have in here in a proper place, there's nowhere for anything else! I have clean sheets on the bed, a temporary quilt (actually, it's a lap quilt that my sister-in-law made for me, umm, around 1990 or 91, I think. It will serve the purpose until the house is put back together and the laundry room is emptied to a point where we can get to the washer & dryer again…

I have much more to write about some of my plans for the coming weeks and months, but alas, the short cat is becoming INSISTENT that I either give her a turn on the computer, or get it off my lap so's I can scratch her properly… g'nite ya'll.