Saturday

Today was one of those "lost in a haze" days. And yet, I got my hair cut, bought and set up an all-in-one printer, and scanned all of my automotive-related and HOA-related documentation for the past 10 years.

One thing I am finding is that I'm starting projects and not following through on them. I have the same problem at work. I probably should have held off on the scanning project until I got the bathroom painted...but dealing with all of the paperwork was sort of related to getting started on Quicken...yet another partially completed project.

Still, for the most part, these projects give me hope for a better future...an organized living space and automated monthly payments.

I'm proud of taking these steps.

Happy Birthday to me

Today I clock over to 49 years old. I celebrated the day quietly working on my home, my truck and my finances.

My home suffered with years of neglect during my darkest depression--and it looks it. Slowly, my life, my health, and my home are being rebuilt.

For my home, I unclogged a sink that had been clogged for nearly 5 years and replaced the lens in my florescent lights. This allowed me to reclaim an area of my home that's been "out of order" since 2005/2006.

For my truck, I emptied 4 bags of garbage I'd been carting around in the bed of the truck for about that many years. It's incredibly freeing. I don't have to be ashamed every time I get into my truck anymore.

For my finances, I took the time to take a look at my annual social security statement and the savings in my 401k. The good news is that I only have $100k more to go until I'm fairly set for retirement. $10,000 per year for the next decade.

This is not the way anyone else would choose to spend their birthday. But I so wanted to start the year with a clean slate. I didn't do a "perfect" job of completing all the tasks I needed to do, but it's enough to get started.

I'm studying Ezra these days...learning about how the Jewish people were allowed to return to Jerusalem after 70 years of captivity in Babylon...and they had the freedom and finances to rebuild their temple. I feel their same joy and freedom...the hope that comes with the process of rebuilding. Amen.

At Home with Venetia in Kyoto

A couple of weeks ago, one of my knitting friends turned me onto a TV show on PBS called At Home with Venetia in Kyoto. It didn't really sound like something that would interest me, but she raved about the show so enthusiastically, I decided to overcome my own negativity and give it a try.

After just one show, I was entranced. The show is simply about the life of Venetia Stanley-Smith, a British expatriate, who has lived with her husband in Kyoto's Ohara district for the past 30 years. Kinda grabs you by the throat, right?

Venetia's life is measured and thoughtful. Each week, Venetia tends to the herb garden of her rural home, makes handmade gift for her friends, and visits one of the artisans who live in Kyoto. So far, she's visited the Rakuten Bamboo Shop, the wirework shop of Tujiwa Kanaami, and a defunct factory for a milk-based drink sold during the 20's and 30's. Also, the pianist who composes music for the show, Mine Kawakami, stopped by to visit Venetia and wrote an impromptu composition about the mint tea Venetia brewed for them.

Some of Venetia's handmades have been oatmeal and lavender bath bags, jasmine and sandalwood face cream, and lavender vinegar.

The things that draw me in most are the ways Venetia lives her life: a slow, measured pace, extending thoughtfulness towards her friends, mindful of reusable and renewable sources. She expresses her creativity through making small gifts with the herbs and plants she grows herself. Watching Venetia's mindful life, listening to the lovely accompanying music leaves my mind as relaxed as a bit of quiet yoga.

Happy New Year

Tommorow I turn the big four-nine. Over the past year, I've considered various topics for the blog: lost arts, spinning rare wools, and walks in my neighborhood. I figured that a one-topic blog was the only way to go.

But, I've decided to have the Kelly-topic blog and to write whatever pleases me.

Community Emergency Preparedness Graduation

Over the past 8 weeks, I've participated in the Community Emergency Preparedness Academy. It's an interesting look at the knowledge and skills needed to face a community emergency.  We learned CPR, how to size up a structure after an earthquake, how to administer first aid, and how to fight small fires.  All in all, a cool adventure.

Cheese Chronicles

Cheese Chronicles is a wonderful read. Thorpe's youthful enthusiasm and passion for cheese leaps off the page.  With almost a rock n' roll attitude, she describes her own journey in becoming a cheesemonger for the world famous Murray's deli. She educates the reader in the different classifications of cheeses and describes the growing trend of specialty cheese making farms in the United States, which sort of parallels the rise of microbreweries in the 80's and 90's.

It's not a book I could read cover-to-cover in one sitting--mostly because it gave me the cheese joneses so bad that I frequently had to stop reading and go purchase cheese just to make it through a chapter.

The writer in me loves the author's voice and passion. The chef in me enjoyed having my mind opened to many unfamiliar types of cheeses. The nerd in me dug on learning the history and nomenclature of a delicious, groovy human subculture.

Cheese Chronicles is a difficult book to classify.  It's not a cookbook or book on how to make cheese.  It's more like a textbook on learning to love cheese.

However you slice it, Cheese Chronicles is definitely worth a read.

Cast Away Your Worries

Cast all your worries upon me because I care about you. (1 Peter 5:7)

It’s a fact of life that people worry, but we’re not designed to carry around big bags of anxiety.  It drags on our health and gives us heart attacks and strokes and wrinkles.  But even worse, it robs us of the coolest things in life—like hope and joy and kindness.  Who can afford to be kind when they’re worried about how to pay the bills?  Who can meet the day with a song in their heart when they’re crushed by deadlines at work?

For people with mental illness, worry is a real enemy.  When your mind starts chewing on itself, it can leave you raw with symptoms like insomnia and irritability.  Your moods start to swing and it just makes the situation worse.  So what’s a girl to do?

Cast away your worries.

This solution came to me one day when I was overrun with the anxiety of appointments, deadlines, and chores.  Even fun stuff—my beloved hobbies—seemed like a burden to me.  I sat at my desk, frozen and unable to begin the day because I had no idea of where to begin.  I was sitting under an avalanche just waiting to bury me.    

I couldn’t carry it around any more.  I wanted to reach inside my own brain and empty it out.  I wanted to open my calendar and empty it out.  I felt so anxious I wanted to run or hide or scratch off my own skin just to escape the feeling of being trapped.

So, I cast away my worries.

I got out a blank piece of paper and titled it “Cast all your cares on me.”  Then, I wrote a couple of words to represent each of my worries.  I drew a circle around each “worry” to tether it to the page.  No worries are allowed to escape!

I didn’t use a nice piece of paper, a spectacular pen and beautiful calligraphic handwriting. Perfect presentation wasn’t the point.  The point was emptying my brain onto the page and creating something (a container) that would hold my worries for me.

I took a little time with this.  I wrote some cares, did a little work, surfed the Internet, had some coffee, and wrote some more worries.  I couldn’t do write them down all at once because, as I opened my mind to what was worrying me, I felt nervous, worried, and overwhelmed.  But, over the course of an hour or so, I chipped away at it until I’d written down all of the projects, appointments and deadlines that made me feel all snarled up inside.

I filled up a notebook page and it looked like this:

[Insert a little doodad that shows what my page looked like]

I felt a little better.  All of my worries were confined to a page of notebook paper.  But, I knew they wouldn’t stay there for long so I needed to work on solutions for each of them.

So, I looked at each worry and thought,

§       Do I even need to worry about this?  Is it something I need to worry about?

§       Is this something I need to take action toward today?

If yes, then I circled them with a highlighter.

§       Can I tolerate the consequences if I don’t take any action towards this today?

If no, then I circled them with a highlighter.

§       What’s one step I can take towards solving this worry?  It doesn’t have to be a GIANT step, just a step.

I wrote one sentence under each worry.

§       What’s stopping me?

All kinds of things stopped me:  money, time, the size of the task.

Then, I wrote the steps for all of my worries onto small Post-Its and assigned them to a day in my calendar.  I use colored Post-It's because they're happy.  You can do what makes you happy.  It looks like this:

[Insert a little doodad that shows what my calendar looks like]

No fair assigning the action step for every worry to today or even to this week.  As you’re assigning the worries to your calendar, be kind to you.    Create the kind of task list you’d make for someone you love.

So, why should you take the time to cast away your worries?  Because you are loved by God...by your family...by your friends.  Casting away your worries is the path to the freedom of being loving and kind and filled with joy.  

Give it a rest

Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28).

[I want something here about the restless nature of life.  There's a push to go more, do more, have more.  It seems faster now, but it's always been there.]

One of the first things my doctor wanted me to work on in living well with mental illness was regulating my sleep.  She said that my moods would improve dramatically if I could find a way to get 7 or 8 contiguous hours of sleep.

I thought she was full of it, but I was desperate to be well.  I committed to work on it.

At that time, my life was terrifyingly stressful.  The IRS was after me for unfiled and unpaid taxes.  The DMV had suspended my license.  Even a person with normal brain chemistry would have a rough time sleeping in those circumstances.

And yet, I still wanted to be well and whole and able to do more than just get by.

I tried going to bed at 10 p.m.  Sometimes I couldn’t get to sleep until 1 a.m. Sometimes I fell asleep but awakened after 3 or 4 hours—not drowsy, but as awake as if I’d slept the night.  It was as though the stress of my daily life was robbing my brain of its ability to regulate itself.

I started to experiment with the common advice for getting better sleep.  I made sure I had a comfy bed, pillow and jammies.  I gave up caffeine after lunchtime and exercising in the evenings.  I tried supplements and over-the-counter sleep medications.  I did anything and everything I could to start sleeping regularly.

After a few months, I felt the positive impact of solid sleep.  I stopped feeling like an exhausted raw nerve all of the time.  I had more focus and energy.  I could function at a higher level.  It was awesome.

Now, nearly a year later, I’ve still got solid sleep habits.  I guard my precious sleep carefully.  There are times when I’ll stay out late with friends, or stay up late reading a great book, but I know that the cost will be a day of super low energy and inactivity.  So, the times when I sacrifice my sleep are few and far between.

There are also times when sleep is contrary.  It just won’t come.  On those days, I let the sleeplessness go—but, on the following night, I do everything, everything to get sleep. 

To play around with my sleep, to take it lightly is the path to instability, hypomania, depression, and chaos.

Monday, May 17, 2010 7:47 a.m.

Monday, May 17, 2010 7:47 a.m.
Glenwood & Aliso Creek Road
Aliso Viejo, CA

Light Drizzle 59 °F
Humidity:77 %

Today is one of those days when the air feels wet but it’s not quite raining. I walk to my car, my face and glasses are speckled with small specks of water. As my truck slices through the morning, my windshield is streaked with water.

While waiting for the signal, I notice a young rabbit eating the grass on the parkway greenbelt. Suddenly, it leaps up, shimmies from head to tail, and does a few zigzag hops. I feel vaguely sorry for the bunny. Outdoor dining in the drizzly air would make me shimmy and hop all around, too.

May 16, 2010 9:45 a.m.

Jim Dilley Greenbelt Preserve
Laguna Beach, CA

May 16, 2010 9:45 a.m.

I tried hiking alone for the first time today. I got about 200 yards down the Lake Trail, freaked out and legged it back to my truck.

It’s one thing to hike with a group of people or a friend. It’s another thing to walk alone down a city street. But, to walk alone, off the grid is something else entirely.

It wasn’t a fear of rapists or murderers that sent me running back to the comfort of civilization, but the sense of alone-with-my-thoughts-ness. No TV or radio or mindless chatter to fill the empty spaces.

Walking along in the wilderness—even with my trusty cell phone—showed me with stunning clarity what it means to be a vulnerable bag of meat without horns or claws or a protective shell and to risk becoming lost or hurt with absolutely no one else for miles around.

But I’m going to try again next week. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make it at least 400 yards down the trail.

Thursday, April 13, 2010

1:57 p.m.
Business Park on UCI Campus near California & Academy Way

The roadrunner was cruising for lizards in the parking lot again today. When he caught sight of me, he retreated towards the outermost hedge. Having slurped up a juicy lizard and lacking shirt sleeves, he rubbed his beak vigorously against the dirt to remove any stray traces of reptile. Just the sight of him will last me well into my 2:00 meeting.

Monday, May 3, 2010 7:45 a.m.

Monday, May 3, 2010
Aliso Viejo, CA

Sunny, 62°F
Wind: N at 0 mph
Humidity: 62%

For 23 hours and 55 minutes per day my Tommie cat is content to be little more than an overstuffed sofa cushion; but, in the mornings, I open the front door and allow him a few moments of careful freedom.

He squeaks with delight as his chubby, tabby bottom runs down the steps. At the bottom, he collapses, squirming and squeaking at the luxury. After he has rubbed off every trace of confinement, he tentatively whiffs the nearby hedges, questing for the hint of unseen visitors.

He would explore for hours if I let him or at least until the rumbling of a delivery truck sent him rushing back to the safety of his known world. But the clock is ticking and my calendar is calling. I wish I could grant him the liberty he loves, but the outside world is too unmerciful for an unsupervised sofa tabby. I can’t keep him safe from the places his curiosity would lead him.

I shoo my darling boy back up the steps. He yields, yet stops every few steps to collect those last intriguing scents that he can dream about until tomorrow.

I’m inspired to take the green commute to work north along Laguna Canyon Road past the James Dilley Greenbelt, over the Laguna Lakes trail and over the Stagecoach trail. I roll down my window to scent the wind even though the air is too cold against my bare cheek and arm. My eyes pick the California poppies growing along the roadside and embrace the brilliant yellow mustard grass. The scent of scrub brush and sage makes my hiking boots call out my name. My eyes, my mind, my soul exhilarate at the open arms of the rolling hills.

Too soon I move into the pushing-traffic pavement of the 405 during peak commute. For a few moments, every green thing is gone. I scold myself to be grateful for the benefits civilization brings—food, clothing, safety in numbers. But I’m more grateful still that, like my tabby, I can be magically transported from captivity by remembering that my Father originally planned for me to live in the beauty of a garden and that someday I will.

Saturday, May 1, 2010, 9:40 a.m.

Saturday, May 1, 2010, 9:40 a.m.
Irvine Ranch Conservancy
Orange, California

Mouth of Fremont Canyon

This morning we are gifted by the tracks a mountain lion has left on the trail--fresh enough to leave an impression in the soft dirt but not so shiny as to arouse fear. The cat strolled towards the trailhead in the early morning hours, the tracks as silent now as when they were freshly made.

Further down the trail we cross the river Fremont on fast, flat feet. The busy river hurries to smooth our boot marks from its bed. We step up and wade into a sea of rip gut grass nearly as high as my thigh. Thea, our guide, goes before us, parting the sea with her staff, on guard for any serpents lurking in the garden. We walk on the thick litter of fallen leaves so soft underfoot that I’m reminded of walking on my childhood bed.

We come to rest under a canopy of oaks whose interlocking branches trap the coolness of a nearby stream. We’re sheltered from the heat of the day by nature’s own air conditioner. The dappled lighting and tender murmuring of the stream is so comforting that I could sit here forever.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010 7:40 a.m.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010
7:40 a.m.
Business Park on UCI Campus near California & Academy Way

10 Minutes in Nature

Over the past few weeks I’ve discovered that a quick walk through the corporate parking lot resets my brain when I need to switch from one project to another. At 7:40 a.m. today, I'd already been at work for 90 minutes, finished writing a three-page document and wasn’t quite alert enough to move on to the next thing.

I stepped into the 55 degree morning air so cloudy and thick that not a single strand of sunlight penetrated the fog. My head was filled with work concerns, chewing around and around until I spotted him—our resident road runner. My thoughts of work vanished and my heart was filled with the delight of encountering an actual wild creature. I was surprised to see him sitting on top of a hedge. Given that he's a road runner, I would have never thought of him as given to flight. Yet there he was, peering intently into the leaves, searching for that one delicious opportunity.

I gave him a wide berth because I wanted to observe his wildness for as many seconds as possible before returning to my corporate cage. I loved his Mohawk and long floppy tail. I know that lizards sleep in late so I wondered what he could be hunting for breakfast. But, at last, I rounded the corner and lost sight of him.

And yet…

I was rewarded with the sight of a small rabbit, hunched against the chill air, quietly cropping at the grass. Again, my heart thrilled at the sight of a wild thing. I turned my front-facing predator eyes away and swung a wide circle around him knowing that I was the intruder on his morning meal. How much I wanted to put just one fingertip on its fur to know if its pelt is as soft as I imagine. How much I regret the divide of fear that separates us.

I turned the final corner and climbed the stairs to my office, reluctant at leaving the wild things but with renewed energy to dig into my project. Still, before I return to my corporate cage, I wrote these few lines so I can remember that, even for just a few moments today, I walked where the wild things are.

April 17, 2010 2:20 p.m.

April 17, 2010 2:20 p.m.
James Dilley Preserve – Laguna Beach

Working our way to the top


parking lot

canyon trail

200 years of oak

bird songs

insect hum

sharing



poison oak

monkey faced flowers

a heart-shaped cactus warning of dangerous love

the further we go, the more challenges appear



We stop short of the summit. We’re stopped by the persistence of time and the steepness of the road ahead. It’s not an impossible path; we’re just out of time. But, it’s okay—this path not taken because we get the chance to retrace our steps, do over, and see what we missed before.

For a scant few hours we are a chain on a trail, sharing words, thoughts, ideas and impressions in an eternal landscape that stretches forwards and backwards in time. Although we leave no trace on the trail, we are humans sharing the same experience, temporarily united. Together we’ll carry the unique impressions of this day always, having chosen to spend and not waste the afternoon of this day.

Even though we left no trace on the trail, we’ll leave a fingerprint on each other’s lives. And from the bottom to the top, we are forever changed.

What is Contentment?

1Timothy 6:6-10

But godliness with contentment is great gain.  For we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it.  But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.  People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.  Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

What do I complain about?

Our society is geared to make me feel a need when there really isn’t one.  When things aren’t the way I want them to be, my satisfaction with life destroyed.  To determine what represents contentment to me, examine what I complain about.  What do I think is unsatisfactory?  What do I think needs to change in order for me to be content?  What do I think I don’t have enough of?

Godliness with contentment is great gain. 

Godliness is being satisfied with God.  The word for contentment has the connotative meaning of raising a barrier, setting a limit.  It refers to raising both hands in a “stop” gesture to one’s servants to indicate that you’ve eaten enough food, that you’ve had enough.  Setting limits is difficult, but if I keep setting the bar higher and higher, I’ll never be content.

But, when I’m satisfied with what I have, I can focus on growing in the Lord; then, when I get more, it’s a blessing and I can be thankful and praise God.

For we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it.  But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 

I start my life naked and without food.  I end my life the same way.  Therefore, anything beyond food and clothing is a blessing.

People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.  Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

The alternative to being content is to seek money (and stuff); however, people who do so face temptation and harmful desires.  In this verse “evil” has the connotative meaning of “worthless things”—that is, when I love money, worthless things will come into my life.

The idea here is when I’m not content with what I have and my focus is on making money, I’ll be robbed of valuable things: time with my family, time with nature, and time with God.   Setting limits allows room and time for godliness.

When I have a sense of lack, it actually comes from wanting more of God, of wanting the feeling of being blessed (like Psalm 23). 

Action Items

§  Don’t buy any more food until I’ve eaten all of the food in my cupboards and fridge.

§  Don’t buy any more yarn until I’ve knitted everything I have.

§  Take note of what I complain about.

§  When I feel a lack, spend time with God.

Penny Rug and Laptop Bag

I'm halfway through the Penny Rug Purse. Now that I'm into it, it's a bit dull. Even with the frequent color changes, it's just hundreds of rows of stockinette (knit a row, purl a row). A nice little perk is that a lot of the people in my knitting group admire it and find it to be really eye-poppingly colorful.

Today I launched into another project: the Aguona Laptop Bag kit from Knit Picks. It's a challenging project in several ways. The first, is that it's knitted in the round with a fairly large stitch count (230 stitches). The second, is that the front and back of the bag are different Fair Isle patterns: one chart for the front and a different chart from the back. Finally, the bag has a very dense gauge so I'm knitting it on size 2 needles.

On Ravelry, I looked at the comment other knitters had in making this project. A lot of people griped about the gauge, so I was very careful to make a swatch (and another and another) before starting. The pattern calls for size 4 needles but--no way! I ended up on size 2's. Also, when I made my gauge swatch, I was careful to knit the swatch in Fair Isle pattern--not just stockinette. I'm proud to see how this goes.

Dealing with Medical Billing Issues

Although Aetna paid my claim for last year, an Orange County hospital continued to chase me down. Last month, I sent a little letter with my payment that was ignored. When I got a new bill this month that didn't reflect the changes, I got really angry. I find I'm a little depressed today BUT I called them and calmly went over my EOB.

They said they would correct the bill today. So, I'm high fiving me for dealing with the issue and not avoiding, and for dealing with it calmly in spite of my depression.

Penny Rugs

Today I started to knit the Penny Rug purse from Bag Style. It’s this amazing thing that uses 10 eye-popping colors of yarn. After I’ve finished knitting it, I’ll throw it into the washing machine with a hot wash, cold rinse cycle and wind up with a felted bag.

The purse’s design is based on a penny rug. Of course, I had no idea of what a penny rug was until I googled it and—wow! It turns out that women used to take worn out knitted wear, felt it, cut designs from the felt, and sew them onto a large piece of felt. Although the name is “penny rug,” they were typically used as decorative table runners. The “penny” in the name refers to the idea of using a penny as a template so that even the smallest scrap of yarn didn’t go to waste.

This has given me an idea of how to use all the little scraps of wool yarn I have left over from knitting projects. Yum-o-rama. I even surfed the web and found I can get large sheets of felt from here: http://woollymammothwoolens.ecrater.com/)

I'm amazed at all of the penny rugs on the web. It reminds me of what my friend said: there are all of these subcultures that exist around us every day. We never see them until we look directly at them--and then we're amazed that this whole subculture exists. (He was talking about the discoveries he made when he started to play blues harmonica.)

Dreaming future yarnish stuff is amazing for getting one through the day!

Grace of God

I'm learning so much about God's grace.

Because I had several years where…hm…I was living in God’s permissive will and struggling with mental illness, I racked up a bunch of problems for myself with the Franchise Tax Board and HOAs. I was so ashamed, I hid from the problems, so they got worse and worse.

God has graciously shown me that, because of the severity of my illness, I belong in the corporate world with structure, social interaction and benefits where I can exercise the talents He gave me.

As I’ve gotten on my feet, God has queued up each of these problems and given me the emotional stability and finances to conquer them. The more I agree with God on the things that fall short of his standards and the more I ask for help, the more grace falls and I can finally SEE and KNOW God is knitting together the dropped stitches of my life.