Claudia — Page 864

A Pat On The Back

October 5, 2017 at 8:52 am by Claudia

There are at least 30, if not more, morning glories in bloom this morning. A wonderful way to start the day. Gosh, they are glorious! Aptly named. It’s going to be warmish here today and I plan on sitting outside on the funky patio, where I can get my fill of them.

I am feeling more than a bit of relief today as I had some major dental work done yesterday and I made it through the whole thing without Don by my side. I have what must be bordering on a phobia about the dentist. I get so fearful that it almost incapacitates me. But I knew I had to go as something happened over the weekend that made an appointment a necessity. I called them on Monday. My appointment was yesterday at 3:00. In the meantime, I was in stress mode, trying to calm down, meditating, praying, and finally, trusting. Normally, Don would go with me, but obviously he couldn’t. But that guy was ‘by my side’ via texts and phone calls all day long.

The whole thing was made a bit more stressful when I realized a bridge was closed that I normally crossed to get to the office and I followed the detour, all the while looking at the clock, and got lost. I finally called the receptionist and she guided me there, but I was 15 minutes late.

Fortunately, I have the kindest, most compassionate, and non-judgmental dentist I could ever hope to have and his practice is only 10 minutes away from our house – on a normal day. He was wonderful and I ended up having a few things taken care of and he even made me laugh. Bless him. Then he told me how proud he was of me and that he wished Don had been there to see it. Such a lovely man.

When it was all done, I had to drive to the pharmacy to pick up two prescriptions, find some soft food to eat – I hadn’t been eating much for the past few days – and I was so tired and exhausted that I felt like a wet noodle.

Today, I’m allowing myself to feel proud that I did it without Don there by my side. I’m giving myself a pat on the back. I’m okay. Tired, but okay. Today is for taking it easy.

In the midst of the waiting yesterday, I hung this:

We decided we didn’t like the look of it above Stella – the yellow doesn’t mix well with the yellow we have on the walls. So it’s been sitting on a table until yesterday, when I decided I needed to make a decision. I like it here. I’m not sure what I’m going to put there, if anything, but I like that cheery yellow and red display piece hanging above my desk.

I had to move the calendar to the left, which necessitated another ‘hanging’ decision.

Early morning, darkish picture, but I brought the other Maxfield Parrish, “Pierrot’s Serenade” downstairs and hung it under “Dinky Bird.” They should be together, don’t you think?

So I did accomplish something other than forcing myself to go to the dentist yesterday.

Now, with the dentist stress over with, I feel like I can allow myself to get excited about my upcoming trip to New Orleans. And about 10 days after that, my trip to Chicago. More road trip adventures ahead.

Happy Thursday.

Paring Down

October 4, 2017 at 9:29 am by Claudia

What did Don and I do before FaceTime? Well, we talked on the phone like everyone else, but since this has been a year of a lot of time spent apart, though late to the game, we have enthusiastically embraced FaceTime. Seeing his face grounds me, as does hearing his voice. He has a great voice. I just finished a session with him before he headed to rehearsal.

On Sunday, the cast flies to New Orleans. They will be teching the show there. Not a bad place to put on a show, right?

Blogging update: Yesterday, after having given it a lot of thought, I deleted the book blog, Just Let Me Finish This Page.

Yes, I did. I hadn’t posted there for 6 months. 6 months! I found I was feeling guilty about it, but not really wanting to maintain the blog. I haven’t been writing as many reviews – just a few lately through TLC Book Tours, and I post those on this blog. There are many books I could review as I get offered advanced copies and I still might review them, but if I do, I’ll do it here.

The fact is, maintaining more than one blog is a lot of work. And I find that I am less and less inclined to do that. Maybe it is related to the fact that I no longer feel any ambition in that arena. (Thank goodness!) I love my blog, and I love posting every day. I am happy with what it now is, and feel no need to get more readers or have it be anything other than my little journal here on the Web. I found myself feeling tremendous pressure to read for the sake of reviewing and then feeling guilty because I wasn’t doing that.

I want to read because I love to read. At my own pace. For myself.

And the blog was linked to this blog on my host and I no longer wanted to worry about spam and hacking attempts or worry that someone would hack into this blog via JLMFTP. It takes too much energy and dealing with that kind of thing on this blog is more than enough.

So, it’s gone. I feel a twinge of sadness, but only a twinge. Since I haven’t posted in so long, you would probably not even notice its absence, but I wanted you to know, nevertheless. And if you do have it on your blog list, you can remove it.

The only reason my other blog, Through a Lens Daily, is still up is because it’s on Blogger and I can just leave it there. I also use it to catch up on other blogs through the blog list on the sidebar. I haven’t posted there in years!

One girl. One blog. And there you have it.

Happy Wednesday.

On Tuesday

October 3, 2017 at 9:44 am by Claudia

It takes a bit longer each morning for the light to sneak its way into the kitchen and living room. It’s colder, too, and I grab my shawl when I come downstairs. It’s that time in the fall when the mornings are cold (yes, I caved and turned on the heat) and the afternoons are warm and sunny. The seasonal change has definitely made its presence known here.

I deliberately stayed away from the TV news yesterday until the evening news came on. One must be informed, of course, but I also have to find moments and pockets of peace in my day. But, oh, my heart breaks for those who are suffering in this senseless tragedy, those who have lost loved ones, those whose lives will never be the same.

And, I don’t want to hear another politician who gets money from the NRA issue a statement about ‘love and prayers.’ If you ‘love,’ then show us that love by taking action.

I spent a lot of time working on the blog yesterday. Some plugins weren’t performing well – still aren’t, but I’m trying to remedy that. Because of a php update (don’t ask me to explain – I can’t) some of the plugins I use stopped working correctly. One of those was the plugin I use for Comment Replies. Many of you were trying to leave a comment and getting a message that it wasn’t working. It was, but who wants to go through that every time? I was getting the same message when I tried to reply to your comments. Plugins are the way in which WordPress sites can be modified and enhanced. The problem with them is that some developers stop updating them and they no longer work as they should. For some reason, comment reply plugins seem to suffer from this more than others. I finally found a new one that works, but if you’re use to seeing your name and email already there when you go to make a comment, you’ll have to re-enter it. More work being done today and I then I hope that’s it for a while.

Sometimes maintaining this blog is a pain in the tush.

Impressionistic early morning morning glory.

Happy Tuesday.

A Pat On The Back

Paring Down

On Tuesday

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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