life — Page 279

Sleep, Heat, Spiders, Books and Scout

March 22, 2014 at 8:55 am by Claudia

Spiderring2

Oh yes. I have a cool orange plastic spider ring, courtesy of my dentist.

Admit it. You want one, too.

Let’s see, what’s new?

• Don’s been talking to me on the phone about not getting enough sleep lately. I’ve decided we can no longer talk about that subject, because now I’m not getting enough sleep. Thursday night? About 2 hours. Last night? I woke up at 4:45 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Enough already. I didn’t know sleeplessness was catching.

• I’ve had a heck of a hard time controlling our thermostat this winter. It always seems to be either too hot or too cold, never consistent. I finally called our oil company and they sent someone out yesterday who confirmed that I wasn’t going nuts, the thermostat was indeed off by 4 degrees. He replaced it (it was the rather old fashioned kind with a dial that had little degree marks and was unbelievably hard to read) with a digital version. No more squinting and shining a flashlight on the dial to figure out what the heck the temperature is! And it works! I had also been hearing weird knocking/thudding sounds when the oil burner came on, so he did some adjusting and all is well. I should have, of course, called them about a month ago but I kept thinking I could figure it out. Silly.

• I finished reading The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (who is really J.K. Rowling.) What a great book! It’s a wonderful mystery with a lead character who is a private detective. I didn’t want it to end and I kept thinking to myself, ‘I hope she’s going to write another one! This would make a great series.’ Well, one thing about a Kindle that is extremely handy is this feature at the end of the book that lists other books you might be interested in. And there I learned that the next book in the series is coming out in June. Instant answer to my question. I preordered it. In that same listing I also discovered that Michael Connelly (one of my favorite authors) also has a new book coming out in a few months. I get excited by these things.

Anyway, I recommend this book highly. I never got into the whole Harry Potter thing. I tried to, but it just didn’t do anything for me, though I could clearly see what an amazing writer Rowling was. I really admire her for writing in another genre, for taking a risk when she obviously has more than enough money in the bank to never work another day in her life. Boy, she’s good!

Now I’m reading a book that I will review on Monday, so stay tuned.

• I managed to get some photos of squirmy Miss Scout. If she sees me pull out my camera, she immediately looks away, so timing is everything.

MissScout1

MissScout2

MissScout3

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Oh, she’s a handful, but she makes my heart sing. Yesterday I saw her loping along in the dog corral. The furnace guy was here and she loves visitors and it was warmer and the snow has melted in her corral, so she was happy. And that makes me happy.

• Tomorrow is our Linky Party for the Christmas Critter Felt Along. But the post will go up this evening at 6 pm. So, even though it is posting this evening, it’s officially the Sunday post for the blog. Does that make sense?

Happy Saturday.

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March 19, 2014 at 8:49 am by Claudia

snowmelting

It’s melting. Slowly but surely. The three different sections of snow in the dog corral used to be so high that I couldn’t see Scout as she walked the paths.

snowmelting2

And the chairs on the Funky Patio are recognizable once again.

A few more days of temps in the forties and most of it will be gone. Our local weather will still be on the cold side for the rest of March. Winter clearly doesn’t want to leave our neck of the woods just yet.

Thanks for all of the wonderful comments on yesterday’s post. It clearly struck a chord with many of you. You know, I was really trying to examine the curious process of aging, of seeing a reflection in the mirror that is no longer the same person you knew and how I myself struggle with that process. How do I come to terms with that? I sort of sailed through most of my fifties. It was only toward the end of that decade that I started to see some real changes.

I’ve lost about 10 – 15 pounds this winter by cutting out sugar. I have a sweet tooth but I found that after a few weeks without sweets, I didn’t crave them. I’d still like to lose more weight, simply because I feel better, have less aches and pains and more energy without the extra weight I was carrying.

I really am not someone who wants to color my hair. Though I said that sometimes it seems to make my skin look even paler, at the same time, I receive lots of compliments about my gray hair. I always have. I think it’s less about hair color for me and more about spirit, joy, an appetite for learning and growing and, finally, a happiness that comes from within. So, yes, maybe I’ll consider coloring my hair, but frankly? Probably not. I will put on makeup more often, however. I do feel better if I have it on when I’m in public. But don’t start thinking I’m going to go through some sort of makeover, unless we’re talking about a change in perception and attitude. That’s where the makeover needs to happen. Everything else is surface, and that’s perfectly fine, nothing at all wrong with that. But it isn’t any substitute for facing fear and the very real fact that we all age and have to come to terms with it.

I think the goal for me is coming to a joyous acceptance of being a certain age. That doesn’t mean giving up or giving in; it means embracing, exulting and knowing, deep within, that all one’s years of living are reflected in the lines on the face, in the gray of the hair, in the inner wisdom that shines through every pore of the skin.

It’s a struggle at times. I’ve been down lately. I’ve been homebound a lot. I seem to be on the edge of some transition with my career and it worries me. My mother has been ill. All of that is reflected in the way I see myself at this moment in time. Sometimes I call Don and cry. I did that yesterday. Life can be messy.

But on a good day, I have a twinkle in my eye and a great sense of humor, I have lots of love in my heart and a sense of the ridiculous, I’m really smart and, boy, have I learned a lot over the years. I dance around the house, I sing to my doggie, I make funny faces, I laugh a lot, I create, I write, I help others, I try to be of service.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Happy Wednesday.

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When The Person Looking Back At Me In The Mirror Is A Stranger

March 18, 2014 at 8:44 am by Claudia

Me. In an old sweatshirt covered in paint. No makeup. Hair still wet.

My bathroom mirror is the mirror I use most often. I don’t have a full-length mirror anywhere in the house. It’s the mirror I use to put on makeup, to check my hair, to gauge the way I look on any given day.

I think it may be a little on the kind side.

How else can I explain all the different and sometimes shocking glimpses I get of myself when I’m out and about? There’s the quick view I get of my profile as I walk by a shop window: who is that old woman? Or the view of my face and jawline when I’m sitting in the chair as I get my hair cut, with the sun streaming in on my left – oh heavens, I have to look away. Especially when the young woman cutting my hair has the flawless, tight skin of a twenty-something.

Or yesterday. I was in Lowe’s with no makeup on, and happened to catch my reflection in one of the bathroom mirrors that was on display. The overhead lighting at Lowe’s isn’t at all kind. My skin looked saggy, I had circles under my eyes. My jowl line seemed to be heading for the floor.

I was so shocked at the stranger who was looking back at me that I quickly moved away to another part of the store.

Are all these people me? How can I look so starkly different from the woman who looks back at me from the bathroom mirror? I feel like I’m trapped in some bizarre funhouse that leaves me unable to recognize the true me.

I call Don in a panic. And he says the usual things, that I look beautiful, that those glimpses I’ve been getting aren’t the way I really look. But he loves me and he sees me through love’s eyes. And I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong.

As much as I write about being ‘seasoned’ – my positive word for aging – I have real trouble with it sometimes. I’m 61. I tell myself that 61 is no longer what it was a generation ago. And though I have a few aches and pains, I don’t feel 61. I feel like I’m still in my forties.

My outside doesn’t match the way I feel inside. And I find it depressing.

How do we come to terms with that? How do I let myself age in a positive way? How do I accept the fact that I no longer look the way I did in my forties or in my fifties?

I’m going to be totally honest here: I miss the way I used to look.

I was a late bloomer who felt awkward and unattractive for many years until I hit my thirties and then I blossomed. I came into my own. I liked the way that Claudia looked.

I’m not so crazy about the present day Claudia’s reflection in the mirror.

Of course, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to slap some makeup on before I go out in public. But even makeup doesn’t go on the way it used to. And my coloring is different. My dark brown hair is now a mix of brown and gray, making my pale skin look even paler.

Look. I basically eschew the idea of plastic surgery, of fillers, of botox, of implants. Most of the time, they look ridiculous and, I think, draw attention to the fact that someone is trying to cover up the signs of aging, rather than successfully disguising them. And then, that’s all I see. I study the overly smooth, shiny skin on the cheekbone that doesn’t match the neck, or the way that person looks almost unrecognizable with skin pulled this way and that. I wouldn’t go under the knife, couldn’t afford to even if I wanted to, but I get it. I understand wanting to tweak things, to tighten up a sagging jowl line, to have the high, full cheekbones of yore, to feel young again. I understand wanting to see the me I know in the mirror, not the stranger who’s looking back at me.

It’s a challenge, isn’t it? How to age, to season, with grace and style and a modicum of class? That’s what I aim for. I want to accept who I am at this stage of my life, yet I don’t want to give up caring about the way I look. But I don’t want to care so much that I become unhappy with who I am now. Does that make sense?

That’s where I am today.

I’m going to be writing the occasional post on the aging/seasoning process. Heck, I’m in the midst of it, why not explore it? Maybe I’ll put them all together in a book someday.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, my friends.

Happy Tuesday.

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Sleep, Heat, Spiders, Books and Scout

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