"Once I was 7 Years Old"

The title of this post comes from the song "7 Years" by Lukas Graham.  The first time I heard it I was struck by the age he chose to use as the first age he sings about. For me, seven was the last age I remember being me, really me. After 8ish, I was increasingly consumed by my anger and acted/reacted to the world from an angry point of view. I chose anger and hiding instead of honesty and openness.

Being as blessed as I am with a husband who truly cares about me and my well being, he suggested I talk as much as I can about how the experiences I had and have are all clouded by the anger that started at 8. It has been hard and eye opening. I am no where near being done with this process but already feel better and more aware of why I feel the ways I do and how to deal with those feelings in my life now.

Now, to be real, I still have not been able to lose the weight I want to lose, or stop smoking, both things I know are a result of the choices and beliefs I started when I was 8ish. But I am able to talk about the choices I have made to get here and that is a necessary step in changing my belief in the need for bad foods and cigarettes.  I never have really wanted to see myself for who I really am and see that all the things that have happened to me and all the things I have chosen to do or believe affect my everyday actions and choices. It is very difficult to admit that I have done many things to myself that have put me where I am right now. Yet this uncomfortable feeling is a large piece of growth and change. 

The future is the real test to how much this self awareness will change me. I am hopeful that I can use this in the best way possible and motivate myself to get closer and closer to being me, just me.

 

 

Do you have childhood trauma that you hide from?
Do you struggle with anger and hurt?
How do you motivate yourself in the face of your own issues?

Love yourself because no one can really love you until you do.

Hugs!

Its Good For Me

Its good for you! 

Remember hearing that when you were young? I sure do. My parents often told me I should do something because it was good for me. I am not great with doing what's good for me; really, hearing that, whether I say it to myself or someone else does, makes me want to run to the opposite extreme, almost all the time. I know, I've got some issues. But its the truth, and I am clear about this in myself.

So recently, I came across an article about the results of repressing anger in childhood and a kind of self help therapy that seems to change people's lives. It was written by a neuroscientist, and  I thought it made sense so I started to do it. I call it punch/yell therapy. Basically, I go into my guest room and hit the bed and yell at my parents' mistakes that hurt me so badly. I yell and hit about them living in separate rooms, about pretending everything was okay, about ignoring me yet micromanaging my world, and then, I feel a little better. Sometimes, I am embarrassed to do it or angry that I must do it to help myself, but I have just decided to do it each time. Its good for me. :)

It has made me reflect on other areas of my life and how I am avoiding doing what's good for me. Rolling things around in my head; trying to get a bead on things.

Do you also avoid doing what's good for you?

Why do you think you do it?

Hope you all are well and trying to challenge yourself in some way, no matter how small. :)

Hugs!!

Why hello!!! Yes, Life is Interesting!!!!!!!

 . .  . everyone. :) 

Yet again, there has been a lapse in time since my last post and so much has been going on! Like, tons!!!

So for this first back at it post , I thought I would update y'all (yes, I live in the country so that verbiage is completely acceptable. :)) on the situation with our cats, an ongoing saga in our household.

As of last post, I had 5 cats, 4 cats I'd already had and a new addition, Winston, which you read in my last post had special needs.  Sadly, we only got one more day with Winston. He started having seizures  the next day and lost control of his bodily functions. He had several more seizures through out the day on Sunday, and unfortunately, I live about hour away from an emergency clinic (which is the only place open around here on a Sunday) and I knew that putting him in a crate and taking him to the vet would have been torture. So we made him as comfortable as possible and loved and pet him a lot in between seizures. We had a big fire all day and made the house super warm and before we went to bed, we loved him again and wished him good luck.

Fortunately, for his sake (because he seemed to be suffering a lot), he passed in the middle of the night on Sunday night. Even though I was sad, it was really the best thing that could have happened. He was not doing well, so life would have been hard for him. It would have been hard for us, as well. We had 6 other pets to think of and take care of as well as Winston, so it would have been a sacrifice of time to Winston in lieu of time with other pets and hobbies.

Life is definitely interesting, isn't it?

So you would think this is where this post ends but wait there's more!!

Around the time I adopted Winston, we had a stray cat hanging around our house and we decided to let him stay instead of trying to shoe him away.  When I first started feeding him, I thought he was a girl and pregnant. He was eating sooo much and looked he had a belly bulge. Well, apparently, he was just really hungry and ate a ton because when I took him to the vet and asked if he was pregnant, they came back and let me know not only is he not pregnant, but he is a boy and nurtured. Whoops!
His name is Booger, and he is really a lovely cat, about 2 years old or so. And oddly, he is our garage cat yet so sweet. We have actually made cat spaces for him in the garage, including a cat bed, a cat box, and food with water bowls. The garage window is being left open for him to go in and out
as he pleases.

So you might think THIS is the end of this post but wait, there's more!!!!!!

Two days after Winston died, I am sitting at my desk when I hear a knock on the door and see an adorable cat head in my door window. Yes, a cat head in a window that is 5 feet off the ground.  I open the door and the janitor had a cat in his arms and says that he heard I might want a new cat.  He had a cute little what I thought was a girl cat. We stashed her for the work day in a janitor's closet and I took her home at the end of the day.  I didn't have a cat carrier and just put her on the passenger seat of my car, thinking she would be wondering around the car on the 20 minute drive home, but she didn't. She laid there the whole way home. She has become my favorite cat already; she is sweet, and loving, and a killer. Yes, I have had many dead animal parts in our cat room since she's been here. WOOHOO, I got myself a killer!!  Her name is Isabella, and she is about 10 months old.

Alright, so here is the end of this post. I now have 6 cats and am officially on my way to being the crazy cat lady. Hee-hee!

Hope you are well and living life to the fullest!!

Thanks for not giving up on me!  Thanks for stopping by again!!  Hugs!!!!!

New Family Member

Introducing Winston

About a week ago, I got a new kitten. I have been wanting a new cat for a while now but hadn't found one that worked for us, either because of time or availability of a younger cat. We have 4 cats and in another post, I talked about my cats and why I wanted another one.

After going to a couple of PetsMarts many times and looking at ads on the internet over several months, I found a kitten, a 4 month old male, named Loki (now Winston) at a PetsMart.  I asked to look at him and the PetsMart worker let me go into the back, and she let Winston out and another kitten who was in the same cage. They were running on the floor in this small space and Winston was tripping over the other one (or so I thought). I picked him up, and he was very responsive to being held. He purred and relaxed into my arms. So . . .  of course I took him home. I held him on my lap for a while on the way home, and he was chilled and purring happily.

When we got home, I put him down on the ground, and he looked like he had a hurt back leg. He was tripping and kind of flopping his back end over, sometimes even dragging it.  He seemed to be doing better the next day, but I took him to the vet the next day just to be sure. The vet wasn't really sure what was wrong with him after a thorough check through; he mentioned it was possible that he had a certain condition but didn't think the kitten would seem better if he had that.

Well, after observing him for a while and doing research, it seems that he either got injured at some time that caused his back end to not work not, or he might have a condition called Cerebellar hypoplasia. Either way, we now have a special needs kitten. Although it may be more work than a regular cat, we decided to keep him and see how it goes. He may need a little hind leg support but he might just figure it out without it. So far he does walk around sometimes with hind legs dragging, and sometimes using them a little bit.

Winston is quite a lover kitten so far, and we have only had to do a few things to help him like get a food bowl on legs, and a high walled litter box my husband modified so he can get in and out easier. We also try to exercise his back legs when we hold him.


I'll keep you updated about how things turn out with this little guy. :) Isn't life interesting!?

Hugs!

Quilt Update

So here is a picture of the quilt I am working on. It is in the final stages and now I just need to cut off the excess from around the edges and sew the binding around that outer edge. It has taken me several months because I do not always want to work on it. Sewing, I have found, takes an enormous amount of patience on my part, and I do not always have the patience to sit down and work on it.

I find it ironic because my job requires a large amount of patience, and I am usually up for it. But I do find that once I am home, I do not want to be patient any more. Probably a big reason I do not have children of my own. By the end of the work day, and during vacations, I find I have lost a lot of the patience I have so naturally have at my job.

I do plan to finish my quilt within the next two days. I think I can get it done today, but I am giving myself two days to have the whole thing finished. One of the things I find is very funny about learning to sew the way that I am (with the book, Sew Everything Workshop) is that I often make things I do not need or want. Although I like this quilt, I have not need for it and am not sure what I will do with it once it is finished. I have pondered making another one and then giving one to each of my nieces.

Which coincidentally goes along with something that happened to me this morning. I am back in physical therapy to work on my right leg, which has gotten hurt over the last two + years of using it more than my left leg (which I catastrophically broke 2 1/2 years ago). One of the helpers heard me say that I had made a dog coat and asked me for the pattern. I thought about it and told her that she can just have the dog coat I made for my dog. She offered to pay for it, so we'll see about that, but really, my dog will not want it. (I tried it on him after I made it, and he didn't hate it but surely, didn't love it. Here is my post about that http://gettingtomenow.blogspot.com/2015/10/doggy-coat.htmlhttp://gettingtomenow.blogspot.com/2015/10/doggy-coat.html ). It just made me think about giving away more of what I make while I am learning. I did donate one skirt I made to a local thrift store because I knew I would never wear it.

Well, anyhoo, I will let you know about my finishing the quilt and will show you what it looks like int the end! 

Thanks for always coming back to read about my world! I have been fairly sporatic in my postings lately and will try to be more consistant in posting in the future.

Hope y'all are well and in good spirits! Happy holidays all around! Happy New Year's!!

HUGS!!!!!

Nebula In Purple

My favorite color is purple so naturally I have several paintings of nebula in purple. All three of the paintings are smaller ones, about 9" x 11" or so. I really like that all three are purple but look different. That's one of the things I love about painting nebula; you can use the same or similar colors in many paintings and yet they all look unique. 

The one thing that I have really gained from painting is a tiny view into the world of no limitations. Although I am still not always convinced of this notion, painting allows me to see a world of having no limitations and what that can come about from that kind of thinking. 

I really love the three paintings above! I hope you do something that results in things that make you really happy and loving what you did, whether its a product like a painting or the result of helped peopled.

How do you spend your non-work time? Is it all "other duties" or do you spend time doing things that you love and makes you feel good?

I love it when y'all throw out your ideas and leave some sort of comment!

Hugs! Thanks for stopping by!!

Our Baby is Home

Indy (10 months)  and Buddy (9 1/2 years)

So after driving over 8 hours to and from the Yreka area, my husband brought home our youngest family member, our 10 month old chocolate Labrador retriever. As I told you in a recent post, Indy was at hunt school for 5 months. I have missed him a ton!

First thing about him is that he is a big 10 month old. Our 9 year old Lab is a pretty big lab at 75-80 lbs. (not a fat lab, just big), and Indy is already taller and longer than him. Second thing about him is that he is thin, really thin. He has been growing so fast that his body has not been able to put on weight, and he looks a little bit emaciated. The trainer let us know that they continually increased his food to get him to gain weight, but it just wasn't happening yet. We'll get him fattened up eventually so I 'm not worried about him.

We took Indy to the vet, and he said he looks healthy, even if he is thin. He already weighs 66 lbs. He recommended high energy food, puppy food, or adding hard boiled eggs to his food. I am going to start with adding eggs to his food to see how that effects his weight.

Indy is a lovely puppy who is calmer and more casual than Buddy, our first dog. I am so excited to see him grow and see what kind of dog he will turn out to be. So far, it seems like he will be a great hunting pal AND house dog.

Do you have a dog, or a  pet? I would love to hear about the animal family members in your life!!

Hugs!!

Thank you for stopping by!!!!!!

I Love Space!!

Years ago, a friend of mine started painting, and it occurred to me that I wanted to paint, also. But when I started painting, I wasn't happy with the things I was painting so I started looking around for something new to paint, and I found nebula. 

I wasn't really sure what they were, but from the moment I saw one, I was hooked! The colors are amazing and the variety of them are awe inspiring!

I did some research about nebula and then I liked them even more. I love that they are often the left over gas from an exploding star and then the birth place of new stars and planets. The idea of nebula being a visual example of death and rebirth is thought provoking and intriguing. 

If you have never looked into what a nebula is, go Google that shit! They are amazing and maybe they will blow our mind like they did mine!!!

HUGS!!!!!

Puppy's Coming Home!!

Indy Sept 12, 2015

I did a post a while ago about sending our puppy, Indy, to hunting school where he was learning obedience and learning to become a hunting dog. He went there on June 27, and we thought he would be gone for 3 months or so. Well, its been more than 4 and a half months, and my husband goes to pick him up on Wednesday, Nov. 18. I am so happy that he is coming home yet I am a little apprehensive about having 2 dogs in the house and in our world. 

Overall, though, I am excited to have our second puppy coming home so we can really get to know him and start taking him out into the field to duck hunt with us. I am so interesting in seeing him work on retrieving ducks and how he responds to being in the field, really hunting with us. Our older dog, Buddy, is extremely excited about hunting, so much so he is a little jumpy and often doesn't want to wait to be released to go get the bird. 

Our trainer told me Indy was what he called a casual dog. I didn't really get it until I saw the trainer working with Indy. Indy did what he was asked to do yet he did it very nonchalantly. Yet when the trainer got out a bird wing, Indy got very interested; he got very birdy, which means he was very, very excited about getting the bird smelling thing. 

So, it should be interesting to see what our new dog is all about. I will let you know!

If you have pets, love them!!

Hugs!

Exploring in Painting

Green Tin Painting 1

I decided a while ago that I wanted to try to paint a nebula on to a different kind of surface. We had recently changed our water heater, and there was a piece of metal pipe left over. So I took it and cut it and hammered it flat. I spent some time cleaning it to get it back to the pretty silver underneath the dust and dirt. I thought the color on the outside would look best for the nebula I was thinking of doing. The above picture is the first layer of the painting. 

Green Tin Painting 2

The second layer has lighter shades of green combined with the first layer of a grass green. 

Green Tin Painting 3

In this layer I added some black and a thin layer of very light almost white green.  I am always trying to get a cloudy look to my nebula paintings and it usually requires many different layers. 

Green Tin Painting 4 

Again more layers of several colors of green, some white, and black. I was struggling with this painting in deciding when I should stop panting. This often happens because I can see many endings as I paint yet I am often interested in what it might look like if I  . . . . 

Green Tin Painting 5

After the taking the last picture, I decided that it was ready for the stars. For this painting, I used both white and a very, very light green to make the stars. I never know how many stars there will be or where the stars will be when I start starring the picture. I am happy with how this experiment of painting on tin turned out and have been inspired since to paint on different mediums.

This was really fun to do :) and it challenged me because the paint acted differently on metal as apposed to the canvas I usually paint on. Yet totally worth any difficulties I encountered! 

Challenge yourself and try something new!

Hugs!!

Dressing Up

Vampire Me

I really like dressing up for Halloween, and my job allows me to dress up, as long as it is within our dress code. But I was at a conference on Friday, thus no dressing up for me. I was bummed especially because my husband had bought us new vampire teeth. 

I got home form my conference on Friday afternoon, and my cute husband suggested we dress up on Halloween and maybe go to a community party. Well, I had just got home from a 3 day trip and kind of wanted to stay home for the weekend, BUT I also wanted to dress up. 

We decided to dress up and stay home. So we carved pumpkins (ones we grew over the summer) during the day and in the after noon we both dressed up as vampires. I like the dark clothes and light skin vampire look. The clothes are from my closet, and I was stoked I could wear these heels, even if it was only for a few minutes. I got these shoes right before I broke my leg. I haven't been wearing a bunch of high heels since then and I have never worn these since I broke my leg. So Yeah!

I did my eyes in shades of back and deep pinks and a shimmery pink on top. I chose jewelry that is not silver and looks kind of old. I think the overall look was pretty good!

I waned to include this picture for two reasons. 

1) You can really see the color of my hair in this picture and I am loving this color. I do it myself and am so proud that the color is so great. I went to many hair dressers who could never seem to get the color right so a few years ago, I started experimenting with color myself. Now I do it once every 6 weeks or so. 

2) The difference between this picture and the two before it is not time of day or light outside. It is the result of turning the flash off. I totally thought I needed a flash because it was dusk, no sun out at all. But the reality was that the flash was changing the picture quite a bit. 

Okie dokie, that's all for today. :)  

I hope you indulge in things that make you happy and that are fun for you! 

Hugs!!

The Wall Painting

Mural in my Guest Room

Several years ago, I decided to paint a wall in our guest room as a huge nebula. Through a discussion with my husband in which he encouraged me to try something new, I decided this would be fun and new and challenging. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, really. 

When I started painting it, I figured it would take me a month or two. But that estimate was based on pure guess since I had never painted anything anywhere near this big. 

I started with colors first and covered almost the entire wall with various colors and tons of layers. These steps took months, like 4 months. Because I have painted many nebula before this, I knew that the layering of the colors would take some time. To really get the cloudy effect of a nebula, I used a sea sponge and layer after layer of color, often using different hues of the same color. 

The next step was the black. I learned after painting nebula for a bit that if I start with black and then try to cover it with color, the color never was very vibrant or bright. So I started beginning with color and then adding the black. It really worked for me. The colors are more bold this way and made it so I could really decide the shape of the nebula. With the mural, I had a hard time deciding how much of the edges of the wall should be black. I knew I did not want the whole wall to be color with a little bit of black, but I wanted to have a lot of explosions of color. I started at the edges with black and moved the black in until I liked the look of each section. Then I went through and added black in the center areas. The whole black process took 2 months or so.

The last step was to add the starts. It is hard to see in the picture above that there are hundreds of stars on the wall. I used white, pink, and green and used a few different small paint brushes to add a plethora of stars. That took me a month or so. I love this part of painting nebula; it seems to me that when I add the stars, the painting comes to life. :)

This painting was difficult in that it was so big I felt I could see every tiny part I didn't like, which made me continue to paint things over and over. In the end, I learned a lot about color, layers, my tools, and myself. I wanted to give up so many times and just repaint the wall white, but I did not. I just kept going back to it and with time, energy, effort, persistence, and determination, I finished it!

And I Love It!!!!

Hug!!

One of My Favorite Nebula Paintings

Center Nebula

This was one of the first nebula paintings I did that was not a whole canvas nebula. I was thinking that it would be interesting to paint a small part of a nebula instead of a larger view.  When I started painting and for probably 15 years after, I only painted nebula. I am really in awe of nebula, and to me, they represent how I believe life works. A nebula is the left over gases from a star dying. But then it becomes the material that forms new stars and planets. Kind of a death and reincarnation of sorts. This has intrigued me from the moment I learned about nebula so I used to  paint them exclusive.

I love how this painting turned out. It is cloudy and spontaneous and lovely. As with many of my paintings, this has many layers and took a couple of weeks to finish.

The following are some of the stages of this painting. There were many more steps; unfortunately, I did not document every step.  As you can see, the painting takes shape over time.

I really don't have a clear idea of what the painting will look like before I start a nebula. Other paintings I have done with a certain subject in mind are often formed overall in my head even before I start painting, but it has never been that way while painting nebula. I may have a thought about color or a concept yet the nebula paintings have always evolved one their own as I paint them. I learned early on not to fight what the canvas and paints want because it always turns out unsatisfactory to me. If I let go and let the paints and colors and shapes guide me, I end up loving the end result.

 So what do you think? Do you do something that takes many steps to get it right? 

Please, share about your hobbies and the time, energy, effort, persistence, and dedication you put into doing it well!!

HUGS!!

Doggy Coat

Since my last post was about my cats, I thought I would make this one about my dog; well, related to my dog. Several months ago, I made my dog a coat. As I have stated in a couple of past posts, I am learning to sew, and this is one of the projects in my book. The pattern in the book was for a small dog so I had to alter the coat for my dog who is pretty big, about 75-80 lbs.

The outside is a canvas camo fabric that I recycled from old curtains I made and didn't like. The inside of the coat is a purple fleece fabric that was left over from a coat I made for myself. Buddy, my dog, seemed to like it, and he seemed willing to leave it on until I took it off of him.

I made this for him a year or so ago and didn't think he would ever want or need to wear it. Now he is 9 years old, I can see that in the near future, he might enjoy it help him deal with joint pain. We'll see. :) Nonetheless, I enjoyed making it, and  I learned a few new things while making it, as I do with every project from this book.

This picture isn't great, but it shows the purple fleece on the inside. :)

Side view 

Front view

The coat has two straps, one in the front and on his chest right past his front legs. they are secured with Velcro strips. I totally did not think the Velcro strips  would hold, but hey really did. He laid down, and they did not come apart. I chose the camo outside because Buddy is our hunting dog, so, of course, his clothes should be camo and the inside color is because I love purple and fleece. 

I thought it was kind of a ridiculous project when I first saw it, but as I stated, I learned something about sewing and was able to prove myself wrong about something, the dog liking the coat. Sewing is an interesting hobby in that it ultimately produces a product of cloth but really does so much more. It is about follow through, precision, learning in a many, many step  process, dedication, pride: really, the list could go on and on. 

Thanks for reading! 

Hugs!

Love Cats :)

 This is Cesar; he's 5.

What can I say? I really love cats! Most of my life has involved a cat or two or more.  Right, now I have 4 cats and had, at one time, 9 cats. No, I am not a crazy cat lady. We have 4 cats now because we live in  the country with about an acre of land, and they are excellent pest control. We had 9 at one time because, at the time, we owned 3 cats and then found a litter of 6 abandoned and abused kittens that we nursed back to health and found home for 4 of them. Yes, we kept 2. :)

Don't get me wrong, I do love dogs, (I have two dogs) but I have always just had a thing for cats. For several years of my young childhood, my first cat, Butterscotch, slept in my bed, under the covers with his head on a pillow, like a small furry baby.  I sooo loved that cat!!  Although I think that having a slightly unstable family led me to get a great deal of comfort from that cat and many after him, so my affection for this particular animal is definitely biased.

Luther, he's 9

Right now while I am trying to write this, Cesar is trying to worm his way onto my lap, where my laptop is, of course, because he is a cat. This is one of the things I love about cats, their insistence to live their lives how they want to regardless of what others want. In return, they give an enormous amount of companionship and some even let you cuddled them. :)

Rocky; he's 11

I am in the process of planning when to get a new kitten. Yes, I know, I already have 4 cats, but 3 out of my 4 cats are close to useless when it comes to killing vermin. So, I was going to get one a few months ago, but I lost 2 cats in the last 5 months to something in the wild, a bear, bobcat, raccoon, something.  I am a little apprehensive about getting a kitten right now. But soon, our household will have one more cat. :)

Toni; she's 7

The pictures in this post are the cats we have now.  The first two, Cesar and Luther, are our newest additions. These were my husband's dad's cats. We adopted them when my husband's dad could no longer care for them. It was the first time I have gotten cats that were so old already. The oldest cat we had adopted before them was one year old. They took some time getting used to their new life but have become happy members of our pet family. However, these two were declawed (no, not by me) and they are not a great additions to the pest control team

Rocky is our old guy that we have had since he was a kitten. Oddly, he was the runt of the litter yet turned out the be a giant cat. His head is the size of a softball and he weighs 20 pounds, and no, its not fat, he's just huge. And he kicks ass! I have seen some gnarly cuts from fights on this cat. But a sweet, sweet cat, a giant teddy bear to people. He used to be a super hunter in his younger years, and I know he still hunts a little, but he is really not helping the pest control much.

The last picture is Toni, the only female cat in the house right now, and she is bat shit crazy. Yes, you read that right. She really is! I love her, don't get me wrong. She is one of the kittens we found abandoned in a field by our local lake. Some one had burnt their whiskers and cut their ears, and then left them in a hot field to die. My husband went there with our dog and found them. They were tiny and messed up. We were able to get all of them back to good health and kept 2 of them. One died of FHP a year later,  Toni survived and has been around ever since, but she is super kiddish and fearful of people. I do not blame her but she is really more like a feral than a house cat. We do get to pet and pick her up occasionally, which we try to do as much as she'll let us to keep trying to prove that not all people are bad.  On the very positive side, Toni is a killer. She is fast, small, stealthy, and camouflaged which is a truly lethal combo. The lead and mainly only pest control cat we have now. 

So what are your thoughts and/or feelings about cats? Seems like ,many people have strong feelings about cats, one way or the other, and I'd love to hear what you have to say. 

Love a cat!

Hugs!