There was no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.
— Quentin Crisp,
The Naked Civil Servant, 1968
Recently, a friend of this blog wrote on her blog that “A friend of mine and her partner contribute meaningful articles on their blog every day…and I do not mean comments like “well I guess I’ll sign off and start dusting!!!”
Well, not to be disrespectful, today I’d like to focus on “dusting.”
The reason for this is that despite the fact that housekeeping isn’t my #1 interest in life, I’ve spent a fair amount of the time that I’ve been working on clearing out my folks’ house trying to create spaces that are clean enough to “live-in” temporarily.
I’m the kind of person who likes to see the change when I clean. To some extent, I need Continue reading » Digging Out
What do YOU do when a case of the coulda-woulda-shoulda’s seize your brain?
E-mail me at Ellie@BouncebackCafe.com or leave a comment at the end of this post. We love hearing from you!
Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one’s liberty.
— Unknown
A Minor but Satisfying Victory
Shortly after the holidays I experienced a minor but very satisfying victory. Sometimes it’s BIG stuff that throws me for a loop. Sometimes it’s little teeny stuff that throws me for a loop. This time it was the latter… here’s my story:
Late on a post-Christmas evening, just before the stores closed, I was driving from one store to another feeling quite smug about the complicated transaction I’d just navigated. (Returning merchandise, finding just the right replacement, using up a frequent-buyer award before its expiration date… all in all, getting a very good deal for my trouble.)
When it hit me like a brick – I’d forgotten to ask for the senior discount! Compound that stupid mistake with the fact that the only reason I’d ventured out amidst the after-holiday retail melee was because it was senior discount day!
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Thus began this silly sashaying debate: Continue reading » When Coulda-Woulda-Shoulda’s Seize Your Brain
 What unacknowledged blessings and beauties are right before your eyes?
E-mail me at Ellie@BouncebackCafe.com or leave a comment at the end of this post. We love hearing from you!
What is the good of our stars and trees, our sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?
— E. M. Forster
It was only yesterday that I once again rejoiced over my working-from-home status. And yet today I’ve had a change of heart. Let me explain…
Yesterday…
You see, yesterday I went for an early (very early) morning walk. And while an endless straggle of “let’s get this over with” exercisers numbly plodded by, I was quietly mesmerized by the landscape, the burbling of a nearby fountain, the ringed ripples rolling ’cross the lake, the twisted beauty of the peeled Eucalyptus bark. And I reveled in the simple luxury of being able to linger along the path instead of feeling hemmed in by the commuter schedule I used to endure.
All in all, my wandering walk was an uplifting beginning to a busy, working-from-home day, a lovely interlude I would have missed had I been among the commuter crowd. Our blogging friend, Sarah of CowsFromMyWindow.com says it so intriguingly: Continue reading » Whenever and Wherever I Am…
Dear Caregivers —
Whatever challenges you face in caring for your loved ones today, know that with the passage of time these challenges will change. The current issues will fade, and there will be a new set of challenges awaiting you to solve…or at best, survive. When you’re feeling like you can no longer persevere, remember you are warriors and time and patience are your allies. Hang in there!
— TenderLovingElderCare.com
As a child, I was raised with a sense of paranoia about the unknown that continues to affect me to this day. Because I am the eldest and also the one who was “most responsible” as a child, I assumed that I would be the one to take care of my parents as they aged.
We have a long history of taking care of elder bodies in the family. Although my maternal grandparents died relatively young, their siblings lived into their eighties and nineties and my parents both shouldered the responsibility of taking care of them. For these folks, that meant Continue reading » A Fine Line – Caring for Elder Bodies
Do you ever feel the need to get “outside yourself”? How do YOU do that?
E-mail me at Ellie@BouncebackCafe.com or leave a comment at the end of this post. We love hearing from you!
An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.
— Mitch Hedberg
In my last post I wrote: “I’m weary from all this introspection…” And, thinking back over the last several weeks’ posts, I realize that I’ve been busy:
- Mucking up and messing with my psyche
- Shaking up my world-vision and then letting it settle
- Clearing my mind
- Asking “wouldn’t-it be nice-if”
- Immersing myself in Judith Sills 3-step-process
- Dumping my excess baggage
- Tearing my eyes away from the rearview mirror
- Dancing my way into change
- Figuring out what motivates ME
- Living like I was dreaming
- Saying “Ah that’s interesting” instead of “Oops”
- Sha-booming, sha-booming forward
In my last post I decided to temporarily retreat to “my mental spa”. Today I concluded that this retreat-thing is helping me “settle and clear” – so I took another mental health day – a day as free from introspection as I could make it!
Here’s Your Sign
Ellie Temporarily Extrospective, Sorry for the Inconvenience.
And to accompany the sign, my plan: Continue reading » Sorry for the Inconvenience
|
|
|
Posts
Comments
Recent Comments