It's a Funny Old Life

I've been doing some spring cleaning.  More a decluttering really.

I'm finding the older I get the more clutter bothers me.

I'm also finding that if some physical pain is plaguing me, my mood suffers.

Reading is really my refuge, and it can be a place I hide from life.

For a while it was about survival, now it is about learning to define myself in a different way.
More like leaning to see myself in a new way, and give myself creative license to be whatever this new me is.
I've started doing Deep Water Aquafit to get back into shape and not a moment too soon, let me tell you.
Feeling more portly lately and can see every corn chip and scoop of ice cream on my  belly and haunches.  I now know what lower back fat looks like and it's not a good look on me. Argh!!!
So I've been exercising for a month now and I feel physically stronger and muscles are beginning to be toned.. I actually have a core again.
Yay Moi!!!
Feeling a little cut off from the world right now and thought maybe blogging would jog my subconscious to float something to the surface.
Nothing Yet, I'll keep ya posted.
PS I'm not known for my sterling patience!  Just saying.

rubyslipperedsisterhood.com Made My Day!!!

I was on Twitter today and one of my Favorite Authors Darynda Jones had a post about the Ruby Slippered Sisterhood so I clik'd and a whole new world opened up.

I read the posts and comments and was compelled to communicate with them and share my Reading as Coping Strategy (read addiction,hee-hee)

So I shared some of my favorite authors and commented on a few other things.

The big news today was I discovered Boudreaux's Bookworms, a facebook group that shares news about books and authors and a whole world of being able to share my gushing admiration, of books, characters, stories.

Share my visual imagination, my personal preferences and best of all Learn about 

likeminded individuals perceptions about the same books/characters.

I, for the first time in a verrrra long time felt compelled to come to this blog and write.

For so long this blog was just a way for my Family(which is 2000 miles away from me) to keep up with how I'm doing.

It's been a rough few years for me, with a chronic depression and physical illnesses/surgeries that decked me and had my relatives worried.

I stopped writing because if I shared how I was actually feeling/doing my family would all call me on the phone worried.  I started to feel responsible for how they were feeling and it robbed me of my voice.  Sooo I discontinued the automatic email delivery feature of this blog, and then I just stopped writing.

Today writing a response and replies on the Ruby Slippered Sisterhood website I felt inspired and a part of something.

Sooo I'm here writing this for myself, kinda like a typewritten journal.

It's a Verra Goood Thing!

hugsallmar

Wow, Kimmi has given me inspiration to write...

August 29th, 2012

Received a message on Facebook from my friend of 30 odd years Kimmi.

She has started using Facebook and saw the link to my blog and read some entries.

She said she thought I wrote beautifully and that she could feel my pain.

Sooo I thought what the hey!  Let me jot down a few thoughts.

Firstly, thank-you Kimmi for being you, for making a comment, and for touching my heart.
Again. 
As Always, you seem to have a direct line to my insides.

It's been a colossally difficult few months.
Mutti was in the ICU for a couple of months, then in Hospital ward.
Now she is in a Nursing Home, and has Community Nursing Support to see if
she will be able to manage there.
It's been about a month and it's iffy but so far she's still there.

Aunt B. has pneumonia which sucks and makes my heart heavy.

Shae and Bob are wrung out from being sole support for Mutti's needs in and out of Hospital.

It's my Cousin Carol's Birthday today!  Happy Day Carol!

It's an emotional time in Windsor/A'burg these days.
The loss of Shawn in March.  Brehan,Alyssa & Deb's heavy heavy hearts.
Finding your way thru pain and loss of this magnitude is a life changer.
Coping with grief and navigating these difficult emotional seas requires
learning new strategies and cognitive steps to apply .
We have to build new pathways to move forward or fall prey to the danger of denial and alcohol to get from day to day.
Argh.....

Saying a whole bunch of extra prayers to the Universe to light the way for the People I love who are struggling.
HugsMar

Discerning Dish book blog is my new home........

Come visit me there, I read so many books as a coping strategy for my depression and anxiety--
I've decided to to a book blog---
Instead of delineating my miseries for public consumption a book blog takes my coping strategy and shares the fruits of my labour.
I hope to see ya there.

Helloooooo......is anyone in there?????

Soooo today I made it out of bed.
This is a good thing....
It's strange to think I just spent the better
part of 3 months in bed. Again.
This time I tried to do it more consciously.
I am out of emotional capabilities when I
return home from an extended stay with my family.

In order to cope when I am away, I medicate all the
symptoms of depression. If I didn't I would not last.
It enables me to maintain the socially acceptable Mar
Mask I have used to cope with the world at large for
the better portion of my life.

I fall back into the Entertainer, deflect all the
uncomfortable conflicts with humour.
the more self deprecating the better it works to sidetrack
people from the conflict they are immersed in. or
I just absent myself and go for a walk and catch
up with them later.

Sooo when I got home this time and started some
new therapy I made a conscious decision each day
whether I would stay in bed or not.
It's been good and bad.
I at least feel like I am responsible for the decision
versus, I do not have a choice.
I still feel like the Big L Loser for still having this
depression, and the guilt that comes from not being the
functional,employed earning my way person.

The new therapist has provided some insight into this
hamster wheel of emotion and guilt for having an
unremitting depression.
I have developed some new definitions for success.

So the first thing I have done in the last while
is to go on twitter and search out the authors
I love to read and thank them for their work
Their creations assist me to cope with my world.

I must try and blog more often. soooo I don't feel sooo lost.
Get my brain tho think on a different level.

Ahhh wlll, that's all for now.
later