Since I'm off work and have time...

From Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, Book II, number IV:

Why should any of these things that happen externally, so much distract thee? Give thyself leisure to learn some good thing, and cease roving and wandering to and fro. Thou must also take heed of another kind of wandering, for they are idle in their actions, who toll and labour in this ife, and have no certain scope to which to direct all their motions and desires.

Sometimes we get caught up way to much in making it through life without actually living, including improving our own lives and our minds. I'm certainly guilty of that. I often find myself too tired to do anything that enriches my soul, even reading or hobbies. I think it's important to spend time with yourself, cogitating, or simply being, but I need to make more of an effort to do so, even if I have to set aside time in my schedule to do so. I think many of us are in the same boat, don't you? It's so hard to stand still in modern society. Too much information, too little time, and we are looked down as idle if we sit and think or otherwise enrich ourselves with study or art. It's very sad.

I know all this, but it's so hard to do it. It's definitely something I've been giving some thought to lately. And in an effort to keep afloat, I recently put in for a part-time job, which will really help me, but take away even more time. I really need to rethink how I spend time entirely, and reduce the distractions that keep me from really living.

The last few days have been

very nice. I've read.  I've relaxed, taking a nap here and there.  I've listened to music, and I've done stuff around the house like raking leaves (again) to try to get ready for the vacuuming truck that comes by.  I got 2/3 of the yard done this afternoon, and I'll try to do the rest tomorrow.  I came inside to hydrate and got caught up in a 'Black Mirror' episode, and realised I was really tired and with the game called off tomorrow, it could wait till tomorrow, when the weather's supposed to be a little better anyway.  I have a two-foot pile of leaves in the road verge at the moment; it'll just grow a little bigger.  Most of the main leaves are already there.

Tomorrow I'll do my normal Sunday tasks: floors, bathroom, trash/recyclables, laundry, and cat litter boxes.  I did the dishes tonight so I think they're okay.  But the evening will visitation for the little lady who died, whom I cared a good deal about.  I'm going to take my friend over that afternoon to help with my other friend, who will be in a wheelchair so he can attend the family hour of visitation, and then I'll come at the regular time for the public.  I would take our friend, but my car is an old Ford Taurus that is so low to the ground that we have trouble getting in and out of it, much less someone with mobility issues.  I am not a big fan of visitation--I find it a bit morbid, to be honest.  But for her, I'll do it.  She was such a wonderful person, who lit up a whole room.  I was looking at Thanksgiving flowers the other day and found myself thinking about bringing some, and then remembered that she was gone.  That's the worst thing, I think, after someone dies--all the little things you want to share with them that evaporate in your mind as soon as you realise they have passed and you'll never share with them again.  It brings the pain up all over again.  That was certainly the case for me when my mom died.

So for now, though, I'm listening to Mumford & Sons, trying to decide whether I should 1) go to bed or 2) read some more.  The book (Kate Morton's The Distant Hours) is very well-written, the prose is lovely, and I'm about 50 pages in and I like how it's unfolding.  But I'm a little tired.  I'm in my pyjamas and I've brushed my teeth.  I'm ready for bed.

Today I got something I'd ordered as a lightning deal from Amazon, which I almost never do.  It's 128 GB SD card that is meant to go in a camera but can also go in laptops with the right reader, and I have one on mine.  I got it for $19.95, which was roughly half of the normal price, and it works, it's inserted into my computer, and I've backed up some files to it.  It's not great as a long-term storage option (they do break down over time, just like flash drives), but it was cheap and easy and while I have my documents backed up in other places (OneDrive, Dropbox), after what happened with the Windows update in October when I lost all my documents, I thought that it would make a good local option that wasn't at the mercy of cloud providers, and I can't afford a USB removable hard drive at the moment.  Also, if something happened to my laptop I could just switch out the card like I do with the microSD card in my phone (that has pictures and music on it).  So we'll see how it works out.   I took a few minutes earlier to back things up to the card and to the cloud.  I need to do that with the desktop, which YKWIA uses.  I also spent some time yesterday at the storage unit (looking for a couple of cutting boards, with no luck) and found my Civilization IV game, and so I pulled out the old DVD-ROM external drive I have here (it's from when computers didn't have them yet, and my computer is so 'advanced' it doesn't have one at all, so even though it's a little slow and clunky, it works--although not to play CDs lately, something in one of the Microsoft updates apparently broke that, too, so I guess the only CDs I'll buy in the near future are ones with AutoRip, where they do it for you, as otherwise, I can't get the CD music on my phone.  Anyway, it does work for CD-ROMs, and I was able to get the game onto this computer, so I'm happy, as it's one of the few games I ever play consistently.

Okay, I guess I'm just babbling about my life now.  It's going pretty well.  Work is still stressful but not as much as it had been.  I am very blessed right now.  I do feel a little guilty posting the pictures of Thanksgiving and the abundance of food for two people.  I live paycheque-to-paycheque, and I don't feel particularly affluent at all, but on the other hand, I have so much compared to some--a home to go to, food to eat, great companionship, and relatively good health, really.  I don't mean to flaunt it, but I think of the homeless, or the starving children in Yemen, or the refugees seeking asylum, etc., and I do feel guilty, although I really was just trying to express how grateful I am for life right now.  I don't have enough money to donate to any causes right now, it's been a struggle lately, and we had to pool our resources to make Thanksgiving happen, but maybe I could volunteer some time around Christmas.  Which reminds me, I guess I need to get some cards to send out.  We don't really celebrate Christmas, as I'm pagan (I celebrate the Winter Solstice, Yule) and YKWIA is Jewish.  But the holiday season is still a good time to think of others.  Chanukah, which of course is a minor holiday in the Jewish year, although most Christians, I think, just see it as Jewish Christmas, is coming up quickly--it starts December 2nd.  My plan is to get YKWIA some good house shoes, as his shoes have nearly died.  (I can say that here, as he doesn't read my blog, because as he puts it, he knows what goes on in my life).  But I'll have to wait till the next payday, which happens in the middle of Chanukah.

Okay, the cat wants to cuddle, the music has stopped.  Time to go to bed.  Good night.

Sombre yet uplifting quote of the day...

From the song 'Life's for the Living' by Michael Rosenberg (aka Passenger):

Don't cry for the lost, smile for the living,
Get what you need and give what you're given.
Life's for the living, so live it, or you're better off dead.

So, randomly I did my taxes this morning before work. I had another productive day, boxed up books, had a meeting, did my afternoon data entry, and I listened to Passenger's All the Little Lights while I did that, and this struck me as a little profound, so I'm sharing here.

Live and love life while you have it. Hold on to those you have while you have them. Give back what you're given. Repeat.

Words of wisdom

found on a sign being sold at Meijer some time ago. I couldn't afford to buy it (I think it was something like $20), but I loved it so much I took this picture.

Yep...

Between a child's sense of adventure and everything from 'Tarzan' to 'Gilligan's Island' to Indiana Jones, this really seemed the case. And I am still waiting for the flying cars from 'The Jetsons'.

Thought-provoking

I think I've shared this before, but I saw it again, and it still is very interesting.

I probably whine far too much

I had an interesting conversation with our copier tech that was primarily about two things--appreciating life as it is, and remembering that whenever we think we're having a bad day, there are plenty of examples of people who are truly destitute, ill, etc., who live their lives despite terrible odds. An example is a mission trip he went on to Mexico, where he couldn't figure out why the village children kept staring at his shoes. They were people living around an old abandoned auto plant, sheltering in big storage containers and tapping into a water pipeline for plumbing. Most of them had no shoes, and some had never had shoes. His mission group, as they left, wound up giving every shoe in the group away, and in fact, emptied their suitcases and pretty much returned to the US in just what they were wearing.

It's something that really brought the point home. He wasn't preaching any religious or philosophical belief, we were just having a discussion, but it was an appropriate one, especially given how things have been difficult for me lately, and then the fact that I'm having another birthday in a couple of days. I learned to appreciate life more fully after getting hit by a car, but I haven't really done much to increase the meaning of and participation in life. That's something I really need to work on. And I'm going to start by having a better attitude in trying to solve my issues, and be grateful for my life. So now, as I begin my own 'personal' year, I'll do little things that will improve my life overall, with the hope of a cumulative effect. And I'm going to stop whining, so you don't have to listen to it. It's better to meet life head-on, don't you think?

Yesterday I wrote

a long post about how several people I knew of tangentially had died recently and how important it was to live life to the fullest, and how it got me thinking about how much I react to life rather than living it.

Blogger ate that post.

It had been a bad day, one in which I'd felt totally ignored by my doctor, had felt bad due to high blood sugar, managed to make it through work and get things done but accomplished nothing at home, that sort of thing. Oh, and I started to cry at the drop of a hat for all sorts of things, and I shouldn't be hormonal right now. I was just oddly labile, for no good reason. I guess I forget that even though my meds keep me on a fairly even keel (I am bipolar), there will be bad days. And I'm sure the sugar issue didn't help. Insulin is a hormone, and so maybe my hormones in general were messed up. YKWIA also suggested that I look up perimenopause and its effect on blood sugar. My periods are getting shorter and more closely spaced, and I'm 44, so I may be starting to have issues. It's a good suggestion.

Anyway, today was much better. I felt clearer and could think straight. I felt well, both physically and emotionally. I got up early for my last session of physical therapy, and that helped my neck a great deal. My foot did hurt a bit, but ibuprofen helped. And I did get a lot done at work. I hope to get some things done tonight here at home as well.

Speaking of which, if I'm going to, I need to sign off of here for now. I may write a little later. If not, good night.