PNewL PNewS
Volume 16 No. 2 “All the pnews that phits.” July 2008
Anyway, I tend towards the dramatic and so, six days into this new life I just wanna say, what the ^#**$?! was I thinking? How did I think I could handle this? Absolutely everything is new and out of my comfort zone and beyond my abilities. It makes me wanna barf…or hide under the covers or well…I am not to the jumping part but I can imagine getting there. OK, lotsa drama there.
Here’s the scenario (in case you missed this whole extravaganza I have created for myself). I was living a perfectly fine life in a beautiful resort community in Southwest Florida and other than the fact that the summer which lasts about five months drove me mad because of the obscenely hot weather and 18 other things I won’t go into here, I have made some of the best friends I had ever had and I had a pretty good set-up. That is, of course, the time I decided I should leave. And so that is how I got to where I am today.
I guess I would say I am at one of the many really yucky parts of moving. I KNOW it is a phase but here I am: I can’t remember why I thought this was a good idea or what I am supposed to do now. I can’t seem to do anything right. I am late places when I have no schedule. I arrive without coupons or the mail I wanted to mail or the address of where I am going, the phone isn’t charged and the grocery list is nowhere to be found. Everything is kind of a mess. When I step back and look at it, I realize it’s little messes, but it still drives me bats.
Recently, I bought a computer desk from a young woman moving to LA for graduate school who needed the money, and it came with two other pieces of organizational furniture and it is surprising how satisfying and productive a little thing like that can be. I have places to put things! Then I bought three little dining room chairs which match one I got from my parents. They make me happy, and, coincidentally, the woman I bought them from spends half her time in SW Florida and is a quilter (and she probably doesn’t need the money but probably wants the space). Finally, the true organizational queen of the house: I got a “hutch” for glasses and all that stuff so things are starting to look put away. And the best part is I bought it all used on Craig’s List (my new favorite time sucking device/black hole of time/hobby) so I am not adding (too much) to the consume consume consume problem in our country. Some days actually work out pretty well.
Others, however, don’t. More often than I prefer, it is before dawn and I am on the computer because I couldn’t sleep. I have things I would like to accomplish but I have a sneaking suspicion that I will be able to sleep when I would like to be busy and that could make for bad driving and/or inappropriate snoring and/or drooling. It's frustrating.
Perhaps by the time I get to writing the next edition of the PNewS, I will be over this rambling lost in a fog of no sleep and uncertainty-about-everything phase and I will sound like my usual whiney self. Meanwhile, at least my hair looks good. (Or it did when I first started writing this but as we all know and hope, hair grows and does different things as the weather changes, but I am feeling better able to handle it, which seems like a step in the right direction.)
• I love the internet. For the past several days, the little Oregon Scientific clock/alarm/indoor-outdoor thermometer has been ringing bright and early. I went online and found the manual!! Yahoo. I can’t find anything specific on the internet that does something about the dogs that bark all night a couple houses down but hopefully this too shall pass.
• I am very pleased with the new quilt group I went to (with celebrity quilter Patsy Thompson, a close personal friend, ahem). Despite a lengthy discussion of nametags and font sizes which boggled the mind, I was blown away by the caliber of talent in the room. I suspect at some point I will be exposed for the fraud that I am and they will ask me to leave (with a couple others I detected were a bit out-classed) but in the meantime, I will sit in awe.
• Getting accustomed to a new house is an interesting process. There are new noises…the hot water heater seems to go on rather loudly around midnight (does it have a watch? Should I be worried?) Late one night, a moth got stuck in a little spot around a window frame and sounded like an electrical rattling thing. (I got up to check it out and Ok I squished it but it had been on its way out—one can only take so much.) The creek out back ebbs and flows and gurgles based on rainfall. Then there’s always those things that go bump in the night.
• The latest thing I am grappling with as I settle in: Do you put your favorite art/photos where you can see them when you wake up or out there where everyone who comes to visit can see them? Do tell. Inquiring minds want to hang pictures.
• I have a had a bit of a problem getting hooked up to television (be glad I didn’t tell you the whole story of wrangling with the internet—oh my!) here in the woods. So I have now watched every videotape and DVD I own. Then I moved on to the supply at the local library. Buncombe County where I now live has an extensive library system (“You are never more than five miles from a library in Buncombe County!” they proudly declare, though I think that must be as the crow flies.) Anyway, the local video section doesn’t even fill two shelves so I am finding myself limited. The night before last, I watched State Fair (1945) and lo and behold this 60th Anniversary Edition includes the updated 1962 version starring Pat Boone, Bobby Darin and a 21 year old Ann-Margret. Oh my! Why they haven’t made a version since I don’t know—the music’s real snappy, but for now I think I have had quite enough State Fair.
• Going through Mom and Dad’s stuff back on Sanibel (including things like old bills and menus for dinner parties among other more precious items), I went back and forth from wanting to throw everything away to wanting to ask them questions about what where who when why. I came across a receipt from a time when Dad had to “Surrender to the Crown” some pepper spray. And I thought he was such a law abiding citizen!!
At least my hair looks good
I confess to being a bit of a drama queen. I am inexact in the words I choose and tend to exaggerate. Now that I have moved to a new place (I am not certain that it has really sunk in that I live here now, that this is not a brief visit), I want to choose my words more carefully so I don’t frighten people, so I don’t go off sounding like I am preparing to jump off the bridge. That is not the way to make friends and influence people.Anyway, I tend towards the dramatic and so, six days into this new life I just wanna say, what the ^#**$?! was I thinking? How did I think I could handle this? Absolutely everything is new and out of my comfort zone and beyond my abilities. It makes me wanna barf…or hide under the covers or well…I am not to the jumping part but I can imagine getting there. OK, lotsa drama there.
Here’s the scenario (in case you missed this whole extravaganza I have created for myself). I was living a perfectly fine life in a beautiful resort community in Southwest Florida and other than the fact that the summer which lasts about five months drove me mad because of the obscenely hot weather and 18 other things I won’t go into here, I have made some of the best friends I had ever had and I had a pretty good set-up. That is, of course, the time I decided I should leave. And so that is how I got to where I am today.
I guess I would say I am at one of the many really yucky parts of moving. I KNOW it is a phase but here I am: I can’t remember why I thought this was a good idea or what I am supposed to do now. I can’t seem to do anything right. I am late places when I have no schedule. I arrive without coupons or the mail I wanted to mail or the address of where I am going, the phone isn’t charged and the grocery list is nowhere to be found. Everything is kind of a mess. When I step back and look at it, I realize it’s little messes, but it still drives me bats.
Recently, I bought a computer desk from a young woman moving to LA for graduate school who needed the money, and it came with two other pieces of organizational furniture and it is surprising how satisfying and productive a little thing like that can be. I have places to put things! Then I bought three little dining room chairs which match one I got from my parents. They make me happy, and, coincidentally, the woman I bought them from spends half her time in SW Florida and is a quilter (and she probably doesn’t need the money but probably wants the space). Finally, the true organizational queen of the house: I got a “hutch” for glasses and all that stuff so things are starting to look put away. And the best part is I bought it all used on Craig’s List (my new favorite time sucking device/black hole of time/hobby) so I am not adding (too much) to the consume consume consume problem in our country. Some days actually work out pretty well.
Others, however, don’t. More often than I prefer, it is before dawn and I am on the computer because I couldn’t sleep. I have things I would like to accomplish but I have a sneaking suspicion that I will be able to sleep when I would like to be busy and that could make for bad driving and/or inappropriate snoring and/or drooling. It's frustrating.
Perhaps by the time I get to writing the next edition of the PNewS, I will be over this rambling lost in a fog of no sleep and uncertainty-about-everything phase and I will sound like my usual whiney self. Meanwhile, at least my hair looks good. (Or it did when I first started writing this but as we all know and hope, hair grows and does different things as the weather changes, but I am feeling better able to handle it, which seems like a step in the right direction.)
-----
Here’s my latest brilliant idea: I am going to write a How-to book about moving to the country by someone who has basically lived in the suburbs her whole life. I can include the part where I didn’t have hot water for a week thinking I was doing something wrong only to find the pilot light was out. (After brushing the four foot long snake skin away from in front of the hot water heater, I lit it all by myself.) And then there’s the part where I assumed I had to turn on the gas to the house which seemed too scary so I made coffee on the front steps on my camp stove until the neighbor came over and lit the stove on his first attempt. See? It’ll be informative, expose me as a moron and make everyone else feel like they are way ahead of my curve!-----
I cut out the comic strip Lola from the paper last week. She was at an anger management class and she said, “I have issues…None of which existed prior to Bill Gates…” I thought there must be someone I could send it to. After spending several hours wrestling with MS Word, I think I will keep it for myself. Be well.
-----
Things I am Learning
And Other Miscellaneous Observations
• When moving/packing, I vow to put all pieces of a thing (knobs, plugs, cords, shelf brackets, etc) in the same box so I won’t think I have lost them. It’s a hassle and a drag to worry about lost bits in the tangle of packing paper only to find them a couple boxes later. (Still missing the top to a little china teapot.)And Other Miscellaneous Observations
• I love the internet. For the past several days, the little Oregon Scientific clock/alarm/indoor-outdoor thermometer has been ringing bright and early. I went online and found the manual!! Yahoo. I can’t find anything specific on the internet that does something about the dogs that bark all night a couple houses down but hopefully this too shall pass.
• I am very pleased with the new quilt group I went to (with celebrity quilter Patsy Thompson, a close personal friend, ahem). Despite a lengthy discussion of nametags and font sizes which boggled the mind, I was blown away by the caliber of talent in the room. I suspect at some point I will be exposed for the fraud that I am and they will ask me to leave (with a couple others I detected were a bit out-classed) but in the meantime, I will sit in awe.
• Getting accustomed to a new house is an interesting process. There are new noises…the hot water heater seems to go on rather loudly around midnight (does it have a watch? Should I be worried?) Late one night, a moth got stuck in a little spot around a window frame and sounded like an electrical rattling thing. (I got up to check it out and Ok I squished it but it had been on its way out—one can only take so much.) The creek out back ebbs and flows and gurgles based on rainfall. Then there’s always those things that go bump in the night.
• The latest thing I am grappling with as I settle in: Do you put your favorite art/photos where you can see them when you wake up or out there where everyone who comes to visit can see them? Do tell. Inquiring minds want to hang pictures.
• I have a had a bit of a problem getting hooked up to television (be glad I didn’t tell you the whole story of wrangling with the internet—oh my!) here in the woods. So I have now watched every videotape and DVD I own. Then I moved on to the supply at the local library. Buncombe County where I now live has an extensive library system (“You are never more than five miles from a library in Buncombe County!” they proudly declare, though I think that must be as the crow flies.) Anyway, the local video section doesn’t even fill two shelves so I am finding myself limited. The night before last, I watched State Fair (1945) and lo and behold this 60th Anniversary Edition includes the updated 1962 version starring Pat Boone, Bobby Darin and a 21 year old Ann-Margret. Oh my! Why they haven’t made a version since I don’t know—the music’s real snappy, but for now I think I have had quite enough State Fair.
• Going through Mom and Dad’s stuff back on Sanibel (including things like old bills and menus for dinner parties among other more precious items), I went back and forth from wanting to throw everything away to wanting to ask them questions about what where who when why. I came across a receipt from a time when Dad had to “Surrender to the Crown” some pepper spray. And I thought he was such a law abiding citizen!!
--------
“Justice is what love looks like in public.” Cornel West
“Justice is what love looks like in public.” Cornel West
