Time to Come Home to Myself

I've been gone a long long time..it was August, when I last posted here, or even looked at it. I've been in a sort of functional fugue state..a post traumatic stress period...life became so invaded, so intruded, so totally empty of any protection or security, lost in the unfamiliar, chaotic, repulsive and threatened world of a terrible contractor experience..I lived in 2 rooms of my home..all that I have was displaced, my bathrooms gone, my clothing and daily items moved, bagged, boxed or lost...strange day laborers in my bedroom and my one bathroom there each day while I was forced to be at work, dust, filth permeated every inch of my house, items were taken, work was shoddy and sporadic, and I was threatened by a bullying owner for more and more money throughout, even though I had naively signed the insurance checks over to him before the "job" started...struggling all hot summer to live and maintain myself in the unfamiliar, unsafe world my home had become..and taking a grandson into live with me at the same time...it was the the most difficult situation I have faced in a long time...I was Scarlet OHara, my oh my how I had always identified with her spirit and survival instincts...I became Scarlet..wearing my drapes as a proverbial gown, with dignity and silent fears, terror of financial collapse, my home a disaster zone...I was on the ground as she was...it was all I had left...and I am JUST waking up..they aren't done, but I needed to stand up to the cursing threatening contractor on more than one occasion...they thought they had a foolish trusting patsy in me...but no, I have begun to reclaim my strength to stand up for the shabby work and unacceptable treatment, record and produce the facts (I'm a very wise documenter of details) and get them done AND OUT OF HERE FOR GOOD...then I will inform my insurance company of the tactics of the "highly recommended" (by the insurance adjuster) contractor....I really could write a book...I can finally breathe and bathe...nothing is perfect, but sometimes and perhaps better, is that the pain will end, and I can come HOME...and be at home in me.....

Long Time No Post

It's been so long since I blogged that I forgot how to access my own account! Or maybe the remodeling horror story has evoked an early Alzheimer's type response from over- exposure to inhalation and consumption of white dust and construction residues. I forgot that for a minute or two while I tried to remember my email name...very bad sign, I'd say!!!

I'm so tired right now that all I can say is I am still here, roomless except for one toilet, shower and sink in the master bedroom which I must regularly share with strange men and day laborers who don't even put the seat down-the toilet, not my bedroom!! More later.......

Time to Remodel the House....

It started with a garage door opener which kept spontaneously opening the garage door in the freezing winter nights....it was like a demonic attack, everytime I shut it, it opened itself....I called Sears...they promised to fix it...I took a few hours off from work to wait for them...they were late...I called....annoyed. Then I heard water running...no water should be running...checked all bathrooms...washer hose...nothing....peeked into garage...the door was OPEN all night..pipes froze and broke...flooding the first floor....where is the damn water shut off?? call 911..."sorry lady, not a police matter"...call a plumber...find the shut off...what a mess! glad I was home..could have been worse, I think...call insurance...get quotes...and then...began the demolition and removal process...and the discovery of just how much damage can hide behind the walls and hidden parts of your home....I am learning to survive in a mess of what used to be a home...right down to the July 12, 1968, 41 year old newspapers stuffed in the walls....when LBJ was president and neighborhood boys were dying in Vietnam and GE refrigerators were on sale for $135...and this was once a brand new home, with brand new pipes, and floors and walls..and gagage doors that were opened manually.....h-m-m-m...progress!

No Time for Me to Blog

Hurry hurry hurry...from one thing to the next. Time flies, tempus fugit they say, and it is so true. Time makes us bolder, children get older...I'm getting older too...I'm thinking of the changes in my life, in life and the changes around me... changes in the seasons of me, the seasons of learning, the times for loving, the times that were moving slowly, languidly, musically and in synch with the songs I sang....and here I am, in the later seasons of my life...seeing the ending in the realm of possibilities, hurrying hurrying,,,without the time to blog about me...if I don't, who will...who can?

No Time Like the Present..

Not much time or inclination to blog lately..busy with work, busy with life, grandsons, medical exams and general icky stuff...I pefer to use words like icky to express my general mood...it leaves interpretation to the reader or listener...and some time for me to identify whatever it is or was that I was feeling......I am not feeling icky right now, so I am blogging...no time like the present, I'd say!

But I do feel sad for an aging Rod Stewart on Idol tonight...still has the charisma, just seems a bit awkward and tinker-toyish compared to his pink spandex hot legs days...like me I guess.....icky thought....I'll leave on that note...til next time...smile...

Mommy Time

It's a new term, "Mommy Time" I don't remember it from my Mom, nor do I believe it was a concept that occured to me when my big ones were little and I was a mommy...I wonder why they have it now and I never did...? It would have been nice.
Maybe my class of Mommies were raised with that "service-minded" Peace corp mentality..children were our gift, we put them first and focused on their every Spock-dictated whims, lest we would cause them some strange and lingering pyschological damage, or worse, risk losing their friendship and respect for us...
The "mommies" we became, and I mean me, were programmed somehow to put our little babes on lofty pedestals, in a devoted, parent-sacrificing playpen, where we clucked and chatted about our little angels development, under our ever watchful and increasingly book-guided child rearing...there were no nannies, no or few babysitters, and grandparents filled in when we fell ill, or were forced to leave our precious children to become"working mothers" (god-forbid). We wouldn't dream or condone of a culture which allowed the Mommy to take a time out from the children, unless hospitalized or worse.
There were no designer babies, born at will and convenience of the Mommies...we waited, prayed and hoped for our wanted babies...and in that mind set it was untenable to do anything but dedicate ouselves to them and their every need and want...we were the pre-Mommy Time-Out Mommies... we mostly still hadn't burned our bras or learned who we were and what our own talents and needs might be...we were the post-war, post-hippie, Camelot generation of Mommies...WE had our Mommy Time Outs as Grandma's and it was almost too late.
We watch our daughters having Mommy Nights, Play dates, Nannies, tennis and golf lessons, spa days and more...while the little babies we waited to grandparent were postponed almost unbearably longer than we thought healthy, and then watched them arrive in timed, scheduled and synchronized bundles, before and after an incredible amount of "mommy times and Mommy time-outs, ladies nights and career-minded decisions...what had we missed?
Our babies and children never knew the electronic era...we didn't text or email, the kids had no DVD's Wi or DS; we were reminded not to be on the phone if the children needed us, and we weren't off duty until they slept, if they did. Mr. Rogers was our role model of dedication to children and sesame street taught us how to make them smarter....but we were still hands on..stay at home was the norm, and we waited to begin our lives and Times until they left....
BUT...they came back, and we now had to fight back the urge to follow them around and sacrifice our well-deserved Mommy Times for the needs of our grown "children" ....Next, I will soon need a nanny...for Me, for it will be the new "Mommy Time"...a time out...for them... from their own tired Mommy...;(
The mommy time "right" is about to be bequeathed..... upon us!

Itching Time

Poison Ivy, poison ivy...lord it makes you itch
So who gets poison ivy from digging in dirt to pull out roots?
No "leaves of three, let them be"..NOT EVEN A TEENSY one did I see...
but, No....it didn't matter!...it got me bad, sneak attack with no warning - kamikaze ivy!!!
Who could imagine that 40 minutes in the garden could drive a sweet woman like me insane?
Well, I am here to tell you...I should have listened to my Dad and given up gardening when I was 4 years old (see earlier post "Is It Time Yet")....Nuts! I say to all the happy gardeners..
one dose of this curse and you'll be sticking plastic and polyester plants and flowers into your garden..from a distance, and dressed like a mummy........
I have itches and increasing torture on almost every inch of me...picture the recent 97 degree weather at night and rampant poison ivy making you feel like a thousand hornets attacking..or those infamous red ants that sting people to death...I ran out to the store today and bought every item on the shelf to de-itch and sooth myself, and ah-h-h something worked..relief...smells bad, but who cares...now all I need is......something to kill the damn ivy!