the view from here

So. April pretty much kicked my ass. I'd managed to fill it with too many things - both work and personal - that were all important and tightly scheduled. At one point, like the 21st, I looked up and decided I should fill in my timecard for work - I mean, I knew I was behind but... - and when I pulled it up the entire month was empty. Which says much about the previous 20 days.

looking into the living room

And while it has been a long haul to get here, I am finally settling into May and the new house. For all that I hate moving, there is pleasure in setting up house. Last weekend, while awaiting the Bell guy, I dug out the living room. Boxes of books put on the bookshelves, furniture assembled, one room finally felt done. Up until then Max and I had made the bedroom into our little cave. Stumbling in from various obligations and falling into bed. The Max has been very cuddly through all this - in need of much affection and entertainment with all the home-change.

I missed Bird fiercely the first night we were here. Too many boxes, too unsettled and Max beside himself after The Worst Day Ever. And I know I'm supposed to be the grown up here, but Bird was the force of calm with the three of us. Once he'd figured out what this moving business was about and knew that I wasn't going anywhere he was fine. And Max trailed after him - because after all nothing bad could happen if Birdy was there. He was our centre. And that first night with just the two of us it was hard.

But, we have adjusted. And as there are less and less boxes around Max has figured out that this house is his. (Even with noises from the neighbours upstairs.)



Oh, and I have a bookshelf with three shelves dedicated to purses - one for the brown one, one for the red ones and one for the others. It is hilarious.

cats that are mine, and not

At one point earlier this year I was asked by someone who didn't really know me how many cats I had. I said "Two. One gray and fluffy, one orange and crazy". When I related this to 'Col she said "Um. When are you going to mention the other two cats?" and you know, I was kind of surprised. Surprised that I'd really have to mention them.

gray cats, one and two, mine and not

Somewhere in my brain the cats remained divided into 'my cats' and 'the cats I just live with' even though we'd been living in this house for more than a year at that point. It is odd how that works because the example up above is not the first time that had happened - I might have live in a house with four cats but -I- only had two cats. Apparently I am not so good with the math.

And weirdly, this notion of two cats has remained stuck in my brain even though the Bird is gone. My language choices still speak of multiple cats - which makes sense if you think about the fact I live with three. But I've realized that while sometimes I speak of 'the cats' and I'm talking about Max & the Roo there is still quite a lot of times when I'm speaking with someone who doesn't really know me and when I say 'the cats' I mean Max and Bird.

Yeah. Like that's not slightly crazy.

And sometimes, just to make matters slightly more complicated, I am talking about Max and his hypothetical kitten who we will get when we move to keep Snacky company.

the snacky max, with chair

My life, apparently, is fill of cats that don't exist.

too many things

I am a little tired of being an adult. I have been being -very- grown up lately and attempting to get my financial house in order, be more fulfilled at work and take care of myself physically. Which has mostly seemed to involve making a lot of appointments and then running around like a crazy person trying to keep everything going.

My mother often says that if you want something done you should ask a busy person to do it and I can see her point. There is a certain momentum gained from the full-frontal assault on the list of things you've been putting off. But I am tired. And I need some of things that are up in the air - booking my flight for work, filling out the novel worth of forms for the nutritionist, doing the homework for the homeopath - to get checked off. Which they will... soon... but until then there is just too much floating around in my head to really feel settled.

Which I know is not exciting. But is true.

meh

I am tired. And feeling really stuck. Oh, and weepy too. It's really super fun.

The thing is, I'm working on getting unstuck, I really am, but I am not yet feeling like I'm getting much traction. And the longer I feel like I'm not moving forward the easier it becomes to just let myself slide back into the deep dark hole that I know is waiting.

But I am trying to be patient and let things 'process'. I seriously hate that. Process. Stupid talking about your feelings. I hate feelings. Argh!

Anyway, to move on from the less than witty anti-feeling diatribe, I had kind of an interesting experience with looking at what my 'core values' were and what my... I guess I shall call them 'anti-values' were. The core values were ten things that I picked out of a list of perhaps 50 different values that were the things I can't live without. The anti-values were like the 'I hate that guy' of values. You don't like them and people who hold those values highly make you mad.

So. There I was with my pretty lists. Good things/Not so good things.

The next part wasn't as easy. I then had to write down my definition for each of the values (both sets - good and anti-good) and then how much of that value there was or wasn't in my life currently. This seemed a lot easier to do before I sat down to do it. But I made a little chart and filled in all the boxes and the strangest thing became clear. In the current life I lead, rather than having too much of the anti-values kicking around making me upset, I don't have enough of the good values. This perhaps would have been obvious to some but it kind of caught me by surprise.

abruptly

So. In general, there are very few people in my life I let boss me around. My doctor is one of them. And man, does she ever. I was given strict instructions with this last visit - a referral I was to call today and ensure I got an appointment -this- week before I head back to work, a requisition for blood work to be done this week and strict instructions that I see her again in Feb, no excuses. So there you go. It's kind of alarming except for that fact that she always does this to me. Her conclusion is that all of the various things I've been dealing with lately - tiredness, nausea, this terrible cold - are reactions to stress. That I'm doing this all to myself. And until we fix the underlying cause of the stress it's not going to get better and at this point she's fed up with me trying to treat symptoms instead of treating the actual issue.



So there you go. Stupid uncomfortable realizations.