My exciting life

Ah yes, it’s so exciting to live in a body that insists on getting up at 3 AM most mornings.  It works so well because I really do love mornings, no matter what time they start, although I draw the line at 3 AM.  If I didn’t draw that line, I’d soon be getting up at midnight and calling it morning.  Every time I read an article that tells me I need at least eight hours of sleep each night, I holler at the article thusly:  “HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN?’  If I sleep six hours I congratulate myself for “sleeping in”.  Thanks to my interactions online, I’ve learned this is such a common problem, especially amongst older women, that I have no right to complain.  Our numbers are legion.  I just wish I’d quit seeing articles predicting my early demise caused by my lack of sleep.

Throughout my years of blogging, I’ve gotten used to people telling me I have such an exciting life; they somehow get that impression from my blog!  Now I’ll admit I had some more interesting topics to address when I began blogging twenty years ago:  There was my horse-riding phase, with entire entries telling stories of various individual rides and the discoveries Blue and I made; our motorcycle phase, with journeys to Branson (complete with breakdowns) and Arkansas; oh, and before those, there was all that enthusiasm over our newly discovered antique-tractor-show phase.  Enthusiasm makes any topic interesting.  These days it’s difficult to write much because I don’t do a lot but read.  And yet, I met up with an acquaintance the other day who said something to the effect that I lead a more interesting life than she does.  This is someone who has traveled far-off places, and whose mother was born in England!  Oh, the stories I’ll bet she could tell.  

I really miss my enthusiasm these days, but it’s hard to find.  Oh, I enjoy lots of things about my life, but I don’t often feel the tingle of heart-felt anticipation.  The other morning I got the oddest feeling that what I needed was to visit an African-American church.  Now THERE’S some enthusiasm, and yes, it’s contagious.  The feeling passed, though, and I’ve spent most of my time since sitting in the recliner reading one book after another.  “Elinor Oliphant Is Completely Fine” was difficult to put down, so I read it pretty much straight through.  From that one I immediately started “The Woman In the Window”, which I read in even less time.  Now I’ve started “Somebody’s Daughter”, and can hardly make myself take a break from it, even to go to the bathroom.  Sometimes I take the iPad with me when I go because I am so caught up in the book.  Perhaps one reason I don’t sleep long at night is that I spend too many of my daylight hours sitting in a chair reading.  

 Cliff is dreading the next couple of days:  His first-ever colonoscopy is scheduled for Thursday, so tomorrow he won’t be eating anything more substantial than yellow Jello.  Because of that, I made biscuits this morning.  No gravy, just biscuits and butter and jelly.  I figured he may as well have something we both love on this day.  The instructions for yesterday and today were to eat light meals, and I’m pretty sure three biscuits don’t make up a “light” meal.  We’ll just hope everything comes out OK (that’s me, making a joke).

Thanksgiving is approaching in a little over a week.  We are going to be in the shop for the meal, since granddaughter Heather and I are combining our celebrations, which makes a larger group than either of our two houses can hold comfortably.  Thinking of the cooking that’s coming up has put me in (for me) a cleaning mode.  This gives me something useful to do with some of that morning time from 3 AM until Cliff gets up.  Yesterday I did some kitchen cleaning.  Today I took it a step further and cleaned the refrigerator.  I do wipe the shelves off sometimes, but I decided to actually take everything out and do the job right.  This often leads to unpleasant discoveries, but this time I only found two disasters:  some Cool-Whip with mold on it, and a single grape that had languished so long in the crisper drawer that it had turned into a raisin.  Hey, for me, that’s pretty good!  

As I cleaned the refrigerator I recalled a time from my childhood when my parents and I lived in Eagleville at the switchboard house.  I would have been 10 or 11 years old, I suppose, when Mother told me an older widow lady in town needed someone to help her clean her refrigerator.  Now I’d never cleaned a refrigerator in my life (or my own room, for that matter), but Mother said the lady would pay me, so I was willing.  I don’t recall the lady’s name, or even what she looked like except for the gray hair.  I know she didn’t go to church where we did or I would have known her.  I recall her sitting on a kitchen chair asking me to pass her all the contents of the fridge, then telling me what to do and where to clean after bringing me a pan of soapy water.  I thought it seemed like an awfully easy job and wondered why she didn’t do it herself; but this morning after having to sit flat on the floor to reach in the refrigerator, I began to understand.  Getting up and down is not easy these days!  I recall this lady called me back two or three times to do some small chores for her, but looking back, I think she was just lonely.  I’d do some trivial little chore, then she’d invite me into the living room where we’d play word games in a magazine for an hour or so.  She wanted somebody to talk to, I think.  I didn’t realize this at the time, though.

We have sunny skies with snow on the ground making it a bright, although cold, day.  I don’t have to go outside for much:  I take Gabe out on the leash as soon as he and I are up, and four or five more times throughout the day.  After Cliff gets up I feed the cats and calves their breakfast.  I wouldn’t have to leash Gabe, but he gets so excited to see a cat he runs to chase them.  Then I have to deal with cajoling him back to the house.  Things are frozen now, but when the ground is exposed, he has a way of finding nasty things to eat that make him sick... and he gets so dirty running around.  

I believe that covers it for today.  I hope all my readers have a peaceful day.  Or an exciting day:  Your choice!

Until next time, 

Donna