Tag Archives: instagram

Finding Happy 2013

BY bonnie

A couple of years ago, when I foresaw a difficult year ahead, I decided to set myself up with a system to help keep me focused on the Happy when I knew the Sad would likely visit much of the year (and yet, how I underestimated the Sad of 2011!). I decided to take a photo each day of one thing, person, or moment that brought me some Happy. I kept them all saved in a set on Flickr so I could look through them whenever I needed a lift. And it did help. It was a daily moment to focus on the positive. It was a daily meditation or a prayer that I could do, even when my head was too foggy for meditation or prayer.

And since right now I’m facing some difficult times again, I thought it might be nice to revisit that idea of focusing on at least one Happy each day. If you’re also in need of some Happy, I hope you’ll join me. As we head back into the darker time of year (well, for those in the same hemisphere as I am, that is), and towards the stress of the holidays I know Happy may be harder to find for some. Happiness in numbers, I always say! (I don’t always say that. I never say that. It’s maybe kinda true, though.)

Just tag your Instagram photos this autumn with #findinghappy2013 and if you like, you can join the Flickr group as well. Let’s find Happy together!

(God. That’s the cheesiest ending to a blog post EVER.)

Depression/Anxiety, Happy Things, I Own a Home. WTF?, This is a Woman

Happy Things: Round 2

BY bonnie

Oh look! It’s me not blogging!

I hate being a broken record. When I have to work my way through something, I get sick and tired of hearing myself use the same words to describe it over and over again. I suppose that using certain words is a normal part of psychological growth and healing, but holy crap I wish I would just shut up.

And so here I am not blogging about where I’m at in my life. Because it’s fucking boring. Blah blah blah depression. Blah blah blah loneliness. Blah blah blah anxiety. Because I don’t want my blog to be everything I hate about me, and I don’t want it to be a broken record.

I’m also having a hard time talking about it because I’m supposed to be happy right now. I bought a home and it’s lovely (and it is) and that’s exciting (and it is) and this is a time full of new beginnings which are supposed to be happy things (and they are). I feel like so many people are so excited about this for me that I’d be letting them down if I feel anything different.

And to complicate things, I actually do feel all the things I’m “supposed” to be feeling, but I’m also feeling all those key words I’m so sick of writing about.

And so here I am. Struggling to get by. Some days are pretty good. Some days are cloudy and hard. Logic and instinct tell me that this will pass as I settle into a routine and get used to all the changes. And I know that they (the logic and the instinct) are right. But the depression and the anxiety are big fat liars that terrify me with thoughts of never recovering.

In the mean time I think I might get back to my Happy Things project. From now until the end of the year (at least). It was like a meditation for me. To take a moment and dedicate it to at least one thing that brought me joy. To photograph it and make art out of it made it my daily prayer.

Does anyone want to join me? I think I’ll do it all on Instagram this time (since I’m still avoiding my big camera since it’s broken and I’m afraid it’s broken forever). We could use one of those newfangled hashtag thingamajigs people use to find each other’s projects or something. What do you think? Are you in?
UPDATE: the tag will be #findinghappy2013 Hope to see you there!

KITTIES!

Kitteh Pron

BY bonnie

I’m not going to become one of those blogs that only blogs about kittehs. (Yes I am.) (Are there even blogs that become that? Or am I thinking of crazy cat ladies who don’t even have blogs?) But KITTEHS. And procrastination!

This is cuddly kinda.

Long story very short, the kitten’s cold wasn’t just a cold. It was some shit shitass virus that makes kitty’s noses fall off and they they’ll have forever and ever (but not be symptomatic forever, thank Bast). So that was a large part of why last week was so sad for me. I was so angry that my perfectly healthy cat was infected forever with a virus from the new kitten. I wasn’t really angry at the shelter (they didn’t know – I assume). I was probably more angry with myself for having chosen a kitten from a place even though so many of the cats were obviously dealing with respiratory stuff.

Still, this kitten is a good kitten. She’s sweet and loving and fun but not too kitteny if you get my drift. And she and Leia are bffs already. Which is not only a miracle, but also really sweet and makes my heart grow three sizes every time they cuddle or play. Which might actually be a health concern for me. Enlarged heart and all. But they play together in the middle of the night and they yell at moths together in the middle of the night. And really it would be pretty cool if they’d sleep in the middle of the night, but you can’t have everything in life.

I Own a Home. WTF?

The House So Far

BY bonnie

I wrote some entries last week. I even posted them. But then I had a fit of depression/anxiety/insecurity and removed them. They will probably come back in some form, but I felt all cloudy-brained and I felt like that didn’t make for very good writing. I’m clearer now (in more ways than one) (not physically, though. I don’t mean I’m more invisible than I was last week) so hopefully I can rewrite them in some more coherent manner. In the mean time I have only about 15 minutes before I have to do my next chore and that’s just enough time to throw together an entry of befores and afters. Of the house I mean. Not my process of becoming invisibler.

(By the way, if you click through on the after photos, you can read some of the notes I’ve added to them on Flickr. Or if you want, you can click here to see the whole set.)

Living room!

Entry! And Dinette!

Kitchen!

My bedroom!

Elliott’s room!

(OK I didn’t have great after pictures of his room.)

Margie’s room!

(OK or of her room.)

Obviously we still have work to do. We need some organizational stuff in order to finish unpacking. I need to get updated photos printed in order to put out new photo albums. I think I’m supposed to, like, hang pictures or art or some shit on the walls, but how can I dare to hammer anything into those beautifully colored walls? Except curtains. I’m rather sick of living without curtains. Very soon, hopefully, I’ll be able to afford some and also to find the confidence to learn how to actually do it.

In the mean time this place is becoming quite cozy and homey. Whenever the Universe allows it, I’m feeling quite happy here.

KITTIES!

Meet the Kitten

BY bonnie

We’ve wanted to get a buddy for our cat, Leia, for awhile now. And what better way to make life easy after a stressful and busy couple of months than to get a kitten!? (Don’t mind me. I have no mind left.)

Right now the San Diego Animal Control shelters are having a $5 sale on cats. And I reminded the kids that we weren’t there just to get a $5 cat – I’d rather pay the full fee another time for the right cat for our family than just grab any old cat cause it’s cheap. But we went to just go look. JUST TO LOOK. And then we adopted a kitten. Cause that’s how I roll. Surprise cats.

My daughter named the kitten Khoshekh after the floating cat in the Night Vale podcasts (although our Khoshekh is a girl kitty) (and also she’s not floating). I was really quite nervous about how she’d do with Leia since she seemed to hiss at all the other cats in the shelter, but I was banking on the fact that kittens tend to be more flexible than adult cats in forming friendships.

So we brought her home a few days ago and kept them entirely separated for awhile, but then it seemed as though they might be ready to meet each other. I started with just a few minutes here and there but they handled it really pretty well, actually. Soon they were playing in the same room. Today they sat in the same window and ate out of the same bowl together. Consider me impressed.

Khoshekh has come down with a cold, though. It’s pretty common in shelter cats. She’s a complete mess right now, actually. Still recovering from her spay surgery last week, and now feeling low with a cold and suffering with a chapped nose that’s quite bloody actually. She’s on antibiotics now, though, as well as some lysine to help boost her immune system and some Neosporin for her nosey. So here’s hoping she’s back up to full speed soon. Because Leia is really looking forward to having a playmate. Maybe then she can stop battling the bathroom rug. (Probably not.)

Children of Hoarders, The Zebra

I have no idea what to title this one. It’s got everything. Pictures of the new place, hoarding trauma, procrastination, cleaning tips. I need a cookie.

BY bonnie

We’re getting settled in our place. I mean. I haven’t even begun to unpack the kitchen yet because shelf liner paper. And I can’t even unpack the office yet until the new desk I ordered gets here (my last desk literally fell apart when they picked it up to load it on the truck). But the living room looks mostly like a living room and my new bed came today and IT’S JUST SO LOVELY.

And I’m supposed to be studying the neurons of the visual system, but instead I’m thinking about how the hell am I going to keep the house as sparkly as it is right now after the Merry Maids were here last week? The answer is I probably won’t. But I’m going to try. Because clean = sane for me.

One of the things I want to write about here at this blog is being the child of a hoarder. And I’d like to write a big introductory post before I start adding in little details, but Life Is Messy and these little details are what’s on my mind right now.

Way back in the dark ages in like 1991 my mom wanted to try to keep the house clean. I don’t remember which era of the house this was. Maybe she was hoping to start from scratch, or maybe it was after my friend’s mom came in and cleaned up for us and bought us fancy peach towels with seashells on them that we weren’t allowed to use. Anyway, my mom found this book about an index card cleaning system. It’s what Flylady is based on, actually. And my mom got as far as buying index cards and a card file box.

Anyway, a couple of years ago when we were cleaning out my mom’s house, we found the book. And I donated it to a thrift store or something. Because like hell I had time for that shit right then. And now that my new place is all sparkly and lovely, I was thinking that maybe it would be nice to find a copy of that book and see if the system might work for me (because another “perk” of being the child of a hoarder is that you don’t know you are supposed to clean certain things like the top of your refrigerator). Only, I realized that I felt very sneaky about this. I felt like I had to keep it a secret that I was thinking about looking for a copy of this book. Because I made the grave error of getting rid of it once and now I’ll have to admit that I’m the wrongiest wronger to ever have wronged. Because hoarders keep things, in part, so that they can always be fully stocked. Some hoarders enjoy sharing the things they’ve kept, and that is part of why they hoard things – to feel useful. (Others don’t want to share the things they hoard. At. All.) But, in my experience, hoarders tend to be very I-told-you-so when you get rid of something and then later need it again. (I’ve also developed a sense that I have to be sneaky about throwing things away because I’ve been yelled at so many times in my life after one hoarder or another picked through my trash and got mad at what I got rid of.)

But the thing is this: YOU CAN ALWAYS FIND THE STUFF YOU NEED. Sure, you might have to buy it all over again, but for most things in life that’s not going to be much of a big deal. And spending the extra $10 to get a new copy of this book is well worth the sanity that not hoarding affords me. I live in a little home. I don’t have space for Stuff I Might Need Someday. I keep the things I definitely need, the things I love, and, if I still have room, the things that are too valuable to replace but will realistically probably be used someday. The rest I can replace.

So the point is that I’m going to look into buying (or borrowing from the library) another copy of this book to keep my sparkly home sparkly. And if it doesn’t work for me after all, that’s okay, too. The other point is that identifying the issues I carry with me from my life with hoarders helps me to isolate it, and remind myself why I’m safe now. The other other point is that I need to go study the neural basis of visual perception now.

See? Sparkly:

I Own a Home. WTF?, Just Life, The Zebra

BECAUSE OF COURSE THAT’S WHY

BY bonnie

Right now I’m moving. Well, actually, the move itself happened over the weekend. But you know. I’m living out of boxes. And by “right now” really I just mean “over the last month and into the next” anyway. So my life have been one third packing, one third painting and fixing the new place, and one third studying neurons n brain shit. And about 10% sneaking in episodes of Supernatural when I should be painting, packing, studying, or sleeping. Also I’m bad at math. Things I am not doing right now even though I should be: planning my kids’ school year, returning emails, working on SOAM, sharing Lady Links, cooking any meals at all, eating food that is not cold pizza, shaving my legs and armpits (of course those last ones are debatable “shoulds”). And so the Universe was all, HEY BONNIE YOU DON’T LOOK OVERWHELMED ENOUGH LET ME FIX THAT FOR U. And these are the things that have turned a busy month into ONE GIANT LONG THURSDAY.

The weather has been 90 and muggy for like three weeks straight
The kids caught colds (and I had to drag them along with me anyway)
Ants. Are. Everywhere. In my closet. INSIDE the dishwasher. ON MY SHOPPING CART AT TARGET.
My uterus started falling out
The cat got fleas despite being fully medicated
I HATE THE WEATHER.
I ordered a mattress from Ikea and spent 9 hours waiting for it to be delivered and it wasn’t. It took four trips back to the store, and two hours on hold to figure that shit out. (They refunded my delivery fee.)
FUCKING ANTS. I FUCKING HATE ANTS.
The cat got worms from the fleas
NO BUT REALLY THIS WEATHER.
When I was taking my test for my psych class, the test froze when I was halfway through and I had to start over from the beginning.
I keep throwing away things I need.
I actually returned something really important that was my own thing and not even supposed to be returned.
Having to deal with the financial aid office at the college. Enough said.
The fleas were all FUCK U, ADVANTAGE, WE R STRONGR NAOW AND U HAS NO POWR OVER US
GODDAMN THIS SHITASS FUCKHOLE WEATHER.
My son’s mortal enemy (no. really.) turned out to be in his class this year.
We came home to a surprise planned power outage. No. Really.
I have a major spam problem going on here because I haven’t had time to figure out how to stop that yet because I am computer-stupid sometimes and I currently have 1,591 comments to approve or delete. NO IT’S OK I HAVE TIME.

So to sum up:
I HATE THE WEATHER, I HATE ANTS, I HATE FLEAS AND WORMS, AND I HATE ALL THE OTHER THINGS, TOO.

You know what I love? My pretty red wall.

I Own a Home. WTF?, The Zebra

I have no idea at all what this post is about. If you figure it out, can you leave me a comment?

BY bonnie

The house is coming along. Some days I feel overwhelmed by all there is left to do, other days I feel confidant that everything will work out and even if it doesn’t it will. Those days, apparently, I am full of zen contradictions. I’m like a damn hippie riddled with anxiety.

These are the things I have learned about myself.

1. I am a picky person when it comes to paint colors. I didn’t think I would be. And then, when I started to notice that I kind of maybe was a little bit, I tried to deny it saying things like, “Oh I don’t really care except I hate all those colors except this one and no I actually hate that one, too.” At some point (I think it was the point where I bought the 36th sample of orange paint to try in the bedroom) I had to admit to myself that I am a picky paint person. I don’t know why this is such a hard thing for me to embrace, but I suspect it goes back to my extreme need to please ALL THE PEOPLE. If I’m picky, I might be frustrating, and if I’m frustrating I might lose all my friends and live alone forever.

I may or may not have been a drama major in high school.

2. I forgot this thing that I learned about myself. If I remember it, or re-learn it, I’ll get back to you.

3. Painting and fixing up an empty house is not unlike cleaning out a hoarder’s house, as it turns out. You spend all day working and at the end of the day you feel like nothing’s been accomplished. You feel certain that this will NEVER EVER END. The jobs just keep adding up. They seem endless. Overwhelming is an understatement. And, yet. My mom’s house got cleaned up. So here’s hoping that someday September will be over and I’ll be settled in my orange-no-purple-no-brown-no-back-to-orange bedroom writing a post about how THANK GOD 2013 is almost over and perhaps I’m about to become superstitious about odd-numbered years.

I’m sorry. I don’t think this post makes any sense whatsoever. Have some pretty pictures of the sky to make up for it.

I Own a Home. WTF?

Five Days in and I Have a Home Depot Guy

BY bonnie

You know, cause I’ve been there so much this week.

I must warn you now that blogging for the next few weeks while I have six different full time jobs will probably be on the back burner. I hope to fill in those gaps with amusing home improvement stories. Or at least photos of home improvement projects. Or photos of silliness in the home improvement store. Like this one:

Where I practice for when I’m a robot princess.

Or this one:

Where I brought my son’s pillowcase to Home Depot to match paint samples and then got bored of holding it so I threw it over his head and he just went with it cause he inherited my sense of humor.

Or photos of the process itself like this one:

Where we discuss HOW VERY HOT PINK my bedroom was (it’s now primed). True fact: the previous owner (apparently) chose this color herself and then decorated it with all sorts of Jack Sparrow memorabilia.

So, as you can see, this is a shitty cop-out of a blog post. I’d like to write about where I’ve been mentally all year and how that relates to shitty potato chips, or maybe about that one two-parter episode of Welcome to Night Vale which is like a massive metaphor for life in general, but tomorrow I have to start learning about biological psychology (which, the book’s author assures me is the most interesting subject EVER. FACT.) and also I have to paint a lot of walls so I’m thinking it will be more shitty cop-outs for a little while. Bear with me. I’ll try to make it HILARIOUS.

Local, Places We Go and Things We Do

And the Nerds Descend Upon San Diego, Part the First

BY bonnie

We spent the day in downtown doing the Free Things that you didn’t need a Comic Con badge for like the Doctor Who Tumblr Fan Meetup, and the Regular Show Experience at the New Children’s Museum. Well. Those were really the only two things we did. But they took all day because lines. I’m throwing some pictures at you but that’s all for tonight because tired.

(Yes, I did get some excited squeals over my E&P button.)