comment

one of my dad's new cards. I'll have more info later on how to purchase, etc.

A comment over at A Friend in Need (I'm LOVING that so many Quaker women are knitters but it figures.) She was suggesting that the early Quakers had a different way of expressing their faith than we do, and she wondered how big a leading had to be in order to be of substance.

I think it's important for me to remember that it is the same God speaking to us now as it was at any time in so-called human history. I also think I tend to discount small leadings just as I discount stockinette stitch. Too small, too plain, not enough "bang for the buck." Yet even the most intricate sweater imaginable is made up of only knits and purls.

daily ? video aug 24

just a moment

Keeping in the Light 8/23

Junior Dude. We doubled his ADHD medication today per doctor's orders (keeping his teacher in the light, too!). He has grown a lot and the current dose is not helping. This may take a week or so of adjustment, particularly with his appetite. I may be serving Pizza Hut 24/7 to get him to eat. He'll love that.

J. (BAC's sister) who had surgery to remove some skin cancer cells. Surgery went well, she says...keeping her in the light for a quick painless recovery.

My house, which needs some major attention. Focusing today on simplifying my life by having less stuff and keeping that which has meaning and function. Will find the thrift store drop off this morning, too.

morning from hell?

and a chat about it with a very trusted girlfriend (VTG):



me: do you have a second for some moaning?

VTG: Sure…

VTG: all yours

VTG: what's up, dear?

me: okay. I was caught in a real life nightmare this morning
very surreal experience

VTG: ::hug::

me: I could not find my psychiatrists office
The name the other doc had given me on the phone was wrong or I heard it wrong
then the guy I made the appointment with was quick with the directions
then 3yo was up for two hours last night
(that actually made EVERYTHING worse).

VTG: This must be more common than it sounds - I had the same thing happen to me a couple of years back.
oh yeah. Lack of sleep totally gets you.
so the directions you finally got - they were good?

me: Yup

VTG: they got you there?

me: well what happened before that
it was in a complex
big marble and glass buildings
ugly and impersonal



VTG: and few navigational clues?

me: NO signs on the outside of them

VTG: corrected: no navigational clues.
that's so frightening, isn't it?

me: 8:50 in the morning and it's 88 degrees

VTG: you end up feeling like you're totally lost.

me: not only are the buildings similar
yes lost
and dehumanized
VTG: yup.

me: the CARS in the parking lot
silver and white sedans
DOZENS of them
I felt like I was in some dystopian movie.



VTG: it sounds like a valuable experience.

me: for writing!

VTG: PAINFUL. but valuable for what you saw.
exactly.

me: but not for living
yes

VTG: for knowing. For differentiating yourself from the dystopian hordes.

me: So I walked into the lobbies of THREE buildings
where there were people

VTG: ow

me: receptionists/guards etc
who had NO idea who was in the other buildings
and I'm standing there falling apart on the inside
asking
"is there a psychiatrist practice in this complex?"
"Oh no, we only have a directory for this building at this desk."

VTG: how frustrating. and humiliating. and someday, terribly terribly funny and ironic and symptomatic of this whole period and place in your life.

me: finally at the third one I realized this woman behind the desk who had NO clue and NO desire really to help me....
had something I didn't have...A FULL TIME JOB.
ha
and she got to sit on her butt and say "I'm sorry I can't help you"
FOR A LIVING.

VTG: ::nods::
sounds like a pretty low low-point

me: Anyway. After the third one I went home. I was screaming and swearing in the car. Confession? Part of me wondered if I had hallucinated the appointment. Not that I've ever hallucinated anything before, ever.

BTW I had stopped at a hotel in the complex to look at the yellow pages.

VTG: so did you eventually find the practice?
or?

me: There is no psychiatrist listed in that complex in the yellow pages
so I went home a googled it
they've got a lovely website

VTG: may I ask a question? why a psychiatrist?

me: twenty doctors
insurance will cover four sessions
then I'm on my own
willing to give it four

VTG: but... why?

me: I am on antidepressants from my ob/gyn

VTG: psychiatrists tend to handle things that require medication, clear body-caused dysfunction

me: …and I don't like this specific drug, how it affects me.

VTG: does that describe you in any way?

me: yeah depression, clinical depression runs in my family.
and yes I have those very very low moments

me: they don't last long
but they are clinical/body/chemical.
I can feel them.

VTG: it's always good to know: "this? it's a low point"

me: yeah that's what 5yo's birth taught me.

VTG: OK; so it's not like a certain someone is telling you that you're crazy or anything like that.

me: the post-partum was a very clear signal
NO

VTG: (which is what I was worried about)

me: not at all

VTG: good.

me: no this is me feeling something is wrong
when I'm sitting in church and want to die?
and then ten minutes later I'm okay?

VTG: yeah, that's a definite clue
and it's physical, indeed.

me: yeah.

VTG: it is what they call "not situational"

me: wanting to die, by the way, is very different from suicidal.
yes.

VTG: yes.

me: anyway my post-partum experience taught me the trigger feelings
and I KNOW to CALL someone when I'm feeling that.
Just about anyone will do.

VTG: That's the right thing to do.

me: Yes.

VTG: Anyone who'll really listen.

me: I think I could call the Avon lady and if she said "I'm sorry you're feeling that way" it would snap me out of it.
just having someone REFLECT what I'm feeling

VTG: When I was slogging through post partum [I had a] source-of-support.
yup.

me: so I'm not alone.

VTG: it helps usher you into reality.

me: exactly.
SO

VTG: out of the scared place.

me: OMG
you've got to hear about the office

VTG: ok!

me: I finally called from home
and negotiated
that I would rush in and do the paperwork and reschedule
because I had a hospital appt at 11
so I couldn't stay
Hospital appt went great
my EKG is stellar!
so I walk in

VTG: yay! so your heart is in the right place!

me: and they've got rows of "Veranda" magazine

VTG: (what is Veranda?)

me: Southern decorate your McMansion ideas.

VTG: ah

me: Not that you would EVER put them together yourself
this is the magazine you SHOW to your decorator
and say, I waaaant that.

VTG: *snicker*

me: yeah Southern Living is more do-it-yourself.
but Veranda?
no way.
and they for some unknown reason
had copies of "Palm Beach" magazine too.

VTG: so the office demographic is "rich white women in despair"?

me: I guess one of the docs
WOW
you're quick and sharp.
And why should they have their number in the yellow pages?
that would invite people who need psychiatric help to call them!
What a bother!

VTG: yeah; that's a referral-sort of business
yup.
for-profit healthcare

me: Better to get the number from your manicurist.

me: and they have a long list of doctors
but the list of insurance they DON'T take is longer.
They like blue cross so much they demanded my policy number when I made the APPOINTMENT.

VTG: that's such a fab detail; I love the way you notice these quirky details and tell them.

me: I'll bet they checked to make sure I hadn't used up my four appointments.
OH the strangest detail of all

VTG: yeah, that would make sense.

me: I was upset needless to say.
filling out the paperwork
a few tears.
the Kleenex in this office is behind the sliding glass window with the receptionist.
in plain sight



VTG: !!!

me: but you have to ask, apparently.

VTG: something of a control mechanism?

me: keep it neat?
I have no idea.

VTG: neat would be control
make 'em ask would be control
it's sort of stingy.

me: Anyway I'm going to post this chat changing the names to protect the helpers over at bluegalsotherblog.

VTG: somehow, it doesn't sound like it's a spare-the-trees, use your hanky touch.

me: no.
I don't think that's it.

Love more for every hate and fear no ill...

since God is good, and loss is gain.

One thing I've been praying about is the line "do one thing and do it well."

I was very good at something, very good, I thought, and my ability to do it was taken away overnight.

I don't know what to do with myself during those times when I would have been doing that. Except pray.

Sometimes I do get to that. Yeah.

______________________

Spiritual question: Are we always God's representative on earth? That seems egotistical. There have been times I've sensed strongly that Mother God is pushing me on to say something. Be the wisdom, so to speak. And sometimes, like now, where she stands in front of me her back to me but her arms behind her holding me in with a great deal of love and I'm getting her back all wet with my tears and the person I would love to talk to most...are they facing us or not? But she she leans her head back and whispers shhhh don't you dare be my surrogate.

BTW more about "mother God in the kitchen" at the video posted earlier but I realize I had big privacy settings on it which I removed today.

OMG I love this post...

...go read it. P.T. simplifies his life (yes I'm gonna try making that the goal rather than "clean the whole stinking house") and in the end makes a major change. Major.

Oh I can't tell you go read it your own self. Still laughing here.

Oh nevermind.

Sat and knit a sock tonight and then opened Faith and Practice (which I keep in my knitting bag) and came upon this:

Be still and cool in thy own mind and spirit from thy own thoughts, and then thou wilt feel the principle of God to turn thy mind to the Lord God, whereby thou wilt receive his strength and power from whence life comes, to allay all tempests, against blusterings and storms. That is it which moulds up into patience, into innocency, into soberness, into stillness, into stayedness, into quietness, up to God, with his power.

George Fox, 1658


You'd think my crazy brain would learn...

Stop and smell the rose of the month...

Oh shoot this ain't smell-o-vision.


"Although Crown Princess Margareta is usually thought of as a beautiful shrub rose, with a little encouragement this variety can be trained into a beautiful English Climbing Rose of up to 10ft. ...When growing against an arch, plant one rose at the foot of each side of the arch. As the roses grow, tie them in so that they eventually meet in the middle."

Draft post ignore it.

I went on a search for a golden shovel for a photoshop I'm doing of Camilla Parker Bowles (don't ask now) and this one came up.



There's still this much space left I'm just saying:

This is the book I'm supposed to buy Mr. BG

because I married the old goat.



Take the quiz your own self here.