June 24, 2013 Greetings My Friend, Slowly I find myself working my way through my morning routines. The goal this week has been to clean up the stuff that accumulates behind the furniture with the idea of mopping the floors where there are no rugs and today is ready for mopping. This excites me as I continue to keep order more and more in the house. I have found a shelf unit to use in the hallway for baskets to put my clothes in instead of the dressers which I hope will find their way into the enclosed porch that will be our storage area. I want the bedroom emptied a bit so we can put a recliner in there for the times Junior’s back require him to sleep in the recliner. That way we are in the same room even if we can’t be in the same bed. That is my thinking anyway. I found the first unit and have filled it with baskets for my clothes but now I need another one to finish putting all my clothes in baskets. Again I find myself grateful for more order. I find myself moving forward more and more and frankly it feels real nice. My jaw is still a bit tender and I am grateful that it is getting better. I am grateful to be walking more days than not and frankly I am sleeping through the night better now that I am moving about more. I knew this would work but for some reason I could not make myself get out and do. I had a friend teach me when I first retired that 5 minutes of work is more than no work at all and the next time I get 5 minutes I can move onto something else and frankly that helps me a ton. Instead of focusing on what I have not accomplished I try to see what I have done and am doing. As I have energy I am doing more and more. I am writing three days a week now. I also love that. This is my part-time job. So I work at a job and at keeping our house in order and life tends to have direction and meaning to me. With the warmer weather I am outside a bit more as well. I love the country peace of our lives. It is peaceful, pretty and frankly awesome. Yesterday was Friday so I went to the church to help fold the bulletins. They had been done so I headed into the sanctuary to straighten the pews. That was nice and then I visited our youth minister and his wife in his new office space. Junior came in and we headed off to the dealership to get the Volt’s oil changed and then to Abingdon for a day of thrift store shopping. It was a fun carefree kind of day away from the routines of the week. We also visited a couple of gravel places to check on prices for rocks for our yard. Today will be an at home day. Each day this week I worked at cleaning out behind the furniture and today I hope to mop behind the furniture and the bare parts of the floor. Again I feel real good with a more picked up home. Frankly I find myself continuing to fall in love with this house. It amazes me that I feel this way. I am grateful as well because I truly hope to never move again. If this has to be the last house I live in then I’m grateful that I love it like I do. This morning Junior cleaned the area rugs and he has washed the blankets on our bed. Again I find myself grateful that he helps me with the housework along with his renovating. For Junior some of the house hold work is a way for him to be busy and to rest his back. For me he helps me as I continue to gain my energy back and our home then is comfortable. Again I learn Junior is trying to meet me half way. When I moved in with him he had piles, the type of piles hoarders get. He did amaze me because he is the first hoarder I met that would move his piles so he could mop and clean under them. At present Junior has a couple of spots within the house that are a mess. The first is his desk which is next to the table and that too tends to be out of control at times. He has a closet he is storing his tools in which means the vacuum cleaner sits out. Overall though the house has a picked up look about it and sometimes he has a coat or a pair of shoes lying around. I will put them away as I see the need. I continue to marvel at our boring life. My life in my first marriage always had some type of excitement and in this marriage we hang out at the house doing our thing. We have days we run and frankly a lot of people may think we are boring but I love our life. I love that fighting is not a constant in this marriage. I love that neither one of us seems to need to prove we are smarter or better than the other. Frankly I think we both attempt to seek each other’s highest good and well that feels real nice. Growing up there was always friction going on at home. My ex and I were always at each other’s throats. I saw that his parents were always squabbling over things. I had never seen a married couple who seemed to enjoy their spouse. I marvel at the fact that Junior and I are friends and we enjoy days on end with each other. We don’t have to find friends to do things with and are content hanging out with each other day in and day out. I also marvel that when Junior is on my last nerve that I will talk to God about how to deal with his annoying habit. In short order God opens my eyes to Junior in some small way and frankly his annoying habit doesn’t bother me anymore. I also find that if Junior turned into the hoarder he could be, I’d be ok with that. Having someone who loves me and lets me be me is so refreshing. I love that we don’t need to compete to be better or brighter than the other one. I love that we enjoy each other’s humor, lifestyle in general. Yup life is about as sweet as it can be. May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet June 26, 2103 Greetings My Friend, I feel the start of a cold trying to settle into my chest, my throat is scratchy and my nose is itchy. I have been taking Vitamin C tablets with the hope of kicking this cold to the curb. We will see. It usually works. The goal this morning was to pick up the Volt from the dealership from having the oil changed. I went on in the Volt to the medical supply place to pick a new hose and mask for my CPAP machine. Junior went to Lowe’s and did some grocery shopping. I made it home before he did so I said my prayers, wrote in my journal and now I am writing a blog. I am trying to decide if I will mop behind the furniture and the bare parts of the floor by the area rugs. I feel a bit like crud so maybe it will be my job for tomorrow. It is rainy outside so I will jump on the elliptical instead of going outside. I am off the medication for my TMJ and my energy level is nonexistent again. So I struggle to do extra things around the house. It is what it is and that is ok. I don’t know how I’d cope without the help of my phrase of “it is what it is.” I can’t do and that is ok. I do what I can when I can and sit when I can’t. I am working on a cross stitch project along with writing and reading the Bible. That feels good. So I continue to look for jobs I can do with my energy level. I’m still not up to another day out to volunteer. So I’m happy when I can do a little something extra. This cold is kicking my but so that also doesn’t help. I am looking forward to Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman and the news and evening TV. I’m grateful for the TV these days. For the first 10 years of our marriage we did not watch TV other than on 9-11. We mainly rented movies when we wanted to slow down and watch TV. We did that most Friday nights after a long week at work. It worked. These days I tend to not turn the TV on till 4:00 sometimes I will turn it on at 3:00 but mostly 4:00. By that time I’ve done what I could, read my Bible, prayed, talked on the phone and wrote. That works. I love it actually. I find myself staring at the room/rooms and loving the views I get. This place is a great place to be quiet and I enjoy the look we are creating a bunch. I remember thinking the last year or two of my career that I’d like to sit when I needed to sit and not force myself like I was doing for a couple years before I retired. I lost it toward the end. After cancer I don’t think I was ever the energetic woman I once was. What I had spent a lifetime of doing was now hard for me to keep up with. These days I find myself rather patient with me. It was real hard at first. Now I find myself grateful for the slower pace to be able to get things done in. Again our home is fairly picked up looking other than Junior’s desk and the table and the hall on the enclosed porch. Even as Junior begins to work on the kitchen I don’t find the massive amount of things living in our home that once did when we first moved here. That truly helps me. Again I fall in love with Junior’s “boring” ways. It took me a while to learn how to slow down and not have something filling my every moment. As I have learned to slow down and move slower I find that I am in love with this slow paced life. We get very few visitors which helps as well. I don’t worry that the house is all spotless most days. This Christmas I am hoping to have family and friends stop by for the holiday. I do like to entertain a bit and I’d love to fill this house up with people we love. I love walking around and listening to all the conversations taking place. I love acting silly. I don’t think I care about getting gifts as much as sharing the day with others. With the kitchen in order I can help get food on and put out for other’s to come and enjoy. Yup I’m excited. I again learn that overall Junior and I aren’t that messy. That helps me a ton. The floors are cleaned often, the dishes are done, the bathroom is cleaned often and the bedding is washed once a week so we don’t live in a lot of clutter and piles. There are some but not a lot. I also learn that I won’t ever have that immaculate house of my dreams and frankly I like the idea of people coming by, propping up their feet and resting from the day to day grind we all tend to have. I always want my home to be that place where people feel safe, comfortable and loved. I think I am starting to realize somewhere deep inside of me it isn’t about how clean or dirty but how comfortable I am able to make our home. Some won’t like our clutter. That is ok. We are comfortable with it and frankly that is all that matters. People often tell me how comfortable our home is and frankly that feels real nice. It isn’t about how spotless I can keep a home. This is a hard lesson for me to grasp. Still as I begin to grasp it I find myself being content. I am who I am. For most of my life I felt if I could figure the right formula out I’d be well liked and respected. These days I am more interested in being what God wants me to be and frankly it is about the most freeing feeling I’ve ever had. I no longer care if I have the “best” car, house or the most money. It is more about being who I am and enjoying me for who I am. If people have a problem with that, there is not a thing I can do about it so why try to the point of feeling crazy? Who are you trying to please? Why? May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet