I haven’t felt like writing anything lately.  I am not inspired to write anything creative and I am so exhausted most days, I don’t even feel like sitting and writing a moany blog about how exhausted I am. 

I am still not sleeping very much and the weather with its dry sub-zero temperatures one day and damp 20s-30s the next is wreaking havoc with my pain levels.  I am finding there is no good temperature during in the winter, they all hurt. 

I have given up my attempt to medicate with prescriptions and over the counter fodder and have gone to herbal teas.  Kava kava, while in large doses can cause hallucinations, in a normal tea bag, is a stress and pain reliever. 

While it does not help me sleep, it takes away all the restless leg syndrome symptoms so I no longer feel like my muscles have a mind of their own.  (My mental image when my legs are really bad, are the wicked witch of the west’s legs rolling up and under Dorothy’s house.)

Valerian root and Skullcap with catnip and chamomile is what I have been trying for actual sleep.  I get the relaxed feeling like I want to doze off, but my mind will not shut off. 

I think that is most of my problem with sleep.  The pain is annoying but I am used to it.  There times when it is worse, but endorphins are a wonderful thing and when they kick in, I can usually deal, but my mind is so restless. 

I was reading Karma Free Cooking and the writer there spent from Christmas to New Year’s at a Yoga retreat meditating.  I would love to be able to do that, but the chaos in my head only gets more unnerving when I try to meditate.  I think that has long been the issue – I ‘try’ to meditate. 

When I am engrossed in doing something like painting, sewing, cooking – something that is methodical and that does not really require a lot of thought process, I slip into that space so easily where I am relaxed, my mind is still, completely in the moment and I am thinking about nothing – it is when I realize I am there that it all comes flooding back in. 

My mind is in chaos and so are my surroundings.  My house is a hovel at the moment and I don’t know where to start to get things back in order.  I was made acutely aware of how bad things are when my furnace went out.

I keep the house around 60 degrees normally and I have a fan going all the time because I am addicted to the white noise so I didn’t realize it was getting colder in the house.  I was vaguely aware of cool air across my face and my brain kept trying to tell me a window must be open but I couldn’t get it to register. 

When I threw back the comforter, I shuddered and with chattering teeth, I tottered out to the living room and checked the thermostat, 48 degrees.  I thought it was the pilot light but it wasn’t so I had to call a repairman. 

I didn’t want to jump in the shower with the house being so cool and the temperature dropping so I met the guy at the back door in slippers, my night gown, wrapped in an old Indian blanket.   A visual treat for him, I am sure. 

I sat in the kitchen waiting to find out what the damage to my bank account would be.  The sun flooded in the windows behind me and I got to look at my house from a vantage point I rarely get.  I just wanted to start crying.

There are stacks of books, DVDs, and papers everywhere.  They have taken on a life of their own, oozing across every flat surface and cascading to the floor. 

There are ping-pong balls all over the kitchen floor.  Yes, ping-pong balls.  It was a kind of an inside joke I had with someone and I was going to send them a box filled with ping-pong balls (Captain Kangaroo).  It cost me a small fortune to buy enough to fill a box but before I could get it sealed, the cats dove in and began flicking them all over.  After multiple attempts to retrieve and deflect, I gave up. 

They then got into the box, upended it and I now have nearly 100 little plastic balls sitting in the corner of my kitchen taunting me by showing how unleveled my floor is.  The cats dive into them, whack them all over and then watch them all collect back in the corner.  It is great at 3am.

I have the microwave that died sitting on the counter next to the new microwave because I am not sure what the proper environmentally friendly way to dispose of it, likewise with the new TV vs. the old one. 

I need to find out who takes them so they don’t end up in a landfill but my time online is usually spent reading the news, checking email, posting something on one of the blogs, or reading the ones I have linked. 

Procrastination has been elevated to an art form for me, I think.

I have some days off coming up where I am going to set goals and involve others in order to keep myself on task.  I have an incentive – a new green cleaning product I found called Mrs. Meyer’s and the lavender fragrance is amazing.  I want to use it to scrub every surface in the house. 

Funny that nothing else is as much of an incentive as being able to buy a new cleaner.  I truly am bizarre. 

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