Midnight Caller

Senior Cat stopped sleeping on my bed at night at exactly the same time I got a new comforter (about four and a half years ago).

Since my comforter is now over four years old and has a few snags here and there, I issued an invitation to Senior Cat (yes, I talk to our cats quite regularly) on my way to bed. I explained he should come and snuggle with me. It's okay (now).

He looked at me with his soulful eyes as if to say "No thanks, I'm good here." and never changed his routine.

You can tell he hurts by the way he walks and prefers not to snuggle these days. He seems to have the cushion on the back of the love seat molded to support the curves of his body and that is where he likes to stay.

His breathing is becoming more labored these days and his meow is almost non-existent.

I gaze into his eyes and look for any changes. Will he let us know when he is hurting too much? Will I be able to tell?

Any changes to his routine set off alarms and make me wonder if it is a sign that he is hurting in some new way.

He has adopted a pleasurable new snuggling routine. He finds me (often) sitting at the computer and he will sit beside me and squeak out a little noise (that used to be a meow). I will pick him up. He molds himself into the contours of my arms and neck. And purrs.

His purr is and always has been what I love most about him. When he first became sick, his purr became 'rusty' and he sounded like he needed a good 'lube job'. He went from that, to rarely purring at all.

The better he felt, the more he started to purr again. These days, he can turn up his purr so we can hear it across the room again. It does my heart good.

I continued to converse with my little black kitty, telling him he could come and snuggle up with me when I went to bed. One night, he followed me.

He changed his mind once he got into my room, but I think he fully understood the invitation was open and so was the door.

About a few weeks ago, I woke up to a little black purring machine staring me down in the middle of the night.

He sat there. And purred. I petted him and he purred louder. He acted like he wanted under my covers (it was particularly cold at the time) and I thought maybe he was feeling the night time chill and needed body heat.

He snuggled in and kneaded. And kneaded. And purred and kneaded. And purred some more. Then left.

The surprising part is, that seemed to be the first night of the rest of our lives. He has showed up, purring in my face every single night since then.

His purr is loud and insistent. He kneads and tries to snuggle, but he never stays.

Last night I felt the waves of exhaustion wash over me as he woke me up in the middle of a deep sleep and I felt his insistent kneading on my neck. Purring. Kneading. Snuggling (to a point). Then he left.

The night before, he rested one of his shoulders upon my shoulder and reached around my neck with his other paw and actually 'hugged' me.

He has done this before, but when he was lying vertically on top of me as I was stretched out on the couch. He reached up and 'grasped' me with his outstretched arm. Because his arm reached up close to my neck, I felt like he was hugging me.

This night time visit makes me smile and warms my heart.

But it is such a drastic 'change' from his norm, I wondered aloud while I was talking with my brother this past weekend. "Do you think he is trying to tell me something? Like 'I'm hurting ... help me'?"

My brother assured me I will see the pain in his eyes when that is the case. He thinks Senior is telling me "Thank you".

There is nothing like a reassuring hug from a cat to make you feel loved. They are wise and highly sensitive creatures. I think he knew I could use a little hug.

"Thank you, Senior. I needed that!"

Snippets

I jumped out of bed with a pile of words sitting on my fingertips this morning.

Snippets. Phrases. Quotes. Ideas. Thoughts.

Ping! Ping! Ping!

I sped through my breakfast-making routine and went straight to an empty page to write, before the words evaporated into the day before me.

I wrote. I rewrote. I felt. I thought.

It seemed like I had something important to say and it was starting to seep out of my fingertips.

Like an artist painting a picture, I took a step back. I added, tweaked, edited, reworked my 'masterpiece'.

Close. Not quite. Better. It's coming. I think I'm onto something here.

Then I heard the familiar rumble of an engine outside. I peeked through the slats of the blinds to find one of my daycare families who had arrived fifteen minutes early. Fifteen minutes!

In the time it took for me to get dressed and greet the day, my piece of work vanished into thin air.

The feeling. The momentum. The energy. The emotion. Like a bubble that bursts after bobbing and weaving and remaining intact ten times longer than the rest. It was gone.

'This' is why I don't tend to arrive at my appointments with destiny early. One never knows what can be lost by that extra fifteen minutes 'gained' at someone else's expense.

As a rule, I am the one with something to gain. I often accomplish more in fifteen minutes than I do in three hours.

I work best when I am racing against the clock. I just hate when the 'alarm' goes off earlier than anticipated.

This is why I have a small collection of unfinished drafts of writing sitting in my collection of blog posts. My day quite often steps in and interrupts a work-in-progress. When I sit down and look at it later, it is never quite the same as it was the moment I was feeling it.

I simply have the remnants of the thoughts that begged to be written. They feel jagged, uneven and not ready for human consumption. So I put them aside and settle for the snippets of thought and ease I felt as I released them.

Sometimes a person simply needs to purge and release. Sometimes you need to be still with yourself and just feel. Other times one needs to hear the words out loud.

There is a time and a place for everything.

This morning's early arrival took the choice out of my hands.

I'm grateful life-as-I-know-it greeted me early this morning. It kept me in the present. And that is exactly where I needed to be.

Enough

The words "Good Enough" are the words I incorporated into my thinking and lifestyle as the year 2014 wound down to a close.

After many lessons (I ignored) teaching me 'perfection' is not the ultimate goal one should strive for, I finally realized 'done' is better than 'incomplete'. The goal of 'perfection' was keeping me from completing what I had set out to do. So I settled on the goal of Good Enough.

Good Enough proved to be life affirming for me.

I learned to define myself by those very words. 

I am not the best mother in the world. Nor am I the worst.

I am not the best friend, daughter, sister, daycare provider, bookkeeper, writer, yard-maintainer or house-cleaner in the world. Nor am I the worst.

I am not the best at following a budget nor setting or attaining my goals nor striving to be my best self on a day-to-day basis. Nor am I the worst.

I could be so much kinder or more generous or more compassionate or loving or any number of adjectives I use to describe those who I admire. 

I am half the person I wish I was. I am a quarter as good as others think I am. I could and should be more of who I am.

But ... despite all of that. I have given myself permission to believe:

"I am not as good as I could be. But I am good enough."

This new mantra keeps me humble, yet secure enough to accept a compliment without putting myself down in the process. 

My inner dialogue has grown from "I am not the person you believe me to be (and let me convince you how wrong you are)" to "I am not as good as you believe but I am good enough. Amen."

The year 2014 also ended on another note which (in the past) would have threatened the very ground I stand on. Financial stability.

I had recently discovered that I could be losing two out of three of my full-time daycare charges. One, due to an impending maternity leave. The other, due to a change of address (they moved to the opposite end of the city). There also came the concern that losing one three-year-old may affect the my other (part-time) three-year-old's desire to come to my daycare without her friend here.

In the past, this would have been cause for great concern. 

What I have learned from fourteen years of running a daycare, added to thirty seven years of which I have been supporting my own family, is 'it always works out in the end'.

No matter how much I have sat down and tried to budget and account for every penny coming into and going out of my pocket, there is always something I have not accounted for. There is (or at least has not been for me) no such thing as accounting for every and all contingencies (just watch a few dozen home renovation shows and you will see what I mean).

The more I worried, the more things happened.

Then something happened. I stopped worrying.

I have no idea what cosmic forces came into play when I stopped worrying about there being enough income to offset the expenses. But whatever it is, it is working.

I always have 'enough' to pay the bills. And live life, as I choose to live it, as well.

There is enough to indulge myself in that-which-makes-me-happy. Outings with friends and family. Take-out food when I feel like I need it the most. Extra-curricular spending in the form of gifts, trips or extravagances as I deem 'necessary'. There is always enough.

This past Christmas was no exception. The funds I had budgeted for Christmas seemed to get absorbed by other expenses. I gave in very moderate ways but I gave all I wanted to give as well. 

Christmas was 'paid in full' before Christmas Day arrived and I just happened to receive (more than) enough gift money to cover the remaining costs related to my trip to Vegas next month.

Then the calendar page turned and it was 2015. We are ten days into the new year and miracles continue to amaze and astound me. Remember, it takes very little to amaze me.

I ordered a photobook from Walmart and spent a total dollar amount of $9.83. It was supposed to arrive November 27th, but due to circumstances beyond my friendly neighborhood Walmart's control, it was delayed by at least a week. I had considered ordering more books if I liked the result but I couldn't the wait, so I changed my mind. 

I didn't complain but others must have. Because Walmart has voluntarily refunded the full cost of my photobook, as well as the additional photos I ordered the same day (which were also gifts). Not only that, I have a $25.00 credit with Walmart Photo AND 100 free 4" X 6" prints!

A great deal of my Christmas-giving, were pictures which I printed off and mailed to family after our reunion. And Walmart happily refunded me all (or more) than I spent. Thank you, Walmart!!

Then came the daycare-dilemma of 2015.

I didn't actively advertise but I just updated my websites, with my upcoming daycare spots coming available.

I met with one family yesterday. They hired me before they walked out the door. I am (tentatively) meeting another family very soon (to start in the fall).

There is a sense of calm which has taken over my world. Instead of focusing on there being 'too many' daycares in 'too small' of an area, I have started to believe there is still an abundance of opportunities as long as I keep believing in myself, what I do and how I do it.

Then ... I found this article written by my favorite blog author:

http://momastery.com/blog/2015/01/07/hergoodnewsmakesyoufeelbad/

So Beautiful

As I wrestle with teaching my rough and tumble little two-year-old daycare charge about 'gentleness', 'kindness', 'caring', 'sharing' and gentle, this video captivated me:



I showed it to my tiny little charges yesterday and for a moment, they were transfixed. I kept uttering the words "Look how gentle that puppy is" and "Look how kind that little boy is".

Gentleness. Kindness. Loving. Caring. Sharing.

Isn't that really what life is all about?

Super Powers (X 2)

My new Super Power of 'Wakefulness' has given me a whole new lease on life. The ability to stay awake until 10:00 p.m. on a regular basis is new and foreign ground to me. And with it, must come some new adaptations to life-as-I-know-it.

Last night, I had big plans. I had a hair appointment booked, letters to mail, groceries to buy and several Tim Hortons gift cards burning a hole in my pocket.

Wouldn't you know it? I had to drive by a Tim Hortons on my way home from my hair appointment. So, a late-night (7:30) supper it was!

Who can go to Tim Hortons without buying a coffee? Not me.

In the past (in my life-of-exhaustion, which preceded my new Wakefulness Super Power), I could easily have an after-supper-cup-of-caffeine and it may (or may not) have given me enough of a boost to stay wakeful until after 8:30. Add one 8:00 cup of coffee to a person who has been habitually falling asleep well after 10:00 p.m., with an added dose of realization that my Vegas Weekend Getaway was exactly one month away ... and that equaled ME.

I was pumped.

I started texting and didn't quite stop. I was suddenly aware that my horizons after February 8th look bleak and I started to wonder what I can add to my agenda to help me look towards the future with anticipation.

Don't worry. I didn't book a trip to Disneyland. Or Ontario. Or even Moose Jaw. All I did do, was text a friend and invite her out for a birthday supper. That's it.

But my Wakefulness Super Power was kicked up a notch.

I didn't even try to go to bed until almost 11:30. I turned on the TV and made it into not only one, but two and I believe at least the third commercial break! This never EVER happens to me! I was going to see the end of this hour long program. YAY!!

Then I woke up, face-to-face with Senior Cat (who has adopted a brand-new-to-him habit, of jumping up onto my bed, sitting beside my head and turning on his Monster Purr). I stirred, petted him and invited him to come and snuggle. Which he did. Under my covers (at his prodding).

He purred and kneaded and purred and kneaded and purred some more. Then he nuzzled his way out from under the covers and proceeded to actually snuggle up with me. It has been years since he snuggled up and slept on my bed. Years!

I was grateful for my new Super Power which gave me the gift of enjoying this brand new side of my old kitty.

It turns out I am not the only one in the house with a brand new Super Power. Our Senior Cat has been honing in on his own brand of Super Power Kitty Love. In the middle of the night.

What a perfect combination!

Running Behind But Well on My Way

Throughout my holiday, I found myself getting up to the sun. I woke up several times before the sun did. In fact, I laid in bed wide awake watching TV. But more often than not, I did not climb out of bed and face the day until my alarm told me it was time to give Senior Cat his 9:00 a.m. dose of medication.

This strategy really messed with life as I know it.

The quiet of the morning is when my brain waves are keen and fresh. There is something about early morning solitude, combined two to three cups of coffee and knowing I have a few hours to myself that makes my fingers fly across the keyboard and spill the early-morning thoughts of my brain onto the page before me. 

Waking up at 9:00 a.m. provided no such guarantee.

Numbing my brain with early morning television programming is the death of me. I can feel my own thoughts and words evaporate into thin air. By the time I walked out of my room into the vastness of the quiet of (what was left of) the morning I barely wanted to read anyone else's words. Let alone write a few of my own.

Towards the end of my holiday, I grabbed my coffee and morning smoothy and went straight to the love seat in the living room.

I had an end table nestled right up to the spot where I reclined with all the remote controls required to watch whatever combination of live, recorded, Netflix or TV on Demand combination I craved. Along with these remotes, were the house phone, my cell phone, our new iPad and a book. Oh, and my coffee.

I sat still and went with the flow of inertia. 

Inertia doesn't flow well.

I made no voluntary outbound calls, texts or emails unless it was absolutely necessary. I picked up the phone if I knew who was calling. I replied to texts. I took a few people up on invitations out of the house. But for the most part, I simply wanted to curl up in my favored lounging spot of the day and absorbed the input of the 'world' I created.

Beware of the world you create for yourself.

When my world is full of goals, ideas and dreams I feel limitless as to what I can do, accomplish or 'be'.

When I drown out my own thoughts, I become a shadow of who I am and what I feel I can accomplish.

For me, turning on the TV turns off my brain. And with it, my ambition, my self confidence and my own thoughts which define who I am.

Television creates an alternate universe for me. I lose myself. Sometimes that is a good thing and exactly what I need. But when you are a person who is trying to create alternative income sources through writing, tuning in the TV and tuning myself off is not something I want to become a habit.

Maybe that is why I have been drawn to the HGTV channel. Home renovations = retirement and income options for me. The one thing I learned about myself when I took a tentative step outside of my home in an attempt to earn a living in the great big world outside of these doors, is that I want to make my home become a source of revenue for me. Whether that is by running a daycare, taking in a border, opening up a B & B, renting a level of my home or setting up a home office for writing &/or bookkeeping. Working out of my home is where it is at for me.

Thus, my dreams don't die and the ideas don't wither up and go away when I watch house hunting and home renovations.

Something deep inside of me knows 'home' is where it is at for me. I just have to ensure I keep the television turned off and maintain my early morning writing ritual. My fingers know more than I do when I let them fly uninhibited in those dark and quiet early morning hours.

How do I know this? Because when I sat down to write this morning I was going to write about my hair.

Maybe tomorrow. Today is about fulfilling my writing, dream and work quota. I'm running behind but I'm still well on my way.

See you next time! You have been warned. It could be about my 'hairrowing' experience at a new hair stylist tonight. I must trust that I am in good hands. My trusted, tried and true hair stylist has had to abort this career and has referred me to someone he believe best suits my needs.

More on that another day. In the mean time, turn off the TV and tune in your inner self. See who you find inside, when you aren't even looking.

Off the Grid

It seems I tacked on a writing holiday onto my holiday from everything else this past week or so. I hope it isn't like the holiday I took from exercise (never to return) ...

What did I do with all that time? In a word, I read.

I lost myself in the world of fiction and drifted off into a world the author created.

I have amassed a pile of never-before-read-books within my home and I was drawn to the work of Jo Jo Moyes. Simply because a blog writer I follow made one simple comment.

I was transported and lost somewhere between the years of 1916 and 2006 and spent most of that time in France (a little in London) as I read "The Girl You Left Behind" (I believe this is the book that my Favorite Blog Author referred to in her comment).

I love it when an author sneaks a little bit of a history lesson into a fictional piece of writing. I love finding an author whose writing sweeps me up and away and into a world I never dreamed of.

I was most impressed by the fact that I didn't fall asleep every time I sat down during my vacation. Perhaps because the other hobby I enjoyed during my vacation time was sleep.

I slept in until 9:00 a lot of days.

I discovered something quite amazing to me. If I don't get up at 5:00, I don't need a nap by noon. If I follow my body's clock in the morning, I have a few more waking hours left in me at the end of the day.

What did I do with those hours (besides read)?

I had a 'Home Hunters' marathon day.

I watched 'Home Hunters - Where are They Now?'; 'Home Hunters Renovation'; 'Home Hunters International'; 'Home Hunters - Off the Grid'; and just plain 'Home Hunters'.

What did I dream of as I watched this massive array of Home Hunting Shows?

I dreamed of living off the grid.

I dreamed of my never-ending-dream of running a bed and breakfast.

I dreamed of my 'dream home' where I have a desk which is on the second floor of an old home, overlooking a quiet prairie scene.

I dreamed of convertible organization spaces to run my daycare without it looking like I run a daycare.

In the end, I (eventually) took down our Christmas decorations. I am enjoying the sleek new look of less garlands and lights and a more barren landscape.

When my ship comes in, I shall invest in living room windows and new doors. If my ship doesn't come in, I may settle for a new book shelf ...

As I ran this Home Hunters Marathon and transported myself into different countries and historical periods throughout my week-long holiday at home, I saw the world. I experienced more than I could have ever imagined. Without leaving our home or spending a penny.

It was the best holiday I could have ever imagined.

Living 'Off the Grid' was a quiet and self indulgent place to spend my time. It was exactly where I needed to be.

I'm back. But I hope I keep one foot in my holiday time zone where everything felt possible.