How is your morning...

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-04-2004
How is your morning...
7
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 8:47am

I feel alive, fresh and clear today. I feel creative, which is not always in the forefront so I am enjoying it. My early morning was filled with calmness. I sang a familiar tune as I got ready for work.  The pups enjoyed my calm & song and were as calm as I, enjoying the morning rituals as well. I now have three puppies as two were returned last Friday. And for even this I remain calm and embrace the joy and dedication these wonderful little animals can bring. Today is good.


 


How is your morning and day shaping up?


 


Peace

 

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-13-2003
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 10:21am

am feeling rushed this am, as I forgot my cellphone at my teacher's home, last night! So now I have to drive quite a while away to pick it up, then rush to the ReikiCentre and sigh sigh!! I still managed to get some groceries in at least.

It was a hectic weekend and We have decided? that there's not going to be any telephone on the hook nor are we going to be "home" for anybody. We just need to catch our breath, for goodness sakes!

am supposed to be retired! not run around like a madman! The boys are now men and married, with a child and their own business, why is mother still running around, keeping out of trouble, into courses... and looking to do more courses!! geees, am almost 64 for goodness sakes!

Girls? take advice from me? Don't ever think that you'll have all the time in your life, when you retire! For you will be busier than you are today.. So enjoy this relaxing time.
hihi.
greets from the Old brush

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2003
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 10:59am

I can't say I'm fresh and clear, but I am alive and I showered this morning and dragged myself in to work, so hopefully that counts for something.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-09-2001
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 11:56am

Just got up about 45 minutes ago (I'm on the west coast...) and just finished my first of two cups of coffee. ;)) It's beautiful and sunny out, blue skies. Soon my Mika doggie and I will go out for our walk in the morning freshness. Can't wait! ;))

Hugs,
Gypsy



Blessings,

Gypsy

)O(



iVillage Member
Registered: 03-09-2001
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 12:06pm

Oh, Brush, you remind me of that old saying about filling any vacuum or space in your life, LOL! :P Since my hearing losses aced me out of jobs, and I have dealt with that grief and angst, I have settled into a semi hermit's life here at home. DH still works full-time at this point, so I have a full day of solitude with my Mika doggie. At first I was at a loss and felt off kilter, always having had my days filled with a full-time job, plus a growing daughter and DH. Now she is grown and gone, and DH & I have returned to being a couple again, after all these years. Took us a little while to adjust, but we are happy once again as a two-some. :P I am not a "joiner," never have been, and I hesitate to take classes now because of my hearing issues. After some years of being home, I find I am resistant to taking courses or joining groups (even ones for hard of hearing folks). I WANT my solitude. I find I've missed it all these years since I was in my 20s and single. Back then I worked part-time, had a dog companion (my Norwegian Elkhound) and had much time to myself. No computer in those days, but I had friends and pen-pals and we wrote back & forth regularly. I was a heavy reader as I am now, also. As a child, while I loved playing with my friends, some of my fondest memories were of sitting under a tree and just gazing up at the leaves and branches, or crawling into a "cave" under some hedges, and enjoying lying on the warmed earth from the summer heat, listening to the insects and murmurings of birds, napping in the trees. ;))

What's that about life coming full circle? LOL! :D

Hugs,
Gypsy



Blessings,

Gypsy

)O(



iVillage Member
Registered: 04-13-2003
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 11:16pm

Hi Gypsy!
it was really very nice ready your post! It made me remember things of my own childhood. The first 8 years, it was war..and only during school after the war, there were no children to play with for me.
I was borded for political safety's sake with the family of my mother's brother.. while the war for independance was going on..right after the second world war.

When in the Netherlands, we were all put up, in various different hotels, 4 or 6 to room. I will never in my life forget that horrid horrid cold day of arrival and the hours which we had to hang around on the ice-cold quay in the harbour and then the hours in the bus, driving around the western part of the Netherlands, depositing various passenger families in Hotels and what not.
Then later on, living in a village, everything soo different and strange and us being called monkeys or peanut eaters and go back to your country..

The funniest part was, that the Netherlands was the country of our forefathers and our own country didn't exist anymore, yet at the same time, due to our nationalities, the Netherlands was our fatherland too.

I didn't know much freedom and nature, until 4 years after I was in the Netherlands, my mother finally managed to get there and we were re-united as a family. Howerver my older half-brothers were still living in what now had become Indonesia. a Country I have never known.

In school, there was serious discrimination, as we had different habits and our culture was different too.. furthermore I had a mother, who had had a very important position with the National Telefoon company, but in the former colonies..something the average housewife in the Netherlands had never even heard of and the nuns weren't used to have their so called authority questioned!

It was in that south eastern part of the Netherlands, where there are high hills and forests. where I found my space to breath..
As a white Indo-Dutch child, the coloured Indo-Dutch spurned me, and my own classmates, although fascinated by my being "oriental", as they felt I was, as I had come from what is for the Netherlands, the orient, was full of mysticism. It meant that I had a childhood, with few friends.

So I spend almost all of my time in the forest around that little town. I knew the roads inside all that forest from my little village all the way into Belgium.. These days, to my delight, all that forestry still exists..

I was able to take my Canadian husband there, and on the path, to the hermits houses deep in the forests, but they are fixed up now, restored, not in the days when I was a teenager. Now a-days, am soo amused that there are people, who have never lived in that lovely village in which I grew up and have taken the time to map out all where I once as a teenager, found solitude, and wonder about nature. The trees, the flowers, the birds and all that lives.

then when I came to Canada, I could hardly believe, that I could just drive out of the city in those days and within half an hour one was in the country.. hihi, Now a days it takes much much longer to leave the city and get into the country.

I enjoy the land which my husband bought as a young man and we have a cabin in there. No running water, no electricity, no bathroom facilities.
But the aurealis borealis.. the northern lights.. the clear sky and the stars, the loons sounds on the lake at night and silence!

In the city, I live in a cooperative and have a little garden.. where I spend during the early spring till late fall, all my time, puttering about, and sometimes getting visiting, co- coop neighbours for a chat or a few herbs for their pots or stews.

All my life, I have worked in all sorts of professions, the library, offices as a secretary, make up artist..had my own Indonesian catering service and did a lot of volunteering. On top of that, I did a lot of courses.. Always I was learning, and learning all sorts of interesting things... I thought, that I didn't know what the future would hold and today? I could still do it.. and I am thinking back to my courses and time of student practice in homeopathy... Nursing in the Netherlands before my marriage and coming over here.

These days, am learning more spiritual things, like Reiki, meditation, and help people. In the old days, i did a lot of Indonesian massage to help people, which is a alternative medical modality.

Am sorry to hear of your disability. Mine is my tachycardia, with which I have lived since 1999. It curtailed me for many years, but I managed, and now can drive around again, my eyesight even has improved and when I get layed low because of the heart,I just read and write me letters and just relax. I discovered in 1999, why I was always fainting all over the place during my life. hihi, was actually quite amused about it..

I feel, that nothing in life is easy to anybody, so we all have to do our own thing to keep ourselves going and cheerful.

I've never forgotten the things of my childhood, during the war.. and so, have always thought, but for the grace of god, I could be worse off, like some people.. and I have always thanked, for that which I had.. I don't have much? compared to a great many others, but I do have what others don't have.. I have no parents, my father died at the beginning of the war and my half brothers aren't alive anymore either. Other than my 2 sons, who live at oposite ends of Canada, just my husband.. and a very good friend and some lovely neighbours.

I keep a cheerful heart and the ability to still help others via an alternative medical modality. and I enjoy today, as we don't know, right? what tomorrow will bring.. life can end very quickly and very suddenly.
Keep as best you can and I see another sister on a lovely path of this life!
greets and good nite from brush

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-09-2001
Wed, 02-15-2006 - 11:56am

You are having an amazing life, Brush! Thank you so much for sharing! You have overcome challenges that I can't even imagine! And you have come through it "whole" and learned so much wisdom along the way.

No matter how hard it is sometimes to keep my life focused spiritually, it's what sustains me, enables me, purifies me, inspires me. I think that is why many of us keep struggling to keep Spirit alive in us, to seek and to grow and to evolve.

Hugs,
Gypsy



Blessings,

Gypsy

)O(



iVillage Member
Registered: 04-13-2003
Wed, 02-15-2006 - 2:57pm

Hi Gypsy!
you give me way too much credit!! I had help you know! from people..

Actually? it started with me having to have a rotten lump removed from my breast.. oooh I got good and mad.. but the year after this lump was removed? Well I got terribly sick. Well in this Cooperative in which I live, a number of old ladies, sort of took to me.. and took me under their wing.. What it meant actually was that once a week, I took them out, lunching and shopping.. And so, when I got that ill, exactly one year after this lumb was removed.. One of them, was a jewish lady and she told me that I had to become a patient of her docter.. So I did and this lady docter (I still have her, by the way) coulnt figure out, what was making me feel soo ill all the time, but she couldnt find anything..
So one day, she called me, had me come to her office and wanted to know where I came from. Well I told her a bit of (hihihi) old world history to get to my background. Let me tell you, she had me on the floor with amazement in no time. She being Jewish, knew of a symptom, which Jewish people who have been incarcerated during the second world war, as well? that there was a disorder and it was called Post Traumatic Stress disorder.. hmhmhm. I knew about it, because of my own studies, but had never related my pour health to that, as in the old days, it was called: shellshock..

Well that was what set the whole thing rolling. I remember telling her, that I didn't want to be with the Jewish people, talking about that war.. for some jewish ladies, are Dutch immigrants here and they were incarcerated in those years as well. Well I didn't want to talk about that war.

to make matters worse, she right then and there called a centre, which apparently was actually started in the 70's in Denmark and it had been then when she wanted me to go, in 1995 already 20 years in Toronto. It is the Canadian Centre for victims of War trauma and war torture.

So there I went and loh and behold, around 2 years later, Oprah started with bringing psychotherapists on her show.. It was then, that I related myself to the people whom I helped and counselled in the early 80's!!

Goes to show you!! You can suffer from a particular disorder, you can recognize it in others, but be absolutely blind towards your own.

That's what set the whole thing rolling and I have gone on from there.. and a little bit here and a little bit there and now I am no longer surviving but living..

When I see shows, where people appear to give testemony that one can overcome this, that or the other, all I ever hear is: I have survived this, or that..Nobody ever talks about now that I have survived, am going to live!

I also tackled the results in my life of the 2 previous marriages which were terribly abusive and left scars. But I did something about those scars..

Now a days, people ask me if I have always been so "standing up for myself" and I say, that it isn't any of their business and if they don't like me, that's fine, one can't be like by everybody! I will still live.. But the result of all that I have done? has brought about that I open my mouth more these days and find that i have half the headaches.! hihihi, Things don't sit that long with me anymore either and I must say, through it all, my husband has learned a lot too, by going with me through all that counselling..

I overcame (funny enough!!!) deperssion. which was the result of PTSD.. I didn't take those anti depressant pills all that long and my dosis was low as well.. I learned to recognize, when the downward swing came about and how to get myself out of it, and eventually become levelled.. balanced I think is the better word. I still have to watch myself carefully, mind you, but tis by a long shot not at all, like it used to be and the psychiatrist and art-therapist? they don't know me from adam, any longer. hihihi

I still have to face daily the drawbacks of that life of mine, but it is now as something like that pill I have to take everyday to keep my heart stabelized.. or like diabetics, who have to take an insulin shot everyday, to live a normal life.

I still don't go into situations like crowds, like for instance doing my groceries at 10 am on a saturday, when all the people are there. Or see a movie when every dick, tom and harry is in the theater too. I go when it is slow and hardly anybody is around..

I don't like houseparties, because it makes me feel that I can't get out in an emergency and the in laws, complain, but I just let them and don't get upset at them anymore, not being interested as to why I do it.. they can these day, go and fly whatever kite they like.

I am a lot of times, on my own, but am not lonely!! I enjoy, like you the peace and quiet and that I can do, exactly what I like.. I pamper myself at those times.. walk around sometimes, with three or four masks and scare that way the living daylights out of our postman. hihihii

As today? I was thinking about you and your disability and another lady, who also comes to one of the boards at ivillage and also has a hearing problem.. and I thought, now THOSE women, THEY are heroes, imagine living with something like that... what about music, one cant hear it.. and going to a movie theatre is also, maybe not in there for you and her..

See? what I mean? when I meet people like you? I know how fortunate I am. I can still read and hear and get about in a car..

I look to what I have, and it amazes me! For I know only too well, how it could have been different for me..

Have a great day Gypsy. Tomorrow am going to my girlfriend, she is providing the lunch and then we're heading for the Sally Ann stores, presently? am preparing a Indonesian meatloaf for her and her hub, as they like my Indonesian Meatloaf.
have a great day and greets from the old brush