Letting go

[honeybera]

Well, so far I've puttered...and puttered, and puttered! Got my 2 backyard garbage/trash containers (consisting of just replaceable HUGE trash bags that fit into a metal frame) all nicely set up. I picked up a bunch of trash, some actually usable for seed starting pots, picked up/found/dug up/organized my plastic pots and saucers from all over the place and set them on my little cement porch right outside my WOW so they're easily accessible for up-potting/transferring, DID SOME WEED EATING (but didn't even get close to finishing up yet...but it's coming), set up a watering dish for the pups in their yard, and came inside for a cuppa, a rest, and to study online videos on how to make my own potting soil/seed starter "at a fraction of the cost" and hilariously with all that stuff sitting idly in my garage! YAY!! They went into great detail on how to chose what needs to be used for what, "recipes" to use (amounts needed for small batches or large ones), and how and why I can refurbish those neglected and WAY overused strawberry planters! I'm learning SO MUCH!

I'll need a bit of help from DS this weekend, but not too much. I'll continue to work a little outside, sort of hit and miss, weed eating for a bit, rest a bit, and hit it again. I'll eventually finish, and it keeps me away from the TV. Nothing good to see on there. I'm so grateful to have this to come to, share with whoever is seeing this, and save my sanity instead of heading headlong into Clinical Depression and overwhelming sadness!

Oh! One last thing: I'm giving everybody a "trim" out there that needs it (light pruning) and then a nice drink of fish emulsion and kelp. That should wake them up! I've not been feeding my friends out there. I MAY refurbish ONE POT out there and plug in ONE zucchini seed (maybe two), nice and fresh from THIS year...TODAY!! I need that...emotionally. I need the lift of my spirits to look every day and see it pop up and then grow!! And fresh zucchini! YUM!!!!

Oh!! ONE MORE THING ( I fibbed! ): MY 20 YR. OLD TREE IN THE FRONT YARD that the neighbor kindly "trimmed" for the first time ever since it was covered in parasitic mistletoe, THAT TREE SURVIVED the radical "trimming" (I mean he WHACKED it up good, BUT the mistletoe is GONE, GONE, GONE!!!!) - and it now has little tiny healthy green leaves appearing on these blunted amputated upraised stumps. Hope springs eternal! I am SO THRILLED!

=================(Still Saturday, but 7:30pm)

Wow!! I did another HOUR of weed eating just now!! And I wish you could see it. It's been at least two years since I've been out there and it really needed some SERIOUS cleanup!! I brought in my battery for recharging. I just kept going until it was all spent. When I looked back at what I've done, all the foxtails I annihilated (the crane flies are going to HATE me for that!), I put my arms up and CHEERED!! It looks SO much better!! I watched a lot of videos today on how to revive and enliven the soil in those old tired out 30 gallon pots...and NOW I've found the pots again! I also managed to PULL my wagon liner OUT of the place it's been all Winter and up on to the freshly mowed down weeds! I DID IT!!

But that was only what I can SEE from my WOW. Past that are MORE high weeds and super thirsty trees. My little pear trees and my Rubinette apple, all in tubs up against the back fence and nearly lost now due to neglect, were saved with the little sprinkle of water I gave them the other day over the tops of the weeds, a real near miss: they were already wilting and drying out, but now are revived!! By tomorrow morning I should be able to weed eat up to them, really give them a refresher and at least a drink of fish emulsion and kelp! And beyond that lie MORE 30 gallon pots just waiting for some squash seeds to be dropped into them. There are LITERALLY DEEP DEEP holes out there that my dogs dug, maybe 2'-3' deep, that need to be refilled with soil before I break my leg by stepping accidentally into one of them if I don't see them! The pups have nearly destroyed my raised beds next to the BIG POTS. However, my many lemons weren't destroyed by the rats THIS year by gnawing away at the PEELS of the lemons and leaving the fruit itself hanging on the tree still. My dogs stopped that nonsense cold!! And now I've cut the weeds back so when my dogs hunt the rats they won't get foxtails in their ears, nose, and once one of our Rat Terriers from our former litter got one stuck in her butt! Poor little thing.

I saw MANY Crane Flies out there tonight. I don't need a lawn to draw them close. They just LOVE the weeds out here! They are as UGLY AS SIN (Google to see just how much), and look like a GIANT mosquito (and I mean GIANT!!), but they seem to also love to slip into the house quickly and terrify us by clinging to a wall just overhead as we try to sleep! I know that I must have outright killed a TON of them out there tonight, but I was out when they are out (in the evening like mosquitos) and they are seasonal, yet are harmless and don't suck blood or spread disease. (Thank heavens!!) Eliminate their homes (that thick matted undergrowth of VERY established WEEDS) and I'm sure that their creepiness will be short-lived.

It's starting to look like my garden again! HALLELUJAH!!! I'm glad that I decided to FIGHT this depression thing! It's well worth my while! And the videos are really helping! I've decided to grow my own grapes down the west side of the house in containers. There's a Sikh who is doing fantastic videos who doesn't live too far from me and I plan to go visit his "you-pick" farm probably this Summer sometime, or even in the Fall, for his sage advice and maybe some cuttings. Nice guy who really knows his stuff! And he has these SUPER SWEET seedless Monukka Black grapes that I have to try!! I am currently buying grapes, which are on the Dirty Dozen list of highly pesticide sprayed crops and that should be purchased ORGANIC at minimum (homegrown is best!), but the nearest Whole Foods is about 50 miles away from me - and these Monukka Black seedless are so delicate and thin skinned that they're difficult to transport to market, so I couldn't even buy them at Whole Foods. I get my regular old Black grapes which are probably picked while still green and somewhat sour, then shipped from God knows where, AND heavily sprayed with deadly pesticides...FROM WALMART! So this is actually a pretty good idea. And some people are even growing them in POTS vertically! Right up my alley!! The biggest thing is to know how to PRUNE them, and I'm kind of warming up to the idea of how to prune grapes (THE TECHNIQUE) and also the why (bigger grapes/better harvest).

But first is the yard clean up and organization, and I'm well on my way to accomplish that. By the time I'm done, it'll be September or later and time to begin my FIRST Fall/Winter garden and plant my grapes (or begin the cuttings) and plant potatoes, onions, celery, carrots, and so on! But this time starting seeds will mean with a little sand and some throw away containers, so I'll begin my seed starting that way. We barely have a "winter" here, so no worries about when I can put out my crops, and there we go!

It's bedtime IF I want to get up early and get back out there! Forecast? 74ºF! PERFECT!

===================(Sunday "morning" 11:20am)

OK, I didn't make it into bed until significantly after midnight. BUT my entire mood has changed due to what I accomplished yesterday outside. I didn't add that I had done kitchen work as well and the dishes are now clean again. Proud of that. I am keeping that up as I struggle with getting myself outside and reclaiming my garden! One step at a time.

I woke up today with a burning thought running through my mind:

What your ARE is your parent's fault,
BUT IF you STAY that way, it's YOUR fault.

That is a quote from my ancient (1970s) self help book, The Treasure Chest, still nestled on a shelf in my closet. I ought to get that down someday and reread it with my current 76 yr. old prospective. I'll bet I'd understand more than I did back then, although it was still helpful even then, despite how raw I was emotionally. Those raw and painful feelings still lurk deep within me, but now I see the demons for what they were/are and at least now have some tools to cope with them. Just thought I'd share that.

[joyagain]

Glad that your back on track, MOVING, doing what you enjoy and accomplishing.

joyagain

[honeybera]

Glad that your back on track, MOVING, doing what you enjoy and accomplishing.

joyagain

joyagain, I'm trying to! How is it going for you? Did that skin tag thing work for you? I'd love to hear more about how you grew potatoes.

I tried to send a post earlier describing how my favorite and healthiest Purple Tree Collard had nearly fallen off my 4' round outdoor table outside, but how I had saved it from falling by just opening my blackout curtains and seeing it already halfway off the table. That's been corrected and the plant is safe, and then I came in here and wrote about it...and the site sent me back to the sign in page without sending it. I know how to deal with that little setback so all my hard work writing and the time it took isn't wasted: just go back to the unsent/unpreviewed/unsubmitted page, copy the post so it doesn't get erased, then go sign in AGAIN, and when it puts me back onto my forum again, I JUST PASTE IT and I'm good. But this time it STILL cut off more than half of my page with all my writings now GONE.

I could feel all that enthusiasm I'd just been feeling evaporate, no matter how hard I tried. WAY too many "deeply felt sense of loss" issues lately. It takes my energy and my hope away. Each ding does its little bit of damage, and the dings just keep on coming, unrelenting. It's like drowning slowly, coming up for breath, getting hope of rescue, and then going back underwater. It's really hard to stay chipper and bright in spirit.

So I paid all my bills for the month, which usually cheers me up, since I have that ability to do so and I can remember a time when I didn't have that ability, and allowed myself to feel blessed. Then I settled in to watch a movie I'd copied off the TV, Speed, to see how it looked to a former bus driver and began to cheer up AGAIN, when I saw a man in my backyard! Ah, it was only DS, so I went outside and asked him to pull a few mallow weeds. I can't pull them up; I'm not strong enough, and these were the BIG ones with DEEP root systems! Peace of cake to pull them up for him; impossible to even budge for me. I was not aware that he was feeling VERY RESENTFUL because I asked him to pull 4 weeds up. He finally said frowning, "I ONLY came out here to see where Boots was getting out!!"

He said something about her getting out through the neighbor's yard. I wasn't too clear on it, but she was no sooner let out into the garden side than she was in the front yard AGAIN. I was outside and could HEAR HER crying and told DS, "She's in the front again I think." which he scoffed at, but she was. His solution? Let HER figure out how to get back in. When I found her yesterday, she was wedged between the gate and the gatepost trying to jam a muscular 12 lb. body through a 3" gap and shrieking in frustration and absolute terror while trying DESPERATELY to get back in to our yard.

I feel like I'm playing "negative situational whack-a-mole" with multiple deaths and that constant sense of loss looming over me. Hit one and another one pops up! Loss of a pet, loss of loved ones, loss of contact or continuity, spoiled plans or possessions, or even loss of anything constant in my life. I can't count on ANYTHING, I can't TRUST ANYTHING to be there for me, to be supportive. My DB assembled everything (and it was a LOT), but nothing much has moved out of the garage yet, and I can't lift much. I believe that I'll just keep trying to clean up the back yard and to weed eat and to find however Boots is getting out. Until then, the pups are in the dog's yard. I'll get out there in that yard first, though, and mow down all the foxtails so the dogs will be fine and only let them back into this yard when I find and fix the escape route, wherever it is! To simply ignore it like DS wants to do could lose me my dog to either theft or death. NO!!

On a happier note, I happened to see one of my 4" pots from Annie's Annuals with HUGE BUDS on it! Not just one or two, but SEVERAL, just about to burst free! It's my Campanula medium 'Deep Blue' “Canterbury Bells”. I need to get with the program on transplanting those poor plants to larger pots. I also need people (and even my pet now - EXCEPT for Mittens) to just LEAVE ME ALONE and quit BUGGING ME!! I seem to get along a lot better that way. No wonder I was wanting to withdraw into my bedroom with my OWN microwave and fridge and even an air fryer. I'd rarely have to leave again. Hmm. Maybe a Brita water filter to complete it, too. And a big middle finger to the world. It's tempting.

Enough of this frivolity...

Honeybera

[joyagain]

I'm doing well. The weather where I am has been beautiful, which is great for my walk around the block and working out in the yard some.

All I did with the potatoes was buy a bag of organic Yukon Gold potatoes at Walmart, as usual, eat some but let a few go to growing eyes but still hard, and cut them in half, if I remember correctly, and plant them March 15th (zone 9b cool still at night, but likely no frost, and warm in the day but not too hot so don't need to water as much) I think 4" down in the soil. The soil is just sandy backyard ground that I had the first year mixed with kitchen scraps and successfully grew cantaloupes in, and this year mixed my home-made compost into the top layer (only a couple inches at best - hopefully more next year). A couple of days later, I threw some mulch on top, which is just dried up grass clippings and fallen crushed up with my hands Magnolia leaves that fall all over my yard from the neighbor's trees. I watered every day a little bit at sunset, unless it happened to have rained; but it's only just recently done that. Most took and started growing. I have 7 strong healthy 18"+ tall multi-stalk great looking plants! The tallest is about 2 ft. now and JUST TODAY blossomed! I have a couple of flowers budding on it.

The Cantaloupes popped up again a short time after the potatoes did, and what I think is my one and only tomato plant that must of germinated out from the compost unless it's just something else, will see. But yeah I didn't expect to be growing all that in one small area. It's only about 2" x 8" section of garden. I accidentally left the hose on one day last week, and it apparently drowned my new Cantaloupe seedlings that I was daily adding to my salads! I was so disappointed and am barely scrapping up a few yard edibles (the Pony's-feet and Yellow Wood Sorrel and Portulaca) to add to my salad.

I tried growing news leaves from my store bought lettuce when It got done to the stalks in water in the kitchen window, but that didn't work. I would get a tiny leaf or two every day or two, but more-so I would get slimy nasty gook, that I had to keep rinsing off, and changing the water more than once a day. I experimented with different amounts of water, like kept getting lower and lower, but still it just was slimy. I finally threw all of it in the compost! I will wait till the right season and perhaps grow me some of that Purple Tree Collards like you have! or some other greens.

I'm getting the next area of the garden ready to plant my zucchini and yellow crooked neck squash, from store bought seed, my first, this week before my surgery on Thursday. Then, I'm gonna sit back and let the garden alone during my recovery, and hopefully, likely the daily rain we are now getting will even give me a hand.

BTW, my two baby fruit trees, Celeste Fig and Black Mulberry made it! I re-planted them in bigger containers and after slowly acclimating them to the outdoors, I left them out there by the garden since April 15th (our frost end date). I was so disappointed that their leaves went to looking terrible and finally falling off, and I thought Oh NO! I killed them! But, I hoped not. I mulched them heavily and kept gently watering them and so so glad, they sprouted new growth and now multiple leaves and have made it!

The garlic / iodine on the one trial skin tag did not work! I don't know why, I followed the directions precisely and for at least two weeks. I messed up at the end, likely because it hadn't yet fallen off as I had hoped, and put a little extra mix on it, and it ended up starting to irritate and like "burn" and damage the skin encircling it, so I STOPPED, altogether, re-checked online what others have said, and confirmed that others have had the same issue with irritation in surrounding skin, and so one needs to be precise. And, rechecking to see that many others claim success in a shorter time frame. So, I don't know. Also, weirdly, about the same time I came across this new-to-me information, I started seeing the advertisements on commercials for that Dr. Scholl's FDA approved skin tag remover stuff. It's like 8 treatments for $20-25 if my memory serves me right. At present, I can't afford it. I've waited decades, I guess I can wait longer. They are not effecting my quality of life, perse, lol; but, it'd be just great to be rid of them. I may try the garlic / iodine mixture again since I've already bought the iodine, the bandaids, and garlic I can buy. I have a little left if it hasn't gone bad yet. I guess I'm more focused on others things and thinking I'll perhaps start that during my recovery after hysterectomy. I don't know why I feel to pair the two, but my gut says that's what I should try next.

I hope to write more later, but need to get a going here.
TS stay strong
joyagain

[honeybera]

Well, DS apologized last night and so did I this morning. But even more, I texted him to communicate more and WAY earlier and keep the angry flares out of it. I hope he heard me. One can express themselves in a calm and respectful manner, even using the same words: "Mom, my back is hurting and I only came out here to figure out how Boots is getting out. I also didn't take my allergy pills. Can we do this inside the house?" which is about what he said, but in a REALLY IRKED tone, at high volume, and through tight lips. He did the same thing inside the house in the kitchen hours later when I reached over to "help him". I'm just now finding out how stressed I really am. "Hair trigger" and super jumpy if surprised would really describe me lately. NO stressors are allowed to be aimed at me AT ALL!! And why should they be? EVER!! My physical, mental, and emotional health just aren't up to it at this time. And to poke me is like poking a bear. I may just grunt and snarl the first time, but absolutely avoid doing it twice to me.

I'm so grateful to have this last isurvive outlet available to me. REALLY REALLY GRATEFUL!! Just let my pond be calm and placid for just a little bit. Sheltering in place in my room is just fine with me. I just need some peace in this safe place in this otherwise chaotic world at this time. Not too much to ask. FIRMLY.

BUT TODAY is a wonderful gloomy day outside! (I personally LOVE this kind of weather to work in.) It's one of those perfect days for me weather wise. 1:00pm (few or no crane flies), completely overcast with high gray clouds (but no rain...yet), not much wind, and 61ºF. PURE HEAVEN! So I'm happy...but God help the person or circumstance that gets in my way today. SERIOUSLY! Just don't rain on my parade! (The rain comes tonight in the dark and clears by tomorrow morning...HALLELUJAH!!!)

I've pretty much QUIT watching Fox news, which was before all this Tucker business, where I saw human faces, learned a lot, and made my isolation bearable. The suddenness and severity of how it came down when it simply disappeared on me was like a mountain of BS. That's been a BIG BIG STRESSOR for me. MAYBE I'll watch Jesse Watters at 4pm and eat my OMAD dinner then with him, or at least that's my goal today. However, right now, there's NO "schedule security" at all! Bongino just disappearing and now gone on the weekends, then Tucker Carlson, too...both of them just there one minute ("See you on Monday!" - Tucker - and just a no-show with Bongino) and then POOF!! - permanently gone the next. I'm feeling a serious sense of loss and increasing insecurity due to this!

And it's causing quite a bit of stress in my life. I DON'T LIKE CHANGE! I like solid schedules that I can TRUST. When I turn on the TV cable station at 5pm (or pull up my recording for that specific program), I expect to see what it is I'm paying nearly $300/mo to watch, not some mealy-mouthed guest host!!!! But now I have switched over to the murder channels or history or sci fi or even gardening videos. ANYTHING but Fox news. And all this will change once Tucker lands again and settles in. I'll just go there. I really miss him! I saw him as a friend...of sorts.

I've given another 45 minutes to writing about all this. I hope I've not offended anyone. Simply my current opinion and the causes of it, and I have to be honest about it. But right now I need to go do something positive and healthy outside. I'm figuring 2 hours until dinner time (which coincides with watching Jesse while eating? - better than nothing, I guess) and then maybe a couple hours more weed eating after my OMAD. AND THEN BED! And if not that, do some much needed planting or transplanting in the hobby room, or even do up the big stack of dirty dishes DS just brought out to me from his room, or even clean the stove. I can always find something to do...and it all gives me a lift in spirits.

Honeybera

[honeybera]

I wasn't going to write more today, but I just saw your post. I read it before just going out to do whatever outside. I can't even call it a garden anymore, but after a LOT OF WORK and cleanup, it should be a pleasure to be in. I know you'll understand...and I hope you stick around and enjoy the resurrection with me.

I was surprised at your post and really enjoyed reading it. I kept checking to make sure that I wasn't re-reading one of my OWN posts! We have quite a few things in common.

my walk around the block and working out in the yard some

Well, there's two...

All I did with the potatoes was buy a bag of organic Yukon Gold potatoes at Walmart, as usual, eat some but let a few go to growing eyes but still hard, and cut them in half, if I remember correctly, and plant them March 15th (zone 9b cool still at night, but likely no frost, and warm in the day but not too hot so don't need to water as much) I think 4" down in the soil. The soil is just sandy backyard ground that I had the first year mixed with kitchen scraps and successfully grew cantaloupes in, and this year mixed my home-made compost into the top layer (only a couple inches at best - hopefully more next year). A couple of days later, I threw some mulch on top, which is just dried up grass clippings and fallen crushed up with my hands Magnolia leaves that fall all over my yard from the neighbor's trees. I watered every day a little bit at sunset, unless it happened to have rained; but it's only just recently done that. Most took and started growing. I have 7 strong healthy 18"+ tall multi-stalk great looking plants! The tallest is about 2 ft. now and JUST TODAY blossomed! I have a couple of flowers budding on it.

I buy my organic Yukon Gold potatoes at Walmart, too, and am trying to save a few but they keep going to useless mush on the sideboard as I dither. I'm also in Zone 9b and am sitting on top of an entire yard FULL of Hanford loam, a loamy-sandy sort of soil that actually melts like chocolate if it's disturbed and then watered. My dad came by for the walk-through when I first bought the place and marveled in the backyard, "OMG, HONEY! YOU'VE GOT HANFORD LOAM!!" and he gave me a big smile, so I knew it was something good! (He' had come alone. MD just could not handle ME, of ALL people, walking through my brand new, just built home, but my father came. Or maybe he just didn't tell her.) Hanford loam is the world's best topsoil, so how lucky am I?! My trees get so much fruit on them that they topple over, especially the Fuji. It's not strong clay soil so the roots will grab hold, but it's really rich and full of all the little necessary cooties.

===================(9:30 pm and almost time for bed...already!)

I was out in the yard today for 2 hours until 4pm, then back out there from 5:30pm-7pm! I actually worked up a sweat! YAY!!!! So, yeah, I was really working out there! And it shows! OH SUPER YAY!!!! I've almost cleared the entire path out there from my WOW to the front gate! And I am almost to the raised beds, what's left of them! I pulled my chair out of the wad of weeds holding it down tightly, so now I can just sit down if standing for long periods swinging a weed eater gets to be too much for me. AND I moved the removable wagon liner/large mixer tray/oversized Garden Glide sort of thing with a bright orange rope and handle attached to it. Wagon for it is still in the garage, having never been used...YET. But I'll get to it. I'm beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel...FINALLY! I think that the enormity of the tasks ahead of me were daunting enough to discourage me into a quagmire of overwhelming powerlessness and then sinking into like a deep depression of disbelieving in myself, very unsure of my ability to actually DO THIS, because it IS a LOT of plain old hard work!

It is SO overgrown! Weeds were tangled around EVERYTHING...and everything (objects) buried so deeply that it's completely invisible to me before they are getting smacked with a PING! with the weed eater! Then I get this kind of hoe/plow thing, long handle, and P-U-L-L all the crud up to be thrown away. Old metal cans, big round decorative river rocks, plastic of all sorts, dog's toys...you name it! Especially old branches cut from the Fuji apples tree YEARS ago and left on the ground. So if I had attempted to WALK along in there thru the deep weeds before doing any cleanup, I am VERY SURE that I would have fallen flat by tripping over something hidden in there.

Then I use my picker upper and toss it all into the trash. Not the rocks, though. They're WAY too heavy to be picked up with a picker upper. But I have a solution and a use for them, too, that I thought of last night. They're mostly buried in a single spot after one of those "WHERE DO YOU WANT IT?? WHERE DO YOU WANT IT??!!!" sort of episodes (that I H-A-T-E!!!!) being shouted at me when I haven't made up my mind what it is that I do want done with whatever. I have a big pile of bricks to move stacked up in the same way and completely overgrown with weeds. Too much pressure to make quick decisions!!! And it's one of MD's old games with me. She'd give me too much to do all at once, and then get mad at me and beat the crap out of me while telling me just how lame and disgusting a person I was.So yes, she'd stress me out to the MAX and then beat and defame me. Fun little game of hers... So now when I feel that sort of overwhelming pressure happening, I just shut down. But for RIGHT NOW it's slowly all getting done, AND at MY SPEED!! NO PRESSURE!! No piling up and up and UP of tasks to do N-O-W!!!!! And the finished product (I'm beginning to learn) is very satisfying and depression lifting!

I know THIS about me: I'm a ponderer! I think things through, and I may be slow at doing that, BUT when I DO decide what it is that I want, IT'S FREAKING R-I-G-H-T! So there!!

=====================(11AM Wednesday)

GORGEOUS DAY TODAY!! Nicely OVERCAST, GLOOMY, and COOL. Rain and thunder all day yesterday (in MAY!! for Pete's sake!!), and probably some rain tomorrow (slightly), but today is just perfectly suited for gardening work! The neighbors have been overheard to call us The Addams Family, and I guess we are rather weird. But I enjoy my weirdness. I am what I am and I am who I am...and that's perfectly ok with me. I am "LESS THAN" NOBODY!! Thank you, MD, for that!! That ornery old coot was cruel enough to me to create a VERY strong person willing to fight back against that ever-lurking depression. (I'm doing MUCH better now! YAY!! ) Granted, she caused the depression, and she seemed to enjoy doing it, but she never bargained for ME.

She would have driven anyone else stark, staring MAD! And she nearly succeeded in doing that to me, but I survived! I've ripped off the secrecy blanket (the invisibility cloak! ) on this very website and exposed her to the world! Hopefully, I've done that in some way that will help others, too. Her terrible behavior towards her newborn daughter and all throughout her (and my) tortured life, she never even tried to get past it. She would always just revert to DENIAL! And she instead tried to BURY it underneath lies, both to herself and to the outside world. But the real truth remained, always there, always that thorn in her side (the deep shame of who she really was) that just wouldn't go away. And I got to literally play the role of Whipping Boy (or Girl in my case) whenever that shame overtook her: I was powerless and helpless compared to her privileged and VERY powerful position in my life, and she constantly took advantage of it. So sad, that! What a shame! She could have made life so much more enjoyable for all of us, but she consistently chose not to.

But right now I have some gardening to do!!

=========================(11:45am)

Scratch that (for right this minute). My new Corelle plates just came in with stickers on them on the back that have to be pulled off before I put them in the dishwasher...no wait. I can do that at night, or even later while taking a break. BRB (Blessedly, I never have to look far for something to do!) I think I'll send this off now.

Honeybera

[joyagain]

I can't even call it a garden anymore, but after a LOT OF WORK and cleanup, it should be a pleasure to be in. I know you'll understand...and I hope you stick around and enjoy the resurrection with me.


I am "LESS THAN" NOBODY!! Thank you, MD, for that!! That ornery old coot was cruel enough to me to create a VERY strong person willing to fight back against that ever-lurking depression. (I'm doing MUCH better now! YAY!! ) Granted, she caused the depression, and she seemed to enjoy doing it, but she never bargained for ME.

Your tenacity is laudable! I do look forward to "seeing" your yard and you in your ongoing transformation and blooming.

joyagain

[honeybera]

I am finding that I should: #1 FINISH one thing before looking too far ahead to planning something else, a really big deal for me, and #2 I mustn't get so far ahead of my skis that I get so distracted that nothing else gets done, and #3 I need to prioritize everything, and then do ONLY the top things listed on there AND in that order.

However, on that note, I have determined to put in a ("drip"?) WATERING SYSTEM out there in the backyard for the summer heat that is coming like a DREADED tsunami of HEAT, and to eliminate the once or twice a day WATERING - AND ALSO a series of "Garden Arches" made of cattle panels and T poles, for any number of things, but especially grapes. They're super strong and super cheap to put together and once stuff is growing on/in them, it'll look good, too. A self-watering arbor of seedless black super sweet grapes? Oh HECK YEAH!!! Unbeknownst to me before this, all that watering in the heat of a punishingly HOT August day, or even a DAILY MORNING trip out there to water "the entire garden", which I've done MANY times before over the years here, is a pain for not just me, but FOR EVERYONE ELSE, TOO!

So what they did was put in automatic (♥♥YES! AUTOMATIC!!♥♥) watering systems on timers!!! And then they made VIDEOS of how to do it, what tubing and fittings to use, and step by step installation for novices like ME! To be able to just walk out into my back yard and merely check on things and make sure they're working right and then back inside in the a/c house in the 100ºF+ afternoons that are ON THEIR WAY...OMG! (Forecast: May 13 92ºF and May 14 95º!! ALREADY!!) No more watching my plants die as I sit inside in August and September and becoming more and more depressed!! YES, YES, YES!!!! Nothing fancy. Just a trip to Home Depot and a huge length of that black hose and a way to puncture it...at least just for this year. Next year I may have it installed properly, but I can do a lot of it myself this Spring. Cut WAY back on watering time...and consistency! AND I've discovered vermiculite, that clay like substance that retains water. In my super sandy soil, I'm hoping that this will really help out when combined with a nice layer of straw mulch on top of EVERYTHING!

AND I've decided to change the entire blackout drape setup on my WOW (Window on the World), my nickname for my slider view of my garden area. I can open only one side now, the door side, because I simply can't reach across to open and close the floor to ceiling blackout drapes, so I'm ending up with a darker room and only half a view possible for my garden...and my hummers. Before that was ok, but now that I'm working out there and improving my garden, not anymore. I want to SEE IT! So I'm going to take down the current drapes (eventually!) that I have to tug and pull open manually and have a MOTORIZED pull installed instead. Push a button and they open or close! YES! Remote control drapes and a complete view of my garden!

There are only two problems with that: 1) The curtain rod that's up there now has leaves on either end and I think it's pretty. And it matches the curtain rod and very necessary blackout curtains covering the entrance into my bathroom with the east facing windows, which would remain untouched. Unless I can attach a valance to that rod over my WOW, it's gone! But I have plenty of time to figure that out. And 2) MD had all motorized curtains on her windows out there at the Ranch. They were even automatic and opened at a certain time everyday, giving a full view of their almond orchard. She thought that they were "elegant". And I am NOT trying to be ELEGANT, but just more practical. HOWEVER, I'm finding that it's still sort of off putting in a very subtle way. Like a tiny rock in my MENTAL shoe.

But all that can wait. For RIGHT NOW, I'm going to put on my purple clogs (yes, they are hideous, but super comfy), grab a weedeater battery, and just go stand on my little "square of cement" porch, and feel for a minute. It really helps me to get going and be more mindful of what I'm doing.

===================(Midnight at the Oasis...)

DS got out to the backyard first to let the dogs back out into the garden side. I went outside and really got going on the weedeating! Got a lot done again...but it's really slow going! I have to pull leafless old decaying branches out of those waist high weeds that have covered them and disguised them. But NOW there is a nice clear path about 6ft. wide all the way from my room and my WOW all the way over to the front gate. DS says he fixed the spot where Boots was getting out and she hasn't escaped since. ALSO even if she did, I can at least walk through that area now and not just stand there powerless to help her. That was a dreadful feeling!! And everyday I work out there, I feel better, too: stronger, less "off balance" all the time, and happier that I have accomplished just a little bit more out there. EXCELLENT EXERCISE!!

I'm falling asleep in my chair. Just going to crawl into bed...blessedly.

Honeybera

[honeybera]

I've not been too successful getting out to weedeat in the past couple of days. Depression? Perhaps. Probably. IDK.

But this morning (nay...afternoon) I was awakened from a deep sleep by the need of a quick trip to the bathroom where I sat on the pot and began to ruminate, which I often do, turning things over and over in my mind, almost like daydreaming. This time it was about MD and the old 8mm family movie tapes (used before more compact hand-held movie cameras and WAY before our current handy-dandy palm-sized phone-cameras) that she "kindly" mailed to me in a box "to keep". She reasoned to me on the phone (on a call that I paid for while on Welfare) that I was in all of them and maybe I'd like to have them. Awww, so NICE of MD to think of me! And I accepted them and her "kindness" and never gave it another thought...until this morning on the pot!!

THAT BITCH HAD GIVEN ME AWAY JUST LIKE THAT! No longer would my image besmirch HER movies of HER family! If she showed HER home movies to anyone, I WOULD NOT BE IN ANY OF THEM! I was stunned. She was so clever that way. So devious! I was eliminated with a 'kindness', not part of the family in any way, done with a stunt that wouldn't upset my father to the point of him really getting it, either, or at least enough so that he'd not see it as anything else, like what it was, MEANNESS, not NICENESS. He did avoid fights with her and her evilness. Heck, even I didn't get it until this morning, sitting there ruminating, letting thoughts occur to me just after sleep. WOW. WHAT A BITCH SHE WAS!!

And I'm sure that it would please her greatly that not until several years past her death I just realized that now. WOW WOW WOW!! Yes, she would have definitely gotten a kick out of that! She always called me "conniving", or "sneaky", or "devious", BUT it was HER that was those things. I would stand there slack-jawed, fearful, waiting for the slap in the face that never failed to come, or the kick, or the hairbrush or wire coat hanger as a weapon to accent her point. She was quite a piece of work! How she must have HATED who she truly was! How she tried and tried to believe that she was someone else. But deep down inside her, SHE KNEW WHO SHE REALLY WAS. And I got to be her Whipping Boy.

whipping boy

A scapegoat. A boy formerly raised with a prince or other young nobleman and whipped for the latter's misdeeds. Someone punished for the errors of others.

I was a normal kid in the beginning, but HER childhood had turned her into a real MONSTER, especially at age 17 when I was born! It took me YEARS and YEARS of Therapy to overcome that childhood and truly understand it all. I had one shrink tell me, "There's nothing wrong with you." and that stunned me!! I had NO IDEA that perhaps MD had the screw loose! She passed some of her nuttiness on to me, but only to bend me and never to BREAK me and my spirit, which she saw as just a barrier to break and make me comply on my knees in submission. Well, try as she might, it didn't work, did it?

She can't hurt me anymore with her veiled slights or her fists or her hairbrushes...unless I let her. Only I can bring her back from the grave to torment and torture me. But I have a method now, and a POWERFUL one at that!! I write out what comes up, those little turds in my mind's punch bowl that float to the top from time to time, skim them off, and write them out on here, letting them drift away in perpetuity on isurvive.org for everyone to SEE, AND NEVER KEPT AS A SECRET ANYMORE!!

SO THERE!!

I feel better already!

Honeybera - who has weedeating to do...no matter how long it takes me!!

[honeybera]

MD ALSO CALLED ME STUPID!! I am NOT NOT NOT STUPID!! I AM GIFTED. MY CHILDREN ARE ALL GIFTED! MY BROTHER IS ALSO GIFTED, AS WAS MY FATHER!! They call it autism now, like Elon Musk is autistic, but they labeled him as Asperger's and us as PDD-NOS, meaning Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified, further meaning they don't have a pigeon hole to describe what we are nor to put us in.

One of the most amazing things to me was when I went out onto an autistic chat line (for those of us who speak and communicate) WAY back when I first got the diagnosis for DS. These people did NOT WANT to be "cured"! In fact, as adults, they did NOT WANT to be singled out and "made better". They were happy just being who they were, warts and all. JUST LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE DOES! But many got lumped in with all the other "autistics" by the normal people (whatever that means), including the non-verbal and non-communicative autistics, with the direct goal of FIXING them. Non-autistic folks (normies, for the "normal people") felt like they had to fix us somehow, to make us NORMAL like them. But I can assure you that that is simply not necessary! Why change something that someone doesn't WANT to be changed?!! Pretty audacious if you ask me! Bordering on rudeness and pomposity and self aggrandizement!!

"Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast the First Stone". We're all a little weird in our own way. MD wanted to APPEAR PERFECT due to her own terribly chaotic childhood. If she couldn't change how she came to be adopted at 5 or 6 yrs. old by my grandparents, for which she felt deep shame, then she'd do everything to be PERFECT from then on out: married at 16, conceived me 4 months later (obligatory post-WWII anchor baby), a maniacal drive for cleanliness, and all this attempted while living IN my grandparent's home. My grandparents loved people and loved to HELP people in desperate need to get on their feet. Their home was always open and loving - but fastidiously clean? Uh...no. That was up to MD to provide if she felt the need. She had a house full of people to feed as she was the cook, but she did it with a closed and resentful heart. Everyone else worked and chipped in SOME, with money and/or food, but she had dropped out of her senior year of high school to "be married", so the household chores fell to her. After all, she was AT HOME while others were not. So while pregnant with me, she did her share of household chores while others worked. She was expected to put a LARGE, almost cafeteria sized, dinner on the table and clean up afterwards. SHE HATED THAT! But she complied...grudgingly.

And in her teenager fantasy of romance that had age-appropriately overtaken her, she saw my father as being the man of her dreams that would be there for her ALWAYS, pampering her, his wife, but he had to work, too, as did everyone in the household, so there she was...alone all day, vacuuming or walking to the store for dinner ingredients or cooking that dinner for the masses that came in in the evening for their supper and then to relax, leaving the bulk of it to her, the pregnant teeny-bopper with the romance magazines listening to the radio as she continued to work all during her pregnancy. Not quite what her magazines had promised to her!

And then I made my debut into this chaos. What could possibly go wrong? And after I arrived after a LONG labor of several days, I was COLICKY! I CRIED AND CRIED AND CRIED NONSTOP! I wonder why? Having a baby to HER was to be a delightful, almost blissful, thing, the cherry on top of the wedding cake, and the guarantee of her marriage to my father. But there I was, shrieking bloody murder, DEMANDING her attention, according to her CONSTANTLY and without rest!! However I believe that even tiny babies sense the mood of their mothers, and in retrospect I can see from my 76 yr. old perch that infant me was right. And so the abuse began...

My Aunt J, who was seen as wise at 21 and with my first cousin already born, advised MD to refrain from holding me at all, "DON'T TOUCH HER!! YOU'LL SPOIL HER!!", and even gave MD a bottle prop for my scheduled feedings, whether I cried or not. I vaguely remember that EVERYTHING was white: crib railings, sheet, window curtains, wall paint, the WORKS! NO color whatsoever. I was in that crib CONSTANTLY, in absolute SILENCE "so I wouldn't cry", in a back bedroom, until I was about 1½ yrs. old. At 3 months old, MD "put a stop to" all that crying by getting a prescription of phenobarbital and lacing my formula with it. She tried to potty train me at 9 months old - a dismal failure which I'm SURE that she also resented me for! My kindly Aunt M warned her not to even try until I was at least 18 months old, but headstrong MD didn't listen and just figured if she beat me a little harder, I'd get the idea of potty training. Well, that didn't work either. And STILL she had to clean my grandparent's house, where she and my father and I and my Aunt M and my grandparents and probably several other homeless unfortunates or relatives lived...AND MD had to continue cooking dinner for them, too! EVERYBODY else worked! So now MD had to do all the housework and cooking involved, BUT with that screaming kid in the other room!!

So she made a pact with my grandparents, and a pretty shrewd one at that: If my grandparents would pay for it, my father would build a cottage out in the backyard of their relatively large property in his spare time that MD and he AND I would live in until my parents could afford to buy a house of their own. After we moved out, that would give my grandparents a rental cottage or a place for the overflow of constant guests that they had. So my grandparents approved and he built it. I was 1½ yrs. old when it was finished, and MD said that I'd touch everything and say, "Nice, nice." ( I still do that! ) I was a really sweet, bright, and cute kid, but that's when the mind twisting torture began, as if the starkness of that blank white room wasn't enough, with me standing on a chair to be at eye level with MD, and MD slapping me in the face repeatedly and hissing at me violently from between clenched teeth, "DO YOU KNOW HOW UGLY YOU ARE????!!!" and "WHY CAN'T YOU BE PRETTY LIKE ME??!!" And of course, at 1½-5 yrs. old, and with her being my Mommy Dearest, I believed her unquestionably. I didn't realize just how broken SHE was. Too sad.

And eventually (subconsciously?) I decided once I actually BECAME obese (mid-30s?) that it was safer to just be that way, so no one would find me appealing or worthy of notice. And it did work to some extent. Ten years later, I had my third child, my DS which I would NEVER regret. But now I'm tired of carrying my obesity around like a badge of shame placed on me while standing on a chair and having my face slapped repeatedly by some confused teenager using me as her Whipping Boy. I did NOT deserve that then and I needn't continue to do that to myself now, especially with that ancient teen gone and buried. I need to LET GO of the Wall of Protective Fat once and for all. My God, how have I lived through all of this???? It's been quite a ride. Thank God I'm slightly ornery. That little bit of orneriness kept me alive...and a survivor, But hey! I learned from the best! MD taught me well. I just didn't take it as far as she did, nor for the same reasons, and I chose to seek help to understand what had happened to me. She bent me, but that bitch never broke me! And I can still heal further. YAY!

Honeybera