Marsia's Diary
- Thread starter Marsia
- Start date
Sounds like a lovely start to the day. I'm glad you are being sensible in when to rest your arm. And I'm glad you are keeping up with the yoga as well--I'm sure that would be really helpful.
Sorry to hear about all that trouble with K's friend's mum, but, to be honest, I'd say with all the J issues and things, she's better off not going. I think you'd be very worried about her if she did go. Anyway, try not to think about it too much anymore. You're a great mom. x
Last edited:
Cate
Long term member
I think it would be way too hard to plan renovations or restorations from photos. I would have to have you here in person 
It's fun to dream about things we would like. I'm actually happy with our house. I love it! I'll leave any changes to the next owners.
I hope another day's rest helps your arm, M. Even though I don't work I like Sundays to feel different.
It's fun to dream about things we would like. I'm actually happy with our house. I love it! I'll leave any changes to the next owners.
I hope another day's rest helps your arm, M. Even though I don't work I like Sundays to feel different.
Thanks, Rob! We like researching how to fix things and trying stuff out. Thank goodness for YouTube videos! That's a really good way to look at raising kids, and I think I have to work on all the regrets. Luckily we get along great, so I have the rest of my life to do the things I couldn't do with her before.
Thanks Llama. I am so glad I took another day off. My hands and arm are still worn out feeling today, but not painful. We just harvested and processed the pumpkins and made pumpkin bread and got the ingredients for making our favorite seeded bread from the store which costs too much now. K went to a nice band practice, and I took it easy. Today I'll get a lot done again, but I'll still be careful of my hands.
Yoga is like magic in how many things it helps for us - mood, energy levels, getting things back into place, stretching, strengthening, calming, and releasing emotion. I really want to remember to do a little every day.
Thanks Em, I feel like that, too. It's frustrating because we've been begging K's best friend to plan out their vacation together, and when that never happened, K told her that we needed to make plans or this probably would not happen, and she still didn't get in touch, and now the mom is telling me that it's the only thing they planned for their summer for the kids as their reward for their super hard school year. I just keep wondering why if it was so important to them, they would not make a plan, and now they are being disappointed that I said no, because they waited until it won't work. K and her best friend have been super close for 10 years, so it's a big deal that they don't see each other in person anymore. I am glad you all think I'm doing well as a mom. It's so hard finding out my partner was a horrible person and influenced my kid right under my nose. I don't really know how to get over that.
I would so love to come in person! I am having fun now looking at what I could do with the fixer uppers or boring houses on the market where we are thinking of going. It's a fun mind workout to see if you could make a place look like home on a limited budget. It's great you love your home as it is. I hope it works out to stay there a really long time! I rested Friday and Saturday this week (I think you're 15 hours ahead of us) so today will be a gentle work day. But it's funny, I thought it was Sunday yesterday, and Saturday the day before. Time is so strange.I think it would be way too hard to plan renovations or restorations from photos. I would have to have you here in person
It's fun to dream about things we would like. I'm actually happy with our house. I love it! I'll leave any changes to the next owners.
I hope another day's rest helps your arm, M. Even though I don't work I like Sundays to feel different.
Not much new except me trying to plan out how to work for long enough to get a tiny pension and then maybe start a little business somehow in semi-retirement.
I hope you can figure out a job you'll enjoy. It makes such a difference in everyday life when you don't hate going to work!
K's friend being cagey about her summer plans is kind of weird. Though I also just hate it when people are unwilling/unable to commit to anything ahead of time so I may be biased.
K's friend being cagey about her summer plans is kind of weird. Though I also just hate it when people are unwilling/unable to commit to anything ahead of time so I may be biased.
So nothing major then! Lol! That seems like a huge plan to me.
Cate
Long term member
Regrets can be a hard one to deal with. I'm sure most parents would have them. In fact I imagine most caring people in general would have them. I know I have plenty! haha But you have always done your best for K and still do and that's what matters. It's so great the two of you get along so well--such a blessing to have!
That sounds like a lovely day!
Thanks Llama, I know I like teaching and found a program where I could do a year of college and start student teaching that year. I am really leaning in that direction. K's friend was finishing up her high school year and she stubbornly puts school above all else, though I think that was a bit much, as I'd been pestering them to make firm plans for 9 months or so. I don't think she gets that airfare goes up horribly if you wait too long. Their family is awful at getting anywhere on time. They can be 2 hours late to things, so I don't think planning is their strong suit, whereas I nearly have a heart attack if I am 15 minutes late to things. I think the mom should have told me that they planned their summer around us.
Hi Em! Yes, it's a huge plan, but I have only 3 or 4 things I really want to do with my life, and I am figuring out how to do most of them. I love fixing up houses, so I may buy a really cheap foreclosure at some point and maybe fix it up and rent it out, I am figuring out how to get my teaching credentials, and K wants to start a gourmet mushroom growing business. She has grown gourmet mushrooms from spores in substrate we made, and they came out wonderfully, so I am researching that as some people make quite a good living just doing that. I also want to have a mini-homestead with honey bees, and maybe ducks and rabbits. So I am researching that sort of stuff. Also when I retire, I need to have a way to work for myself, whether it's growing mushrooms, maybe doing an afterschool art program, or maybe art therapy and sand tray. So lots of ideas floating around my head.So nothing major then! Lol! That seems like a huge plan to me.
Thanks Cate - that helps!Put these two quotes together, M. You & K have a lovely relationship
Thanks Liza - that also helps! It was a nice food prep day. Today I got a coat of paint in my formerly pinky-mauve bathroom which clashed with the light brown tile floor. It's nice getting things looking normal colors. I did chair yoga last night, and it was so good for my arm. K's band performed out of town, so she got home really late last night, and I waited up for her. I slept in this morning, which was so nice. My huge fig tree is just covered in little baby figs. I fertilized it last year, and it's going crazy now. I'll have to keep an eye on it because otherwise the birds beat me to most of the fruit. It's been rainy and thundering all day, which was so nice with the windows open while I painted. I am learning basic math from a really good professor on YouTube because I'll need to take an achievement test to become a teacher, and I remember so little math it's scary how I get along without it. I have also been thinking of doing Rosetta Stone to learn Spanish for visiting Mexico. I spoke a little Spanish in the thrift store helping a customer talk to the cashier the other day. I miss being fluent enough to understand conversations. Anyway, painting the bathroom with the window open is a good sauna, even with the rain, so I am hoping for the scale to sneak slightly down tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!
What an exciting time you two are stepping into with all the possibilities for the future. Love the sound of a mini-homestead with a nice little job to keep the money flowing. I would never want to rely on any type of farming for money--way too hard. So having a good teaching job or being a therapist would be perfect to keep things less stressful. I took a math course a few years back--I too found it shocking how I had completely forgotten the basics, but it came back quick enough as I worked my way through the course.
alligatorob
Respected Member
Teachers are important people, and I think you would make a good one. My mother was an English teacher and a school principal by the time she retired. She always said the single most important thing in a good teacher was caring about the students. All else was secondary.
That sounds like fun, I have tried raising a few mushrooms, only once got enough to really eat. I think doing it right takes skill, and the right set up.
Sounds like fun too, but it is a lot of work and responsibility. Somebody has to take care of those animals every day. I have looked into bees off and on, even took a class once. But never took the leap.
Kinda fun thinking about it, isn't it.
I know just a little Spanish and wish I had more. When I was younger I traveled a lot in Mexico, back then things were very inexpensive, $2 for a hotel room and under $1 for meals. Train and bus travel were very inexpensive also. I always avoided anything close to an American resort town, I was a poor student and could not afford it. Also you get very poor exposure to Mexico and Mexican culture that way. Back then I spoke some survival Spanish, I was always amazed how friendly the people were and how willing they were to listen to my awful Spanish and try to figure out what I was saying.
You are a fun lady!
The same person who painted the kitchen, including the kitchen ceiling salmon, I think! I can see why this house was still on the market when we bought it - people have trouble looking past dated color schemes, I think. I am looking at the remaining rooms and seeing that I should really paint them all. It's going to be nice looking in the bathroom mirrors and not looking like there is something seriously wrong with my skin tone. It's funny, we were looking at my bathroom with one coat of white (with a tiny bit of yellow and possibly green) paint on it, and it was glowing turquoise from my pinky-mauve bedroom because of the way the light was coming in. Very mysterious that it could look dark turquoise in there.
Thanks Cate! I can't wait!!
Thanks Liza! I am really excited for the next adventure. My grandparents were subsistence farmers until my grandfather "retired" and went to work as a machinist. He was so happy not to have to work his guts out everyday and to worry about losing the farm to rain getting the wheat crop every harvest. I really loved his duck pond and chicken coup when I was little and he still kept poultry. If I were retired, I'd have some nice set up like that, I think. K caught me not doing correct order of operations in a simple math equation the other day and worried because I am the one in charge of our finances. Definitely time to brush up on math!
That's such a great way to look at teaching. I really agree - the teacher really has to care a lot about young people and then all else falls into place. I think with the mushrooms, we'd start just growing for ourselves and see how it goes. With a mini-farm, I'd only have animals once I was through traveling and working. I'd do mostly passive things like bees or making a stocked fish pond if I were working or traveling. I've traveled a little in western Mexico, and if you get away from the beautiful tourist areas, it quickly becomes tin shacks or worse. It was really sad seeing so much poverty. They have a progressive female president now, and hopefully she changes that. Thanks for the nice compliment!
Yesterday was another sauna/painting day, but I stepped on the scale and my weight is back up. I am eating too much fattening stuff and will watch it. I also got discouraged about how darned hot it is and how much I hate hot, and I got lonely and felt like this will never end. So we showered and got all the paint off of us, and went to a beach where there is a lovely pier with lots of seating and we sat in the lovely ocean breeze at night and watched these bulldozers work on the beach (they were putting in a dredging pipe and making sand bridges so people can walk over the pipe) and we people-watched and talked and watched the waves come in. Talking with K, she let me know that she is really loving her band and wants to postpone moving now. I am so relieved she's made good friends and I am so happy for her. This beach always cheers me up. There are sweet little signs made of seashells and funny sculptures and happy grocery stores packed with delicious picnic things to bring to the beach and it's generally casual and beachy instead of formal and stiff like a good deal of the nicer upscale places here are. Anyway, I realized I need to write to all my friends and reconnect and get motivated for the last push. Even if we are stuck here until winter, the heat will subside and I'll get to sketch finally because the house will be ready for sale, so it really doesn't matter that much how long we are here. After summer, this turns into paradise again, so it's fine whatever happens.
Nice move! I really like how you seem to know when enough's enough of working and when it's time to just go relax for a while--very important to do!
That'll be good if you don't feel in a panic to sell. It's nice that K is feeling so connected with her band--I bet that them sticking by her through the dumb rumors really helped bring them all closer.
I grew up on a sort of mini-homestead that wasn't for money at all--it was wonderful and I've always wanted to repeat that sort of life...though now I feel very content with what I have here in terms of a nice size garden...I don't know if I would really want to add the responsibility of animals anymore but it was great growing up with that.
Sounds like you turned a lonely day into a pleasant one by the end. Sometimes that's the best we can do.
All this sounds great. You have such great ideas, it's fantastic. Loads to look forward to!
Cate
Long term member
People-watching & chatting by the beach after a tiring painting day sounds lovely. With K's musical talent, she will find her new tribe wherever she goes.
I loved reading this
Thanks! That's wonderful you grew up on a mini-homestead. It must have been magical to live like that as a kid. I think I would start with a small garden and if I had extra money, have a pond dug and stock it with fish. We already have a bee hive that we didn't get to use yet, so I will take a class in honey bees, too, I hope. I didn't think about getting perspective also helping for not panicking to sell. That's a good point. The band, except for the one member who the rumors were mostly spread about is past the incident, and they are all telling the one guy not to dwell on that. I do think it drew them closer. They had a really nice trip out of town preforming together and all get along so well.
Thanks Em! I felt a bit out of sorts this morning and thought about your comment to push yourself out the door, and I feel better now. Sometimes you just have to jumpstart yourself, I guess! I am good at dreaming up ideas, and I really want to put a lot of them into practice, but it's hard not knowing the how or when yet. So I am trying to concentrate really hard on getting the boring part done here so the interesting stuff can happen sooner. I am not as good at the rolling up the sleeves and doing the boring stuff part, but I'm working on it, especially because I just wrote about this in your diary, so I need to practice what I preach.
Thanks Cate! It makes me happy seeing K happy again, and I am paying more attention to little things that make me feel more a part of where I am. My whole life I've planned for the future, and I am trying to appreciate where I actually am more now. I know you're right about K finding her musical tribe wherever she goes. She just didn't know how to start a band here, and luckily stumbled upon a band in need of her, magically!People-watching & chatting by the beach after a tiring painting day sounds lovely. With K's musical talent, she will find her new tribe wherever she goes.
I loved reading this
Yesterday we went to the big box hardware store and got a lot of different paint in bulk so I can just concentrate on getting everything painted this month. It's funny, people are so friendly to me when I buy paint. I think the gender role thing here makes it so women don't paint their houses, they get men to do it, so people seem happy that I am going to paint my house myself. It's so old fashioned, I'd forgotten about gender roles like that. I don't mind people being extra friendly to me though. It actually looks like it might be cool out. I am going to put a toe out there and see if it's cool enough that I can mow the lawn that's turned into a meadow with all the rain.
It really was--course at the time I thought it was just normal, but looking back I realize how lucky I was!
It'll be fun for you to explore how much you want to take on. Our animals never seemed like that much work but looking back I don't know how my parents managed to run that place and work and raise the kids--they certainly had more energy than I have!!