Thought Processes

I actually have a few minutes to write since I got done with my work a little early today and so my plan is to write this, send it and then assemble the lasagne I’ve been meaning to make for days now.

It would seem that I have gotten through the worst of the caffeine withdrawal now. It was about a week of achy joints (one night I could hardly walk) and headaches. I haven’t had any symptoms like that since last Thursday – about 6 days after I gave up coffee. I was told to expect 5-7 days of flu-like symptoms and headaches and I got everything I was promised.

Interestingly enough it’s been way easier this time. I am taking some Chinese herbs to help get my energy level back to normal and for that reason I think it’s being easier. I don’t feel like quite the zombie I did when I tried to quit before. Of course this time I don’t have to drive to work, work long hours and worry about being awake on the commute home. That helps a great deal I’m sure. My energy level has been way more even, actually. When I was drinking coffee I would have productive and energetic highs but could expect pretty low lows – usually in the afternoon when I was working with Paul. I’d just be praying with every cell in my body that he’d have a nap. And of course he wouldn’t so I’d have another cup of coffee or two. Those cups would keep me awake until 11:00-12:00 or so. Then I’d have to wake up at 7:00 again – tired as usual then have coffee, be awake until the afternoon crash and so on. Now I don’t feel wired at any time, but at the same time I rarely feel dog-tired as I would on a daily basis.

It’s funny, though, as I feel very different inside. Different in terms of thought “speed” and level of control I have over my thought processes. The anxiety I felt recently had a lot to do with my being fixated on possible outcomes of what’s going on in the world or a simple symptom like a cough or ache. I’d get some crazy idea and completely run with it. Now that I’ve cut out coffee I’m able to let go of those trains of thought. Funnily enough, I don’t really feel like me anymore as a result. I think that my sense of self was really based upon myself when I was really wired. And of course it would be – after much thought I realized that I’ve been drinking some form of caffeine since I was maybe twelve. In other words, I haven’t experienced life as an adult without caffeine. Scary thought, eh?

Let’s see what else is going on these days. Well, I’m in the market for a bicycle now. I have thought about it for some time anyway as our town is pretty small and it seems silly to drive across town for something, but at the same time it seems tedious to walk. A friend of ours gave us a bike of theirs to try to see if we want to buy it but unfortunately it’s a little too small. So I’m calling around and looking for something more my size and perhaps a little newer. I rode this one long enough to realize that I like having one again and that it could be quite a good thing to have. With our mild winters (okay, sometimes punctuated by horrible storms) it is likely that I could ride year round.

Oh, and we found something interesting out about our house last week. There were a couple holes in the floor in the living room that as it turns out came from the previous tenants leaving windows and doors open in rainstorms. Anyway, a person came in to fix them and we asked him about the floor in Sage’s office which isn’t very level. He said that it’s settling as that room is on a block foundation. In fact, he said, this house used to be our neighbors garage. Well, the living room and bathroom that is. They added a kitchen on one side, the office on the other and the playroom/bedroom on the back and put some nice siding on and it became the house you see above. It’s the nicest garage we’ve lived in!

Sage is still on her redecorating train. Yesterday she started repainting the bathroom. In fact, every room in this house needs painting. In Pennsylvania it was a requirement that all landlords paint in between tenants but apparently not here. Well, that mayn’t be true, actually. Our landlady offered to paint, drywall and recarpet the whole house before we moved in. The down side of that would’ve been that we’d have been in the yurt that much longer which was an uncomfortable place to be (interpersonally, not physically) and she also would’ve raised the rent. Instead we’re doing all the improvements and as a result pay only $190/month.

And now I’m off to check the pawn shop for bicycles and assemble the lasagne.

Desperate for Reading Material

I’m having a short lull before I can work (waiting for some information to be sent) so I’m going to take the opportunity to write a bit.

Work is still going steadily though we’re coming to the end of the project. We’ve got a fair amount saved up, though which is helpful in the case that there’s time before the next paying job (Sage’s or mine) comes in. We did wind up spending a lot of what we made on this job already though. But, Sage reminds me, we spent it on things that we needed for a while, and will either last a while due to how they were built (handmade shelves for Paul’s playroom, for instance, or new flooring in the playroom and bathroom) or have warranties like our new stove (the old one died last week – it started making very bad popping sounds that dimmed the lights in the house when I’d turn on the oven) and stereo. We should also have quite enough to buy Sage’s dentures this winter. There may be a short wait, however, before we can get the new engine for the car.

The car still is working wonderfully in town – runs great in fact. However, a friend has diagnosed it with agoraphobia. Back in the summer we went to a yard sale way out of town and didn’t quite make it because the car started sputtering and backfiring when it hit this one hill. So we turned around and made it home just fine. Then we had the spark plugs changed and it ran great. Well, except I couldn’t get out of town very far with it – I tried one and it didn’t sputter like it did but wasn’t happy about it.

Anyway – this Sunday we were really desperate for decent reading material so I woke up in the morning and Sage and I discussed that perhaps we were mistaken that the car wasn’t having problems at all and that I was being overly critical of how it ran after it was fixed. So I took it for a ride up the same road I tried it on the last time and it ran great. So we packed us all in the car and headed for Springfield. We made it ten miles and were quite confident at that point that we were going to make it all the way to Springfield. Then Sage and I each did a stupid thing. First I said, jokingly, “Sage, do you see that Plexiglass wall up ahead?” (we’ve been joking that we’re either in the Truman Show or in the Twilight Zone episode where people couldn’t leave town and it turned out in the end that it was because they were in a model railroad). At about the same time Sage starts being a little concerned – mostly in a joking way – what all our friends will think given that we’ve been telling them that our car couldn’t make it out of town and here we were off to Springfield. Well, our car obliged us at that point and started sputtering and we had to turn around. And interestingly enough, the closer we got to home the better the car ran. See? Agoraphobia. Our car’s a homebody.

Tonight we’re doing our first trick-or-treating time with Paul. He never was interested in previous years (okay – this is only the fourth Halloween he was alive for). This year he has been so excited about the holiday. It started back when we were snowed in at the yurt with an audiobook of “Scary Scary Halloween” by Eve Bunting. He was fascinated with the whole thing then and the more decorations he saw recently (as far off as August) the more he wanted to celebrate it. So now his playroom is decorated, he’s got his witch costume and he’s really excited to go out this evening. We’re going to go to several houses in town as well as the businesses on the square. There’s also a costume contest and parade that we might go to.

We’re also giving out treats this year. No, nobody ever came to visit us at the yurt and we never gave treats out when we lived in the city before. So this’ll be a first for us. Sadly we’re going to be that house that nobody’s very interested in, I think. Why? Raisins, that’s why. We’re giving them out – we’ll be the disappointing new age family whose treats we were disappointed with as kids. Of course we understand now. We’ll have enough candy to deal with (and live with the results of in terms of sugar highs) without leftover candy from our own giveaways. With Paul we’ve figured out that he can have three treats tonight and then one per day thereafter. Given that he gets a bit crazed with raisins or fruit, this is not only us being concerned about his health, I think it’s a self preservation move!

Oh, and just a note of advice – you can make up the story as you like around this one because I’m not going to stoop to the level of giving details out. Don’t give your child a bag of dried apricots without supervision just a few hours before bed. You’ll wind up with rather a larger and more distasteful cleanup project than you want to take on at 11:00 PM.

Without coffee I am nothing

Well, you’ll have to forgive me – not just for not doing an entry in over a month and not posting an entry since August – but also for the quality of this entry. I’m out of practice and out of my usual state as well. I feel as if I’ve lost my voice so to speak.

See, I haven’t had a cup of coffee since two mornings ago. And in retrospect I am pretty certain that I am well-caffeinated whenever I write an entry. Anyway, I sat looking at this screen in that stereotypical way that Hollywood portrays blocked authors looking at their paper/typewriter/computer screen. Finally I just realized that I could talk about why I was staring blankly at the screen instead of just diving in.

It seems to have worked, somewhat anyway. Why, do you ask, haven’t I had my morning cup of coffee? Well, it’s quite simple really. Lately, I am finding that more than a cup of coffee drives me absolutely crazy. I mean, I like the energy boost and all, but lately it also makes me incredibly anxious. Not about anything actually going on in my life – just a general anxiety that I focus on whatever is slightly stressful in my life – the headache I have, the ping in the car, whatever. So anyway, I haven’t had a cup since the day before yesterday morning – my last cup.

I tried to cut down a few weeks ago with the help of some Chinese herbs given by a friend of ours who is an acupuncturist/Chinese herbalist and I think it would’ve worked save one thing. I didn’t really cut down on the caffeine and took the energizing herbs on top of it. Ugh. I was worse off. I did start out by cutting down, though but what wound up happening was that I would have my morning cup intending on it being my last, or maybe one of two that I’d have that day. Instead I’d have such a crash from the first cup that I’d crave the subsequent cup(s) more than the first.

How’s it been not having caffeine? In some ways it’s been better than expected. I haven’t been as grumpy as I expected I’d be. The headaches I’d planned on enduring for days actually only happened the first night (the day of my last cup) and they were gone by yesterday morning. I effectively slept through them. But then I started to get achy in a flu-like way. By the end of the evening after a short walk to the square for dinner with Paul and Sage my legs were really sore. Fortunately that lasted only through the night and was gone this morning.

So what else has been going on in our lives? Well, let’s see. I’m still working about 20 hours/week. Still all at home, of course. Sage and I finally seem to have figured out how to balance our working times. There was a time where we seemed to be running around getting things done in the morning and then either one or both of us wouldn’t get the time in to work that we did. So now we set ourselves some better guidelines. Now we made it so that one of us starts working within an hour after Paul wakes up (which is what usually wakes me). If, by some chance, Sage and I wake up before him we allow ourselves 15 minutes to read our email and such before we start our morning chores. Then I work for 3-4 hours (6 days/week) before we switch and Sage works for five hours (or until 6:00 PM – whichever comes first). True to our habits I’m sure this will change sometime but for now it works great for us.

In fact, I’m sure it will change. I still hope to be able to fully “retire” and be with Paul all day and maybe do some writing. Where we’re at now, though, work-wise is sort of difficult. See, I’m working to support us right now. Sage is working as well, though mostly for barter as the work she’s doing is all local. The barter’s great, though – handmade clothes, shelves, desks, acupuncture, craniosacral work, massage, bath salts, bubble bath for Paul. Lots of stuff we wouldn’t normally spend money on. And of course it fills Sage’s portfolio out nicely. Sometime though, I’m confident that Sage will be doing the majority of the financial support of us and I can do my thing (though to be quite honest I haven’t quite figured out entirely what my thing is!)

We’re still trapped in town (did I mention this?). Our little Geo needs a new engine – it sputters on hills and seems to need new rings and then some. So it runs great for getting around town but as we are surrounded by hills we’re stuck here until we buy a new engine. We’ve got the money right now but I haven’t really shopped around much and there’s another larger expense coming up that we want to save up a few more weeks for – Sage needs dentures – I’ll let her tell the whole story. So anyway it’ll be a few weeks at least before we get out of town on our own. In the meantime it works great to just stay in town, catch a ride out once in a while, and order things online as necessary. The only pain is getting library books. We can’t get to the Springfield library regularly so we’re using our local one. Fortunately we haven’t really the time to read so it works out just fine.

Also, embarassingly enough, we’ve been aquiring stuff again. We have as many appliances and more furniture than we had before we moved to Missouri. I suppose the difference now is that we’re actually using them. While we bought ourselves a breadmaker – something I always considered too suburban for words 5 years ago – we’re actually using it. Since we bought it a little over a month ago we’ve used it several times/week and haven’t bought any bread since. We paid only $50 for it and as whole grain bread costs in excess of $3 for a loaf at the health food store (and we eat 3-5 loaves/week) we figure it’s already paid for itself. Sage and I joke that we were “traumatized” by our time at the yurt living without modern conveniences and all. In all honesty, though, there really isn’t much truth to that – for me at least. Our needs remain the same – heat, food (we are sort of picky in this respect, though), water (it’s nice to have it coming out of the pipes in hot and cold, though), a net connection for social and business contact and music.

Sage and I have also started watching movies together again a few times a week. It’s a good way to veg out in the evening and Sage is back crocheting again while she watches. The local video stores haven’t much in the way of DVD selection so we’ve joined DVD Barn which has worked out well for us. We pay a flat monthly rate and they ship us DVDs, as many as three at once that we keep as long as we want. That last part is good as we rarely are awake enough to watch a whole movie in one evening after Paul goes to sleep.

Sage meanwhile is on the train of redecorating this house – we’ve replaced the playroom floor (green shag carpeting) with linoleum as it’s more suitable for playing on, doing art projects and so forth. She just painted her office a few weeks ago.

What, you ask? Have Sage and Todd turned into these crazy suburbanites? Is their next step to send their child into an expensive and exclusive Waldorf preschool? Fear not – it isn’t as bad as it sounds. We’re just in the process of cleaning up this house that when we moved in was in pretty bad shape.

Meanwhile in other areas things are going as you might expect. Paul and I are doing playgroups still and are hoping to host a few here soon. And a friend of ours and I have been talking about setting up some sort of co-op learning center. Probably something as simple as sharing the rent on a house where we’d have shared toys, books and other resources, maybe do a few workshops (adults and children) and whatever else it evolves into. It’s still in the very early stages and we’re still getting our own lives organized but I think it’d be a great winter project.

Oh, and Sage and I celebrated our 10th anniversary on the 25th of September – that’s anniversary of meeting – more meaningful to us than our marriage anniversary. We thought a long time about how we would spend it and came up with what turned out to be a fun idea. A friend of ours made us a ton of
veggie sushi and then we rented the local movie theatre for a couple hours that afternoon to watch a movie. Yes, only in our town can most people afford to do this. It cost us all of $25 and we could have had as many as 5 people (but we just wanted the two of us) and so they set up a VCR and LCD projector and we watched Cast Away (our recent favorite – I think we’ve seen it about four times now) on the big screen.

I haven’t forgotten, by the way, about our walking to the ocean project. As soon as we came up with the idea our car died. And with no transportation back from wherever we wind up we can’t get too far out of town. Soon it will be fixed and it should work out well – the ticks in the forest won’t be quite so bad, nor will the undergrowth.

Seems as if a great number of our friends (couples) with kids have broken up this year. None of the breakups were particularly surprising but what is surprising is how many of them have ended up with not only the people breaking up but the mom moving out of state. It’s all really sad to see the childrens’ lives changed like this. So now of all the parents we knew, there are only three sets of intact families left. And on top of that, two of those three families are very seriously considering leaving the Ozarks. Fortunately people haven’t stopped moving into the area so I’m sure we’ll meet more parents and did indeed meet one aunt (who takes care of her sister’s kids every day) this Friday so all is not lost I’m sure. It’s just weird to see things change, and hard for us to see these childrens’ lives changing so drastically.

Almost time for me to make dinner and free up Sage to work. Hope I was fairly coherent in this entry – it was an experience writing this without caffeine to say the least.