Jaci Dawn

Junk Shopping!

May 24, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

My Saturday began with a dream about living in a huge old house with my parents, my husband, and other characters that I can no longer recall. The house was fitted for an artist, with nooks, crannies, storage, and tons of “junk”. Organized junk, I might add. I remember sorting the junk in my dream: rocks here, ceramic elephants there, odd pieces of re-bar and metal, frames, and so on.

I decided to go garage sale shopping after I took Harvey for a walk, thinking I could get an early start to that Heavenly House full of junk.

I didn’t pick up very much – two sales were run by folks who understand the art of dickering, one was run by people who were not open to dickering, and the final was a fund raiser for two college girls who have been selected to go to Italy for some softball tournament (I confess: I only read half of the sign). I opted not to dicker at that one because it was a fund raiser, the people were nice, and they already had rock-bottom prices on their items.

I do not like garage sales where the seller is not open to dickering and will often leave empty-handed just because the person was unwilling to dicker over the price. So I low-balled the price? Come back with an offer. I can promise you that if I offered low, it’s because your item is over-priced and if you counter, we can come to terms. Besides, what’s the fun in a garage sale where every thing is black and white?

Here’s the haul: 2 chairs for fairy houses, four “project dowels” and a number of little blue drawer pulls – from garage sale #1 where the woman said, “Oh… Just give me five for everything.”

One little bird cage from the garage sale that wouldn’t budge in their prices (I paid too much for the candle holder, but I have plans for it)

One step stool and a ceramic bird from the third sale. We dickered, she took my offer. 🙂

Four pretty picture frames and a blanket for my car from the last sale.

I have some photos of my children that are framed in those cheap gold metal frames. I am slowly changing up all the frames to something prettier & loner lasting. The little pulls are plastic and look sort of like church bells for a fairy house – or some crafty project. I’ll think of something.

The chairs are “perfect” for some future project. The bird cage will end up hanging outside – perhaps with a ceramic bird inside, or a small captive fairy.

The little ceramic bird house was not a garage sale find. I stopped at the local Farmer’s Market for fresh produce. The artist who was selling these was having a half-price sale, and I love to support local artists. It is made to fit on the end of a dowel and already has a home in my garden.

This bird is so cute! I have no idea where the permanent home is going to be, but it will be in my garden. I love the dorky face.

Lassie came from the first garage sale. I was thinking of repainting it to look like a Setter, but the ears are all wrong.

I think I will just repaint it as a collie, but I’ll use colors that are truer. Then I will resell it for more money. We will have to have our own garage sale this summer. Maybe Lassie will be ready in time. I think I can make a small profit on her. 🙂

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No Soliciting!

May 18, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

Don and I have long discussed getting a NO SOLICITING sign for our front yard. The problem is (aside from the fact that most solicitors ignore such signs) that we do not want to discourage young people from coming to our door to solicit for their fund raisers. We support as many youth-related fundraisers as come to our door: we like our youth and who can turn down a chubby-faced Cub Scout asking for canned goods to donate to the poor? Or the local soccer team offering to take our refundable cans and bottles off of our hands to raise money for uniforms? I love it when the local high school marching band rings the doorbell and asks if I could spare any change for their trip to where ever (I was in marching band).

But we absolutely agree on the door-to-door adult sales people.

I am better at repelling them than my husband is. He’s a sap and he knows it. He has learned to not even answer the door when they come calling. It’s not rude: it’s our door and we do not have to open it to every Tom, Dick, and Harry that knocks on it. Not answering the door is the equivalent of reading the 1-800-number on Caller ID and letting the telephone go to Answering Machine. If it is important (and it never is), they will leave a Voice Mail.

Occasionally, I will answer the 1-800 calls. I take a perverse pleasure in flummoxing the caller on the other end. Recently, we had a rash of telephone calls on our new phone number for our adult son who has never been associated with this phone number. The first one that called, I laughed at. “Are you freaking kidding me? He hasn’t lived here since he was seventeen!” I was very amused. the caller was not.

Once, I picked up a rude one that called here at 7:30AM.

“Do you know what time it is?” I asked.

“Yes, ma’am. It is 7:30AM PST.”

“Well, I don’t know about your mother, but my mother taught me that it is rude to call a private residence before 9:00AM.”

“Hey! Don’t be insulting my mother!” He was truly offended.

“You called ME. I did NOT call YOU. Therefore, I feel quite free in insulting your upbringing.”

He hung up on me. The jerk. 🙂

Yesterday, we had yet another unsolicited door-to-door salesman. I was in the back yard with the dogs. He knocked on the door and Don ignored him. He came to the back yard and ignored the barking dogs. “Do you live here?”

(No, I’m just scoping the place out to burglarize it!) “Yes. why?”

“I’m promoting our pesticide…” (That isn’t really what he said. He was, however, promoting pest control.)

“We’re entirely organic here,” I replied, calmly, clutching Murphy’s collar.

“Oh, our pesticides are entirely organic!” He paused to open his folder.

“No, you do not understand: we don’t have any pests here” Except unwanted solicitors.

“Oh. But I have been speaking with your neighbors and they all have mentioned an ant problem.”

The thing is: ants are an unknown factor in peonies. No one knows if they are actually beneficial or not. Everyone knows there is some symbiotic relationship between ants and peonies, and the Peony Society recommends you do not attempt to kill the ants.

Furthermore, all pesticides are general. We are trying our hardest and our darndest to encourage pollinators in our yard. I do not have my Xerces Society sign up in my yard yet, but I am a paid member. We harbor several varieties of bees: mason bees, bumble bees, several kinds of sweat bees, and we grow plants that encourage the honeybees to come into our yard. Twelve years ago when we first sat in our backyard, we noted that there were no insects at all in the yard. We vowed then and there to turn that around and now our yard is a haven to invertebrates as well as to birds. I don’t care how organic your pesticide program is, it is not organic enough.

Behind me: my vast peony garden in full bloom. “So? Ants are beneficial to my peonies.”

“Oh. Uh. have a nice day.”

I chuckled the entire time he backed away from me and ran to the street. I wonder if he googled ants and peonies when he got back to the office?

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Panic Attacks

May 17, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

I had a bad day today. It was productive, in it’s own way, but it was not a good day emotionally or psychologically. It started out late: I could not awaken from my dreams. I broke through around 10:15 AM and struggled out of bed. I hate that – it is a side effect of the medication I take for chronic depression. Saturdays are the worst because I do not have to get up to go to work and my body rebels against the previous five days of early mornings vs. the medication (which is a generic form of Lexapro™). (Or maybe that is a Registered Mark?)

I finally got up, poured myself a cup of coffee, and tied my sneakers onto my feet. When the coffee was gone, I put the leash on Harvey and we took a quick walk through the neighborhood. It is always a nice walk: the neighborhood I live in now reminds me of the one I lived in as a child, but with the absence of sidewalks and even without sidewalks, my neighborhood is a friendly place for walking dogs, jogging, teaching children to ride bicycles, and pushing a stroller. I made Harvey sit and wait for a man who was jogging with his dog, following his two young children who were riding their very small first bikes. Harvey is such a good dog on the leash! Then we met a young couple who smiled and said what a beautiful day it was.

I started my Saturday routine of picking up, cleaning, and weekly chores – and then it hit. I was shaking, nervous, angry. I made myself some lunch, thinking it was – perhaps – a small sugar crash (I have naturally low blood sugar and eating protein and carbohydrates will often push the sugar level back up to normal). I checked my blood pressure to make certain I wasn’t having an episode (nope). I went out into the sunny back yard, sat down on the grass, and called Harvey over to me. I cried into his fur. He cuddled up to me and fell asleep on my lap, sensing (I guess) that I just needed him to stay close. I used to hug my cats when I felt like this, but since I no longer have a cat…

Harvey helped calm me down. I dug out the Holy Basil and took a dose of that.

The rest of the day, I dinged about, doing silly things like resetting my soaker hoses and establishing rocks on said hoses in order to flatten them out.

Simple steps that mean nothing in the larger scheme of life, but small steps to calming a restless soul.

I moved some planters around. Refilled the hummingbird feeders, filled the bird baths, put out new suet for the birds.

I made a promise to a neglected corner of the yard: I haven’t forgotten you need help!

I found a new home for the compost bin.

It doubles as a Harvey shield – Harvey loves to try to ding under the fence right there, behind my grapevine. Now, there’s a compost bin in the way.

I moved the wind chimes around. This isn’t a great photo because the big rhododendron commands your attention over the funky wind chime.

I even situated my chair to take maximum advantage of the peonies in my yard.

Everything worked temporarily. Nothing worked at all. I simply had to ride it out.

I feel calm now.

Even when I have to listen to these two play… (Look at that insane look. Murphy is a strange dog.)

The moral to this story is… Um… Let me think.

Be good to yourself.

Recognize that a panic attack is out of your control

Stay calm. Smell the flowers.

Hug a dog (or a cat).

Remember that this, too, shall pass.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged panic attack | 1 Comment »

Spotted Towhee Nest

May 15, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

The Spotted Towhee abandoned a nest full of eggs in the Oregon Grape. We suspect it is because the dogs disturbed the birds or perhaps it was because my husband inadvertently disturbed them when he mowed the lawn. Whatever the reason, they moved to a different site, built a different nest, and are most likely raising young towhees as I type.

Meanwhile, there’s the nest.

It is about 4′ up in the Oregon Grape and the leaves are thick and stickery. Getting a camera in there to take a photo was a hazardous job.

It was dark in there, but the flash didn’t want to go off. I photo-shopped this photo.

Out of about fifteen photos, this is the very best one I could get. Mottled eggs nesting with a fir cone.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged abandoned bird nest, spotted towhee, towhee eggs | Leave a Comment »

May Finds

May 4, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

The first weekend of May has been blustery, cold, and wet: not exactly inspiring weather. Still, I managed to get a few things planted – in pots. I planted potted plants because I could do it inside. What a wimp.

These hangers are my concession to annuals. The pots are too small to encourage perennials (4″ pots), and so every year I have to find some small hanging basket type annuals to stuff into them.

The petunias are a shout back to a woman who was pretty much my second mother when I was growing up, whether or not she wanted to be. Mrs. T. always had petunias growing in the long planter in the front of her house. This year, I decided I would plant petunias in honor of Mrs. T. The alyssum in the middle is just because I like alyssum.

This finally opened up (after my last post, obviously). I stepped out the back door on Saturday and was greeted by this fiery orange Oriental poppy. COOL.

Isn’t it gorgeous?? It has several other buds swelling. I hope to let it go to seed at some point and (hopefully) have many, many more such beauties in my garden in the years to come.

I also managed to fit in a trip to the local thrift store with a friend. I scored a few things (as usual).

I found two bud vases. Well, one is a real vase & the other is a tiny little tea cup for a cheap child’s tea set (I guess).

The one on the left has: hawthorne, luminaria, columbine.

The one on the right has – oh shoot! Don’t you hate it when you forget what that is? It’s OK – I still have the plastic stake in the ground by it so if I was serious about identifying it for you, I could go down the stairs, out the door, into the cold rain, and look it up. I’m not serious. Variegated something that is evergreen, grows like a ground cover and a shrub. It’s pretty. The point is: I have a tiny vase for short flowers.

I still have Fish Woman. She makes an excellent bud vase. The golden alyssum makes the perfect flower to surround her.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I did find other things, but they’re itemized over on my art blog. Yeah, that blog. The one I rarely write on. The one I should be serious about.

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Garden Fever (Bloom Already!)

April 26, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

This is killing me. We had a wonderful warm spell when all the peonies grew rapidly and buds began to form, and then (as usual) – cold spell and days of rain.

The peonies hover on the edge of blooming, teasing me. It will be 80 degrees (F) on Wednesday next week, and they will suddenly open up in profusion, the whole lot of them, and I am afraid I will miss the glory because I will be in the office, working in my little corner cubicle.

The honeysuckle is really “hovering”. JUST BLOOM ALREADY!

This is my Fothergilla that I purchased two years ago at the the Clackamas County Historical Society Plant Sale. It is gorgeous this spring! I cannot wait for it to be a full sized bush that I no longer have to protect from male dogs.

Last year, I drove by the Plant Sale on some other errand and realized I was not going to be able to peruse the offerings. I didn’t even know it was about to happen and I felt cheated. It’s like an annual yard sale that might have good things and might not. I always spend at least $5 there. It isn’t where the proceeds go (although I love the Historical Society and the museums here in Oregon City, the End of the Oregon Trail), but it’s that most of the offerings have been dug out of someone’s yard and I am so touched that they would share their abundance so cheaply.

My Oriental Poppy from two years ago is about to bloom. Another Historical Society find.

Columbine I bought from the “ladies” of the Society.

Sure, much of the offerings are things I could dig up and haul down to offer, too: irises, wild strawberries, Shasta Daisy – things you can’t kill even if you have a black thumb. There are the hellebores (I lost count of how many I have purchased from the Society, but one actually lived and is blooming profusely in my garden even now). Roses – I’m not ready for roses, yet. They require a well-tended bed, full sun, free of weeds. I know where I’m going to put them when I am ready for them, but I’m not ready.

They had Italian prunes this year. I wanted an Italian prune. I just have to decide where one is going to go. I love Italian prune plums. I’m not a fan of other plums, but these deep purple, almost black, ones are the best. I had to Step.Away.

I missed the sale this year, too. We were on the way to a funeral when I saw the signs. DAMN. But the funeral ended with plenty of time for a stop at the plant sale and I dragged my husband to the Stevens-Crawford House. (That was a really lucky link to come on to! I was thinking “Wikipedia” and got someone’s actual review of the museum. It’s really pretty cool.)

We spent $17.

The strawberries were purchased elsewhere. : Bachelor Buttons, wild ginger, Ladie’s Mantle, and Solomon’s Seal. Now, I know you can plant Bachelor Button seeds. My father considered them a weed. He made us dig them out of the strip of land between our sidewalk and the city street. I hated him for it. they are beautiful flowers. (So are Hollyhocks, another “weed” he made us dig up.)

I will plant the wild ginger back in the back corner, in my prayer garden.

I bought the Solomon’s Seal just because of these flowers. This is a mature plant. Beautiful!

I don’t know why I bought the Lady’s Mantle. I had to google it. I love the leaves. I know I will explore this treasure some more after my brief search on the Interwebs.

I do have flowers in bloom. Chrystal threw a bunch of seeds off the deck many years ago and I still get the plants every spring. I call them “Honesty” plants, but others call them “Money Plants” or “Dollar Plants”. They make great cut flowers.

Both lilacs are in full bloom. This leads to a digression. I have a coworker who grew up in the Ukraine. She’s probably 20 years younger than I am but we share a lot of common “folk” knowledge and plant knowledge. Recently, I took a bouquet of lilacs to work: wonderful, fragrant, lilacs.

My coworker commented that they had lilacs in the Ukraine. I asked her if they ate the blossoms? We always picked the little purple florets and ate them – sweet, sweet delight. She told me something that I did not know.

Most lilacs have only four petals on the florets (or eight, on the doubles – I have a double, not pictured). You don’t eat the four-petaled florets. You look for the ones with five petals.

Then she showed me. Lo and behold. A “lucky” lilac floret. That is the one you eat.

Isn’t that a cool bit of trivia?

Now, if only these would get with the program!!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged fothergilla, lilacs, peonies, plant sale | Leave a Comment »

The Dispersed

April 26, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

Today my husband and I went to a memorial service for someone we knew from our rabid church going days. It was a beautiful Celebration of Life that brought people back together.

We first started attending the church when it was a mere store-front funded by a cult out of Arizona. I had my doubts about the church and some of the rhetoric spouted from the pulpit, but we also found community and began to make some life-long friendships. The church split from the cult and moved to a new location, inside an actual church building that we began to remodel. The split proved a boon to our charismatic pastor and we were soon overflowing that building and on the hunt for an even larger, more modern, church facility. Every move seemed to be rife with church “splits”, some ugly and some just because the new place was no longer accessible and some because people simply disagreed with the direction the church was headed. We stayed with the church for 12, maybe 15 years.

The woman who recently died started attending the church during the first move, or perhaps right after we moved into the bigger building. She was single and raising a young son. She gave her heart and time and energy to the church (as we did in those days). She left around the same time my husband got tired of the endless hours of volunteering.

The charismatic pastor moved us into yet another building – this one was new, the fulfillment of years of church building funds. Then he moved away and the reins went to the associate pastor. My own history of the church is tied more closely to the associate pastor as his wife and I became close friends. I remain friends with the associate pastor and the members of the “new” church (now disassociated from the charismatic church), but I do not bother to make the long drive to services and so have only an honorary membership. Somewhere in there, there was yet another church split, with one group of our friends following one associate pastor and another group following the other.

Meanwhile, A. was battling cancer and struggling to finish raise her young son while remaining faithful to the God she believed in. I saw her about four years ago when I was blessed to have a little free time to pick her up from a chemo treatment and take her home. I wish I could have done more for her. I feel like it was a stolen moment and did little to help her through the realization that the cancer was back and it was more aggressive than before. I watched her decline on social media, read her posts of her losses and victories, celebrated when her son won visitation with his son and she was able to enjoy being a grandmother on weekends. She posted that the doctors gave her one month to live, but she didn’t believe them.

She lived a year longer than they predicted, passing away quietly just before Easter. She was too young.

The service was held at a church we have never been to, one of the last spin-offs from the original church. Many of the people there were people we have known through all of the church changes. Some, like us, remain “unchurched” and happy to have our weekends free for family. One confessed he only attends on Friday nights, and he is so thrilled to have time for his family on weekends. Others remain entrenched in the role of volunteer, happily giving of their hearts and lives. We have all grown older, children have left home and married, and some of us have grandchildren.

I can’t help it that I have the most grandchildren.

I spent the greater part of the reception of A.’s memorial service getting caught up with the lives of so many people. Leaving, I was invited several times to a women’s conference at the original church next Friday. I hugged and was hugged by some of the world’s greatest huggers.

It has taken me most of the day to process this memorial service that turned into a sort of reunion. Initially, I felt drained. I felt sorrow for the things we have “lost”: A., the relationships that are now spread far and wide, the precious moments as our lives changed and adapted. I wondered about the many “splits” and mourned the “glory days” – and then God spoke to me.

“Dispersed” was the actual word that came into my heart. Dispersed, as in scattered like seeds. Dispersed, in order that we might reach out and help more people by virtue of being free to move further away. Some of us were sent to other ministries to continue in our calling. Some of us were put out to rest, servants who either needed a break or who had done what God called them to do in that place. God allowed us to reunite, briefly. Maybe He wanted us to have a feel for what it will be like when we finally reunite with A. Maybe, we needed to answer questions about each other (“are they doing OK? Is she happy? How does he like the role of Grandfather?”).

The ceremony was to be an honoring of this one woman’s life and the people whose lives she touched, in turn. She managed, in death, to reunite many people who, for one reason or another, went down another path. I don’t think any of us ever left our love for God behind, but some of us left our love for church behind. A. never lost either her love for God or her love for church.

One person I spoke to remembered A.’s love for an Easter play we held every year at our former church, “Blood Bought”. He remarked how he noted her death came on the eve of the day when the play (had it continued into this decade) would have begun. How the memorial service today happened to fall on the day when the play’s cast would have their final dinner together to celebrate the success of the play and to plan for the following year’s action. He felt it fitting that the one thing he could most remember her for – her love of that play and her involvement in it from start to finish every year that it ran – “just happened” to be when she chose to leave this life to go to that one.

The memorial brought together people who moved to Texas to follow our original pastor, people who stayed with the associate pastor, and people who followed the other associate pastor. It brought back people who left organized church altogether and people who moved to unrelated churches. Several women I spoke to were planning on attending a women’s conference at the original church next Friday – and I was invited more than once.

I may have to go next Friday. I am curious now to hear what it is that God is doing, and to perhaps see if there is yet another chapter in my life about to open that I haven’t even considered. It was certainly a mixed service and I wonder how much planning God put into it when He called A. home.

“Come Home, A. I have plans for what happens in the wake of your passing from that realm to this. Come sit by my side and watch what happens to people you touched in your brief stay on earth. You won’t believe what I am going to do.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged celebration of life, God's plan, memorial service | 2 Comments »

Facebook Plastic Surgery

April 24, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

I saw a news report today that said plastic surgery “facials” have increased with the “selfie” and social media. Apparently, people see what they look like in photos and decide they don’t want to look like that. they stew on it and think on it and contemplate it, and eventually, they make some plastic surgeon richer by deciding they need a nip here and a tuck there.

I want you to know that I don’t believe in that. People get old. It’s a fact of life. Hair gets thinner, hair grows out of moles and nostrils, you end up with a comb-over, you get warts and age spots, and those moles that were little when you were a kid suddenly balloon into something meant for a Hallowe’en costume. If you’re a woman, your boobs sag. If you’re a man, you develop boobs. (I know: never start a sentence with “if”. Get over it. We’re talking about aging un-gracefully here.)

I have always looked more like my father than my mother. I don’t have his gigantic ears (thank the blessed Lord), but when my hair is wet and pulled back, the skeletal structure of my face is very much my father and not my mother, the Beauty Queen.

My mom lost her beauty in her fifties. It was only in her mind that she lost it, but she lost it all the same. She plunged into depression ad her mid-drift expanded and she lost that 34-24-34 figure she had so carefully coaxed into a girdle (yes, my mother, who weighed all of 95#, wore a girdle). (No, I never understood it, either.)

I’m not going to wax poetic. I just want you to know that I am never, ever going to fall for that trap.

This face has aged and changed.

We can’t remain the girl in the middle forever (or the guy on the side with HAIR).

There I am. In my Daddy’s hat.

Here I am with my Hallowe’en Nose Pin.

Dang. Post-partum 1984. I’ll never wear shorts that short again.

At least my top half is hidden.

My mother always saw herself this way.

I’d like to always see myself like this.

Or even this.

But the truth is this. Live with it, folks. This is as real as it gets.

I’ll refrain from posting a pic of the guy with hair as he is now. That really isn’t pretty.

That’s why my brother LOVES me. Because I’m nice to him that way.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged facebook plastic surgery, plastic surgery, touching up selfies | Leave a Comment »

Day Two of I Tried to Kill Myself

April 13, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

No, there was not a “Day One” post. i was too tired to post anything last night and just fell asleep in the recliner. I woke up this morning around 9AM, solely because Harvey decided he wanted to go out. I stumbled around, made a cup of coffee, and decided I should take Harvey for a walk before I started Day Two. We returned home, I sat down in the recliner with my second cup of coffee and contemplated falling back asleep. All of my muscles hurt.

Ah, but that second cup of coffee worked miracles, and I was up and at ’em by 10:00.

I started the laundry and hauled out the clothesline to greet the sunny and beautiful Palm Sunday. I located my garden gloves, the edger, the shovel, my knee pads, and all the other accoutrement necessary for making it through a second day of marathon gardening. You have to grab every opportunity here when the sun is out in April!

Yesterday, I took the edger and straightened out all the lines around the “island”. Today, I was undertaking the prayer garden.

I wasn’t the only person out there. My next-door neighbor who lives behind us caught me at the grocery store where she works & I shop: she wanted me to know the ivy and the fence were coming down.

I loaned them our yard debris can after they filled theirs. I figured it was for a good cause: to keep their dogs in their yard and our dogs in our yard, and to keep them as good neighbors. Their dogs did come over into our yard during the destruction of the fence, but they only wandered around in the weed-pile that is our fenced-in veggie garden. Harvey, of course, wanted to go in and play with them. These neighbors have two Labs, a black one that listens as well as Murphy does, and a yellow one that is relatively obedient.

While they did that, I filled up a tub with my own yard debris. I’ll put it in our big container next weekend.

Today, I covered up the hole in the bamboo that Harvey chewed. I weeded 75% of the prayer garden and 75% of the southern border.

You can see the second layer of bamboo screening in the background. Rather than taking the old screen down, I supplemented it with a second layer. It helps keep the view of the back yard neighbors to a minimum (this is the other set of neighbors that live behind us. You can’t see their house or them from this angle, and that’s fine with me. I’m not very fond of them).

The brown house in the photo belongs to our southern neighbors and I adore them.

I filled three buckets with yard debris. I tossed fern fronds onto the brush pile on the other side of the shed. I pulled out the compost bin because I think I have a better spot for it, closer to the back door. A sunnier spot that will heat the bin and compost the materials more quickly.

That’s the pile of compost I have managed to create since I got the bin – not much, but it has settled and composted considerably.

Now I ache all over and I will probably drift off to sleep early. I don’t get to sleep in tomorrow. I don’t get to garden tomorrow, either. I would love to do both, but I have to go fight traffic and work at my Day Job.

It’s been a great weekend, however.

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Overwhelmed

April 1, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

I have posted before about being an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person). I usually cope fairly well, but sometimes there are days when I just feel overwhelmed and I want to shut down completely. Today is/was one of them.

I am an introvert and I draw my energy from being alone. I never took my children to places like Chuck E Cheese because I can’t stand the overwhelming sensory stimulation of the lights, noise, and crowds. I take my lunch break out in my car rather than in the office break room, simply because I need the little bit of down time that it provides. I have always been like this: when I was in elementary school, I was mistaken for a shy child (being an introvert is not synonymous with being shy) because I found school with all the bells, other children, and the noisy playground and lunch room overwhelming so I shut down and became quiet.

The past few years have been kind to my personality. I moved to an accounting position (I know: math and me! Never my strong point!) where few people bothered me throughout the day. Later, I gained a private office where I could simply close the door to shut out the noise and fend off the interruptions. Last year, however, my senior partner retired and a new person was hired to replace her: a highly extroverted person from a different culture. Now, I adore my new supervisor. She’s funny, we walk together twice a day, we go out to eat together sometimes, and we share some of our world with each other. She’s great, but she’s an extrovert who needs people and draws her energy from people.

If I only had her to work around, I’d be fine. That isn’t how it went today.

Externally (outside the job), I have some adult issues I need to take care of: a case of identity theft, a past due bill that isn’t past due (I have the proof), and ongoing insurance-didn’t-pay-my-medical-bill-from-the-last-car-accident issues. The latter is getting taken care of by the other insurance, finally. But I still have to call my doctor’s office and let them know that I don’t know what is up with my insurance because they told me they were paying it back in January. The accident was clear back in October.

Internally (at work), it is first of the month, my very busiest time, and it is March, which means we are coming out of the normal winter slump that real estate hits every year. Today, I had my usual large stack of closings to do in a short period of time (I complete the Broker’s files and issue the Broker’s checks on a daily basis. Most of the time, the Brokers like me). We are also in the middle of a huge remodel job of our office space and this weekend is the accounting department’s weekend to be displaced into temporary quarters while the construction crews build our fancy new cubicles. (I’m losing my private office with the door, but I still have me “QUIET – I AM WORKING” and “DO NOT DISTURB – DEPOSIT IN PROGRESS” signs. I made those signs when I was last in a cubicle, before the big move to the new office space two years ago.)

Lastly, I am cross-training two people so that I can take a well-deserved vacation this summer without burdening my supervisor unduly.

Oh – and they hired a new Accounting Manager to replace the Controller who is leaving for a better job, the RAT. The new person was at the office early and needed to chat off her nervous energy. I needed to dole out assignments for my trainees. I fielded their questions (one asks more questions than the other, but that is fine: there is no stupid question except for the one you did NOT ask). I checked their work. My supervisor stopped in half a dozen times with one or another issue (did I mention we just changed accounting software? Yeah. We’re still learning, and it is a process for all of us). Then someone stopped by to explain the move to someone in the hall, but they had to stand inside my door and include me in the conversation. We had to go look at our new temporary space to make sure we’d fit. Someone else came by to see if any of my office equipment was going to be given away (my desk, but not until after 5 on Friday – I do have to work until then!). They measured things.

The insurance company (the Other Insurance) called to let me know they were close to settling on my claim. And my HR person received mail from them that required her to fill out forms and return, but she’s a new HR person and wasn’t even on the job in October when I was in the accident, so I had to stop and explain all of that to her and where to find my absent times on my time clock 9which is online, thank God).

Further complicating my day was a voice mail the receptionist received from my former supervisor (the one who retired). I did not get a call: my former boss probably dialed my old phone number. Turns out, she fell and broke her pelvis (!!!) and is recuperating in a rehab center. She’s in her mid 80’s and they are telling her that she will be in a walker the rest of her life!

I couldn’t close my door to shut out the constant interruptions because I am training two people and they have to know I am available to help them.

My deadline for printing checks was made, but my deadline for depositing checks was missed and I left the office with overtime (not much, but it’s still rather harrowing when you miss a deadline and you’re trying to focus).

I messed up someone’s check and I figured out what I did while I was sitting in traffic on Highway 217. Parked in traffic, more like it.

I pulled over for an ambulance on the way to work (rollover on Hwy 217, the direction I was going – I went around it on a back road but I saw the wreckage – awful!). I pulled over for an ambulance on my way home from work (I didn’t hear what happened there, but the lighted highway sign said I-5 had one lane blocked three miles south of my exit).

I was in such a bad mood, I didn’t put in my audio book (I’m listening to The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and I’m afraid I was a bit too intolerant to listen to the Puritan’s persecution of that poor sinner, Hester. I wanted to shoot the Puritans tonight).

The mood lightened (nothing like Led Zeppelin and 1970’s Rock on KGON to lift my spirits – thank God they didn’t play any Aerosmith or Rolling Stones), but the lingering effects of too many people and too much stimulation held on.

I managed to finish our taxes online, but when faced with the simple task of paying April bills, I shut down. You know what? I’ve had enough for today. the world won’t end if I don’t pay bills until the second day of April. Heck, I used to pay them the day before they were past-due. I know which ones I can skate on because I’ve been Down That Road more times than I care to think about. The fact that I have been able to pay them ahead of time and always on the first of the month for a few years has been a bonus.

I am taking April First off because I am tired of being an Adult (hey, we filed our taxes!) and I am feeling like I just want all the noise, interruptions, and stimulation to SHUT UP.

BE QUIET.

No television, no music, no bill paying, no dealing with issues that I need to deal with: I am tired. That’s how an HSP deals with TOO MUCH in one day. We shut down. I’m shut down.

Thankfully, Harvey understands. He’s snoring softly in the background, content and happy. I had to give him a treat to get him to lay down and leave me alone, but… whatever works.

May tomorrow be better, quieter, and less stimulating than today.

Friday, I have to pack my office. I don’t want to think about Monday and unpacking.

P.S. – I am sharing this just in case you are an HSP and you don’t know that it is OK to shut down, or you are an introvert and you don’t know it is OK to be overwhelmed. I’m both. I should be a basket case tonight. The only reason I am not is… I can blog. I can also breathe in and breathe out and know that there *is* a tomorrow. Thankfully, I am not fourteen with no vision for tomorrow. You know teenagers don’t know there is a tomorrow, right? Hug your teen.

I digress. I always digress. Thinking calming thoughts now: breathe in/breathe out. Harvey needs those nose thingies I bought my husband that keep him from snoring. Seriously, the dog snores.

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