I'm grateful for: getting up and doing stuff; a cleaner, less cluttered room; brushing my teeth.

How long has it been? One day, two days, ten? I've no idea. Not going back to check, if I repeat myself, too bad.

I really am working on this gratitude thing. And I really, really do appreciate all the good things that I have in my life, all the gifts and the blessings. Somehow, that doesn't stop snarky comments from coming out of my mouth at every turn, though. Sitting down to a quiet night with TH (our Monday nights, which we spend together and without children or (hopefully) other interruptions. Like a date night, but without the date), I make a somewhat nasty reference to how badly he's treated me for about 25 of our 28 years of marriage. He and I start to do dishes together in the kitchen (this was last night) and I am full of how he doesn't clean things, and the sorry state everything has got to (which is obviously all his fault...), and on and on. I don't say it really nasty, I'm not really angry or upset, but the words just keep coming out of my mouth.

I don't know if this means I need to work harder on my spiritual condition, or if it is just something I need to let happen until it is out of my system. Over twenty years of being someone's victim and whipping boy (girl) just doesn't vanish in a puff of smoke because he starts to act like he likes me, and isn't so hateful and abusive. AS I repeatedly remind him. *sigh*

I am *so* not all better yet. *wry grin*

So, what else is worthy of comment? Can't think of anything, no -- yes -- maybe? So much has been happening, a lot of it is small stuff, but it's big in my life.

Today I wanted a statement from the bank. What we do here is we go to a machine that is outside the bank, put in the bank/atm card, and ask for a statement. It's a wee bit more complicated, but not so much. Usually I ask TH to get one for me, but today I decided he was working, and I figured I could drive there, assuming I could get to the car.

I asked D3 if she wanted to get out of the house, turned out she did. I asked S2 as well, but he didn't want to move. Soldier home on leave sleeps and watches television. Oh, and eats. Anyway. With help I made it out to the car. Ve-rry wobbly am I, but I made it. Fortunately I don't have to be able to keep my balance while walking to drive. D3 and I drove to Netivot. We pulled up in front of the bank - no parking, there is NEVER any parking - and she ran up to get the statement for me while I coped with various trucks that wanted to get around me.

From there we took a short drive up and back because it was just a lousy place to try turning around. D3 picked up (with my money, but while I waited in the car), epoxy for TH, coloured pencils for S3, paint markers for the household and for S2.

We drove to the old shuk, and looked for OJ for S2 as well, but there was none. D3 bought some shawarma for both of us, but I wasn't hungry.* So I paid her for mine and ended up giving it to S3 for supper.

It was a delightful outing. D3 got some necessary away time from the house, her brothers and her aunt. I was just thrilled to be able to do it. And we got almost everything needed. Not the OJ, unfortunately, but maybe TH can squeeze him some fresh tomorrow.

* Why I was too full for shawarma. It is officially summer, and today the kids bought from the ice cream truck for the first time. That's how you know it's officially summer. ;-) D3 was being generous and bought an ice cream sandwich for me. For some reason my brain had turned off, and instead of thinking about what it would do to my diet, or my appetite or my blood sugar, I just ate the blasted thing. Which meant when lunch time came around I was unable to eat more than half of my sandwich and some dried papaya, and I was still too full when it was time for supper - and that delicious, fresh shawarma. Poo.

All that good stuff wasn't the end of the day for me, though. I thought I would come home and crawl into bed and rest, but once I got home I thought that as long as I was outside, and outside the fence (having animals means being fenced in), I wanted to finally walk out to the new lul (chicken coop). S1 and TH had done all kinds of work on it, and we'd moved in all of our breeding chickens. The layers free-range in the yard, and provide us with (so far) enough eggs. The breeders are all the roosters (two at the moment) and the hens which have successfully hatched chicks, and hopefully, managed to keep them alive.

Our chickens aren't like so many commercial chickens in the U.S., the breeding, setting behaviour hasn't been bred out of them, but there are still some who make better mothers than others. We've only got seven chicks in the new lul at the moment, but we've two hens setting on nests in the machsan - goat shed. So I'm hopeful.

In any event, I made it out to the new lul, which is rather a long-ish walk for me. S1 brought me my walking stick (which he made for me a couple of years ago), and then once I was safely inside brought me a chair to sit in and some grain to feed the birds. It was just short of my idea of heaven. It was nice and cool in the lul, and if there'd been some more birds, and if I could have stayed out there longer, it would have been perfect. It was pretty d**n good. :-) Four of the chicks are still tiny, and the mom is a simply beautiful speckled hen.

Well, it was a sharav today, which is a particularly nasty heat wave, and it was still cool in the lul. I'm going to look to buy a couple of chairs that can live in the lul, so that I can just go out there and hang out sometimes.

When I finally went inside, I was all in. I rested in my room, and S3 read some Thomas the Tank Engine aloud to me. That's for his pleasure, honestly, but I let him think I enjoy the stories, and I do enjoy having him read aloud to me. He's getting better at it. He's not up to reading Hebrew aloud, yet, but he's getting there.

Then TH read some of a Garrett book (Glen Cook writes the series), and supper for me was late and a bit of baked potato. Followed by a cupcake, but it was one of D3's - whole grain flour, no sugar, and, yes, delicious. She'd gone to make some chocolate truffles the other day, and they hadn't worked out, but what she did have turned out to be a really good frosting.

There was the snarky comments, as I mentioned before, but I think TH and I had a good night together. I am working on the snarky comments. Maybe someday... ;-) We watched some Dr. Who (this would be *old* Dr. Who, the 2nd Doctor, Patrick Troughton. We're watching them in order for some reason). The S2 and I watched some of The Boat That Rocked together. Then MMF phoned.

Finally, I got up to go to the kitchen, because I needed a new water bottle. I ended up washing a bunch of dishes, cleaning a pot TH had left on the stove for two days with cheese and noodles in it. Yuck. I got S2 to change the very full trash can, fed the cats, wiped the stove, cleared the counter, and, and, and... It was fun, felt good. If you've not been bed-ridden for months at a time I doubt you can appreciate how wonderful it felt to be able to do stuff like that. Imagine my kitchen (or any kitchen) at the mercy of my husband and oldest son for months on end. What a nes (miracle) to be able to go in there and clean some of it Properly.

It would probably take months of dedicated effort to have the kitchen truly clean, and that is most unlikely. More likely, the last two nights (I cleaned in the kitchen last night, and TH and I even washed dishes together), will turn out to be yet another of those one or two times I get to do something before the next *whatever* hits. So, I'm just really full of appreciation for what I got to do, and trying (really hard) not to fret about all the things I didn't get to do.

It is hard.

Tomorrow D3 is taking off, leaving me here alone with all the menfolk and my sister. I've no idea how it will go. I would *like* to go to the shuk with TH, but I doubt the body is up to it. Especially what with me still being awake after 1am. Also, I have a lot of disks to burn - music disks for S2 and D3, a couple of movies I converted from video.

Eh, right now I'm just tired, so I will try and get some of that much needed sleep.

I'm listening to ABBA: ABBA undeleted (medley). Don't ask me why, I have no clue.

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06