Wow, the years are flying by!
Life still happens even in the fast lane...good and bad.
GOOD STUFF:
House Painting - You can't imagine how proud I am to know I am so self-sufficient I can get on a fifteen foot ladder and paint a two-story house all by myself. I decided I would take it slowly, using the whole summer if necessary to get ONE side done. I didn't want to overdo it in terms of physical work and toxic exposure. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how one looks at it), I couldn't stop at one side when that one side looked SO MAGNIFICENT. Three sides later, my fingers, hands, wrists, and arms were in horrible pain, and my short term memory faulty. Only now after four months the pain is finally gone. Still worth it! I love to paint...even a house!
Protests and Protest Posters - I had a hell of a good time marching in protests and making protest signs. The walls of my garage are covered in colorful, cheerful, passionately-written signage. I also printed a set of cards! I love to paint and this gives me great joy. It was a wonderful feeling of solidarity to march shoulder-to-shoulder with like-minded people for worthy causes. Even with the toxic exposure of being shoulder-to-shoulder with stinky people, it was fun!
Movies - What would I do without movies? Number one form of exile entertainment.
Yard, Garage, Estate Sales and Freecyle - I went to a lot of spectacular sales this year finding all kinds of cheap, used, but outstanding items. Linens, furniture, clothes. Quality, hardly-worn clothes in my size are difficult to find, but this year I scored on more than one occasion. Freecycle freebies are such a gift! One woman's junk is another woman's treasure!
Furniture Painting - Find some freebie furniture and go crazy! I have progressed from dots to leaves! Well, dots are my addiction and they can still be found in the background. Excellent creative outlet. This year I painted a dresser and a shelf:
Fragrance-Free Online Friends - What would I do without a computer? Online people are always fragrance-free!! LOL. I have excellent friends in Malaysia, Canada, and Europe as well as the United States. Most of them are even chemically sensitive and are empathetic to my challenges. Even this limited human contact is comforting.
Blog - This is my social life. I can write/talk to myself to my heart's content and it's a gift when my readers comment and participate in the conversation. It makes me feel connected to humans. Love my blog.
GOOD/BAD TOSS-UP:
Garden - My garden was great. Carrots, Italian prunes, flower, herbs, and most of the lettuce was spectacular.
House - I love my house, but if you've been reading my posts I have been desperate to move back to civilization for years. I came very close to buying a house last summer, then backed out during negotiations when the owner couldn't for legal reasons accept my low offer. Even with the low offer I could barely afford a loan and my common sense kept screaming DON'T DO IT! I couldn't raise my offer and finally I realized buying a house would financially destroy me. Besides the stress. The owner finally did sell the house to someone who had cash - and paid $20,000 LOWER than what I offered. I think the house was in such bad shape no one could get a loan and he was forced to come down. Although I was disappointed and sad, in many ways I feel like I dodged a bullet. Oh hum. SO...I can't move. Maybe never. It's a traumatic realization, but at the same time I've come to accept it and there is a certain contentment that comes with acceptance.
Foster Care Training - Well, if I'm stuck in my house I decided I needed to make my life and house more meaningful. I'm tired of reading about child abuse and neglect or bad parents killing their babies. I took basic training, CPR, and some continuing education classes learning about trauma, behavior disorders, multicultural awareness, learning disorders, adoption, and the foster system in general. Most of it I already knew from years I spent teaching, but it was a fascinating refresher and a fun extra-curricular activity nevertheless. All trainers and fellow students were fragrance free although in most classes I was either the only participant or the class was a webinar online. I researched to find ways to deal with chemical sensitivity while working the system. I gathered loads of supplies: beds, cribs, strollers, high chairs, toys, clothes, emergency equipment, medical supplies, and a brand new washer and dryer. I even completed and submitted a thirty page application packet. It was very exciting and motivating. The final blow: I don't have any support. I have no family. No friends. Some even told me I was crazy for wanting to be a foster parent while others told me they wouldn't give me a reference. I felt continuously discouraged but viewed this as a challenge to overcome. I thought I could work around lack of support by going to the training sessions and meeting other area foster parents, but my local representative refused to issue a fragrance-free request and she stinks like a French whore making my attempts difficult. The logistics of caring for children while working full time is also a deterrent so this might work better when I'm retired. I have lots of time to get it all worked out IF it can be worked out. I need to somehow create a support system. I have been chemically sensitive for fifteen years and have not found a support system so this might all be some silly dream. Oh well. So much for trying to make a difference in the world.
Work - Lots of steady work this year. I love the security money brings. However, this year I was working so much without a break my eyes became compromised. Dry, sandy, painful. How do I read with blurry eyes? It was frightening. My eye doctor's office was scented with toxic air fresheners. They remodeled which created ventilation issues and rather than fix the problem so they don't get mold, they'd rather cover it all up with stink. Not smart. I complained. Then he tried to tell me my eye problems were allergies. He refused to listen to me. Was this revenge for complaining about the air fresheners? Or just a narrow-minded assumption because he doesn't understand MCS is not an allergy? His advice and prescriptions did nothing to help. I hate it when doctors don't listen. The second eye doctor agreed with me without question: dry eyes caused by too much computer work. He said the preservatives in the eye drops the first doctor gave me were toxic. No one should have to go to multiple doctors to get quality medical care. Substandard practitioners need to have their licenses revoked...but if standards were higher there might not be any doctors left!
Drawing Group - I started going to this drawing group in hopes of finding friends and it's now been just over a year of unwavering dedication. Sometimes it's fun to go and draw. Other times I feel like a fraud pretending I can draw and it's overwhelmingly discouraging. The people are nice, but not friendly. They come to the meeting, draw in silence, share, then leave. Not many want to converse or share in recreational activities. Most are married. More often than not I find married people to be very insular and not interested in additional friendships. Some of them stink and force me to leave early. I'm losing interest, but it does give me an opportunity to get out of the house twice a month. And, it is fun to go to places I might otherwise not visit. These collage sketches were done at a maritime museum:
BAD STUFF:
Hospital Emergency - Besides the pain-induced fear of not knowing what was wrong with me, besides the shitty, incompetent 400 lb. pig of a doctor and his dismissive, apathetic hospital staff, and besides the outrageous expense, the worst part of this experience was the realization I had absolutely no one I could rely on for assistance or support. Absolutely no one. It's very depressing. Aging scares the shit out of me. I withdrew my foster care application the following day.
Health Care - Doctors are crap. There is just no redeeming value in any of them. Since the hospital visit I've seen three who were pathetically useless. The first decided my vital organs needed to be surgically removed. Just for the fun of it, I think. HA! Like that is ever going to happen! She also started scenting her "fragrance-free" office with essential oils and persists in using my appointment time to try to sell me on her new money-making project: scented homemade soaps. Does she not understand she's wasting my time? I don't give a fuck about her recreational activities. The second also failed at prioritizing my symptoms and prescribed something with contraindications that made me worse. I tried getting into a new doctor, but the office requires records from the old doctor, but the old doctor is incompetent which is why I need a new doctor and it's taken her weeks to send the records. Health care is a joke with profits a higher priority than the patient.
The Dotard Dump - The worst president in modern history. So incredibly embarrassing. He can't speak well, he can't spell, he can't think, he's a sexist, racist, egotistical, sociopathic fat man who lives on twelve cans of Coke and McDonald's junk food. Such a pig of a man. He's running the country into the ground in every way possible. We are an international laughing stock. Not sure what all those Russian-influenced Trumptards were thinking. Well, they weren't. What a bunch of gullible, stupid people. And RUSSIA is still looking at my blog more than any other country according to my blog's statistics!
CONCLUSION: It's been a very discouraging, depressing, expensive year.
NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION:
Volunteering - I am determine to make my life more meaningful...somehow.
Support - I need to find friends. What a challenge! How? Most people stink. And in my area where so many voted for the Dump? I've met many of my neighbors...do I really want to know these people close and upfront? Hmmm.... We'll see what 2018 brings.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Happy new year to you too!!
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