Wake Up! It's the Zombie Apocalypse

I’ve been thinking a lot about zombies lately.

Mostly, because I feel like I’m turning into one.

I’m dealing with some health issues that are screwing up my nights. Normal people go to bed, go to sleep and wake up the next morning. My nights are more like a series of cat naps. (I hate those commercials where the woman wakes to the morning sun warming her face,  jumps up, pulls on her running shoes and dashes out the door for a five-miler. Or the coffee commercials where the guy rolls over, stretches luxuriously, smells the coffee and ends up on a deck, overlooking a misty lake, with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. I have NEVER woken up like that…my entire life. When my alarm goes off at 5:35 a.m. my first thoughts are about semi-humane ways to kill myself. I am NOT a morning person.}

It’s my understanding that to wake refreshed (as these commercial people do) you need to have restful, restorative sleep experiences.

There are four stages of sleep. The first two are what the experts call “light sleep”…ideally you would sink deeper and deeper into Stage 3 and Stage 4 – what they call “delta” sleep. REM sleep is part of the deeper stages. Rapid Eye Movement (REM) is when you dream. The deeper sleep stages are where your mind re-boots, so to speak. The body needs this reboot desperately. Without regular, restorative sleep a person experiences sleep deprivation.

So because my nights are interrupted (and believe me, that is as much an understatement as saying flesh-eating bacteria hurts), I rarely achieve my delta stage. I spend most nights in light sleep…skimming the sleep depths, rather than submerging completely. I wake easily (often with the help of my cat, who feels compelled to wander the hallway outside my bedroom at any hour, yowling like she’s being roasted over a slow fire.)

I am not rebooting.

I am sleep deprived. Severely deprived. Intensely deprived.

Experts are now telling us that chronic sleep deprivation kills off brain cells. Since my particular deprivation has been going on for almost a year, I guess I’m working on a lobotomy the hard way.

Which brings me back to zombies. I think everyone’s got it wrong. There’s no virus, no plague, no evil serum turning humans into zombies. These folks are TIRED, people. They’re so sleep deprived that their brains are dissolving. Of COURSE, they want to rip your throat out. Being tired makes everyone cranky. (You ought to see me some days at work. Say “Good morning” to me and you might lose your trachea. It may technically be “morning,” but it’s NOT “good.”)

So my advice to Andrew Lincoln (AMC’s “The Walking Dead”) or Brad Pitt (“World War Z”) or anybody else dealing with staggering, corpse-like neighbors, is to get those poor guys some Ambien for heck sake. All they need is a good night’s sleep.

Happiness and Four-Letter Words

There are BAD four-letter words.

$%@&!

*#$&!

+&@%!

 And then there are GOOD four-letter words.

Free 
Live

Love

And then there's... 

 It doesn’t take much to make me happy. That beautiful Blue and Yellow four-letter word will do it almost immediately. 

 I love IKEA. I think I could LIVE at IKEA. And the love affair has been going on for some time.

 I’d never heard of this amazing place in 2003, when my best friend Vicki suggested we stop at the IKEA in Emeryville on our way to The City. (If you grew up in the Central Valley of California, San Francisco was “The City.”) I’m always up for shopping, but nothing I’d experienced before prepared me for the sheer awesomeness of IKEA. I think I walked all the way through the showroom with my mouth open. (Thank goodness there were no flies.)

Because I was just visiting there (as opposed to living there) and had an 800 mile trip home and space in the car was at a premium, the only purchases I made were several wall shelves. But since Utah got their very own IKEA, I have worked very hard at not limiting myself. (I'm happy to report the hard work has really paid off!)

When I moved last year I left a craftroom that had shelves and cupboards and drawers.

 I went to a new place where the room I planned to dedicate to crafting (as you can see, formerly a bedroom) had NOTHING…except walls and a floor and two closets. (Also UGLY drapes...but those went first.)

Needless to say, I’ve been VERY grateful for IKEA.

I have been fretting over how to store my ribbon (I am the Ribbon Queen of Orem, Utah). But finally I thought to try an IKEA spice rack and it’s going to be fabulous. The 3 ¼ inch spools fit perfectly and there’s that rail thingee that the ribbon end can run under.

Just thinking about painting all those spice racks white and hanging them on the wall (above my IKEA craft tables...and Expedit cube...and Trofast storage units) makes me all warm and squooshy inside.

See? Such happiness from so little…just IKEA. I love you IKEA. If there’s no IKEA in Heaven, I’m not going.

I Just Might Need an Intervention

I returned from lunch the other day to find the Taffy Fairy from the university's bookstore had visited my desk. 

The bookstore promotions folks are lovely people, really. They email us when there are specials and they invite us, every year, to the big Office Products Show…where we wander around checking out vendor booths with all the great new merchandise. (WOW!! Have you seen the super new file folder styles??? Gosh, look at that cute little ball point pen, what a great idea to add a lanyard so you will never lose it! I mean, c’mon guys…how exciting ARE office products???)

But it's still fun to go to the show…occasionally they do have cool new things that give me the warm fuzzies. They also have drawings for awesome stuff – like iPads or zip drives or laptop cases. And we always leave with plastic bags chock-full of give-away items (more of those nifty file folders and pens-on-a-cord type of things, but still free - and even if you don't actually NEED it, free is always good).

And then every few months they also send the Taffy Fairy around to all the offices where they fill up our custom-monogrammed (with the bookstore logo) candy jars with salt water taffy.

We’re supposed to place these jars strategically on our desks so everyone in the office can enjoy the bookstore’s largesse.

Unfortunately, this is a problem for me. I’m hooked on sugar. I know…it’s bad for you. It does awful things to your spleen…or is it your pancreas? Liver? No, that’s alcohol… But it’s bad. I have a love/hate relationship with sugar. I love it. It hates me. (That’s actually been the story of most of my relationships.)

So here is MY candy jar today:

And here are the other jars in my area:

Notice anything? Yes, their jars are still mostly full. Mine is mostly empty. (Except for the white ones – those are licorice. I loathe licorice.)

For me these randomly frequent bestowals are equivalent to someone helpfully passing out mini-bottles at the door of an AA meeting. Or a kind, generous soul cooking up some crack at the Betty Ford Clinic.

I should ask them to stop bringing taffy. But I’m not going to. 

A Little Stone Bench

So I'm trying to fix up my "new" place. "New" being a relative term. It is, in fact, new to ME. It is not, however, "new" as in just built. It is OLD. Not as old as I am, but old enough to need fixing...a LOT.

I suppose that's the way of things, unless you build your own house from the ground up there are going to be things to do when you move in. 

And there are LOTS of things to do. Things that take money. Which is why the fixing up is not finished eight months after the move.

(Good grief, I don't have all the boxes unpacked yet!!!)

*puts head in hands*

But I understand that having unpacked boxes less than a year after a move is not unheard of. They still bug me, though.

Since the fixing is being done a bit at a time I don't have a lot of pictures yet. 

(I wouldn't publish pictures of the current state of my craft room even if you paid me money...a LOT of money...because it's awful. Horrendous. Cosmic chaos in an enclosed space. And sometimes I cannot even bring myself to look into the craft room. But next weekend I'm going to do some serious excavating in there...I promise. I SWEAR.)

But let's focus on the positive. I have accomplished some things. Had blinds installed in bedrooms and kitchen, and replaced the deplorable vertical blinds in the family room (the ones the former tenants' kids used as Tarzan vine swings).

I also did the porch. 

It was the easiest "room" to finish. It was basically empty, and I put stuff there. Et voila! A finished room. It was not a huge accomplishment, but it makes me feel pretty good to look at it every morning as I leave for work, and have it all cute and welcoming when I come home again.

Here is what the porch looked life before. 

And here is what it looks like NOW.

I waffled on the bench. When Kay and I were at Tai-Pan Trading (one of my favorite places!) there were some really cute metal benches. I found the pitcher and greenery, the stone birdhouse, the topiary and the candle stick there...but I couldn't make a decision on the bench. (A sure sign that I needed to WAIT.)

I'm glad I did. I went on line and looked at HUNDREDS of benches...but the one that caught my eye was this little English Garden Bench at Home Depot. It was small enough to not take over the space, and it just seemed to fit with the other things I'd chosen...like it was meant to be.

(It looks heavy, but it isn't all stone...just a faux stone finish, and the legs bolt on. It was light enough to assemble it inside and carry it out.)

I added a garden bell / windchime and a standing three-tiered lantern - great buys at Hobby Lobby!

And a standing garden bell in the flower bed (also from Tai-Pan Trading).

I think I might add a bit more in the flower bed to go along with the bell...maybe a critter or snail or fairy or something...but I haven't found the "just right" thing yet. I'll keep looking!

One "room" down...lots more to go! (Patio furniture next!)

And Now It's Here

So even though I’ve been talking about it for years, I think I was in total denial that I would really have to sell the house and move.

But, at last, the time has come.

If all goes well, by tomorrow I will have a firm offer…and there will be no turning back.

I suppose that when the only way you have to go is forward, there’s at least a certainty of direction.

And scariness.
 
And moments when you feel you are hyperventilating. 

And racing thoughts, and very little calmness, and hours of laying in bed, looking up at the ceiling, and wondering if the decisions you are making are the right ones. (And in my case, needing to feel as though the decisions are right not only for me, but to ensure that Dad will continue to be cared for and that I will have been a wise steward with his assets.)

Big decisions. Grown up decision. (You see, I was never a Wendy Darling…I was always a Peter Pan. Never, ever wanted to grow up. Unfortunately, you rarely have a say in that. It just happens.)

So now pictures of my living room and bathrooms and bedrooms are on display on the internet for all and sundry to peruse.

I should be grateful. The house had only been listed for about 24 hours and already there was an offer. But before I found out about this, I had gone home knowing that there had been people in the house, looking it over. It was a very unsettling feeling…I didn’t like to think of people wandering through the rooms - poking through closets, openings drawers and cupboards - JUDGING me (the house, yes – but ME, too). So I decided to walk through, as though I were looking at it as a prospective buyer.

It actually depressed me. There are so many things that I would change (improve), if only I had the money. Cosmetic things like replacing vinyl flooring, or all new blinds in the windows, or repainting the kitchen cabinets, or pouring a new (uncracked) driveway. 

For years I’ve wanted to turn the concrete slab to the west (that had once been the parking spot for Dad’s pickup) into a covered patio, with a lovely trellised gate and stepping stones and a picnic table…but again, if only there had been money.

I go around now, looking into rooms, stepping outside into the backyard to look up at the stars and the moon…and realizing that very soon I will be gone and those rooms will be empty – and then quickly filled with someone else’s furniture, someone else’s STUFF and someone else will be looking at the mountains shining in the moonlight from under the apple tree, or curled up with a book in front of the fireplace on a snowy afternoon. And my throat tightens and my vision blurs…because despite the worry about maintenance problems, and the fact that it IS a very large house for a single lady…and there are SO many stairs (and invariably wherever you are in the house, the thing you want is as far away from you as is physically possible) this is home. And has been for almost twenty years. It’s the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere. It was the last home my mother lived in…and my father, come to think of it. 

So many things happened here. 

And leaving will close a chapter of my life forever.

I'm Dreaming of a Priceless Christmas

I’ve been watching a lot of television lately – must be the winter “veggies” settling in already. And so I’m also (unfortunately) watching a lot of advertisements. Now because of my situation I’m making a concerted effort not to let the avalanche of holiday commercials turn me into an emotional wreck (like they usually do). And because of this effort I’m not “feeling” the commercials, I’m just viewing them.

And I have to admit, once you remove the sentimental business, the ads are disturbing.

Now I know the economy has been just plain awful, and I’m certainly not against stimulating it…but I watched those news videos from Black Friday and I’m pretty sure that the woman who slugged her fellow shoppers in the face to get at the two dollar waffle iron wasn’t really doing much for the gross national product.

Shoppers were mashed, squished, stomped, elbowed, stampeded, shoved, pummeled and pepper-sprayed. People camped out in sub-zero temperatures to be the very first shopper in the door at 5:00 a.m. or 2:00 a.m. or midnight. Some people even abandoned Thanksgiving altogether to spend their family holiday on a quest for the best bargains available.

I know it’s a cliché to remind everyone about the real “reason for the season,” but I can’t help considering that phrase and what it really, really means…and comparing it to the event that started all of this.

Mary and Joseph were poor. I mean poor. And because of Mary’s pregnancy their trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem took longer than they had anticipated. When they got there they discovered every available space in every available lodging was already taken. They found room in a stable...with livestock.

(Imagine you’re headed for your alma mater’s homecoming weekend and you have car trouble…when you get to town the only place available is a garage. Nice, eh?)

I just have trouble envisioning Joseph sneaking out to Zales, while Mary was in labor, to get her the latest celebrity-designed diamond pendant. And I’m fairly certain that Mary, in between contractions, wasn’t frantically surfing the ‘net to find the best deal on Black & Decker’s latest super-saw for her hubby. (Although I’m sure Joseph could have put that present to good use.)

And the very first bed that the Savior and Redeemer of the world slept in was not an Ethan Allen cherry-wood crib with coordinating linens by Martha Stewart, with a Fisher-Price mobile hanging over it from Toys “R” Us and a hand-painted tree mural dotted with twinkle lights on the wall behind it. It was a feed box. Full of straw.

Even thinking along those lines seems ludicrous, doesn’t it? And yet all you hear about is finding “the perfect present for her,” or “the ideal gift for Dad,” or making sure your kids have the latest X-box game. As if the not finding of these things will make Christmas somehow less meaningful.

What is meaningful about Christmas is love. Plain and simple. Pure and unadorned. We celebrate at all because a Child was born to bring salvation to a world enslaved by sin. It was the supreme gift of love. And it changed the world forever.

Perhaps if we really thought about that…stopped to remember the why and wherefore of Christmas, there would be less pushing and shoving, less crass commercialism…more comfort and joy.

More love.

I’m not suggesting that anyone slap a “Boycott Retail” bumper sticker on their car or avoid the mall as if there really were zombies hiding in the food court. But I’m suggesting we remember that it’s not what’s in the box, all wrapped up in foil and ribbon and tinsel, that matters…it’s what is in the heart of the giver. And when we remember that, then the smallest gifts of love can have the most meaning…and Christmas will become again what it once was…what it was meant to be...