Men and babies

My weekend of lust and passion did not happen. I had thought it was going too quickly and too well. My beau postponed his visit this weekend as his father, who has cancer, had a bad spell overnight and needed D today as well. This is fine. I would rather D stayed home with his father at this difficult time than made the trip here, then worried he could not get back if anything happened. We can get together another time and will continue talking on Skype to become more familiar with each other. By the time we meet, we will know each other so well.

My granddaughter has been having a bad evening. She woke up around 9 pm for a feed and did not go back to sleep. She seems to be hungry all the time, and wants food every hour. We thought she had gone to sleep at 1:30, so she was put in her moses basket and we all prepared for bed. 20 minutes later she was awake and crying again. Eventually she will go to sleep and by then we will all be so tired and snappy.

Tiredness

I have felt tireder today than I have known for a long time. I am wiped out and ready to sleep at any moment. My eyes are so heavy they weigh me down. my head throbs with the need for rest. I am snappy and cold.

Sleep deprivation is an underestimated health issue. new mothers can get depressed through lack of sleep, and I am suffering now for late nights and very early mornings. So tonight i intend on getting to bed and sleeping by midnight. And no 5 am waking. I will sleep for at least 7 hours so I am fit for whatever the weekend brings.

Love online

I am wondering if it is possible to fall in love with someone online, before meeting face to face. I am thinking that my Skype man is geting to feel a bit too strongly about me, and I am not sure I am ready for another full-blown relationship at the moment.

Perhaps this will be a long distance affair, as he lives about 4 hours away from here. Each of us could take it in turns to travel to see the other maybe twice a month. We would both have the freedom of being single while having the pleasure of being in a relationship. Romance is not dead in my life at the moment, even though I have a husband in the US who is wanting me to return there and help earn an income. Now that relationship is another story.

As for ths one, I will have to wait and see. i can make my reports and observations in here as it goes along - if it goes along after we meet.

Taking a chance

Yesterday I was thinking about hearts and minds controlling emotions. Today it is all about taking chances in life and whether it is possible to assess the risks involved before embarking on a course of action.

I am contemplating jumping out of my comfort zone completely by meeting a man I have only known on here and Skype. He has seduced me, which is lovely as we are not together. I want to be seduced and to seduce in the flesh, physically, totally. Just to see if I can and how it feels. I have not done this before as I have always thought myself to be non-sexual, in control, not letting myself go. Now I have a chance to be a sensual, uninhibited lover and I want to do it. I will be fantastic, it will be fantastic, he will be fantastic.

I have to do something soon, as my insides are constantly churning and I am feeling in a state of arousal at all times of the day. I am building up for one big release. Only if I take the chance and just let it all go, and be myself. Do what I feel like doing without thinking about whether he will want me to do it or not, or whether I will be any good. Do it and be happy. The worst that can happen is I will get one chance only and never repeat it. At least I will be satisfied that I gave it my best shot and I will have some wonderful memories.

Heartache

Is it possible to have heartache over someone you do not know and have never met and do not love? I wonder what makes us think in terms of the heart rather than the mind and how we respond to situations.

Do our irrational emotions control our lives or is it better to keep emotions held tight inside where they can not wreak the havoc that they are capable of unleashing? I am pondering these questions this evening as I think about the last few days and how I am feeling. The birth of my granddaughter, the seductive talk, and today the silence. What is another person thinking when they do not make any contact, or send a few words in a message after being as intimate with another person as you can be without being together physically?

I can not imagine being so busy that I could not find time to write a short message, even a goodbye you are not the one message. That would be better than being left in silence.

Seduction

I have been seduced by a beautiful man. We have not yet met, at least not physically. We know each other from a previous life where we were lovers. we are not yet sure exactly when this occurred yet we both know it is true.

Lying in my bed being made love to through head phones is a novel experience, one that I recomend to everyone as a precursor to actually doing it together. This way you get to know before hand what sort of things the other person likes to do, and how experienced they are at making love.

Will i meet this person? I think I will and soon, if only to find out if the connection we have now is real and there is any chemistry between us. If there is, then I had better watch out as I will be taken on a ride the like of which I have never known in this lifetime.

New arrivals

This has been a magical day. My new granddaughter was born a 2:02 this afternoon. I was there for the birth and can only say it was amazing. I am totally in love with her and have spent several hours already with her in my arms or on my lap. She is so peaceful.

L was also amazing as she remained calm and in control through the whole process. She knocked on my door at 7 this morning to tell me she was haveing contractions every 10 minutes. We sat in the main room, timing the contractions for an hour or so before having some breakfast. L had decided to wait until there was 5 minutes between before having a bath and then getting to the hospital. And that is basically what happened.

We arrived at the hospital at 12:30 and went to the delivery suite. After being examined, L was found to be 8cm dilated. So it was all go from there. No pain killers, no stitches. She did her bit and listened to the midwife, who was very nice. And now there is a new life here in the house for everyone to adjust to. That will not be hard to do!

Shopping

I spent nearly three hours in Asda this early evening. R and L were doing their monthly shop and asked me to go with them. It was so much fun!!! The supermarket is large and R likes to go up and down every aisle, checking out the bargains. He is the slowest shopper I have ever known. He does find a lot of well priced items thouhg, and if this is the only time he shops in a month I suppose that three hours can be considered not too bad.

The fridge and freezer are now full, whereas before we went they were completely empty. R is happy to have it full up again, as well as the cupboards. Plenty to choose from now!

We had an Indian take away for supper as we didn't get back from the store until after 8pm. the Indian was very nice, hot and spicy. I had too much and had to leave amybe a third. Unusual for me to leave anything. I was just too full to eat any more. I've saved it for lunch tomorrow. Ever the non-waster.

Although I am doing this writing as a challenge, and quite enjoying it at times, D and I were talking about poetry this morning. I have been set a task to write a poem about a toenail. Now how do I approach that? I will have to let it mull in my head for a bit and see what comes out. Should be funny and interesting. I'll post it here when it is written. just to show I did do it.

Another late post

I am getting to be really bad with late postings. Oh well, it is just for me and as long as I remember to do a post when I get up the next morning all is fine. I spent the evening yesterday with my daughter L watching a film with Claude van Damm. L loved him when she was younger so it was a treat for her to see one of his films again. It was very late when I retired (oohh, fancy words now). No excuse for not writing a few words - I just plain forgot!!!

I awoke this morning thinking about D. Unusually for me, I turned the computer on before I got out of bed and lay there while everyhting fired up. I saw a fuzzy orangey coloured message pop up and knew it was a Skype message, even without my glasses on. I wondered who would be calling me that early - 7:30 - and found it was a morning message from D. I sent an answer and whoof, there he was calling me for a chat.

We spent 3 hours talking again. It is amazing that we can find so much to say, and also find that we have so much the same in our lives, right down to both having bad eyesight that was discovered when we started school! We seem to be each others alter-egos. Time will tell, especially when we do met in person. I just hope we hit it off then like we have online. We had some connection problems and ended with a half hour type chat before getting off to make coffee and have showers.

I am not blinkered by all this attention. I am fully aware that D has probably got a few ladies on the go. Now that may be entirely unfair and incorrect, yet I find it hard to see why he would pick only me in his search for a soulmate, or even his twin flame. Time will tell what is to be the outcome of this. I can only say that I am finding a side to me that has been buried for a very long time. She is slowly emerging as a sensual being, with more creativity than I knew was in there. I now have to have some self-talk about being relaxed and myself in a more intimate situation than I have been for a very long time, if ever.

Expectations Take Two

So what do I do now? The person in question from yesterday sent me a lovely email today. In response to the joy that coursed through me, I sent him a link to an article related to the showing of US flag draped coffins being carried off the planes. I was not expecting anything today in return, yet received a request for a talk.


Fast forward a couple of hours when we ended our talk and I am once again smitten. It is a wondrous feeling to think that someone new finds one attractive. Of course I am aware that the flattery is getting to me. I don't ever remember being told I am beautiful before and here is someone telling me that I am. How can I ignore that?

I know that this can all change very quickly especially if we meet in the flesh. I just hope that this lasts for a while longer and I truly hope that I have made a hgood and lasting friend. We have so much in common it is almost like talking to myself sometimes.

This person is special to me now. I can feel him in my bones. He is with me all the time, there in my head, in my vision, in my music. I told him that we should meet and see if the chemistry and synergy is still there. He said he had no doubts it would be. That will be for another day as we will not meet for a while yet.

Even if this all comes to nothing, I am so grateful to have the experience once more of meeting someone special, the developing relationship, the anticipation, the unknown. Feeling our way towards an understanding of each other. I will treasure these days in the years to come.

Expectations

How many times do we put expectations on other people, only to have them let us down? I have been working on not relying on others for my peace or happiness, and today feel I slipped by expecting someone I do not know at all to contact me just because he said he would. How naive am I to even think that it would happen.

I have been reading a psychics reading for my birthdate and time. In there it says I can be a romantic dreamer and get carried away with fantasies. I now know that is so right. I am now pulling myself up and preparing for a return to my usual no nonsense self. I have been feeling like a teenager getting all hot and bothered over a male. Silly me, I now know better.

A day with my daughter

My daughter gave me a coffee in bed this morning which was so nice. A short while later I was chatting on the internet to a friend when she decided it was time for us to get on with some of the chores she had on her to-do list.

As I came out of the shower, I realised she had already started to put up a new bed for her son. The bed had a very tall foot board that looked completely out of place in his bedroom. L decided to cut the excess off the foot board. She took the board off into the garden and started to saw the foot board down. I held the board so she could do the job more easily. We then put the bed up and it looks good.

Then L set to in the dining area to empty some large boxes that were taking up a goodly space. We put a lot of bits out in the crooked shed, and all the board games in the top of B's cupboard. I then put the spinning wheel in the corner of the dining area where it looks really nice. A vcuum round and floor wash completed that part of the list.

My daughter is lovely and I think she needed to get these jobs completed before the baby is born so she didn't have to worry about them after. Plus clearing out the dining room means there is plenty of room for the pram in there.

Oh the joy of moving into a new home and preparing for a new addition to the family.

New friends

Yesterday evening I spent nearly 4 hours talking with a man named D who I have not met. We initially made contact through Tagged. I have never given my Skype ID to anyone like that and was very unsure about even talking for a few minutes.

In the end we had our web cams on and chatted about many things. We talked about music and playing, singing, PTSD and the effect it has on families, reiki, spirituality, twin-mates as opposed to soul-mates, our families, extracts from our lives. It was amazing. D even got into bed and talked from there.

So now I have to decide whether I want to carry this on into a friendship. We have a lot in common, a lot of synergy through our life experiences. I was open and honest with him regarding my personal situation at the moment as I did not see any point in being any other way. I got the impression that he is keen to be friends and maybe more if there is any chemistry between us when we eventually met, which I think is likely. Meeting I mean. So I will wait and see what transpires from now on.

He did send me a tag of two people lying together in an intimate way but I don't know if he sent that before or after we talked. Would it make any difference? Yes, as if it was sent after our talk I would think he likes me a lot. And that has an effect on how I take this forward, if I do.

Back in England

So I missed three nights posts in the end when I only said two. I had a longer journey than I had imagined it would be. My first flight to Newark was cancelled and I was given a flight 4 hours later to Kennedy airport where I would connect with a Delta flight to London at 8:55 pm to arrive in London at 9:15 the following morning. This was only a couple of hours later than my original plan so seemed fine.

In the end, the flight to Kennedy was delayed by two and a half hours. There were apparently many delayed flights coming and going at Kennedy so everyone on board who had a connenction was told their flights would be leaving late so not to worry. Well, we arrived at 9:25 and when I ran to my gate I found that the London flight had left on time. Back at the Delta desk I met up with four other travellors from the late flight whose connections had gone.

After an hour wait to get to the desk as many passengers had missed flights, I was given a seat on the next flight to London - at 8:55am to arrive at 9:15 in the evening. So that meant a nights wait at Kennedy airport. Fortunately, I met up with a nice young man who also had to wait until 9 the next morning. We chatted for a bit, then wandered off to Dunkin Donuts to get a coffee. We found seats next to a phone charging pole to sit. Another lady with a young son, about 3 years old who had also been on our original flight, had to wait until the following afternoon for her flight. She settled her son down with a DVD player and Cars to watch. Once he drifted off to sleep, she was able to rest.

I tried to sleep a bit, but found it impossible. I needed to call L to let her know what was happening but had to wait until 3am so it would be 8 here in the UK. I told her when I was to arrive at Heathrow and asked her to check the time of the last train to Colchester where R would pick me up. I did lay down on the floor for an hour after that. No sleep, just resting.

After getting an egg and cheese bagel with a coffee at 5:30am, I had to wait until 7am for the duty free to open so I could buy some cigarettes and a bottle of vodka. Then I wandered around until it was time to use the bathroom and the call went out to board the plane. From then on everything went smoothly.

The service and food on the Delta flight were both excellent. I managed to get 3 hours sleep after lunch, and dozed a bit more as well. We landed on time, when I called L while we taxied to the departure gate. It took 20 minutes from the time I left the plane until I was on the underground leaving the terminal. The whole departure area was empty. This was the only flight landed at that time so it was easy to go through passport control, wait a few minutes for baggage, and walk through an unmanned customs.

I got to Liverpool Street with 10 minutes to go before the train left. Just time to buy my ticket, get settled into a seat and call home to tell R what time I would be at Colchester which was 12:15. By the time we got to the house after having to find a 24 hour petrol station it was 1 am.

I got to bed at 3 am and slept until after 1 that afternoon. I had a wonderful hot and strong shower and relaxed for the rest of the day. After a second night of sleep I felt alive again.

On Sunday L and r went out so I had the house to myself from 12 onwards. I managed to unpack most of the boxes in my room which I was happy to get done. I now have 3 bags of clothes left to sort and hang.

So, I am happy to be back in England and with my family again. I just have to make sure circumstances are such that I stay here for at least the next year if not longer.

Late again

Oops, I missed last night - again. This is not good enough!!

I needed to write as I am leaving today to return to England , so I will not be around tonight for an update. This is my notice. I might also miss Friday's post too. I will be so tired when I arrive at L's house that I can see me being in bed very early.

It's raining this morning, so I have not been snowed in, which was one of my fears about flying in February.

So, goodbye for now. ee you Saturday.

Friends - real and virtual

Real friends are there for you when you need them. They encourage you in whatever you decide to do. They miss you when you go away. They share laughter, dreams, tears, tales.

Virtual friends can do the same. The difference is they are not there with you to give a hug, or offer a tissue. Virtual friends can give a virtual hug, which feels nice in your imagination and can be comforting. But if you are really in dire straits, a real friend can be a lifeline, steering you towards a harbour where you can collect your strength to keep going.

Weaving done

I finished the weaving this morning and removed from the loom. I have enough yarn left on the shuttle to make a ball to take with me for crocheting round the edge when I make my poncho. It will have to wait until I get back to England now.

I had kept enough if the silk thread to warp a 3 inch scarf. I dedcided to warp a 3 inch scarf with red chenille and use the silk for the weft. What a good choice! I have woven the scarf this afternoon and evening (in between doing chores, going to the store, making tea, washing up). I have finished it , taken it off the loom and packed the loom away ready to give to S tomorrw when she comes over.

S and are coming round for supper. I'm hoping S will bring her violin so we can have a last usic session before I leave. I'm sure she will, as she loves playing as much as I do. I will be making a thick lentil soup, fresh bread and gingerbread for supper and S will bring something nice too.

I changed the bedding today so that's done for L. I have also left about 8 loaves of bread in the freezer, along with lots of cooked meats. He should be OK food wise for a while!

Social networking

I seem to have spent most of yesterday and today messing about on social network sites: Facebook, Tagged, and Twitter.

I joined Tagged some time back when my daughter sent me a message about it and have used it a lot recently. Apart from the usual men who want a quick bang, or those who are after money because they see women in their 50s and older as desperate!!!, I have made a couple of nice, funny and caring friends. One lives in Liverpool and the other in Italy. We write, send silly jokes, exchange music, chat about football. Many things and it is really nice.

Facebook is a recent addition and took me a while to find my way around. I have found one of my S-I-Ls on there, as well as his sister, and a niece who goes to Yale University. I can see what each of them is up to from here in the US as well as leave snippets of information myself.

Twitter is really new. I joined up last week and didn't think I Would like it at all. But I have watched what goes on and found a few people to follow and discovered that it can be quite addicitive! I have hooked twitter and facebook together as well, which was something I did not understand to begin with. And I have tweeted on a twitter Map. So all in all it's been an informative weekend.

Oh, I have managed to get a lot of weaving done in between spells on the laptop. I have to stand up and move around fairly regularly and each time I see the loom glaring at me. I have to finish what's on it by Tuesday so I can give the loom to my friend for lending to a new member of the weaving guild.

Birthday Lunch

I went to the birthday lunch of my friend L who was 77 on Wednesday. L lives in a residential home with three other residents in the small town where I have a house. I was the manager of the residential home for a couple of years before I worked in London at the university.

L invited his friends from the town where he lived for many years, as well as friends from the other two homes in the town. It was a crowded house, with wheelchairs and bodies everywhere! The ladies who work in the homes as carers cooked a lovely lasagna with garlic bread and salad. There was a fruit punch with sherbet to drink, then chocolate birthday cake and ice-cream for dessert.

I walked to the home - it takes about 10 minutes. It's been a lovely day with sun and temperatures in the 30s for the first time in weeks. Of course there's all the grit and dirty snow to walk through along the sides of the roads which can be a bit slippery. Yet it was a day to be out in the fresh air for a while. Made me feel alive again after being indoors for what seems like weeks.

L was very happy. He was given money by all his friends. he likes having apocket full of greens so he can go out to the store for sweets or a coffee when he likes. He has also got a computer set up in his room now so I can send him emails and pictures from England. He keeps reminding me to do that. He has one of the carers do the writing for him as he is not very good at that but he will tell them what to write and I will enjoy the contact.

Easy day

I have had an easy day finishing some tasks and tidying up in preparation for a trip to England next week. The window quilts I made last month are now completed with the extra material sewn down each side. I was unhappy with the fit of the quilts so decided to add the extra strips. I had to sew some on by hand and others I was able to use the sewing machine. Now the machine is packed away in its box as are all the htreads and needles.

I have the weaving to finish and did around 12 inches today. I am not too worried about getting perfect selvedges as I will be crocheting an edging once I have made the poncho, so I can weave alittle faster and in a more relaxed way. The silk warp is still sticking in places. The heddle reed separates the threads as I beat gently for a loose weave.

I had already prepared the evening meal yesyerday so just put the pan on the wood stove to heat up. Now I am going to have some pumpkin cheesecake and ice-cream for a late snack. Perhaps I'll put some hot toffee sauce on it too. Hmm. Sounds good to me!

Open source operating system - HELP!

I have installed a copy of Ubuntu onto a new computer and took the plunge to remove the windows system that the computer came with already installed. I like the interface. It is clean and clear. Now, though, I have to learn how to get around the system.

I am reading the Quickstart Guide which seems to be relating a lot of access routes to files and applications to an earlier version. So I am finding this another hurdle to overcome. The basics are similar to windows. I have a feeling that the main difference will be in having to write commands in the Konsole or terminal to get anything to happen. Reminiscences of DOS!

Unfortunaltely it is many years since I had a rudimentary knowledge of DOS commands so this will be a whole new learning experience and probably take quite a while to get comfortable with. I am keen to learn it though as I feel we should all get away from the closed, monopolistic software companies that are putting more and more restrictions on what we can do for ourselves.

The Free Software Foundation was set up to encourage the development of open source software that has as few links as possible with proprietary software. There seem to be so many versions of linux, all called by different names, that it is hard to choose which one to start with. I ended up with Kubuntu more by chance than through any analysis of what is available.

Oh well, back to the screen and I will try to find a way to copy files from a flash drive to the hard drive. I am hoping it doesn't take me all evening!

Window quilts

Due to the extreme cold here in northern Maine, I have made window quilts that fit into each window space against the glass. Using the quilts has had a measurable impact on reducing heat loss through the window spaces. We have 9 windows in our main room and 2 ineach bedroom, so heat loss had been quite high.

The quilts are made with cotton covers that can be chosen to match or contrast the room's decor. I make the cover first with an extra inch all round from the inner measurement of each window. The insides of the quilts varies. In the main room I have used thick wool blanket and an aluminium reflective sheet. In retrospect the aluminium sheeting has made cleaning the quilts quite tricky, and future quilts will not have this in them.

The blanket and aluminium are held in place with pins while a tube of material is sen across the back about 2 inches from the top. This tube holds a brass rod, a few inches longer than the window width. Hubby drilled a hole in each side of the window into which the brass rod slips at the top of the window. And there are the quilts.

For the bedroom quilts I used old hand made patchwork bed quilts for the inners, as these are quite thick. There is no aluminium in the upstairs window quilts, so they will be easier to wash in the summer.

During the daytime we take down some of the quilts, depending on how sunny a day it is. The quilts are hung on pairs of hooks on empty wall spaces in the respective rooms. Two or three quilts can be hung on each pair of hooks.

So we are cosy and warm with our colourful and unusual window quilts.

Late posting!

I have just realised that I missed my posting yesterday. I have forgiven myself and allow an early post today. I missed yesterday as hubby and I were setting up a new computer to run with an open-source operating system.

The time was taken up when I was making a back up of the windows operating system already insatlled, in case we decided to put it back on later. I put a DVD in the writer with a label on it. Guess what? The label came off and got stuck so the writer stopped working.

We now know how to remove and install a DVD writer! After taking the writer box out then realising that we should have had the DVD holder open, we had to put it back and power the computer up to open the drive. Then we took it out again, shone a torch inside, and there was the label. Stuck down one side. Tweezers to the rescue and a steady hand pulled it out, complete. Phew!

After reassembling everything, the computer works fine, as does the writer, so all recovery disks got written. Then we installed the open-source software and fired it up. All is well! The only trouble was the time. It was nearly 1 am by then and I am definitely not a night owl. It was time to hit the sack and blog posting was the furthest thing from my mind.

So here is yesterday's post.

Jacket sleeves

I have been given the job of shortening the sleeves on a pair of jackets for hubby. I have never done this before, so started by undoing one sleeve on the jacket liked less in case I made a mess of the job. I then pinned the length while hubby wore the jacket. Scary part was cutting away excess material so the sleeve wouldn't be too bulky when finished. Then I cut the same length from the lining and basted both parts. Having ascertained the length was OK I repeated the process on the other sleeve.

After pressing both outer and inner on each sleeve to help the material stay in place, I sewed the lining to the outer hem with a medium sized hem stitch. I had to catch the outer material to the two seams on the sleeve for security, and that was that. The jacket looks good, just as though it arrived like that. So I have accomplished and learnt something new today.

Late starter cello player

I started playing the cello four years ago while living in the USA. I had thought about playing an instrument for many years and when a friend, who had just begun violin lessons, asked me if I had ever wanted to play anything I said the cello. She was so excited because her violin teacher was also a cello teacher. After her next violin lesson I tried a cello and was hooked. I went home with a cello, much to the amazement of hubby. My friend and I started playing together from that first day, mostly on a Monday evening.

I find the cello to be difficult and frustrating, but oh so much fun. It is the best thing I have ever done. After returning to England in 2007, I took my Grade 2 exam mainly to experience the whole exam system in place for instrumentalists. It was very nerve-wracking! Even so, I got to play in an old priory with wonderful acoustics, a grand piano accompaniment, and a one person audience, the examiner. He was extremely nice, putting me at ease quickly. I toyed with the idea of taking my Grade 3 last year, eventually skipping it and am now working on Grade 4 scores and techniques.

The most frustrating thing about playing is not having anyone else to play with on a regular basis. I have a cello lesson every 3 or 4 weeks of an hour and a half long, and play duets with my teacher for the last 20 minutes of each lesson. That is good for listening to another player and making sure I keep in time and rhythm. It is also excellent practice in sight reading as I have to keep playing, whereas at home I would slow down or stop on tricky bits. Other than my teacher, it is on my own or playing along with CDs, which is itself a challenge and can be unsatisfactory.

There is a local orchestra here, but they only want players of over Grade 5 standard (in reality I think they mean Grade 7 or 8, as I have been along to one rehearsal and seen how they work). So I think I need to set up a network of adult learners, who are not yet up to Grade 5, who can contact other players in their area for practice sessions. Perhaps we will see some groups or ensembles forming, which would be great.

There is a late starters orchestra, the East London Late Starters' Orchestra, that does a great job of providing tuition and ensemble playing every Saturday during school term time. They are a bit too far for me to go, other than once in a while, as I have to use public transport and that would mean leaving home about 5:30 in the morning. Plus Saturday's are the only day I can have my personal lessons. I recommend them for anyone with easy access to Stratford, East London. They have a lot of information on their website.