Well finally

I have been trying to get on the blog builder for over a week now and it finally let me in.
Here is a part of a letter that I sent to some people who I know

You are my dear friends and I love you.  You are all wonderful estimable people with great character and sweet, sweet hearts.  Over the past years I have become friends with, and gotten to know you all. 

Now, I have worked with all of you, and you all have said essentially the same thing to me.  You have said,

 “I need a community that understands what I am doing and supports me as I move into spiritual service.  What I am doing is important but without community I am very lonely.”

During the last few years I have become a hub with many of you working on your emotional spiritual growth with me as your support.  I have loved what I have done with every one of you.  It has been a wonderful experience.  I am so very honoured that you have been willing to work with me.  Some of this work couldn’t be easy.

However, as thing are with me as the hub and you as the spokes, you are all struggling with isolation and needing community and I seem to be in the middle so that none of you are connected although you know the others exist.

 

The truth is that I need community too. 

Being the hub has become taxing.  I am in the wrong position and I believe that it isn’t healthy for any of us.  All of you are now to a point that you as individuals need each other more than you need one person as a center support.  I don’t need to be keeping you apart.

So I am taking myself out of the middle. 

It is so obvious when you see it and so wrong.  This is very unfair for these women and for me.

now I need to take steps to correct this.

Painting in tight quarters

Vanilla cream is a good compromise paint.  It's white enough to lighten up the stairway and hall, yellow enough to be warm.  After a morning spent rootling around in the shitpile garage looking for banister brackets, screws, and the stud finder, I became impatient and proceeded to do the stud finding the messy way with a hammer and nail.

.

That means tapping a nail in about once an inch until you hit the stud.  After that it was a matter of measure and mark which I used tape to do.  Inch and a half masking tape makes wonderful stud marker.
The footless man and I have very different ways to go about what we see as the job at hand.  We drive each other nuts when the other one asks us to assist.  My solution to helping him is to have a piece of knitting nearby and to sit and knit until he asks for a specific bit of help.  I give him the help and then I go knit.
His solution is to tell me how I should do each part and to grumble and bitch as I do it my way.
I got the bracket holes marked with a screw and a hammer as he shuddered, Eventually he went upstairs and left me alone.  Then I proceeded to wash walls and spackle the stud finding holes.
The stairway part of the hall has been painted and awaits tomorrow when I will put brackets on the wall and screw down the banister.  I have paint on the ass of my designated paint clothes because I bent over in tight quarters and planted a rump mark on the wall.
One thing that I have learned in my misspent life is that you need to wear your old glasses when you paint.  you never know what may happen and it wouldn't be the first time I coated them with paint.

Preparing for next week

On Tuesday this coming week my colleague from N Dakota will be staying with me and we will be working together on some of the things that we have been developing over the last two years.
I am delighted to have him here.  At the same time there are some problems that I need to take care of.
One is the appalling problem created by Michael in my computer room that smells to high heaven.  I am wondering at this point if they make kitty Depends.  If they do, I am going to use them.   The other problem is the lack of stair rails making getting up and down the stairs somewhat dangerous.
Before we put up the rails that have been waiting for five years The footless man has decreed that the stairway must be painted.  OK says I and today I clomped into Home Despot and stood in front of the paint chip wall of desperation.  Of all the things that can cause angst like nothing else in the world, choosing a shade of white from all the shades of white that the decorators think must exist has to top the list.
I have found my answer to the issue.  Grab the first chip that looks vaguely right and get the paint before you think.  Clomp out with the paint and don't worry white is white is white. My personal white is called Vanilla cream.
I have made my list of what to do next.  I have assembled paint equipment, and cleaning equipment, and climbing equipment.  I have to go back and get rollers.  I need to find some pants that can die as paint pants.

I am all busy doing what I am doing and the Footless Man comes upon my industriousness.  First message he gives me: I am in insulin shock help.  Once he has his head straight he asks me what's all this.
I tell him that I am going to paint the stairway tomorrow. 
Oh? he says, Why?
I tell him that too.  Footless Man is all taken aback.  I think that he wanted to put off the stair rail thing and I proceeded on him.
Hmp

A letter to (about ) my mum

Dear Mom
It is mother's day, a day that is over hyped and emotional and commercialized out the wazoo.
I love you, you are my mom.  Over the years you have given me life, love, careing, healing, education, support, and an unusual life with a lot of strengths.
I have given you a lot as well including a fair amount of hard time.
There is a lot that you have not seen eye to eye with me on.  The biggest gift that you have given me was the ability to fall on my face all by myself and find my own solutions to the mistakes I made.  In the end I hope that you have seen me find my strength and build a life that I can be proud of.
At present there isn't much that I can give you as a gift except for the hand knitted socks that you love and the work that helps you stay on an even keel and move right along.
This year has been very hard for you with health problems and weariness and emergencies, surgery, recovery, and having to find your way through a whole new diet and exercise regimen.  Falling down and breaking your nose didn't help and was just another bump in the road.
Meantime let me say that you have been a wonderful grandma for my boys and a great example to me as to what quiet courage and service looks like.  Your ability to get back up and keep going in the face of  great discouragement helps me stay in there and keep moving forward.  The fact that you are still working on your own emotional health gives me the idea that life doesn't shut down and people continue to grow up into life's later parts. 
You give me a lot to live up to.  My choices and options were way different than yours, at the same time some of the struggle was and is the same.  You are here, you love me as best that you can. 
Thanks mom I owe you so much.
Cath

Lots of dull moments sandwitched in to some very sharp ones.

This has been one of those weeks where the predictable button has been switched off.  At the same time I can see that there is some logic in the cosmoses about it all.
My business is self owned.  This means that how it goes depends on how well I attend to many many details and that I have a boss that knows just what I am good for and how to tell me off .  That she is me doesn't help much. 
This week past I had a lot of scheduling by the element of Surprise.  This is  something I am only a little OK with.  I am OK when Surprise schedules more clients than I did, when unexpected good things show up on the radar, and in the end the list shows more good than bad in the event roster.
This was mostly it.
I had some truly grand and generous gifts including the loan of a carpet shampooer, and some unexpected money as well as my very favorite Sock yarn in quantity.

Then again The Footless Man showed strange symptoms and ended up in the Emergency room Sunday and then again Monday morning with an 18 blood sugar.  People canceled and rescheduled appointments unexpectedly.   Some of what I do is showing wonderful results that don't have a straight line of reasoning to them.  Not a logical A to B to C process at all.
At the same time I have been dealing with Black Michael

who is not all that interested in making it down the stairs to use the potty and the attendant mess in the computer room upstairs (hence the lovely loan of the carpet shampooer) The day that got clients canceled out ended up as the day that I worked on the carpet.
It all makes sense,  It just makes building a budget and trusting that my income will cover all the bases unpredictable.
I understand why people like the idea of doing work with a steady set of hours and a steady paycheck, it's one less set of things that you have to think about.  You know that this week you do x amount of work for x amount of dollars, and next week and the week after that.
In my working life this has been the rarity.  If I look at it all I have never had typical anything in my work.  At least at present my working hours are mostly in the day and I can get enough hours that pay well to cover the bills, look after my Husband and cope with my needs.
That's not bad.  Not bad at all.