No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on November 22, 2014

This is one of those situations where I think the universe is trying to tell me something and it will keep doing so until I recognize whatever it is trying to tell me.

The word of the day is balance in all its myriad of meanings.

There is physical balance or as I call it ‘don’t be a klutz’. There is mental balance. There is spiritual balance. Balance between the home and work and leisure. Balance of people in a house and their animals. Balance of the budget.

And that balance can be fragile. Things can get out of balance rather fast and one can find oneself struggling to get things back into balance.

Other things just go back without any outside force sort of like a daruma doll.

I have been feeling out of balance for a while. Most recently it has to do with this stupid head cold which has made my sinus’ swell until my teeth hurt. My nose is tired of being blown and I feel like I am spending most of my life as a mouth breather.

But this morning I woke up finally breathing through my nose. My face still hurts but not as bad as yesterday. I can tell I am finally getting over this cold. Balance in my face is being restored.

I will be the first to admit I am a klutz. I will never win any stealthy contests any time soon. I am wary about climbing ladders because I find a point where up and down became the same thing in my head. I will say that since I took up the study of Kung Fu with a really good Sifu, I am more balanced and more aware of my balance. There are fewer incident of having to catch myself on the furniture to stay standing. You can improve balance but it takes work.

I am working on balance of time. I seem to be an all or nothing when it comes to certain activities. When I make puppets, that’s what I do. Afterwards I have to clean up from making puppets and that can be very frustrating. I have been working on setting a schedule for me so I can break up my day into several things that need to be done rather than one and hang the rest. Flexibility is a big part of this exercise since I have other people in my life I have to take care of.

Balance can be difficult and it can be hard to reach especially when one is at a tipping point.

But I strive for it and sometimes even succeed.

I am grateful for balance.

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Posted By Kathleen David on November 21, 2014

And I have to get the house ready for the game birthday party we are throwing. At least I know where things stand on that and I have a lot of work to do to get ready for it. We are going to use all of our various screens and hook them up to our various gaming systems along with tabletop games for the kids to play. I figured out that I have a monitor for every gaming system we own. So I can set them up and let the kids play. We also have apples to apples and other board games. Have some snacks and cake and we have a birthday party at a pretty minimal cost with the exception of my time.

So that’s my next two weeks in a nutshell. There will be other things I need to do but I am laser focused on getting the house in shape.

I am still wrapping my head around that we are coming up on the last of the tween years and next year my daughter will officially be a teenager. Not that we aren’t getting some of the behavior now giving us a taste of what will be.

Caroline comments that parents tend to comment on the fact that they can remember when their child was still a baby/toddler/elementary school student and it seemed like yesterday. She said it was not yesterday but months and years ago. I explained that having a child seems to speed up one’s life a lot.

Hard to believe this will be Black Friday next week. I am still working on the Thanksgiving part of the equation.

And then we hit December and then onto 2015. Where did the year go? Not complaining just wondering.

Well off to start the next phase of operation party.

I am grateful when a plan comes together.

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Posted By Kathleen David on November 20, 2014

When something on the Internet pushes my button, I have a 24 hour rule about writing about it. I give myself 24 hours to think about it and if I am still feeling not quite rational about it. I give myself another 24 hours to cool off.

I really try to see things from other people’s points of view as hard as that may seem at the time.

I learned that many times the person yelling at you isn’t yelling at you. They are venting about something else that is going on in their lives that you happened to be the fallout recipient because you happen to be there when whatever went wrong that set them off.

If I was in the wrong or I made the mistake, I would own up to it and apologize which would diffuse the situation often. I have confused more than one director with this. They were ready for a fight and I would say this is entirely my fault, how can I fix it for you? Which put them off their footing and had them stop and think about the problem.

Sometimes people just want someone to acknowledge what they have to say and listen to them rather than dismissing what they say.

And there are some people in this world who think so little of themselves that the only way they are going to feel better/superior is to make someone else feel bad/small/wrong. Those people I have very little patience with and don’t have much to do with for my own sanity. My exception is when I can help the person who is being belittled who has done nothing to deserve it. And now that I have apparently reached elder statesman status, my words do have some weight to them.

When I was younger I did swing for the fences and argue all kinds of things but the more I did it, the more I saw how futile it was. I wasn’t going to change their minds so why beat my head against the wall? One of my teachers at Yale told me that she saw I had a skill of listening that I needed to use more. She was the one that taught me to really listen and let the other person know they had been heard and most situations will be defused.

I guess you get calmer as you get older or rather life experience changes how you perceive things. That which uses to be so important becomes less so at time goes on and you can take a look at it with some distance.

Regrets, I have a few but not that many because what has happened to me in my life is what has gotten me to where I am now. I am the sum of a life lived and being lived. Are there things that I wish had gone another way? Sure but again wouldn’t be where I am without those bumps in the road.

So I look on the Internet and see something that is happening that irks me. I give myself time to see if it is just an irk or something I want to put a voice to. 9 times out of 10 it is an irk and goes away but the 10th one gets put here for anyone who cares to read it.

And that is what I did today. I hope you got as much out of it as I did thinking about it.

I am grateful for the teachers in my life who have helped me become the person I am today.

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Posted By Kathleen David on November 19, 2014

Have you seen the pictures out of Buffalo? Let’s think good thoughts for everyone who has been stranded in that storm. It looks like a nasty one. The photo that was the jaw dropper for me was the one showing the snowstorm coming across the lake but not quite to the city.

I am very proud of Caroline. She got straight A’s for her first marking period in middle school. She worked very hard to get these grades. She had done her homework in a timely fashion. She had practiced her flute. She has gone in early for extra help on subjects she didn’t feel confident in. She is proving that she has the skill set and the determination to get good grades. And again I am very proud of her.

Inky is now a domesticated long-haired cat. She is sleeping with the other cats. I came down to a cat pile the other morning with all three curled up next to each other. We can pick her up. She turned out to be a lap cat with a very soothing purr. So far she has shown no inkling about going back outside but we keep an eye on her when we have to open doors. Took about two months but she has settled in.

It is very cold here but no precipitation, which is a good thing. Peter had to go into the city for a variety of reasons. I am bundling him up well against the wind and cold. Need to find his good gloves.

I have worked out what I am going to do today to continue something I have been working on for a while. I’ll have to see which project needs attention first and go with that.

So off to get Peter ready to go to the city and onto the next thing.

Stay warm if it is cold where you are or stay cool if it is too warm.

I am grateful for pressure valves.

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Posted By Kathleen David on November 18, 2014

I heard that one from an artist who said intricate trolls are my signature piece. I asked him what he meant by that and he said that it was art in a style and a form that was expected from him. If anyone saw it, they thought of him as the artist.

My signature piece is my Phluzzies. I designed them for anyone to use. I made them big enough for adult hands but not too large for children’s hands. They are probably some of the most colorful critter that I make.

(for the VI: These are my Phluzzie puppets. They have feather boas for hair. Ping pong eyeballs and contrasting fabric colors for the arms, body, and head.)

These are not puppets for little kids. I was figuring about the time that they know not to put things in their mouths, they could use these.

I build them for use. I re-enforce them because I know they get a workout.

When I planned to make them originally there was this new fabric on the market that was fleece but curly fleece which came in all kinds of fun colors. Now it is a little more rare which made my materials cost go up but I still price them at a point that people are willing to buy.

I have made more of these than I care count but they sell and the owners are delighted by them. So I will continue to make them.

I have been working on a mark II of these critters but not quite there yet.

I am grateful that people like my signature piece.

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