I think I need to be more mindf

I write a post a while ago about how I wanted to be more thoughtful in my everyday life.

Because, let me be honest, if it was up to my instincts, as soon as M and A left for school, I'd be on a couch or bed, with a second cup of coffee and a chocolate bar (perhaps garnished with peanut butter), watching hours of YouTube videos, or bad British TV. I can waste time like an Olympic Champion. Of wasting time, that is. My guess is that Olympic Champions of Things Like Sport don't dedicate many hours a day to the aforementioned activities.

And even when I'm out, I spend a lot of my travel time (when I am on my own), flicking through Facebook, Kindle and iWeather on my phone. Did the temperature just change? Does that App say it might snow tomorrow? Is it raining right now where I am? If I don't keep refreshing that screen, how will I know? "Gosh, I wish it would stop raining on my iPhone so I could see if the app tells me it is raining right now..."

Although these many activities keep my brain pleasantly amused in a sort of stupid, neuron stunting way, they don't make me calmer, or more centered. They bring an undertone of unease to my life that I like to erase every once in a while and start over.

Thus the idea to spend a month more thoughtfully. Instead of starting my morning half hour of free time with web surfing, I start it with an errand I've been putting off. Like writing a blog post, say, or making a phone calls (that's a whole 'nother post...how it is possible for me to hate the phone so very much?). Like now, for instance. My brain is a very easily distracted brain. As soon as I am no longer in a context, it may as well not have existed.

I had to pause to go to the bathroom, and on the way back I'm already thinking about getting a new dog bed, since L doesn't have any good ones anymore, and then I think "but where the hell do you buy one online here in Switzerland, oh wait I'm going to IKEA soon and maybe I can stop at Interio to, hey I need to rent that car for the IKEA trip..." Sigh. Today I managed to get back to writing, luckily, although these last 7 sentences almost didn't make it into this world.

So anyway, my month of thoughtfulness. It was going well. I would put an extra 10 minutes into writing a card to a neighbor who is housebound, instead of clicking 10 times on Facebook refresh, if I was feeling disconnected from people. I would get an errand done per day and cross it off the kitchen whiteboard list. And since I am easily influenced by visual information, I decided to write a reminder to myself about thoughtfulness on the "chalkboard"-like sticky calendar on the wall.

Good indicator that you need more thoughtfulness in your life...you managed only to write "THOUGHT" before you were distracted, and the "FULLNESS" is now missing. Indeed it is. 

Summer is officially over

I just read the dooce.com post for yesterday. And there she is, writing about how seasonal affective disorder hits her every year at this time. Sad for no real reason, just sad. In September, around equinox. So I am putting in a photo I took last week, that I love the look and feel of, that no way in hell am I ever going to set as my desktop during any cold/grey months of the year.

There it is, end of summer, almost 8pm and the streetlights have just turned on.

No wonder. I have been extra vigilant with the am-I-depressed-again self assessments and even though it has been sunny most of last week, yesterday and the day before, I was in a mood. Sad, disappointed with work, unmotivated, add a pinch of bitchy. And had no idea why. And was hoping that it wasn't the call to medication again.

I think that living with depression feels like your strings are stretched a little more loosely than other people's. We zip through our day on these lines, and below us are happy fields and sad pools, and when you are depressed, your zipline just sags a bit, and your feet get caught in those pools, you slow down and then stay longer immersed in the pools. When I was on anti-depressants, my zipline was stretched tight. My feet didn't touch those pools, even when I passed them. They were there, I saw them, but my physical self didn't feel like it was caught in them.

Thank god for an ex-Mormon blogger with a good enough sense of humor and a depressive system to remind me that some of these downs are shared by many many people. There were some 60 comments on her post saying things like "Oh! I forgot about the seasonal change! No wonder I hate everything these last few days and don't know why I'm sad."

Perhaps this also explains my sudden interest in the Hipstamatic B&W expansion pack for my iPhone. Great photos, lovely focus on shape, and totally depressing. Rock on, subconscious!

In other news, L left back for home, so summer really IS over, but she left behind the coolest arrangement of 70% of our artwork on the dining room wall. We just went from no art, to most of our art being up and it feels more like home yet again.

Pish time on the iPone

A likes my iPhone. Actually, she calls it my "ipone," on which her favorite toddler game right now is Fish School (which she calls "pish!"). We used it in Mallorca and then Milan in the car to help get over tired, cranky times. And on the trams or buses here, to help get over tired, cranky time. Or at a restaurant, to keep her at the table for more than 2 minutes when shes...you guessed it, tired, bored or cranky. That is correct, I use an iPhone as a babysitter for 5, or even 10, minutes!

But as tired and cranky time seems to be getting longer, and more enthusiastically cranky (ok, let's just say tantrum), I went back into child raising literature and found an idea that is working really nicely. In the book, the example was actually about an 8 year old girl and computer time, but it works with our little one, too. The concept that lack of structure is frustrating translates to A asking for "pish" almost anytime she realizes she is bored, and my having to decided on an instance-by-instance basis whether I say yes or no. If I say no, she protests. A lot. Loudly. And I was really sick of having to decide based on some unknown rules, or make some up, constantly. Anyway, the book suggests to schedule in an activity like this, and for us it has coincided very nicely with helping A get ready to leave the house in the mornings. We are trying to give her more structure to help ease tantrums, and now, 5 minutes before Mama or Papa are leaving to take her to school, she gets to play on the iPhone. She has to have her shoes and sweater on, or at least allow them to be put on, and be in her stroller. And after the first 2 days of toddler protest with the taking the iPhone away when the stroller is leaving the apartment with said parent, today she was fine with it. Now she knows there is a time for "pish" and we get a more cooperative little person, ready to leave for school.

All around win.

By the way, the app is called Fish School, from a company called DuckDuckMoose, and so far I love all their apps. Especially the music and sounds - I have yet to want to throw the phone across any large distance after hearing the same song 50 times. Well done, DuckDuckMoose.

Pass the Kleenex

I probably shouldn't be writing this right now. I'm sick, just a spring head cold, but my ears are plugged, my head is plugged, and doing anything more intellectually challenging than drinking from a cup is a struggle. But, I'm one of those women who feels like she isn't holding her own when she isn't actively doing something. I've written about this before, the not feeling like "enough," but it continues to amaze me how primal that urge is, to gain worth by what I do.

The dog has been napping with me all day, and apart from having free reign of the balcony, she has only gotten to go to the corner potty spot. I'll sit with her there for a while, let her smell the sights, but going up any hills is just not in the cards for me today.

And the babysitter picked up baby A from daycare and is with her now.

I've got a cup of tea in hopes that a theraflu drink with an English Breakfast chaser will help me at least get something done. Because I have to, right? Otherwise, my stock starts dropping. So I've made myself send a form to finish up to M, and I made some rhubarb, apple, pear, raisin, prune compote for the baby for her afternoon snack (actually, came out sweet enough with no added sugar), and watched her try to stuff both hands full of it into her mouth at once. And I'm back in bed, resting my slightly spinning head.

I'm not so sick that I couldn't do most daily things, but it would take it out of me. And right now my husband's job is enough. And all the other days I do a lot. So why does this make me so nervous?

Oh, and I've managed to lose my phone again. This time, I really hope, in the house. But the batteries are drained so even the "find my iPhone" app has let me down. I guess it is okay, because I can't spend so much time lamenting that I don't have the energy to go take a photo of all the shoes we came back from the US with and write something riveting about shoes and feet and all of that.

There is one thing that has made me feel like today's rest and extra help is okay. The babysitter relayed the message from the daycare that they think baby A might be into what they call the terrible three's stage. Well, I may be just able to keep a kid and dog alive and clean by myself right now, but a full blown tantrum from the little one today would have ended in her in a crib, the dog (and perhaps me, too) in a crate, and a lot of rocking back and forth until M came home. Thankfully, we have our babysitter, and that scene didn't have to play out today.

The pupper needs an iPhone

Angry Birds is a very addictive game for the iPhone. It probably comes with a version for any smartphone and beyond. Uses real physics principles for catapulting variously talented (they split into 3, they drop egg bombs, they explode) birds at creatively protected pigs. In the game, the meanie pigs have stolen the birds' eggs, so they have it coming. And when you don't blow them all up using all the birds you've been allotted, they smile smugly at you. At this point, your heart rate goes up, you vow to show those pigs a lesson, and as soon as the screen asks you "try again?" your finger slams the "ok" (or as I experience it "hell yes!") key.

One of the most anxious moments in Angry Birds comes when you've knocked a wooden or stone beam out of place and it is just barely hanging in place, just above a soon-to-be-mocking-you pig. You tilt the phone in hopes the beam will fall. Maybe you blow at the screen. And about half the time, after a few seconds of wobbling, it falls! Score!

Anyway, even though our dog doesn't play Angry Birds and has never had a physics class, even she gets the point about precariously balanced objects. We gave this one a wide clearance.