Time To Get Under Control . . . Where Is My List?

 

Do you make lists? I don't.

My late husband always had a little book with him, one that organized his day, plans, and thoughts. I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off, never quite sure what I needed to do.

"Write it down." He told me this daily our first years together as a couple. "Make a list. Get a book," and he'd stop writing in his to show me a worn leather folder, the size of a check book, "A day timer."

My reply was always the same. "Who would remind me to look at it." I'd never think to reach in my purse, look on the desk, or do whatever needed to be done to grab it and see what my list for the day was. So I did the next best thing, I placed my list where I would be sure to see it. On the bathroom mirror, on the medicine cabinet above the sink, not a slip of paper, or a post-it, but in lipstick. I'd see it every time I brushed my teeth. I brush my teeth more than the average person I am sure, so I knew I'd see my list without having to search for it. When I completed something, I'd wipe it clean and start over again.

There was some flack with that idea, but he got used to it as I got a bit more organized.

He made lists in Outlook on their calendar and every day a reminder popped up for him on the computer, yet he kept his day timer by his side. If he'd had a cell phone I am sure his calendar would have been full there too.

Me? I am spiraling down in disaster these days with what I am to do and when.

Last spring I did a bit of renovation on the house, replacing the old bathroom fixtures with new ones. The medicine cabinet was the first thing to go. My handyman Mighty Joe hauled if off to the dump. Years of lipstick lists had kept me on track. Did I put in a new medicine cabinet? No. I found an old Eastlake window an antique dealer friend of mine had fitted with a small mirror in the center and had that hung over my sink, where the old cabinet used to be. It is beautiful. You don't put lipstick notes on an antique. So two things became painfully apparent as I brushed my teeth every morning, noon, and night.

1. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with my day, what were the important things to accomplish.
2. I had no idea where my makeup, ibuprofen, and other items were. I no longer had a medicine cabinet.

I adapted. I started sending e-mail lists to myself every night before bed that I'd get first thing in the morning to remind me what I needed to do.  It was a great idea. I slept like a baby. The weight of worry off my mind. The next morning when all my e-mails came in, I'd forget to check the one marked 'list'.

Then one morning while drinking coffee and reading e-mail in Windows Live Mail I looked to the far right side of my monitor. There was a sidebar with a weekly calendar next to the window where I read my messages. It was a light bulb moment.  I could open up the larger calendar, make my lists, and they would show in the sidebar on each day of the week. How difficult could this be? All I had to do was remember to turn my head to the right when I was in my e-mail. I found a small sticky note and put it on my monitor with an important message to myself. Look right when in e-mail.

I know better. You don't write in lipstick on a monitor. It was hard enough finding an old post-it,  but this was as close to my lipstick theory as I could get. The first thing I do every morning, before I brush my teeth, is to check my e-mail. This may work if my note doesn't fly off into the dust bunnies on the floor I keep trying to remember to sweep up.

Yes, I have a cell. Yes it has a calendar. So what is your point?

 

Post-Op Delirium

 

Photo from Pinterest - Love the colors

 

 

 

Photo from Pinterest - An art studio for my painting.

 

     Yesterday I had my post-op visit with my doctor and I am good to go. Still need to pace myself, but I think two weeks indoors has played with my psyche. I’m thinking funny thoughts today. Wildly crazy visions of a new life. I was on Pinterest looking at mid-century modern flats in New York and European rooms in Paris, enjoying the views of tall ceilings, huge windows looking over the cities, colorful furniture, and walls of art and mirrors. Even a lovely French style sofa with tattered velvet covering made me sigh, such perfection in its faded elegance.

     It’s not that I don’t have my own house filled with color, art, and tattered furniture, which I love. It is just that two weeks recovering from surgery has left me daft. So much to do around here, and so little desire to do anything, except think of extravagance and change.

     My internet service crashing as I was looking at photos didn’t help either. I called to be sure they received my payment (I was late, but hey, I had surgery!) and it was not my issue, but a neighborhood issue. Give it an hour I was told by a tech. I am. But waiting is boring, for a gal who is bored recuperating at home for two weeks already. So I let my mind play games. I’m moving to new city, in a high rise, and going thoroughly modern Barbara.

      These are the thoughts that crossed my mind as my internet crashed:

       Move to Paris, if that is not possible, try NYC.

       Sell my old cupboards and cottage furniture, upgrade to modern with a hint of antique.

       Change out all my vintage oil paintings for prints and watercolors behind glass to reflect more light.

     Sell my car and buy a bike for city life.

     Dig out my paints and canvases, I feel a still-life coming on.

     Get a cat. Hahaha. That is just a joke. My six dogs are looking at me suspiciously as I giggle and write this.

     Wait, is that the internet connection coming back? My goodness, it is.

      Never mind what I just wrote! I think I’ll go back and look at more photos on Pinterest, you know the ones I post to my boards on painted cottage furniture, garden style art, farmhouses, and walls full of oil paintings.  The cottage in my mind is still a dream, the flat in Paris, well, that is a wild fantasy brought on by too much time alone!

      Six dogs won’t make it to Paris or NYC. And I don’t go anywhere without them. I can drive again, my doctor told me so. I think my big adventure will be tonight, dinner out. Anyone care to join me?  

       

   

Pizza Anyone?

 

Chloe look-a-like from the web.

 

 

I am restless. That is a great sign I am doing well. I can't rest much longer, although technically I have to take it easy. Next week I find out if I can drive. I've occupied myself with promoting my new book, Danger In Her Words, online and am working on my dog memoir. Later today I will post on my book blog, Book Talk With Barbara Barth, where I love to promote other authors. Perhaps I'll list on Ebay. When you are confined to your home with six canine companions it is a great time to think about the past and look towards the future. Surgery has a way of putting things in perspective. It also is a bit tedious if you are used to going full speed ahead! My wheels are spinning...but I am in park.

 

Friends have visited, their bright smiles making me happy. I spent the entire day before surgery cleaning a house that has needed to be cleaned for two years. Not of dirt, I do sweep and dust, but of all the merchandise that needed to leave my house so people could fit in. My antique dealer friends understand what that is all about. I find it amazing that it took a bit of surgery to open up more than I realized. I've wanted to entertain in my home, but between the dogs and my stuff, it has been talk, just talk. Now it is a reality.

 

How funny to me that last Saturday night, in my jammies, surrounded by dogs, a good friend came over for dinner and a movie. A first in, hmmm...four years. The dogs behaved well, the movie was hysterical. I laughed until I thought my sides would split, a pillow tucked close to my stomach. Then, later, alone, I looked at my sparkling hardwood floors, the gentle light from a few lamps highlighting their sheen, my antique cottage pieces no longer stacked high with 'stuff', and the art on my walls nodding back to me as if to say...about damn time.

 

The dogs are slowly bossing me around again. First Chloe had her breakdown and had to sleep with me. Two nights later I heard Bertha barking in her crate in the living room. It was three in the morning. I think she'd had it sleeping away from the others. She is crated at night, but in the bedroom. She felt exiled in the living room. I pulled myself out of bed and stumbled into the living room. "Good girl, Bertha." I reached down, bending as little as possible, and unhooked her crate. Bertha, all seventy-five pounds of her, trotted down towards the bedroom and into her open crate. She did a few circles, plopped down, and went to sleep. I pulled myself back into my bed.

 

Ten minutes later the racket from the sunroom was more than I could ignore. I pulled myself back up (and that is the hardest part of my surgery, getting up and down). Annabelle, my dear old hound, was barking, she could not find a spot on the couch, the others were there. I let Annabelle follow me back up the hall. She got her chunky butt up on the low bench at the foot of my bed, crawled under my quilt, and fell asleep. Chloe, of course, had to screech a few minutes that Annabelle crawled into the very spot Chloe had been sleeping. I pulled myself back to bed. We all slept well.

 

Three dogs back in the bedroom, three more to come. I'm getting there slowly.

 

The day looms ahead. I'll be here by myself with the dogs, figuring what to do to feel in touch with civilization. I have been so fortunate that my best friend for years, is a chef. She prepared twenty-six individual cooked and frozen gourmet meals, and I have eaten the healthiest and tastiest food one could imagine. I'd have been lost without her kindness, for I never cook and my cupboards are bare. (except for vintage treasures tucked in where food should be!).

I've been very good. Eating the right foods, not drinking soda, glass after glass of water. I feel good. My system loves how healthy I've been eating. My mind is tempting me today. Be bad, have fun. Should I, could I, would I? I think the answer is yes.

 

Tonight I'm thinking Pizza. Anyone care to join me?

 

 

 

Dogs Know

Chloe look-a-like from the web.

 

 

My dogs know something is up. They are behaving themselves and stepping lightly around my body that is tucked up on the large wing chair, rather than sprawled out on my Tommy Bahama sofa, where we normally pile up most nights and watch TV as a group. Things are different this week. I had surgery on Monday. The dogs can not jump on me. They watch with gentle eyes and go back to sleeping on anything other than me. A sense that I am not quite well has taken over their normal wild ways, and they wait patiently for this to pass, and life to get back to normal.

 

They are not allowed in the bedroom just yet either. Our ritual of running down the hall, jumping on the bed, each dog in the exact spot they have slept on over the years, has changed. A temporary change. Again, they understand and wait.

 

Except for Chloe, my little eight pound Chihuahua. She did well with the pack in the sunroom, the room I spend my days on the computer, Tuesday night, my first night home from the hospital. Wednesday night we had a dog freak-out. In the wee morning hours Chloe started to screech at the top of her tiny lungs. I eased myself out of bed, the way they showed me in the hospital to stretch and roll to get my feet on the floor, than padded down the hallway to see what had happened to cause the ruckus. I opened the door and Chloe flew out like a rabid animal, dashing up and down the hallway, her eyes bugging out of her fawn colored head, that tiny pink tongue poking out of her mouth, her ears pinned back and low. She ran one end to another, then sprinted up on my bed and ran in circles until she dropped on my quilt, exhausted.

 

I went back down the hall and closed the sunroom door, as five heads poked up, five tales wagged, and five dogs continued to huddle together, sleeping, undisturbed by the sounds of an eight pound dog gone crazy.

 

Chloe would not leave the bed. And I decided she did not have to. I moved onto my bed in a sitting position, then eased down to sleep. Chloe curled up by my side. Her breathing gentle now. Her forever place by my side secured.  We both slept quietly and deeply until the morning.

 

Week one of surgery almost behind me. Things are going well thanks to my friends who have brought me food,  a pet-sitter who comes by to feed the dogs and let them out several times a day, and a pack of silly hounds who have surprised me yet again with life lessons on understanding.

 

 

 

ChickLitLove Valentine'sTweetathon

Check out the Valentine's Tweetathon on Twitter #ChickLitLove and find some wonderful authors and their books! I've joined in, but my knowledge of Twitter leaves much to be desired. But a gal can learn! Proud to be included in ChickLitChat on Facebook!

Let the tweets begin. . . . I think!

Danger In Her Words was released on February 12th. Currently in paperback only, but look for Kindle next week! On Amazon .

Happy Valentine's Day and Happy Reading!

 

"Danger In Her Words" Published In Time For Valentine's Day. A Romantic Romp!

 

Paperback on Amazon. Kindle coming week of February 17th.

 

 

The best of news on a snowed-in day in Georgia. My book is now available on Amazon. A work of fiction, a bit girly, sassy, sexy, and fun, I am so happy to have finished it. My life since spring has been centered on writing, re-writing, and editing. An anticipated publication date of Christmas with a marketing theme of 'naughty or nice' got postponed until Valentine's Day.  I think it is the perfect romp for the most romantic holiday of the year!

 

 

 

 

 

A TV sitcom pitch gone wrong turns dog-column writer Susan Meyers in a tailspin. Sex Sells was the topic of the day at the writers’ convention. Susan decided to try something new and a steamy romantic novel seemed just the answer. A widow who hadn’t dated in three years, Susan was out of practice with men and sex. She turned to an online dating site to find inspiration for her book and unleashed a predator with the words she wrote. Tucked an hour away from her friends in a small town where she kept to herself, with only her tiny dog for company, Susan felt safe from the world. Little did she know her life was about to change.

 

 A romp of a story about writing and finding yourself in this book within a book. If you love girl-talk, farmhouses, antiques, country towns, a touch of murder, a sprinkle of suspense, and a bit of naughty fun, come join Susan as she learns about life from her character Jamie. Two widows looking for love in all the wrong places might still get it right if they live long enough.

 

 

Book and cover design by pd king design. Published by Gilbert Street Press.

My Hysterical Hysterectomy – Or Surviving Surgery With Six Dogs

Trust me. I promise not to hurt you.

 

   So, my big idea to start off 2014 by kicking it in the ass has a set-back. Surgery is in the cards for me. I’ve actually postponed it, knowing it was lurking out there, figuring if I ignored it, it would go away. I had bigger things to do late 2013, the biggest was completing my novel. I was assured waiting was not a worry as it is preventative surgery and not labeled as anything more than it is. Which is enough in my book. I am sure that down the road I will be happy that this is off my bucket list of things I really never planned, nor wanted to do. In the scheme of things it is a mere bump in the road. It does take a bite out of my favorite chant, no pain, no pain.

    My book will be available on Amazon and Kindle by Valentine’s Day. I’ve given birth to my first work of fiction and am excited. Then three days later I head to the hospital for my surgery. I was given the opportunity of going home at night or staying in the hospital overnight. What made my decision for me? Time. To come home that night I had to be at the hospital at 5:30 am. Seriously? That was harder to get my head around than the fact by the next day a part of me would be gone. So I opted to come in at 10 am and spend the night being catered to in my hospital bed. Which actually made everyone I know happy. No one wants me to go home to my house alone. I live with six dogs and my friends, who have never met my pack, are horrified I will be dealing with dogs as I deal with recovery. To tell you the truth, it worries me too.

    My dogs are my kids and my family. Try to explain to the medical community that you have six dogs, six dogs who are pretty finicky in their routines, six dogs that sleep in bed with me, the smallest, my seven pound Chi insists on curling up on my stomach. And that there are no other humans in the house to help. They don’t get it. I finally looked at the physician’s assistant and put it in words she might get. “It is like I have six babies at home that need to be fed, cleaned up after, and played with.

     “I thought you never had children.” She looked up from her chart.

      Really. She still wasn’t listening. Perhaps in Pre-Op on Monday they’ll get it. I need to know what to expect so I can keep my house in order.

     I have made some preliminary arrangements. My pet sitter will be with my dogs while I am alone in the hospital. They have a slumber party scheduled, I have a quiet night in room number (tbd) whatever. I guess I’ll finally discover what everyone who has spent a night in the hospital knows, it is not quiet or restful. On the bright side, perhaps there will be drugs.

     My medical issues over my life have been minimal. I have had one other surgery. Looking back, a book was paramount at that time too. In 2010 after my big launch party for The Unfaithful Widow, which was a grand fete at a bed and breakfast in Atlanta in honor of Animal Rescue, I ran into my kitchen in my bare feet and slipped on dog pee. After landing hard on my padded butt I realized I’d dislocated my shoulder. It was hard to miss, my left shoulder protruded out so far I got very scared. The hospital is within a sneeze of my house and my neighbor drove me over to the ER. I sat there alone, a small morphine drip, chattering that it was dog pee on my butt, I had not actually peed myself. The drugs took hold while I waited for three hours to see a doctor. In that short time I sold a few books by telling the staff that kept checking on me I had just published my book. If I had only realized there would be an interest, I could have packed a few copies to take with me. But wait, I was in terrible pain! Not only had I dislocated my shoulder, I tore my rotator cuff. I had surgery within the month. My dogs tiptoed on all four paws when I came home from the ER. “Who peed?” My tone was sharp. Their sweet faces told me all I needed to know, I would never know. I better learn to tread lightly or wear shoes.

     So, within a few days of my new book, Danger In Her Words, being released, history will repeat itself. I will have surgery. Easy-peasy I’ve been told. It’s a non-invasive procedure. I am waiting for my list of do’s and don’ts. I am sure top on that list will be, don’t let the dogs sleep with you! And so it will begin. My Hysterical Hysterectomy Recovery. Stayed tuned for the continuing posts if you have the stomach for it!

    On a note, I have a wonderful group of friends that have offered to help. I find it interesting that I am shy about having them in my home to see what life with six dogs entails. I am sure I will get over that as soon as my wimp factor hits.