bits with vegetables, or fruits

 

 

 

 

We spent three hours at the DMV this morning, but now we have a permit holder and a renewed driver's license in the house.  We'd been trying to get those done for months.  We stopped and did the shopping on the way home and I got fruits/vegetables to prepare.  Ate half the avocado with lots of spice and bread, and then cut up the others to use in soups.

 

It is now 5:30 pm and it feels like night.  It is full dark out, as goes November.  I have already been giving in and going to sleep about 7:30 pm lately because of the temperature - and because I need the sleep.  The healing situation with my oral surgery has done quite well, except in that one place where I think the tooth shard might be.  My next check-up is next week.   Yesterday was the first day in all that time I hadn't taken any pain medication (ibuprofen) at all, although I still hissed like a cat when I took the teeth out at night.  That part still feels like pulling off skin each time - but it isn't, because when I rinse it out there isn't any blood or etc.  It's just that sensitive.  And I note that I'm still 'grinding my teeth' some in my sleep, but since there aren't teeth on the top, I woke myself up biting hard with a bottom tooth into the top gum in one place.

 

I dug a frozen chopped apple out of the fridge, and put it with some split peas, kielbasa, some of the yellow squash and onions in a pot to make soup this afternoon.  I still have some pumpkin, onion and chili-bean soup in the fridge from yesterday.  I can eat softened bread and cookies soaked in coffee with the dentures in, but nothing really hard, because of that spot with the potential tooth bit hurts a lot, then the plate slips.  I haven't lost a lot of weight, even though I've been eating less quantity - probably eating a bit more condensed calories in the soups?  Considering it's winter, that is good, as I really need what I've got to stay warm.  It's all doing fairly well, considering these little bits and my tendency towards inflammation with hEDS.  I didn't know how it was going to be at all in specific, which is why I am writing it down now as I go.

 

dental surgery soup recipes continue: 

 

1 small red delicious apple (I had cut up and put in a freezer container three months ago)

2 cups of water or more 

a half cup of green split peas, washed

a handful of onions

a few pieces of kielbasa

a bit of butter 

a handful of chopped yellow squash

spices 

 cooked until everything was soft and then pureed with a stick mixer.

 

 1/2 can of pumpkin puree

1/2 can of chili beans

handful or more of onions

bit of shredded pork (Mark was heating it up for him and Esme)

lots of spice

lots of hot madras curry powder (specifically)

some butter

2 cups of water

cooked until everything was soft and then pureed with a stick mixer.

 

Last night I dreamt that I had to leave my old mail truck on a long road by a little town - after working a full shift at the hardware store (where the computer system in the dream was absolutely not realistic and I found it eyebrow-raising) and driving out in a little dark blue car I don't have at all trying to go find my truck - and I knew where it was but it didn't make any sense, because it was a right-hand drive and it was parked on the right side of the road right up against a guardrail. I could see it in my mind's eye in the dream - and was driving along waiting to see it, knowing I'd have to turn around and come back and get it.  

 

I was supposed to go back and get in it and drive off, to avoid someone following me from the store.  But then when I got there - the plan was jacked and it was a trap - there were five trucks there and none of them were mine, all on the same basic model plan - red, gold or white, but all left- hand drives and none of them were even the same make - which I told the person in the dream that tried to catch my arm and ask which one was mine.  None of them, mine was a 'X'.  And I pulled away and ran further down the road towards the town, looking behind me all the way, although no one seemed to be following.  Then I walked a bit further into town and went to their post office, and asked them if they had seen a truck parked there.  The two ladies there told me my truck was out back, that the postmaster had had it reported to them and towed it there waiting for the owner to show up, but I didn't get that far to actually see it, as I couldn't find the actual door into the post office the door to the left said 'city hall' and the window said 'post office' and I was wondering if I would have to walk all the way around the building.  At that point, my alarm was going off.

 

 I've had a few of the 'remember this number/ address' type dreams, as well - but the info doesn't really mean anything when I wake up.  They told me it was my phone number, no it wasn't and I wouldn't actually say my number in the dream, although I wrote down the one they told me.  Addresses, same thing.  I run through routes and mail cases (in the post offices) in my dream that I haven't seen before - I can remember it when I wake up but can't remember the exact names and numbers, although they were all there when I was running them and trying to match up packages.  /sigh - like my brain thinks it doesn't have enough to do when I'm getting some sleep *ha

 

Studying Czech, French and Spanish.  Have laid the Japanese aside for a little bit, and haven't studied the Lithuanian vocabulary while I've been awake (although I played it in my sleep, too). 

Sunday sunday bits

 We went to get the little car the other day and now it started and ran, but it was overheating on even a short trip - which it had done once before long ago, but it was not just the coolant being empty or the radiator cap breaking now.  It was something else, which I haven't asked the mechanic what that was yet - but he says it is ready and he has run it around town some and it is no longer doing that.

 

I've been really watching our budget this month because of the extra vehicle and insurance costs.  I've had to ask everyone to tighten up and make sure we are on the right path and I haven't underestimated anything going forward.  I'll know in another week or so what that really looks like - I hate that bills don't give you some sort of lookahead so you can estimate.  I have a pretty tight little spreadsheet of all the actual income and expenses over the past few months and I think I've got it on the nose, but I still want to see it work out in real life.  The insurance bill seems to be different every other month and I overestimate so that I can be sure to keep us in range.  And with all the vehicle expenses, rental car, the downpayment for this vehicle and the mechanic bill on the other one - it's been an expensive month.

 

I don't know why I'm doing Italian now on one profile, and French on the other.  I did that Duolingo levels things for about fifteen of the languages I have practiced over the past eight years - and Italian came out at a 38, even higher than Czech and Romanian.  And I haven't put that much time into it.  And the Spanish level being so low, 11, compared to the others - and I have put time and effort and frustration into that.  I know that means I should not be taking these as accurate data points because they contradict the actual working level I feel I have in each.  Anyway.  We watched the DaVinci Code the other day and I understood a lot more this time around of the French especially, but some of the Latin also even with the subtitles off than I have in the past - but I was listening, and trying to understand the 'mumble mouth' that a lot of the actors have.  I backed it up a few times to make sure that I had caught what I thought I had - didn't get every word.  I also understood the Italian in another movie that was just a few simple sentences. 

 Did the postal route, ready to go send and receive more trucks at work this week.  Then resolve the budget for next month and see where we are on track etc.  Pushing Esme to focus more on her difficult online portion of her math class so she can pass this semester (unlike last year).  I need to get her working on her driver's license harder as well and next month she will apply for college. 

 I've been having more of those dreams that I often get.  Two big themes that show up so often, I tend to recognize them in the dreams themselves as 'oh this again'.  The first one is that I am registered for a class (usually Math or English) and I don't know where it is, or when it is, and I don't know how long I haven't been attending it but I'm sure I am going to fail because I haven't been keeping up and didn't even remember I was supposed to be going to it.  The second one is the 'I am carrying my car around with me like a toy/cardboard box' where I get out and pick up the car, put it in my pocket, etc.. because I can't get it to go where it is supposed to go, blocked in traffic, not working etc.  I have read somewhere that is actually a power move - that in your dream you are realizing you are in control and that you can take charge of the situation.  Ok, I'll take that - it's nicer than the other interpretation that I feel like I can't get where I am supposed to go so I just break the limits of reality for a little while instead of waking up.

In one of those college dreams a third often theme also came up, I am me -but not this Universe's version of me.  I was brushing my hair in the mirror.  (what I've read of that people aren't supposed to do that as often as I do, it used to mean death or something, but I've always been able to see myself in mirrors in dreams, and only sometimes is it worrisome like that one time I was in 'not Fargo apartment that I didn't rent' and was looking in the mirror and it seemed like my face was not quite right, and then I turned around and 'me not me' was coming in the door, setting their keys down on the counter and stopping to stare at me in the hallway across from them before dropping their bag to the floor)  

Anyway, brushing my hair in the mirror and trying to get it to lay right - but it wasn't exactly like my hair is now, and I was talking to 'Mark not Mark' in the other room - people in my dreams are alt-Universe versions of themselves, as well, sometimes, and we were talking about having to go somewhere later today - there was someone else there that was one of his friends, someone I haven't met, but they were discussing cars.  From his attitude in the dream I knew it wasn't the Mark I would normally interact with, there were things that were off, and I became even more aware in the dream that this was not a 'million miles' but some sort of -alt.universe metaphor.   It was not our house or one I've been in although I could draw it now and tell you exactly where the furniture was and the colors of things were etc., and I was telling Mark that I needed to get to class and he asked me if I was still taking that? and I wasn't sure, have I missed it, have I been going?  I was supposed to walk there - and in the dream I could see exactly the path I needed to take all the way to a building and then I couldn't remember what floor/room I needed to be at or what time.  And I began to be quite worried, but Mark said that when I got there, I could probably just ask. 

 I've had a few slight wonderings about whether I should take a GPS class or something else online, like I did the comparative linguistics class.  But then I remember I should be doing my WaniKani and I haven't done that in a few weeks. 

 *million-miles, dreams that take place elsewhere, with me really not being me, that extend for days or weeks within the dream with tasks, people and a life that is not my own, and several times in those dreams I wonder how I am ever going to get 'back home' Dorothy-like? and finally I wake up and it feels like it is all still almost there - bits and pieces, an apartment, a fleeting memory of a person, a place, language etc... and then it slips through my fingers and most of it is gone - although sometimes I do return to that same place later in a dream, like the apartment in Barcelona, that I must have seen in some magazine or Google images map, because it is quite detailed - it's my brain playing 'doll house' with things that it liked in the visual-spatial 3D. 

round stone

 I have the day off - could think of a whole lot of things I should do - but haven't done much of them yet.. except study French and Latvian.  I collected some clothes but didn't wash a load yet.  I looked at food, but didn't cook anything.  I have three books saved, but haven't read them.  I feel that feeling lately of there is just so much physical stuff around me, and I interact with so little of it, but it would be more anxiety to clear it away and once I start I would expect to get somewhere, right?    

 I played a little Minetest Asuna and answered one driving question - no, it isn't fish that the cats eat, it is raw chicken / poultry.  Mostly because I was breaking some grass and accidentally there was a cat there and then I felt like I had to find what food it eats to heal it back up.  I have almost scraped up enough ambition to make some chai tea mix that will last a long time, but still, I haven't done it.  I was using some of the ginger tea for coffee yesterday.

 The chain reaction in my teeth is much better, but that one still hurts some.  When it isn't actively in pain it feels like a drop of ice cold water that is sitting just underneath my cheekbone, but then if I press on it, I feel the pain.  I did two postal routes yesterday, my regular one and then a little auxiliary route that someone else asked me to take up after I got back early.  Mark made a great beef roast with potato and rice.  I harvested a small squash out of our own garden yesterday and cut it up in the freezer.  That could be good cooked with a bit of bacon.

 

 

I did make the tea, and took a picture of the ingredients, and took a picture of the cat, but somehow the first two pictures were nowhere to be found on the card.  I took another picture of the cat, Loki, he hadn't moved too much :)  The tea ingredients are now a non-photogenic homogeneous mixture, so didn't take another picture of that.  With the star anise and cloves and cardamom pods at the beginning, they were pretty.

 

I did sleep in.  I woke from dreams that were like so many round stones heavy in my hand, each one containing only a kernel of reality, exchanging easily round and round - but somehow I couldn't grasp the whole thing without beginning to lose them through my fingers.  One of the themes was looking at clothes with Esme for school, which we did last week, but it was in one of those specifically dreamworld shops that I visit often, although it is my own personal labyrinth / map city that does not exist - but I know very well, and I don't often bring others.  It felt like an alternate timeline.

 I was struggling through tasks but not committed, knowing I would return to my own but had to wade through what was in front of me as long as I was there.  There was some little bit about my stepfather and mother, as well, bits of the underworld etc. as mom has passed long ago and I haven't heard anything more about him in years.  Somebody asked me something about a tiger patterned ottoman in front of a television and we complained that even when you have cable there is nothing on TV - I haven't had 'cable' or watched much television at all in twenty years.  It was a bit confusing.  I like the million miles better, where I am not myself, and the landscape is not eerily familiar, at least that has no real relation to my actual reality.  I do not feel, coming out of those dreams, so much like I am sorting rocks from apples, and confused by the stones that are too round.

I woke up and decided I had slept enough, it was only 7:30.  I sat and did a zen for a little while, then eventually got up and came downstairs - had some coffee, and eventually went out to feed the chickens and put some water on the little garden.  I asked Esme if there was anything she wanted to do, as we rarely have a day off anymore, but she didn't have any suggestions.  Grandma didn't need to go to town.  I can think of a few things I should buy at the store soon, to replace things that are wearing out, but again, 'right now?'  I did make a peanut butter sandwich so that I could take my vitamin and the last antibiotic pill.

Laundry, make tea, cook a good meal, put conditioner in my hair, sweep the floor, clean an area or two, put my clean clothes in order - all sound like good things I should be able to do today.  I could knit, or draw, or other things.  And yet, I sit here and think 'Really, right now?' But then, I got in here and wrote this down.  More zen.  By the time it is time to make supper maybe something will click.

bits

 My mail truck was not fixable, so at 338,000 miles, it was done for.  It's been a week at work that was shortened by Memorial Day, but feels like it should have already been Friday today.  Getting things done, but my anxiety is up a little.  The dentist came back with information for me and an estimate - it will be a big thing to get my entire top denture done and it still feels like I'm not ready for that - but there are four big teeth to pull before that, too.  I need to schedule for the first half of those to happen sometime soon  - the estimate is to work on it over the course of a year - I'm sure that is their financial idea and they actually intend me to do it much quicker, but with my reduced healing, it might be wise to take it slow, maybe not that slow, but slow.

 

Doing Japanese, and French-to-Spanish.  Studying small bits more of Japanese cookery.  Needing to get myself to bed so I can do work and get the animal feed and something for Mark on the way home tomorrow.  

 

but I want to rant a moment on motivation, and how that relates to 'reality' 

I've heard others talk about how hard it is to get out of bed at all in the morning - how they want to stay in bed and call in sick.  They say this like a joke.  And I'm always doing my alarms in the morning so I can turn my hips and knees and shoulders over and eventually get them centered and feel right to get up and not jar anything.  Some days I feel that much more fragile than others - and sometimes I am so focused on what a dog is barking about that I get up anyway without doing that... and pay for it for a while afterward.  But no, I don't think about calling in sick.  I think about moving my body forward and making it do the things it has to do - and seeing if it cooperates and what must be done to make it do so. 

What I've found works really best, besides the turning back and forth a few times - is to imagine what time it is, and what an hour or an hour and a half from now should look like.  Where should I be?  I imagine that future me looking back at this me and saying 'hey, we're here because you got your a** in gear and did the things it takes to get here', and then I lay out what those things are, superfast, like a trail leading me to that future if I just make all the hops and hoops.  And then usually that visualization - which I often call 'kick my tail', or 'hike my tail', is enough to get me to do the next things, and the next.. until it really is an hour and a half later and I am driving, or sitting at my desk, and saying 'yep, did that, check...'  

This is especially helpful on mornings like this morning, when I've had intense vivid dreams that were not reality the night before and it is so hard to break out of what was unfinished etc.. but it's not real, it was the past, or a conglomeration of multiple bits of my past (oh how fun the 'you don't remember your login and you work at a place that calls itself something familiar but is a conglomeration of three places at once, joy - fun - take a few minutes working out what detail is from what and what the simulation has in store to try to stress you with!  Will this be a dream where nothing works right no matter how hard you try, or one where you can circumvent the laws of physics to solve the problem, or both?)..., or a different dream like Aladdin's Cave or etc..  Aladdin's Cave is a common dream of mine as well, the Cave of Wonders - a store or a house or a library, some place that is full of interesting things for sale or for the exploration etc etc.. and I feel I can choose this or that or nothing at all, and I wonder where all of those things come from that I see so intricate and detailed in those dreams, the books with titles and stories that do not exist, necklaces, contraption machines, statues, clothes, trinkets, maps, globes, dishes, stones and minerals and other artifacts etc etc...   

The helpful bit - and my reason for ranting on - is that my visualization of what will really happen in real time can come true - I can look back and see myself in the real past from the real future.  When I am in those dreams and attempt that - I realize that it is futile, and that the dream is fleeting and immaterial, and that I cannot plan a future within it or see it's past.  

 

The only exception to this are the 'million miles' dreams, where, for some period of time in the dream, I am in 'another world' - still not real, but it is lucid to a point much greater than Aladdin's Cave, or the Great Library, or wandering through supermarkets or such... but those dreams also slip through my fingers and most of the million miles dreams -dreams of another life down to the toothbrushing and dish washing etc, fade away with only impressions that remain afterward, but when I am in within it I can think of what I did 'yesterday' in that place and what I might do 'tomorrow' in that place, if I remain there - and usually at about those times that I am thinking deeply about that, I realize that the time is still illusory there and that I do not belong to that world, somethings are just slightly not real enough, the memories are not quite complete enough - and someone pulls the weft out of the weave and it begins to fall apart - I am capturing only a few images of myself on my fingers - that self - but maybe still remembering the map of the city, the way the room looked, the textures of the fabrics, the iron railing at the window, the fireplace, climbing those stairs in the city and looking down again at the sidewalk, those 'tastes' remain and sometimes return, days, months, years later - I will be in that place again, but not that self.  

I call these 'million miles' dreams because I wake up feeling like I've traveled, lived days and weeks and months away, and then suddenly it is only the next morning here, in reality, and I am not older, perhaps not wiser, but I do appreciate a lot of things more, for the feeling of 'having been away'.

 

But in the real world, the real real world, I kick my tail, and turn off the alarms, and crack my unruly knees and put my feet into slippers to gather all my clothes and pick my way down the stairs one by one, each second following each other one in correct order - until the hour turns around again and I look back at myself and say 'Well we did that one, on to the next'

bits of February

 and February is ... running down that hallway over there, go catch it.  We are feeling better from that flu-like thing that knocked us all down.  My one ear was clogged for a long time as a remnant of it, but it feels almost normal now.  It was like walking around with a cotton sock stuck over my ear - just slightly dulled and nothing I could do about it.

Doing Japanese and French and a little Romanian, work, cold and rainy but there were a few days almost 70 degrees in there, too -- trying to get Sweetie dog into the vet for something we couldn't afford before, but she really does need.  We knew it would be a good sized vet bill to do it, and were trying to find when we could do it for her.   Got Grandma to the store after getting the little car back, Esme helped in the store and unloading all the groceries.   Grandma's puppies are fat and energetic!  It's not easy at all getting things in and out of the house with them running around.   

 

Our chickens had taken almost two months off of laying any eggs, while this egg shortage 'crisis' is in the news all over... but just about a week ago they started laying again, one a day (for 15 hens), then two, then four, now five... they must have liked those 70 degree days quite a bit, too.  We'll have some more cold nights coming up.Hoping it doesn't sleet, ice or snow soon, so I can continue getting to work.  

 

Got the little car back from having the radiator fixed.  It's hard to get parts for a twenty-five year old car.  Put the mail truck in the shop to try to fix the headlights taken out by the deer and a few other things.  It will be the same with that except it is a Toyota and that is a little easier to find most parts for.   Doing laundry.  Trying to get enough sleep, and it's cold.  I keep telling Mark sarcastically 'I have all these bones that are unhappy with me'... hip, elbows... the other day I dreamt that I was having a bike custom-fit for me (because Mark was telling me the day before about such a thing he did in his youth) and the technician while swapping parts on the bike also took off my arm at the elbow and replaced it with another one.. woke up and that elbow was hurting because I had twisted it strangely (hEDS, yay sarcasm) and it had finally hurt enough to wake me up.  Roll over, sleep for another hour on the other side, and it clicks back into the right place.  (hEDS, yay, no sarcasm).

/still expanding my map in the minetest game, found out those green saddled pig things are called 'mine turtles' in the game... made a lot of new places by sailing down rivers and putting new farms wherever I could land with resources - then found them again by road and stairs and now my map is much more interconnected, it's actually really cool to bounce around from place to place   

 elbows hurting right now, make another pot of coffee and off to bed

They won't do Sweetie's surgery until next week, but they did drain the area a little and give us antibiotics and set her up with some shots so they can hold her overnight there and make sure everything is good.  It should just be a few stitches, they say, after they use a laser, and she will be so much more comfortable and probably add years onto her life.  That is what we hope.  She'll be twelve next month - I looked it up.  And, bonus.. she let them do the shots and all of the other things without even getting upset, because she realized we are trying to help.  When she was spayed, she bit someone and was very upset with us for a good while.  This time, she was really good with the vet and even asked us when we got home 'why didn't they fix it?'.... but when we started giving her the pills she is taking them like a trooper.  I hope all goes well until next week comes.  They couldn't do the surgery until next week - and the other place wasn't even going to give her an exam for another week.

witterings and ramblings

 

A few things I wrote elsewhere I wanted to keep hold of: 

My brain is always going a million miles a minute, it feels like.. so this is just a taste of trying to put some of that down into text.

What is the concept of time?

"I've been thinking about this for years, since a dream I had in high school. Time is a fractured crystal/matrix on tangent point with the three dimensions of physical space, and -of itself the fractures in its own matrix become something like the Droste effect light going into infinite mirrors within mirrors - there is loss and duplication within the fractures of a magnitude we cannot quite grasp."

 I did have this dream - it was what, 1996, 1998?  somewhere around there, I remember looking at my computer in my mother's house and wondering how I could capture even a tiny bit of the idea to save it for later... I sat down and wrote 'The Crystal Matrix' and 'The Philosopher of Crystal Valleys' somewhere around that time.. and the type of dream still returns to me once in a while - and I can never quite grasp it - it falls apart the more I try to understand it.  I've written a bit about it in my book 'Time in December' in some ways, but had to mold the idea to fit the story in a way that was slightly more specific than the whole concept.  I do like the scene in the movie Interstellar (or, as I more commonly think of it, the movie with the girl named after Murphy's Law)... but I don't feel it quite hits the right 'umami' taste of the 'real thing' I experienced in the dream, very very close to the idea, but something was missing

 

Charlotte this morning : 

"Charlotte's blue heeler side was showing this morning - definitely herding dog there - I slept in today because it was Sunday and she was completely focused on getting me outside to feed the chickens, nose bump, alarm snooze, beleaguered sigh with chin on bed, nose bump, hard stare and excited eyebrows every time I move... okay you're FINALLY up....circle to door, sigh, head to stairs, ok.. yes human the coffee (but, chickens? you know about the chickens, right? *head twist and circle*), okay the cookie, I like cookie too.. but... chickens? Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, turns circles.. *I get the chicken feed in the container* OK oh boy! *nearly soar through air on the way to the door* we're finally feeding the chickens! If that dog could fly, she would have all the way to the coop with me."

Mark says I could make four panel cartoons of this sort of thing.. and that is the best I can do in description.

 

And, about the night before last : 

"I had this dream last night where my brain was trying everything to wake me up, zombies, extra limbs, fantastic glass objects with light streaming through them in a temple where the water was rising, going through books that don't actually exist, seeing people in an office that I knew were TV actors and saying hello to them as their characters, walking through mazes that defied gravity, crowds of unfamiliar people, a ghost, papers and signs in foreign language, vehicle issues where my key didn't want to work, logging into work terminals with the wrong password, trying to open combination locks from years ago - just one puzzle/problem thing after another and each thing I faced I was like 'ok'.. go through the motions, get through this thing and you just know something else will show up etc.. but none of it actually pushed me to awake - and then, I picked Esme up at the bus stop during the rain in my mail vehicle (instead of my normal one) which the mail vehicle doesn't actually have a seat there, and I never take it home in the first place ---- and THAT did it --- it was such a surreal mix of real and 'wait, what - that isn't how this goes, this is never how this goes' that it finally did wake me up. And I thought.. wow, zombies, extra limbs, Japanese and Escher-type mazes didn't do it, but being in the wrong vehicle at the bus stop does. *that's my brain, I guess*"

... "still what makes me almost/ (the most) amused is that all the far-beyond-reality stuff doesn't 'faze' my sleeping brain, it just tries to find the way around it as if I am already knowing it is a dream and 'meh, these things happen' etc.. but the actually almost real normal thing but still 'hey the details are wrong' task was what shook me awake. In the dream I was asking myself 'is the stripe on Esme's coat just like that, I don't think it is....' and enough of those mismatches made me question enough to kick me out of the dream entirely" 

 

I really wish I could explain the glass figures - they were absolutely ethereal delicate, breathtaking and luminous - like sundial-shaped shells - - I worried if I tried to pick them up they would shatter just from the pressure of the touch - they were sitting on a shelf in front of some clerestory windows, but the water was coming in from the stairs above, rising in the sunken temple area (blue-green stone, similar to the minecraft underwater temples) and I needed to get out of there and continue my 'quest' - I think at that point I was looking for a bookcase to put the books in my office that I was sharing with several characters from Fringe and Warehouse 13, but really in the dream, I understood that my brain was playing with me there with the actors/celebrities/characters and the books that didn't exist were foremost on my mind (if I can see them and they are books I can make them again etc.) that if I was going to have them for a while yes I did need a bookcase... and then of course other things happened, in the crowd there was a girl in a yellow dress, who was asking me questions and I suddenly decided I could phase us into a ghost mode and get through the crowd and bring them to where they needed to be and warn them and some other people about some things, give them some philosophy etc. which was fairly basic, and then continue on my quest, saw my mail van, delivered some mail, sorted out codes, had the combination lock question, 39, 11 and I don't remember the last one, maybe 5 or 45, I didn't get it open - it was from ten years ago, and then I saw my daughter and two other girls getting off their bus, but not at the bus stop, and picked her up, but her coat had the wrong stripe, and I didn't recognize the other girls, and that my van doesn't have that seat there is a shelf there (which has happened in dreams before, conflation with another vehicle) and then I was still right-hand driving and somebody on the side of the road wanted us to pick up furniture in the van and I was dubious that it would fit or that I could lift it, but I got out and loaded it up with superhuman strength, and realized the texture of it was all wrong and at that moment I was investigating why it didn't feel correctly under my hand and that kicked me fully awake

grow

 

An older picture, but I keep pretty pictures up on my desktop sometimes, ones that I have taken, in order to click them open and look at them again or leave them up like a screensaver and have that on my computer for the day while I'm doing other things.  I had dog roses up the other day, and today I switched to these blue flag irises.

That's two weeks down at the office job, and the postal route on Saturday, and today I didn't get called for emergency 'we can't cover it' packages on Sunday - so we went and did some shopping with Grandma.  Esme helped me with all the carrying and such.  We also looked at Christmas ornaments, trees and home goods.  We bought a mop, which I've been needing to get another one.

When we got home, I put dinner in the toaster oven and used the mop a little on the worst places (that had spurred me to get it), and did laundry, and so forth.  I almost went down for a nap after chatting with a friend, but found a hole in a yarn blanket and repaired that, and remembered a hole in a shirt I was going to run under the sewing machine and so forth...

I dreamt of snow last night, so high it filled the entire valley and the yard up... blocking the downstairs doors and windows.  In the dream, I woke Esme and Mark up to look at it, but they didn't think it was really a problem... that dream was probably brought on all by the flooding in the East, and my worries for winter.  The night before I had dreamt of my poor little black cat had been speared through against a tree, and I was so afraid to pull the spear out for fear it would do more damage - and I did, because I couldn't leave her like that, and she ran off as if she wasn't hurt, but leaking green liquid while I was trying to figure out if I could get her into the back of the truck, or if we could bring her to the vet or just what to do about it.. she grew three times bigger into a wolf with fangs and started eating rabbits that I hadn't even seen up until that moment, and I was conflicted, and the wolf started leaking even more neon green goo, jumped into the back of the truck and then disappeared entirely into a mass of green goo in the truck bed.  The stranger thing was that all 'happened' in the dream, in my mom's yard, back in Minnesota, which I didn't find strange until I woke up from the dream and remembered I was chasing the cat originally around the bathtub and the oak tree the spear had been put into, which were places I had played often as a child and have become iconic in my brain. I had a box at the post office yesterday that was leaking liquid all over but only when it was upside-down - it came out like a spout, and when it was right-side-up, it was fine.  That liquid was clear, and probably bottled water.  I had also been very worried about that same little cat outside in the rains - she came in twice but kept going back out and I let her, because she was very urgent about it.  It is very strange what anxious brains do with daily information, and maybe a bit much anime.

Going to go make a cup of tea now and maybe watch another anime episode.

languages, and bits of dreams

 

I'm trying a half-batch of Apple Cider Vinegar soda bread in the oven, after mulling over the chemistry for few days, rabbitholing a few times, and thinking about what I have in stock.  I thought it was a good day to try something new.
 

 baked

cut up hot

 

eaten with peaches and peach syrup

I put the rest of the soft slices away in a container, and the hard bits and crust into a bag to add to some soup later today or tomorrow, it's a recipe that is going to need some trying out different chemical reactions (sugar?, honey?  I added an egg above the board of the boildown recipe I had found, and what did that do, if I don't add that next time, what would happen?  I used the 1:.75 ratio of the flours that four out of the five recipes had.. why did that other one have the smaller ratio of wheat flour?  worth looking at) and techniques (did I cut too deep?  did I knead too much and should have left it with some of the air trapped in it that happened right away?  if I made twice the size of the loaf instead of halving it, would it not have been so very hard outside or would it have been about the same?) 

It took about 45 minutes total to make, and I keep all the ingredients.

It's worth experimenting.

 

 Languages:

I thought it was about time to update the language tree - but anything not nearing level 10 means I'm not really working on it... there are a few of the harder languages at 9 right now.  The site that keeps the info only makes 'level' ratings up to 25, although the French and the Spanish go way beyond that in the actual program.  So I'm barely halfway through the French's 'section 5' which is only B1 rating, comparatively.  But still, that means I'm still working on it.  I just can't stick to it and only it - my brain needs to have the connections and variety.  Besides these, I'm still doing a little Latvian and Lithuanian elsewhere, and studying Chinese characters randomly as they come up on another program to extend the Kanji (Japanese) learning I did last year.

I still find it funny that I was told, as a young person, that my speech impediment (lisp) meant that I would never be able to speak any other language well, and I shouldn't even try.  Not to mention the dyslexia, which I had found my own ways of getting around*, which were considered to be me just being overly imaginative (with my phonetic script I learned to transcribe things in so I could connect them better, starting from age 9*, and informed by much of the other philosophy and language things I was randomly finding and absorbing as fast as I could understand it) and playing around with things like a child plays dollhouse or something.  * I did have a good teacher that got my feet under me and then started me on the way, it wasn't all on my own, no,  but the phonetic language was my own work, later, because things still didn't make sense.

And also, repeatedly told that I was 'never going to use any of that' so why would I even want to try to learn something like Portuguese or Japanese.. but of course, that was in the 80s and 90s.  If I had only really pursued some of these earlier, besides the German I was put into in high school - where would I be in them today?  I had a head start in French from my grandmother, but then I didn't get enough resources and definitely no encouragement to continue it.  That's so hard - you can't do that!  And the high school class 'was full' because I was at the end of the alphabet and not high in GPA.. so German it was.  And I still don't really feel the compulsion to follow learning German in the way I do a few other languages... it's there.  I could.  And yet, why don't I?  I can read some of it and understand some of it and then as usual I drift away and go do something else.

But then, with the internet making it so much easier to find resources and confirm translations than the hunt and peck and order things of dubious provenance of the 80s and 90s...   and maybe I just needed time for my brain to organize itself, before I could 'take off'.  There's also the real chance that my brain began to organize itself better by learning these the past 8 years, and the faster I put those pieces together, the better everything else has worked for my learning, as well.

French            L 25     XP 52758         22758 XP beyond Level 25
Welsh             L 25     XP 30114         114 XP beyond Level 25
Spanish          L 23     XP 25578         +422 XP to next level
Japanese        L 19     XP 14380         +620 XP to next level
Czech             L 19     XP 13888         +1112 XP to next level
Romanian       L 17     XP 11143         +857 XP to next level
Portuguese     L 16     XP 9632           +868 XP to next level
Italian             L 15     XP 7952           +1048 XP to next level
Greek             L 14     XP 7226            +274 XP to next level
German          L 14      XP 6086            +1414 XP to next level
Finnish           L 13      XP 5515            +485 XP to next level
Catalan (es)    L 12     XP 4303             +597 XP to next level
Russian           L 11     XP 3818             +82 XP to next level
Swedish          L 11     XP 3689             +211 XP to next level
Spanish (fr)     L 11     XP 3190             +710 XP to next level
Norwegian      L 11     XP 3097             +803 XP to next level
Hungarian      L 10     XP 2591             +409 XP to next level
Ukrainian       L 10     XP 2288             +712 XP to next level
Irish                L 9       XP 2174             +76 XP to next level
Turkish           L 9       XP 2044             +206 XP to next level
Chinese          L 9       XP 1882             +368 XP to next level
Polish             L 9       XP 1798             +452 XP to next level

 

It rained in the night, and everything needed it.  It could have rained a little more - it was just enough to take the dry off of most things but not enough to soak in good.. on the bright side, the road was not muddy for walking to the school bus.  Esme and I saw a baby deer up on the road on the way to the bus.  It was a little magical, with very big ears and spots, and it stopped and looked at us before deciding it needed to run off into the woods again.

I had strange dreams in the night, including that I was suddenly careening down the road, even though I had my foot on the brake, and it was dark, so I didn't realize I was moving - fumbling for the headlights, because I hear the wind whipping through the windows and I know there are turns up ahead - and get the headlights on and the absurdity is just ten times higher, my brakes aren't working well.. I'm making it around the corners (like I did when the power steering went out in the other truck) but just barely and I realize that no that isn't the wind, I'm not moving, it's raining outside in the real world and I am in bed.  And I get up and let the dogs in and out.  I stayed up a few hours, then laid back down.

Later, the same type of of dream.. except it starts in the driveway.  My mother and stepfather are there, loaded down with bags and winter clothing - they are going to try to get in my mail truck (there isn't even room, it only has one seat besides the driver and its small) and I don't know where they want me to take them or why etc etc....  I realize walking up to the truck that it is running and for how long?  How did I leave it running, and I'm going to run out of gas?  That was so irresponsible of me, why would I do that... and I get in and they are going to load the things in, my mother is talking about some rash on her hand, and then she sees this huge mass of blood and scratches over my right shoulder (which isn't there, it was some sort of analogy) and I say yes, that happens... it'll be alright, and she gives me this look like 'what in the world how does that happen?' and I shrug it off... (shoulder, analogy, shrugging things off.. yes)

And at that point I realize that I'm also 'half-naked' as I say to my mother in explanation - in tank top and shorts and barefoot and they are wearing full winter jackets and boots and such.. and I tell them I'm going to have to turn the engine off and go inside and get dressed, because I obviously can't go like this.. "I don't know what I was thinking, etc"... and I don't even know where we are going but obviously, I can't go like this.   And yes now I fully realize that this is a dream... that they aren't here, that I should wake up - but for some sort of completeness I go to turn the engine off, but then suddenly again the brakes aren't holding, which they were, before.. again, brain playing games, trying to force me to continue 'playing' and the truck is drifting down the hill.. and I'm trying to figure it out and then a big piece like the element of an oven comes out from underneath it and spits out into the garage... my stepfather and mother aren't there, now I am standing in the garage with Esme and Mark, the vehicle is off and up on blocks and turned 180 degrees, we're trying to figure out what the piece is, if we can replace it and if Esme needs to learn welding to fix it and I am realizing a lot of the things that are in the garage are only sort of 'half-formed', my brain is working really hard to make the air compressor and windows and shelves and things I don't look at often but I'm getting the picture again that this is a dream.. and I should just wake up.

I realize also, in both parts of the dream - that I was sitting in a seat on the left hand side of my truck which is not true - it is a right hand drive.   The lights are even harder to reach from the right-hand seat, but they were right there where they should be on the left and styled like the other vehicle.  So I was somehow merging the two trucks we have on the inside, while it was all the mail truck on the outside.   Everything else about it was the same - just with a left hand seat, and no right-hand seat etc.. I find it interesting that my brain did that.

So, yes, lots of worry allegory there, not in control, things beyond my control etc.  I'm still trying to figure out what the bloody shoulder means 'shrugging' I guess - just the fact that I ignore a lot of what goes on with my body other people would naturally find alarming, perhaps, and just press on. 

 ((footnote* : I had a really good first grade teacher, who got me on the right path when she realized what my issues were, didn't call it dsylexia, but later, I realize she did a lot of talking with me and 'worming out the problem' on each thing I was having trouble with, asked me to describe things, and turned things around or related them visually to me which is dyslexic teaching nowadays, showing me structures like 'gh' and to just mentally replace that in my head puzzle-piecing and trying to match words I knew until the word became apparent phonetically.  AND she kept up with me.  I had a bad second grade teacher, but the first grade teacher still visited my mother and I and helped me out.  She gave me projects and helped out on a Halloween costume I had picked out of a book, helping me follow the instructions and so forth.  I had a better third grade teacher, and at that point, the first grade teacher gave me a set of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books and a bible, and said I was doing better than she had ever hoped and was so proud of me - and to promise to read every one of the Little House books.))

textiles

 

Esme has had strep throat, we're trying to power through it with antibiotics and food and rest - but she has had to go to school because of changes in attendance policy.  They gave her one day off to start antibiotics - then she had to go back even though she feels awful.  I don't get modern education on this one - only a hard number of days to be absent, for their bottom line etc.  I hate having to send her in sick but they've already sent me a letter this year saying she is at warning level *angry face* from being sick in December with a sinus infection.

 

I will have to work the weekend - I'm trying not to be sick myself, and that winter Ice storm did a doozy on our budget for this month, so I've tried to pull my head out of that.

    

 

strung up a new frame to try again to make the bag I was going to make out of the neon colored one.  The neon one is a big favorite now of our cat, Lyffan - so I've decided to let her have it.  It went through the washing machine once already and was really soft and nice after that, especially.  This blue one is already a third of the way woven, but I gave it up for a bit because it gets that hitch between my shoulder blades hurting when I do it for so long.  I hyperbole'd that it would 'take me a month' but on average, yes.. I put it up for several days because of the pain in my shoulder and then work and life happens and that adds more days to a week -- and then I pick it back up again and continue.

I feel like I've 'been away again' in a couple of dreams that had lasted for more days and weeks -- it's just a feeling though, but confusing at times.  Started watching Farscape again yesterday, partially because that feeling that I've been transported elsewhere, to another time, another place, among different people and tried to figure out what to do about it, and all I could do was go through and finally wake back up at the end of the dream.  Quite a bit like that weaving experience - the real world just 'picks back up' and I know the difference but when I'm inside the dream I know the difference too, I just can't pinch myself and wake up and have to keep trying to make it work even though the logic of dream worlds is slightly off - languages and maps and books... apparently my brain just has to have a field day, especially when I'm probably also fighting a cold or bug the same as Esme has.

I started making this little brown bag after seeing the pattern of Aeryn Sun's shirt.  I think it's supposed to be 'chainmail' and it is from season 1 episode .  It came up remarkably fast because it's all mesh (seen below tv picture I screenshotted because there was nothing online that showed it)

I think I'll just make another square and make it into another type of market bag with a strap on top.  I also had to sew back on another button this morning and got to that.

 

The other book bag pattern from the round basket style - finished this one that had been on my basket for a long time - it had only been lacking the handle.

 

nap zone cats

another language progression chart - I've been doing French mostly the past two months, did a lot of Japanese study last year.  This morning, I broke back into Catalan a little (because of those dreams, some were 'French but not French' and Catalan is between Spanish and French) and was expecting it to break my brain like Spanish did last week (I loaded up Spanish and said 'no thank you' after a few minutes last week).  The Catalan wasn't bad at all, I remembered so much, just a few spelling errors.  

Numerical from the chart:

Language :  May 2023 vs.---Feb 2024 : DuoLingo Level

French : 35118, -----45427, 25+

Welsh : 26131, -------27991, 24

Spanish : 20573----- 24416, 23

Japanese : 6294------14292, 19

Czech :     12274----12579, 18

Romanian : 9508----10270, 16

Portuguese : 9318---9632, 16

Italian :        6867---7544, 15

Greek :       6502----6810, 14

Catalan :   xxnodata---3474, 11

(plus about 10 other languages, but still)

German : 5837, 13

Finnish 5515, 13

Swedish 3679, 11 (did some work on this in late 2023)

Norwegian 3082, 11

Hungarian 2438, 10

Ukrainian 2228, 9

Russian 610, 6

Irish 2174, 9

Turkish 2020, 9

Polish 1793, 9

Chinese 1282, 8

and Latvian - but on another site that doesn't have levels

 

After a million miles, I still return to the garden

Spring wants to come, but it is still cold.

I am feeling introspective this morning, as a result of one of what I call the 'million miles' dreams - like I've lived days and months and years in a movie-like realistic experience.  The experience comes complete with books, movies, clothes, people, conversations, stores, driving, maps, cooking, laundry.. everything except sleep.. realistic places and things that are not quite real and I know they aren't but I just can't break out until some certain circumstance.  I had one the night before last that only lasted 'two weeks' dream time, but the one last night was months, maybe a year.. and so slippery I can only grasp thoughts before they slide away.

When I wake up I feel like I've lived a 'million miles' elsewhere and wonder about the coherence of space time and reality.  I'm relieved, and confused, and curious and exhausted all at the same time.   I worry a little about my memory, which on many things is so sharp and clear and organized and then on many other things it feels like I'm sorting through soft cheese to find the bits that matter and ignoring the rest hoping it will "reboot' and be useful for something.

I know it is my photographic memory and stress and some sort of cosmic whack-a-mole all combining to create that and that it isn't real time.  98% of the time I can separate real time and dream time.. but there are things that sometimes seem a bit too real - like looking at the (non-extant) scar on my face in the bathroom of an apartment I didn't rent in the 90s, waking up only because I realized that my keys were not MY keys.. as I saw myself walk in the door holding a bag of groceries..

There are even titles of books and magazine articles that turn out to be entirely in my own dream (this is rare for dreams, I've read.. to read entire things in dreams, website URLS, phone numbers and addresses, children's books with pictures.. it all fades away and I can't keep much of it.. some of it I write down as my stories that I am publishing again soon).  I even hear and read things in other languages in my dreams, but not often, and usually as a result of something in 'the real world' having had a good dose of it.  I'm still waiting for the moment I grab a book randomly off a shelf and it is empty inside, or lorem ipsum or something like that... but so far, in dreams and reality the books have all been complete, sometimes even to having the copyright page and year inside.

 I often have said that I keep all the things of this world 'in my head' so that this plastic dinosaur, although lovely, doesn't have to be in my physical hand to hold onto the sense of it.. but in my dreams I guess I take that to the next level recombining and recreating everything down to the plastic dinosaur or book, or endtable, a collection of keys or pocket change or fabric pattern. 

The pizza box in my dream last night was from a television show I had watched earlier in the day - and at the point I made that connection I was able to initiate waking up.

What do I think about when I boil it all down through years lived but not lived?
What stands out about this world the most?

Family.  Time.  Growing Things.  Repetition.  Math (matrices, sine patterns, exponential curves, scatter patterns, spatial patterns both in and not in crystalline form).  Space (The feel of real space around me, touch, cause and effect, conditions and improvements).  Doing Things that alter time and space, randomness, spontaneity, things that are unexpected vs orderly progressions.

There is something about the math - bits that come in the dreams and chemistry and other things that I know I don't consciously understand and probably never will.  It is a 'dream' within the dreams.. something that teases me but I will never have enough time to focus on and figure out.  I feel the taste of it and then let it go.. and concentrate on the other big thoughts - family, growing things, doing things in the real time before me. 

I am going through my seed vault and looking at potential, while a little bit of my mind is still turning over all the other ideas.

I do this every year, work some varieties, see the seeds germinate in the earth and grow along their potential, unfurling leaves, flowering, setting fruit and seed.. different weather patterns and phenotype and nurture every year - some years flourish, some drought or mold or bugs .. some things produce and others do not -  eventually I let Nature take back over and the weeds come up and the earth returns to Fall and Winter to go over again.  But there is a concreteness to this, too - and a tie down to time in a succession of months of regular progression.

I am thinking right now about tilling the earth when it is warm - days or weeks or a million miles twelve times over from now.

I am thinking right now of little girl coming home from school in the afternoon, better from the cold and sinus that have been awful for her and Mark this week.  I am thinking of the flowers growing and the snow yesterday, and the water sound from the freezer this morning, and that tomorrow I run the mail again.

And I am thinking that today, is today, and reminding myself that a million miles of lucid dreaming did not exist for everyone else - I am not in the Planet of the Apes staring at the Statue of Liberty thousands of years in the future (although, honestly, there are days it feels like that)... Today is one day after yesterday, and two days after the day before that... and so forth and so on.

bits of progress - knitting, crocheting, sewing

More progress in turning the tiny squares and scraps into something more. 

Another crocheted round pillow for the bed, as they are quite useful and we have spent a lot of time using the bed as a couch for everyone to snuggle in and be warm during this cold snap. Semi Instructions for Round Crochet Pillow

 

 Extra blankets are useful, too... no one wants to give one up once they have one! 

a bit of beautiful recycled Shetland wool yarn from Sonia's Twice Loved Yarns to match my gloves made from last Christmas.  I am working in a sort of half-broken rib pattern to make a scarf.  It was really quite a good match!  The Shetland wool is not meant to be extremely soft - but it softens with use, and is so warm.

Esme is building a hatchery for her Violet dragon and retrieving agate rocks out of my sewing box collection to be eggs.  Apparently dragons hatch out elephants in lack of smaller dragon toys ;)

And in other news, my brain dreams partially in French - an entire farce about people in a storm who are all preparing care packages for the others because they don't seem to be acting right since the storm hit - because they are being secretive preparing care packages they don't want the others to see... and not doing their regular routines.. and they all meet up in the middle of a room trying to force the other to take the package and the bowls of soup they were bringing to each other.  And the one guy who was not making care packages was paranoid that everyone was going to attack him.  He partially causes the strange behavior and is also effected by it, as at the very beginning we see him waking up in the freezing rain outside with a bleeding wound on his head in his driveway he didn't remember happening... he suspects everyone and comments to several of them about the strange things someone else is doing.  Towards the end of the 'film' in my head - after the soup revelation - his friend finds a bloody stain on a stick in the fence near the basketball at the edge of the driveway, and says he remembers the injured man right after he came inside  kept saying 'it goes up and through and comes down' over and over... (but that was partially in French but not grammatically correct) - and it turns out he was shooting hoops in his driveway at his basketball hoop and the ball came down and smacked him in the head and he fell down towards the fence unconscious and no one else was involved at all... *my brain is an interesting place to live* .. especially on cold nights when the electric blanket is turned up like a sweatlodge experience.

bits

Ninja cat displayed mouser skills last night - I think another cat had brought it in, though, as it was actually a shrew.  She lost it once during the night and then delivered it to Mark this morning for disposal.  Impressive, as she spent the first few years of her life abhorring outside entirely - and has been very much the hunter this past year inside and out.  Not a lot going on here, Esme got 1.25 from the tooth fairy in a 'message' under her pillow.  She said she was happy it was the lady and not the tooth beaver... oh how we warp her poor mind ;)  I have to get used to seeing that little gap now when she grins at me.  I have been knitting a few other things for the house, and thinking more about the handmade home book.  The kittens Pollywog had a few weeks ago are walking around the house and being baby dinosaurs at us.  Mark downloaded a few more classics onto the e-reader... it is easier to read on but I still find crafts take precedence, as they include the sense of 'productive' accomplishment.

I had someone mention the word 'deutero' copy in a dream the other night - I thought it was a computer term about keeping records, turns out it means deuteroscopy - 'second sight'.  Very odd... I think 7 day stretches of work with up and down schedules are not good for my sleep cycle!

first day of december vacation

Today is my first day of December vacation... the last vacation of the year. It will last about a week. It comes at a bad time for a few people at work - but we had to scrabble and schedule whatever time was left somewhere in late October.. and things that happened since then have made this a bad time. *sigh* I did need it, though! Hopefully they will all hold it together until I get back next Monday. My sick is not entirely gone, Mark is still coughing - but Esme seems good. We hope not to have to do a lot this week and just heal up.

I went to the store last night and used Nana in Minnesota's Christmas gift card to buy a few things for Esme, a blanket and stuffed animal and two games, all to put away for Christmas. Not out of the gift card, I bought a yard of cotton fabric and yarn to continue projects today. I plan to make a new 'Cinderella' type dress for Esme with longer sleeves out of the new fabric. I have some little projects I am preparing to send out in the mail, and a doll to drop off at work sometime this week for the auction for a coworker's mother's medical bill. And I have the bean seeds to learn more about. So, I have some things planned but nothing very intense.


'dragon front' dress
used McCalls 8001 pattern with alterations
her dragon pants had a hole in the seat,
so they ended up on the cutting table to remake...

got myself right onto this and now it needs sleeves, zipper and hem. That will take a few more hours but it should be done tonight if I keep on it. I went a little crooked on the neck facing tacking (ziggy stitching there) but it wasn't enough to redo it. For the sleeves I took the short cap sleeve that comes with the pattern and combined its shape with the coat sleeve in the pattern! Adjusting for the length of her arm the sleeves ended up very useable.... maybe not perfect but pretty close to it.

100% cotton brown fabric, mixed with Kona green cotton and the recycled 'dragon pants' to extend the skirt panels. I am hoping the Kona cotton (thicker, more nap) will keep her warmer this winter in the chest area. I had mistakenly thought the 100% cotton plain fabric would be warmer than the 65/35 polycotton blend... it actually seems the opposite. However, the 100% Kona cotton with its thicker weight and fuzzy nap seems warmer than either of them. The cotton fabric does wrinkle badly... but hey, she is four years old. Warm is more important and anything and everything she might wear would have wrinkles in it eventually ;)

dreams
I had that weird dream again last night -- the one where people come to me and tell me they did not have any food... We were searching for people after a disaster and trying to gather survivors and supplies. A skeleton fog said it had warned me of the 'oncoming famine' before...why had I not done anything about it... and it disintegrated. That nearly woke me up, as yes, I have had these dreams before. That was a 'brain pay attention and think as if awake' sign from my subconscious. Famine dreams are supposed to be very bad omens, sickness and business problems to come, if the famine is happening to you and you have helplessness over no food. But, in the dreams, it is always a survival situation where I have to help everyone, where I go find the food...make the food, scour the forests and the dead gardens and cupboards. In the dream I dug in a pantry and brought out an apple, and a potato, a can of soup and some beans and began to gather pots and equipment to make a soup. A big guy from work arrived and looked at the food in one of the pots. He was hungry but he commented to someone else who had gone to get me that he didn't want to eat that, wasn't there anything else? That was what there was - I could add some more water and another potato and make enough that everyone could have some.

In other recent dreams I am trying to collect seeds out in a dead garden and everyone else is just worried.. I am planning with the materials at hand while those things are still there. I was sorting through metal and useable parts, hinges and screws and nails in a ruined antique shop that had price tags on everything including the registers... all old as if someone had a last dash to make a profit and still had to abandon the place. It was as if I was looking through time at people arguing about if they were allowed to sell a piece of paper at one shop while there stacks and stacks piled in another corner that no one had remembered... weird games my brain plays... I wish I could write them all down and make sense of them, maybe a good book.

Anyway, they say cooking for other people during a famine is a good dream omen - of being able to help in bad times and offer encouragement to others. I'll take that. And I like that in those dreams I do not feel helplessness when faced with the situation, but instead take action. Those sort of 'mettle' tests are good to know which road you might travel... I take these kind of dreams as tests and preparations for life in general, that my brain somehow sees necessary to feel capable of 'getting going when the going gets bad' etc...