SoCS: home

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “home.” Use it as a noun, a verb, an adjective, or an adverb. 

Home is something everyone longs for, works for and needs to be in at the end of the day. We all just want to go home; to feel safe and secure. We need a safe and secure place to sleep because we are unconscious for 7 or 8 hours!

But I believe ‘home’ is also a longing of the soul. The feeling that we don’t belong here, that we just want to go home: I believe the soul longs to return to its source, its home. Where that is, is for you to find.

I am a huge homebody. I love to be at home and whenever I’m out, I can’t wait to get home. I have to go out to fight against agoraphobia. Any extra money I can get above living expenses will go to something for my home.

I’m really glad I travelled so much while I was young and had lots of energy. And it was a hell of a lot easier, cheaper and safer to travel in the olden days! But I’m happy I’ve been to so many places that I love to say, “I’ve been there!” and then sing “I’ve been everywhere, man, I’ve been everywhere. . ..”

I wasn’t so committed to ‘home’ as I am now. Many times, while I was travelling, I didn’t even have a home! A Volkswagen bus was my home for 10 months travelling around Europe. But it was my cozy, tidy home. I would prefer camper travelling to hotels because it’s your home. Nobody else slept in that bed.

But I don’t travel anymore, any money I get goes towards my home. I save up for repairs and winter heating, not vacations, but that’s OK. I am very grateful to have my own house.

I sure love my home!

https://lindaghill.com/2022/09/23/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-24-2022/

SoCS: ring

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “ring.” Use it as a noun or a verb. Bonus points if you use it as both. 

Ring. ring, ring. . . think. OMG brain please get off what you have been dwelling on and think about RING!

The bell is ringing on my bullshit meter so loud I can’t hear anything else! * Alarm bell! * Shit receptacle filled to overflowing! Ring, ring. . . do not add more!

I don’t want to write out blow by blow account of getting emotionally dumped on from several directions. It’s funny (not funny) how things come in clusters. Maybe I could have withstood one person at a time to give me chance to digest it bit by bit. But it all came over the course of one week and it was awful.

I am so filled up with bullshit, I stink! Peeeeuuuuu. . . yucky! Who wants to be around that?

ring, ring ring. . . !!!!

https://lindaghill.com/2022/09/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-17-2022/

SoCS: silent letters

Anyone here play Wordle and/or Quordle? I play them every morning and I’m getting pretty darn good at it. I pride myself in getting the words in 3 or 4 tries.

But what screws you up are the words like: light, fight, right, might, sight and it turns out to be night.

What a weird word when you look at it: _ight. It must be some kind of old English. With the evolution of language it will probably become fite, site, etc.

Like favourite and colour . . . yes, us old colonizers still spell it that way!

Reign over us, King Charles III. (Laugh out loud)

And while I’m here: how can people be sad that Queen Elizabeth died “unexpectantly” at 96? She lived an incredible life, had a loving family. She passed quickly and peacefully in her favourite home in Scotland. No one had to fly in to wait around a death bed for days on end. Excuse me: that isn’t sad! That’s damn lucky! I’m happy for them all! Jolly good!

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “a word that contains a silent letter.” Choose a word that contains a silent letter and use it in your post, or write about words with silent letters in general.

https://lindaghill.com/2022/09/09/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-10-2022/

SoCS: why

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “start with why.” Begin your post with the word “why.” 

‘Why?’ is something I have given up asking. I’ve wasted too much time wondering why people do the things they do (or don’t do) but lately I’ve come the conclusion that it doesn’t matter why. It is what it is and it doesn’t matter why. Probably better off not knowing why: it might be too upsetting.

Coincidentally, this very subject got blown up in public (well, on Facebook) this week so thank you Linda for reading my mind and letting me defend myself.

I have a friend who takes everything to the extreme. Its love/hate, black/ white, good/ evil and nothing in between. She doesn’t simply dislike certain politicians, she hates them: they are so vile they shouldn’t even live. . . etc. The things she says about her mother would curl your hair.

We write to each other by e-mail and she visits here 2 or 3 times a year. Just last week I wrote to her about how I stopped asking myself why people do what they do. Little did she know she was included in with ‘people’. She doesn’t want me to stay at her place in Toronto for some reason; I don’t know why. Tonight she is having a huge party with a band for her 70th birthday. They even rented a hall. She started out right from the get-go saying that she knew I wouldn’t be able to attend.

So I the day after I wrote to my friend about giving up on ‘why’, I found she had posted this on my Facebook timeline. (I have to go back to FB to get it)

Holy Crap! This is what I mean about taking things to the extremes! I do not consider any of these people to be terrible human beings! I love them! And what would she think if she knew she was one of these “terrible human beings”! I don’t think this at all! I think people have their reasons. And same with her, some of you have even suggested in past posts about why she might not want to invite me to her place. I’m sure there is a reason.

But why doesn’t matter.

https://lindaghill.com/2022/09/02/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-3-2022/

SoCS: bored/boards

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “board/bored.” Use one, or use them both for bonus points.

There are some people who work after 65, even though they don’t have to, because they are bored. I know 2 women I worked with at a grocery store that still want to work there because they get bored. They want to be there!

I can’t imagine that. Well, I can imagine being bored although I don’t get bored much. There is always something to do: some things I have to/should do and some things I want to do but hells’ bells, I would rather be bored than be in that damn grocery store for 6 hours, under florescent lights listening to the same mind-numbing pop tunes or worse; country! wearing polyester and a baseball cap! Its hell! HELL, I TELL YOU! I was counting the days to get out of there. When I got my first pension cheque I sang O Canada! Thank You!

The ‘board‘ part that comes to mind is recently donating my old deck boards to the local trail club. I was very lucky to get a new deck before the pandemic and lumber prices going sky-high. The old boards were thrown into a pile which I moved and stacked neatly. Then I realized they were in the pathway of my propane tanks for the guy that has to fill them so I moved and stacked them again. I knew they were too good to burn. They had been stacked there through 2 winters.

A couple of months ago the Lambton Shores Nature Trails advertised they needed old deck boards for building a boardwalk in a sensitive area of a trail near here. These guys volunteer. They came one mosquito infested morning and loaded the boards onto the back of their truck. They had to saw some in half first. We were all so very happy! They even sent me a nice letter with a LSNT badge.

I’ll bet those guys never get bored. They even keep the trails clear in the winter.

I know I’ve written about this before but its worth repeating: Something I heard from Oprah I’ve always remembered, that when we are bored we are really at our ‘best life’ because we are not pushed for time or stressed or worried or overworked. . . We should be content that we can be bored!

So I’m happy to be bored today. . except I won’t be. Its perfect weather to have all the windows open so I’m puttering around all day; inside and out.

Hope you all get a chance to get bored this weekend!

https://lindaghill.com/2022/08/26/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-27-2022/

SoCS: key

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “key.” Use it as a noun, a verb, or use it metaphorically. Have fun!

The key to happiness is. . . The key to success is . . . It seems like happiness and success must be locked away somewhere. Some say its inside us. Some say outside of us; we just aren’t visualizing properly.

I bet if I Google imaged search “the key to . . . ” I’d get a lot of things but I’ll wait until the end of my stream of consciousness.

The key to happiness and contentment is understanding the Mind. Its never enough. We never think we have it good enough or have enough stuff. We may be temporarily satisfied but it won’t last. . . the Mind will want more and better. We always look at what we don’t have. And even though I know this; I still have to keep reminding myself how damn good I have it.

The key to success . . . hell, I’ve never even looked for the locked door! The success I’ve had depended mostly on my gut feelings when my brain was barely functioning properly.

I had thought of Mon-key Pox. I used to think I couldn’t possibly get it but found out that may not be true: I read you can get from cash. My ex gave me some cash and I used it all over the closest city to me. I even ate a chocolate bar and licked my fingers afterwards! Then immediately screamed in horror! Spit into my sleeve. . . ptuu ptuu! (I was driving home). And that was just for Covid and other dirty money germs. I didn’t even know about the cash/monkey pox connection. (Which I still haven’t confirmed anywhere else)

Holy Moly! I looked on Google for the key to happiness and there are a lot of them! So many keys to happiness and success I couldn’t put them all in here. How can we not be happy and successful already? But I did find one that included the other. . .

Albert Schweitzer was a philanthropist. I have no doubt he loved what he did and considered himself a success. Good for yoouuu, Albert Schweitzer. Let’s hear it for all the people working hard in low paying jobs, trying to make ends meet. This statement bugs me so much I’m putting the SoCS photo on top of this post so readers don’t think I’m saying this.

On the other hand: now I’m retired and I love it when I don’t have to do anything.

https://lindaghill.com/2022/08/19/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-20-2022/

SoCS: ungodly

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is starts with “u.” Find a word that starts with the letter “u” and use it however you’d like. Bonus points if it’s the first word in your post.

U got that right, Linda! Scorching heat, steaming heat with the humidity. Its ungodly . . . as in hell.

I remember not having an air conditioner. We would have a heat wave for a few days but nothing like this. We could get by with fans. Now I am so grateful to have air conditioning. Heat, like last weekend literally makes me sick: I don’t handle heat well at all. At least in the winter I can bundle up and go out on the trail. Summer is the only season I don’t go in the woods.

Unnatural. But it is nature so I guess its natural now. What I really hate is having to close the curtains in the afternoon as the sun blazes into my west facing windows. I really feel stuck in the house. I ran out to water once a day and felt like my head was exploding. For 4 days I did this; I was having pandemic isolation flash-backs!

But now its over. Yesterday I mowed my lawn, all of it. Today I’ll do some weeding. The mosquitoes have subsided. Even they don’t like extreme heat.

It looks like I’ve run out of ‘u’ ideas.

https://lindaghill.com/2022/08/12/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-13-2022/

SoCS: wallpaper

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “wallpaper.” Use it however you’d like.

Wallpaper? Now what made Linda think of wallpaper? I am imaging her thinking up what to use and looking at a wall with wallpaper.

I’ve done wallpaper a few times, years and years ago. But I did one small wallpapering job here I will share with you.

I wanted a backsplash for my kitchen but had very limited funds and I wasn’t about to take on my first tiling/ grout job. What I really wanted was texture. Something like the old tin ceiling tiles.

Or washable wall paper. One day at Home Depot I found a roll of paintable embossed wallpaper. A big roll of it in the bargain bin for $26! Then I bought a can of white, high gloss enamel kitchen paint.

I just checked to see if I still had the photo of the fresh project in my phone and I do! Good thing because I would have to do some cleaning up to take a photo now. I probably saved it so I could show someone: look at this economic backsplash I made with paintable wallpaper! Now I finally get my chance thanks to Linda!

I noticed it was taken in 2019 so its holding up well. I’ve only done wipe downs and it cleans nicely. However, I mostly cook vegetables in a wok-style frypan and never cook meat so the splash factor is lowered considerably.

The other easy change I made was getting really pretty crystal-like knobs. I saw the ones I wanted but I needed 20 and that was too much money. I kept looking for affordable ones. One day it hit me; just buy 2 or 3 every time I go to Sarnia! My sister took me out for my birthday and got me 4 more. I had 20 knobs within the year! But I’m not bothering to take a photo because this post is about wallpaper.

I’m staying in all weekend because its hotter than hell and so humid my windows are fogged up this morning. The local beaches have e-coli warnings. This is getting bad, folks!

paintable wallpaper

https://lindaghill.com/2022/08/05/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-6-2022/

SoCS: wash/awash

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “wash/awash.” Use one, use both, use ’em any way you like. Bonus points for using both. 

I live in IpperWASH! And right now Ipperwash is awash with beach/vacation people. Not only is this a popular beach/vacation area but its a long weekend and its hot. I’m not going ‘out there’!

I hope. I did last weekend. I went out to the very, very crowded beach because I had chance to be with my grandnephew and grandniece right here on my beach and wasn’t going to pass that up. Holy moly, there were so many people. We parked at the back of the overflow parking lot which was almost full. The regular parking lots were full and cars were parking along the side of the road so they wouldn’t have to park in the back of the overflow parking lot. There were line-ups to go up and down the stairs to the beach. We were lucky to find a spot where people had just left.

And now we have a hot, sunny long weekend. IpperWASH will be awash with people. . . crazy people. I can already hear cars speeding to the beach. I was out Thursday evening and saw a lot of people speeding, tail-gating and making stupid passes. Local restaurants had full parking lots spilling out to the road.

My big plans for this long weekend is to change the spool on my weed whacker. Oh, and I’ll do a wash!

I hang my wash on a wooden clothes drying rack on my deck. My clothes line is now completely shaded by an overgrown Butternut tree. But drying the wash on the deck with the rack is better than the clothes line ever was! Its hotter, dries faster and birds don’t land and poop on it! When its this hot it will dry in an hour or 2. Its been sunny so many days I’m at the bottom of my laundry bin. I’m down to the ‘things that run purple’ wash.

Last night I realized I was still awash with OFF! and had to wash off the OFF!. I’m not saying that dramatically; its named “OFF!”. I may have lots of mosquitoes out back but that means I also have fireflies. They have passed their peak but still a few at night. A month ago it was awash with twinkling fairies at night! Luckily the mosquitoes don’t bother me on my deck, putting out my wash.

I’ll see if I have any photos of Ipperwash Beach here in my library;

No photos of a crowded beach but I did find my favourite. Happy Civic Holiday weekend. Its our Civic duty to have a good time or serve people having a good time.

https://lindaghill.com/2022/07/29/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-30-2022/

SoCS: my broken tooth

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “the first 2-5 words at the top of the closest printed matter.” Open (if necessary) the closest printed matter to you. Use the first 2-5 words at the top of the page any way you’d like in your post. Have fun!

“Ontario Seniors Dental Care Program” Good thing this is in English because below is the French which always takes more words “Programme ontarien de soins dentaires pour les aines” [Ok I’ve looked long enough for the French e with the thingy and can’t find ‘special characters’]

This card was sitting on my table because it expires July 31st and I was waiting for my new card. I had the card here hoping to e-mail them but there was only an 800 number which I called. They assured me my new card was in the mail and it was. I received it on Thursday. My old card just happens to be still sitting here on my table.

I am so grateful for this program! This is a low-income seniors dental program. They used to just offer emergency pulls mostly but have upgraded. Maybe they realized prevention actually saves money and teeth.

This upgrade is new. I am used to paying for cleaning and getting a tooth pulled when its beyond help because crowns are way too expensive. But this time a tooth broke off that is in my smile and that is very depressing. I assumed she would have to pull the roots out.

But this insurance now covers cleaning and check-ups! I went in for that and my dentist said she thinks she can put a post and a crown on that broken tooth! Apparently it had a root canal years ago so it wasn’t rotten; just brittle. They will apply and see if its covered. I really didn’t expect them to approve it.

The dentist office called me and said it was covered! However they couldn’t make any appointments because they were looking at August and my card expires July 31. I gave it one more week then called them Monday at the 800 number.

I am swooning with happiness that they can fix this tooth! Meanwhile I have an open root/ tooth to keep very clean. My tongue wants to keep feeling it. My first appointment is in 2 weeks so at least I’ll get something temporary over it.

Well, that was a fairly boring post but that’s what it was. My life is fairly boring but I always remember Oprah Winfrey pointing out that boring is good! Boring is no big worries or problems or things to do.

Speaking of French making things longer. . .(this is stream-of-consciousness) have you ever heard the New York cabbie making fun of the French numbers? No wonder I had such a hard time learning them!

https://lindaghill.com/2022/07/22/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-23-2022/