Pressing Heat

Hot, sunny weather is depressing me.  I’m sorry to say this but I wish it would rain. Sure, it’s the weekend, that’s a bummer of a wish but we haven’t had a drop of rain in over a week. What happened to spring?

Everyday they forecast thunderstorms but everyday that damn sun just keeps on shining. Today it was supposed to rain but I woke up to clear skies.  Damn.

I can’t put any mulch on dry soil with no rain in the forecast. I was giving my shrubs a good drink before mulching but now my rain barrels are empty. Yesterday I had to go out and buy a new hose because my old one sprung leaks everywhere.

And the mosquitoes…… good God!… the mosquitoes are horrendous! The rise up from the wet grass in the morning when I’m trying to water the new plants I’ve put in. I can’t even water without covering myself with Deep Woods Off. They crowd around my door trying to get in.  I was going to mow my lawn yesterday to keep them down but it was hell out there, HELL, I tell you!

I’m working all weekend. Today I have to share my work space with my counterpart as we are both working together. She can be very, very bitchy and is bitchy 50% of the time. I’m feeling a tad bitchy myself so it could get bad. On top of that, it’s going to be very busy as the tourists will be out in droves.

Hot weather ‘don’t impress me much’, working all weekend depresses me; can’t wait to get home, strip off my clothes and decompress.

https://lindaghill.com/2016/05/27/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-2816/

 

Countless Possibilities

Last night I watched Genius by Stephen Hocking where he put forth a theory that there are countless parallel universes that hold all the possibilities of our individual lives. Every decision we made will have parallel universes where we decided differently and all possible outcomes exist in some other universes.

That means countless universes just for me, interacting with countless other individual universes. This is supported by physics and he believes it: it’s scientifically proven. Many of us have spiritual beliefs that are really ‘out there’ but we have faith in them with no proof at all. Stephen Hawking has faith in the facts and numbers. And who am I to argue with Stephen Hawking? He has proof.

So why am I stuck in this track of my myriad of universes?  Why aren’t I in the one that lives happily ever after? Somewhere I have a great job I love and make tons of money. Somewhere I am adored, somewhere else respected or even feared.  Am I in all of those universes wondering why I am stuck there?

Somewhere I am putting cake in someone’s face and getting fired. I rip off my uniform right there and yell, “And you can have this stupid thing back, too” and walk out in my underwear, black socks and big, fat shoes giving the finger to gawkers.

Maybe one day there will be an ‘app’ for viewing some of our worlds and choose the one we want to play in. It would be interesting to see what different lives happened if we had made other choices.

We have brought ourselves to this spot in time and space by decisions we’ve made in the past. Even not acting would produce some outcome. It’s our actions today that will determine our future. This is also the law of Karma. What we’ve done in the past has brought us here. What we do NOW determines our future. Except we keep bumping into each other and going off on tangents.

I’m trying to keep this in mind as my shift is 5:00 to 10:00 tonight. Now we are open until 11:00 (summer hours) so if I’m not done at 10:00 I can stay and finish. I’m dreading it. I’m dreaming visualizing other possibilities. However, the best thing for my future is to just do it and do it to the best of my ability.

Einstein said, “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.” but I say we are the dice, rolling.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/countless/

Slapping Myself

I really try to buoy myself up amidst put-downs and chiding (all in good fun, of course) and the mountain of chores I can only chip away at. The other night I had to laugh when I found myself thinking: “What’s wrong with you, feeling so inadequate all the time?”

One-Liner Wednesday – Wasted Time?

 

Today I Mulch

I’m excited! This was delivered yesterday.

I wanted to mulch so much more than go to into work at 3:00.  Going in on a sunny, gorgeous day is such a bummer! And because we are gearing up for the long weekend, I walked into a ton of work and two exhausted people dying to get the hell out of there. My counterpart/ co-worker had done at least a dozen special cake orders, my boss is doing 10 hour shifts most the weekend and he’s salary….. no extra pay for his hard work.

 

I didn’t brag about getting Sunday and Monday off as most people are working all weekend.  Keeping my mouth shut and my fingers crossed  so I don’t jinx it. If any students ask me to work for them, I’m saying no, I have plans for this weekend.

I have mulch and some new plants from the nursery: if I was working all weekend I would be very depressed.

A couple of years ago I worked in an ice-cream shop for the summer. So many people would say to me, “oh, that must be fun!”  It isn’t, it’s hell! It’s hard, sticky work and all the customers are enjoying their summer. We would have mothers, staying at the cottage with their kids, come in grouchy and be rude to us. Sure, you’re testy being with the kids all day at the beach,  poor you!  Or a summer romance couple that can’t keep their hands off each other long enough to pick out an ice-cream flavour; acting as if you were invisible.  That was the most depressing job I ever had.

So think about that this weekend when you are being served in a grocery store, or restaurant or bar…… those people have to work. Have some respect and be kind to them, tip generously.  It’s really hard when everyone is enjoying their weekend and you are working for minimum wage, in a polyester uniform, under fluorescent lights taking guff from some insensitive jerk.

That will be me tomorrow…… today I’m off and mulching!

Today’s prompt is pensive.  My own Gravatar comes to mind giving me the opportunity to explain why I chose this;

It says, “I’m looking real smart right now but I’m still just a monkey.”

 

My, me. A Babbling Brook

My grass is very long already. How did that happen so fast? I’m pretty sure it just turned green last week.

Yesterday would have been the perfect day to do it, warm and sunny with a pleasant breeze. I opened my shed up and looked at the lawn mower; there’s some lawn furniture balanced on it and clay flower pots are lined up in front of it.  The battery is still in it. I know I’m supposed to take it out in the winter but it was a mild winter and didn’t turn cold until it was almost spring. Getting the mower out and starting it up would be a huge chore. If it was good enough to turn over I’d have to mow the lawn to charge it up.

I closed the doors to the shed. The day/night before I worked 3:00 to 9:00 which meant doing the ‘break-outs’ before cleaning the bakery. Break-outs involves bringing heavy boxes of frozen loaves and buns out of the freezer, putting them on trays or loaf pans, into racks and rolling the racks into the ‘proofer’. (The proofer adjusts temperatures automatically to thaw then raise everything overnight.  The baker comes in at 4:00 a.m. and starts baking everything. Cool, eh?)

It’s physical work, doing break-outs, then cleaning the entire bakery ending with mopping the floors as fast as I can because I’m rarely done early.  Hard work for an old lady. The next day I have a ‘work hangover’.

Yesterday wasn’t a total loss however, I got my hair cut then did a little sunbathing, timing 15 minutes on each side. My deck is a sheltered, ‘hot-spot’ so I could go out in shorts and a tank-top. Good thing I had the timer on because I fell fast asleep: dangerous!

Today is cold and rainy and I’m  glad.  I have the weekend off which is rare. Next weekend is the long, May Two-Four (Victoria Day), weekend so I will be working, Saturday for sure; don’t know the schedule beyond that. Hopefully Monday to get ‘time and a half’.

The grass doesn’t matter. There are a lot of pretty flowers in it and I don’t live in a neighbour hood where people are ‘tsk, tsking’ me; no one can even see it as there are woods on three sides.

The other day I did a prompt on survival and opened up some old wounds. I was surprised and touched at all the people who wrote messages of encouragement. I felt a little sheepish because it happened 8 or 9 years ago and I’ve really come a long way, although, I don’t think I’ll ever ‘get over’ it. Time does not heal all wounds.

I may be on my own, eeking out a living, looking back on broken dreams (oh, come on) but today I have nothing pressing, no demands. That’s why I’m glad it’s cold and rainy; I don’t feel compelled to do anything outside. The woodstove is going. I’ll do a few dishes and tidy up a little then it’s TV time. A PVR full of movies and Netflix ………so much to watch , so little time.

It may get lonely but its peaceful. The only person I have to make happy is me.

 

 

 

 

https://lindaghill.com/2016/05/13/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-1416/

Sixty-three, Single and Still Surviving

Todays prompt is survival. Since my blog is ‘sixty, single and surviving’, I feel obligated to explain myself.

In all honesty, to say that I am just surviving is an insult to a vast population of the world that are just surviving. There are millions of refugees with their homes destroyed and no place to go. Homeless, starving and run off from any place they can rest. Families with children, on the run, begging for food, this is survival.

 

When I started this blog I was starting a new life for myself. My old life was a wife of a beekeeper. We started out together with dreams of ‘living off the land’. Twenty-five years later we had paid off the mortgage on our house and had a pretty good business keeping bees and doing farmers markets. I helped him with beekeeping, made products from beeswax and worked the Farmers Market every Saturday morning for over twenty years.

I took night courses on marketing for small business and made beeswax lip balm, hand cream and body butter bars along with my candles. At Christmas time I made a tidy bundle of money I could call my own. This was my life: my husband, my best friend, my house, my gardens, my job.

He was emotionally and verbally abusive but I couldn’t see how bad it was because he didn’t hit me. How sad is that? It was good enough because he didn’t hit me. But his anger, yelling and insulting wore me down until I was dead inside. I couldn’t even leave because I felt I had nowhere to go. He helped me make that decision by kicking me out. It wasn’t the first time he’d try to throw me out but it was the last. On that day I lost my home, my mate and my job.

I did have a place to go; my sister’s guest room. I was broken and severely depressed. Not suicidal but wishing I didn’t have to live. Live where? Do what? I didn’t want to do any of it.

But I had to. He had to re-mortgage our home to buy me out. Considering all the work I’d put into our business, he got off cheap. My niece and her husband were selling their starter home which was just perfect for me; I now have a great home of my own.

However, bills come along with a house and that’s where survival comes in. I work part-time in a grocery store for minimum wage. Part-time is all I can muster up at this age (now 63) and still maintain my home by myself as I can’t afford to hire anyone to do anything. Housework, yard work, bill paying, car maintaining, cooking, …… I do every single thing by myself.

Sometimes when I am going into work, especially when I go in at night to clean the bakery, or The Weekend when everyone is enjoying their friends and families, I feel very sad. There are still days I go in with a lump in my throat, battling tears. This is not what I had planned, this was not what I worked for all those years.

My home is my sanctuary and I work to keep my home. As long as my health holds out, I will survive.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/survival

Bad Habits

I knew I’d hit rock bottom when I woke up in the middle of the night in front of the TV with a half-eaten jelly bean still in my mouth.

https://lindaghill.com/2016/05/11/one-liner-wednesday-watch-out/

Strolling Through Life

Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do today; stroll. I don’t have to work today after four days in a row ( I can hear you young people scoffing; don’t let this happen to you!)

At work we are expected to do everything as fast as we can. Today I can stroll. I languished in bed until almost 7:00 then strolled down my hallway for coffee. It wasn’t intentional strolling, actually, it was more of a shuffle but I didn’t know the Prompt yet.

It’s almost worth all the hard work just to revel in the joy of being done and coming home. The upside of living alone is that the house is just the way I left it and I leave it ready for Coming Home. After the noise and lights of a grocery store then the half-hour drive home, I breathe a sigh of relief when I close the door behind me.   Ah, Peace!  And I can make loud, groaning sounds of pleasure when I take off that uniform and bra and get into soft cotton.

I’m on my second coffee now so the shuffle has turned to strolling, singing “I don’t have to go there!”  I like to imagine what a zoo it is right now.

Time to stroll around the gardens and admire the spring flowers, emerald-green grass and tiny leaves and buds emerging from the trees. It’s like the movies Wizard of Oz or The Secret Garden that start in black and white then suddenly burst into colour.

This afternoon I’ll take a stroll down the trail in the woods behind my house. It used to be a maze of dirt bike  and four-wheeler trails but a local club has made a beautiful walking trail that is ‘blazed’ (marking the way) and made plank bridges over wet areas and creeks. Working together with the local conservation area,  the motorized vehicles are now banned.  And its right out my door!

Right now there is a wet area with  Marsh Marigolds as far as you can see.

I think I’ll take a stroll down there today.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/stroll/

Apparently, I’m Old.

It was apparent when I walked into the bakery at 4:50 p.m. yesterday that it was going to be a bad night. I try to get in a little early when I start at 5:00 because whoever is on is desperate to get out. The hope is that they will say, “all that’s left is cleaning” but not this time.

My cake counterpart, who was supposed to leave at 4:00, was covered in icing and had a crazed look in her eye. She was still doing special orders. “I had eight cakes, two full slabs!” she cried.

My boss was still getting stuff out the freezer for ‘break-outs’; all the breads and buns that will be baked the next morning. “Grab a pen and paper to make a list of all the stuff that needs to be prepped!” That is putting toppings on breads and buns once they are slightly thawed.

“Get out a chocolate and white cake and make a 1/4 slab half and half!”

I couldn’t get into the fridge without kicking aside all the cardboard boxes that were not broken down yet.

Have I mentioned lately I’m sixty-three years old? I had worked the night before and took this shift for a teenager. The day before that, my boss phoned me on my day off and asked if I could ‘come in right away?’

Today is day four; I’m working 1:00 to 6:00.  I’m so tired.

It’s apparent to me that I am getting old.

I didn’t mop the floors last night and I don’t even care!

 

 

https://lindaghill.com/2016/05/06/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-716/