Black Oak's Daughter

PEBKAC – Problem exists between Keyboard and Chair.  It’s an old IT joke, meaning “User Error”.  It wasn’t wordpress that lost my posts, it was me. I’m a dork. I deleted the wrong stuff.  I was erasing a whiney post that I wrote about insomnia at 4 am this morning and a few other drafts that I’m never going to finish and somehow I got carried away and erased all of May’s posts.  That’s ok. My writing has been shitty lately. Except for the piece about beautiful little Rose (dammit!), the rest of it was expendable.

I haven’t slept more than 6 hours a night in three weeks. I could whine about it, but that’s not my style. At least I’m trying for it not to be my style. I haven’t been writing a lot lately because it’s all coming out whiney.  My friends know how I feel about whiners, and seriously, I’m driving myself a little nutty with it.  Between the lack of sleep, the pressure at work, and everything else going on, I’m a bit of a mess lately.

There are good things going on in my world. I’m going to focus on them for a while.

I got an unexpected bonus from work. We were told a few months ago that we wouldn’t get our bonuses this time around, but we got 50%. It’s better than nothing, and I’ve decided that the new bed that I’ve been trying to save for is going to happen in the next couple of weeks.  The check will pay for about 2/3 of it, and I’ve got enough in savings to cover the rest. I’m going to wait until Memorial Day to order it. Maybe it will be on sale.  I need to sleep, and my 10 year old lumpy broken down mattress isn’t helping that effort, so as much as I hate spending that money,  it will make a needed difference in my life. Roomie has the same bed, and it’s really the most comfortable bed I’ve slept on.  It’s half waterbed, half mattress. I didn’t know it was a waterbed the first few times I slept on it.

As far as the sleep issues go, I’m also pondering getting the sleep study done that my Doc recommended. It can’t hurt.  My Chiropractor has done a lot to alleviate the neck pain too, so all that’s left to keep me awake is my sore kidney and no estrogen. Maybe a sleep study can help.  Anything would be better than living on the brink of this insane exhaustion.  I’ve never had to work so hard at sleeping.

As for injecting a little fun and interesting stuff into my life – I found out that the local community college offers photography classes at my village hall. There’s one on Photo Shop Photo Suite 2.0 that includes a free copy of the software for the $35 class fee, and there’s another that’s 2 sessions on Introductory Photography. It’s kind of a crash course in camera settings and what they do and then a practical class on things like framing a pic, shooting at angles, etc.  I think that both of those will be interesting, and fun, and a step toward improving my craft.  After that they offer a more in depth non credit course that’s really an intro to digital photography. I’ll investigate that after I get through the first two.

My friend James is a nature photographer. He does beautiful work and he posted some things I’d never seen on his new web home.  I am re-inspired, as I have been every time he shares his work with me.  I’m typing this in my office, facing a huge framed picture that he took. It brings beauty and peacefulness to my office. His newer work is on a different website that he shared with me yesterday.  One day, after I learn the basics that I need to learn, I want to spend a few days with him in his home environment (he lives in the Adirondacks)  and learn how he composes shots, and also how he enhances them later with digital photo tools.  I’m more of a purist than he is, I don’t mess with my shots too much, but even the basic shots that he works with are stunning before enhancement, and that’s what I hope to learn from him.  A nice hike in the mountains would do me a world of good too. Maybe I’ll take a drive up there this fall when the leaves are changing.

I bought some plants to pretty up my front yard too.  Of course it’s supposed to frost tonight, so they’re still in the car.  It NEVER frosts after May 15 where I live. That’s the safe date for gardeners in my region. May 15th was Friday.  Tomorrow will be two entire days after May 15th. Hopefully we’ll warm up enough that they won’t freeze after I plant them tomorrow.  My house is pretty with it’s new siding, and roof. We’ll finish the painting this year, and trim the deadwood off the trees, and the flowers will dress it up just enough.  I probably won’t be moving any time soon, but at least I can make the place a little presentable.

Tomorrow’s going to be busy.  I have planting, and laundry, and cleaning, and some work for work too.

Maybe I’ll sleep tonight.

I hope.

g’nite.

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