Other Summer

[Mach123]

My wife took a vacation this week and didn't tell me so we are kicking around in here together.

Things are different and I am remarkably different even if a little moment of clarity like this is all there is.

The girls are both off to respective programs and my wife will be out of the house with one of her clients for a few hours so I get to have an idea of a schedule so I can try and make a plan that will let me get something done.

We are "not fighting" which is nice. It means we are at the usual standoff but not sniping at each other.

We will see if maybe we can get out for a walk later in the afternoon. Right now we are getting everyone where they have to go and shaking out what's going to go on today.

I need to study and finish my course and start creating. I also need time daily for my instrument, I've kept it up this long.

I read a really good article my therapist gave me for homework that was supposed to be about parts but it was kind of about "therapy in general" Link Removed and started re reading Judith Herman and

The yard the house the kids the study the instrument the marriage the cPTSD the cancer the summer.

 

[blackemerald1]

Good article. Interesting in terms of her ability to adapt to new theories and ways to deal with trauma. EMDR doesn't work for me though.. it makes me feel giddy and I lose the feeling in my legs... ugh...

 

[Mach123]

We took a late walk yesterday. It was approaching high tide and beautiful out. It was beautiful on the beach.

On both sides of the town the weather changes 2 or three houses back from the water. So the weather up on the ave, the one road that runs the legnth of town, is different than the weather at the ocean, or on the bay.

There was a sea breeze which makes it so nice and cool. The ocean off here never really warms up. It's not unusual when the wind is right in summer, for there to be a difference in temperature of up to thirty degrees F between here and "ashore," which is about five miles from here as the crow flies.

We still run the air conditioning most of the summer though. Being so close to the water the air is damp. Besides that the houses are all stacked on top of one another and closing the windows and running the ac makes it so much quieter.

We have a porch now though which is very nice. It's small and open to the air but covered and so in the shade most of the day. So as you bang around the house every now and then you can pop out on the porch and grab a seat and watch the people and cars going by.

 

[Mach123]

Yesterday was an early walk because it was Saturday and we were able to walk the low tide.

It's midsummer. Past it a little actually. Seems like the sun "just came out."

It's really nice today if on the hot side. We'll walk the tide again unless my wife pulls something unexpected, which is her way, lol.

I got a little app that says we went about 2.5 mi. at about 20 min per mi. About what we thought.

I got my summer haircut which is really short like military almost. So nice and cool. I noticed at the gym I didn't overheat in the steam or sauna. I usually get hot and have to get out. You know, like distressed a little. But not yesterday. I knew how hot it was I'm used to it, I should've been overheating, but I wasn't.

Amazing what a little less hair can accomplish.

 

[Mach123]

It was too hot to walk but we did. It wasn't too hot if you went in the water, which I did twice. So I'd be cool enough not to be sweating.

My girls, I'm trying to teach what we're doing, walking and swimming at the same time. Or walking and taking a dip. They don't quite get it due to their respective handicaps, which makes them want to do things by the numbers.

So they think bathing suit equals beach chairs and sit on the beach, walking means clothes. I showed them today how to do it?

Not sure how much it got through? They didn't complain though, they never do really. They like walking on the beach.

 

[Mach123]

Yesterday was hot but I came home from therapy and got busy. Cut the grass, weed whacked and mulched the front beds. I just did it in my bathing suit and kept wetting myself down with the hose. Then I took the girls down the beach for an hour. I broke down and got out the beach buggy lol.

 

[Mach123]

Thundershowers right now. No walking, no swimming. I learned from watching YouTube how not safe it is when you hear thunder and you think it's far enough away. I used to laugh about it but I watched a documentary recently about lightning strikes and even if you live, the odds of you being "the same" after are not so good. If you hear thunder, take cover, that's my advice.

I worked outside again today in the yard about three hours. I trimmed a couple bushes and mulched a couple beds and prumed and mulched the roses. The heat was severe but like yesterday I just wore my trunks and kept hosing myself off. It was still hot though.

The roses are brutal to work with the thorns are awful! We have four bushes and they hadn't been done I don't think in a couple years. I cut them right back. I watched a video on YouTube. I had nothing to work with I don't think? They seemed just a mess. They seem to grow fast. I don't mind starting over.

I could use 5 more bags of mulch. IDK if that'll be 15 or 20 bags. I don't feel like it, it's August and it's the back yard, but it's not "finished." I don't want my house to be looking like that you know? The guy with junk every place and everything half done? A do it yourselfer in other words, probably not by choice.

Anyway, I'm trying to keep up with it.

 

[Mach123]

Did almost all the yard work in the heat. Looks good though and mom is happy.

If mom's not happy, nobody's happy and if the grass ain't cut short ... The old pastor used to say, The "sisters" like to see it cut short, don't they?

But it's August, so depressing. The sun didn't come out till the end of June and July went by like a thunderstorm. September means the Urologist and seeing about my cancer. Reminds me of how I used to feel about going back to school.

The mulching and all the rest of it I'm going to do away with. I don't need bushes or flower beds. We're at the beach. All these properties are being redone and my favorites pave the whole yard. I've only actually seen the whole yard paved in a couple instances but lots of people get rid of the small front yards and brick right up to the house. Then you get rid of the whole parking on the street thing and you pull in straight instead.

I have to look up the Iris today I have a bed of them in the back yard under our two trees that I want cut down so naturally my wife doesn't. The Iris are gone by and I think I can cut them short now and dig the bulbs out, which will make what I want to do much easier.

Then the yard is more or less done for now it took me all summer. Our two trees are actuall a "clump" of maples with multiple trunks, they have the whirligigs for seeds that spin on the way down and we used to stick them on our noses when we were kids.

There was a bunch of 3 stumps there and they'd been pushing up shoots so it was like a bush. I got my chainsaw going yesterday. Long story short after a frustrating couple hours I watched a YouTube video and saved myself taking it to a repair shop. I was also furiously (not too bad ) at my kid and a friend of his I'd lent it to because I thought they'd broken it, but it was my mistake. A peculiarity of this particular make and model chainsaw.

I cut the stumps off below ground level so I can cover them up wit mulch and save me having to dig them out all the way for now.

We went walking late in the day and got back around 6:30. The tide was way out, I just checked and we are at new moon. We hit it right at low tide and the beach (mud) is really alive down there. It only gets uncovered that far out a couple times a month.

 

[Mach123]

I finished the yard this morning so the back bed is mulched and I trimmed up the Iris and read up on taking care of them.

I also cemented the back door drain. You step down to go in the cellar and there is a pit under there fillled with stones as near as I can tell. They just stuck a drain cover in there. I thought it was piped in but it's not. The cement aeoundnit was crumbling so I got a small container at Home Depot and fixed it up. It's like building a sand castle or baking a cake. I like cement. I always liked working with it.

Now I'm taking 1/2 hour for lunch self stim self care then I'm doing housework a few hours then I have to try and do my computer work.

Since therapy on Tuesday, I'm trying to be much more busy.

 

[Mach123]

Just sat down finally. My back is killing me lol. Vacuum and hardwood floor mop. Under the beds and some of the dusting. Not all of it. Have to go for s late walk later and catch the tide. I need to do my class later but I need my laptop which my daughter confiscates evenings. So much stuff we need to fix/tweak/adjust with her. Just impossible. Ah well, keep going. : )

 

[Mach123]

Walked the beach yesterday late evening. Perfect pretty much, like paradise. Sand bars and knee deep rivers running along the beach at mostly low water, breezy off the ocean, almost cool walking to windward. You take the easterly wind on a quarter in the sailors expression. The beach is oriented NE instead of along the cardinal points.

With a summer shirt and pair of cargo shorts and bare feet.

 

[Mach123]

We didn't go walking yesterday it got too late. I was trying to work on doing design in front of the computer and I just wanted to keep going.

I'm trying to use an internet company as a supplier and they use chat for the first level of support which is as good as no support at all but, I'm going to put the time in. Or I'm determined to.

But we have to keep walking it's essential. The damned things you have to do every day! Or keep up with. I went outside and I had to stoop in the mulch beds and pull the weeds out that are starting.

You can't let it go. If you do, the weeds are up over the bushes before you know it. If you slack off on walking, before you know it you haven't gone in two weeks.

So exhausting.

It's hot and muggy and my wife keeps coming up with appointments so nothing gets done. Something gets done, but all that really happens is we stay in the same place.

I used to never put things off. Everything was always done, I had to force myself and I was miserable, but I kept up.

Oil was changed every 3k, cars were washed and vacuumed. I used even to do the truck wheels with Armorall and stuff.

No more.

I have lists a mile long everywhere of stuff I want to get around to doing lol.

It was all that trauma anger, I lived on it. I think I'm better now, I'm not as angry but IDK. I'm always getting "reminded" I am not getting enough done.

The hell with it though, it's summer.