Oops - I forgot to write last night.  Will try to do better today.  I was so caught up in the baseball game and the Great Race (I confess I was channel flipping) - I forgot about writing an entry.  I do better today.

For almost 25 years we've operated our plant from spaced leased in San Francisco. For two years my family and I have been working on a big project - a fish plant.  We purchased the building, we arranged for the construction and we finally got our final permits to operate this week.  Today we put up our orders from the new place.  It was such a great feeling - we built it together.  I know we have a long way to go - but I'm proud of us.

Sleep - mine is messed up.  Having a regular schedule really helps to keep sleep regular and normal.  I don't have one of those right now.  I find I'm waking up about 11:30 - 12 pm and can't get back to sleep.  I really need a new schedule.  Life is just a bit topsy turvy right now.  This too will pass.

I think I need some popcorn books - the kind of books that are quick and easy to read.  I don't read romances, rather my popcorn is mystery books.  I was a big fan of spy novels, but haven't found any new authors.  Time to cruise the bookstore - my personal sleeping pill.  

Stuff - what is mine?

We fill out days with "stuff" - run here, do this and that; buy this and that.  At the end of the day, looking back, I wonder what I've accomplished.  I am trying to figure out exactly what is my purpose.  If anyone has any idea - I really need help figuring this out.  I'm not a great artist.  I do music enthusiastically, but not so that anyone else would want to listen.  I enjoy reading, but I'm not sure how that is a purpose.  Similarly, I like computers and technology, but I'm not a wiz.  

Help - what is my purpose????

A hint of cinnamon and vanilla

When I was young, I used to bake for my family - my birth family.  It was my favorite kind of cooking.  I would make bread and brownies and date nut bars and cookies.  Cookies were my favorite.  I had 4 or 5 different recipes that I would make regularly.  It was fun.  I made snicker doodles, and toll house and oatmeal and spice and apricot bars.  My favorite was oatmeal chocolate chip with walnuts.  I love the way the smell of warm cookies fills the house with the hint of cinnamon and vanilla.  Cookies baking makes a house a home.

Later in my life, I sole houses for a while.  One of the tips was to put some vanilla on a piece of foil and stick it in a warm oven.  It’s supposed to make the house smell like home.  I’d rather bake a real batch of cookies.  Fun and function and yum.

How high?

Once upon a time there was a little girl who wanted so much more.  If she had a lollypop, she wanted a day long sucker.  If she had one toy, she wanted the whole store.  The now was never enough.  

She thought that if she plotted and planned enough, she could “make things happen.”  And, often she could because no one cared as much as she did.  Social climbing?  Who cared.  But she did.  She spent so much time figuring out how to make other people do what she wanted, she forgot to enjoy it when she got it.  She never lived in the now.  She was never happy because she could never rest, she could never enjoy.  Her life was one treadmill trip of what other people think of me.  She never felt good enough because there might be that one person out there who was so important and might not think good of her.  

She kept building and building that house of cards.  It would shimmy and shake, but still she would build it higher.  When she had to take cards from her friends to buid it higher, she felt they didn’t deserve those cards - she could use them better - so with callous conscience, she took their cards.  When she needed more cards, she looked around and started taking them from her family.  After all, they didn’t need those cards - she could use them better.

Higher and higher those cards went - up to the sky.  She climbed and climbed and pretty soon no one could see her.  Pretty soon no one remembered her.

Let it be

Sometimes things happen to make me really mad.  I need to learn to just let it go.  That serenity prayer?  I think it was written for me.  I especially need the part about the wisdom to know the difference - God, please I am in great need of serenity.