IntrinsicTina

.I watch a lot of television. I can't seem to help myself. I'm sitting in a hospital room with limited options. I blog and share parts of my life. I read FaceBook and learn about others lives and keep connected. I listen to audiobooks and delve into other worlds and get out of my head. I watch TV to learn something or to Be distracted. 

Thankfully, one pastime that I haven't had to relinquish since the onset of my occupational disease is reading.  Having to put the kibosh on former activities such as working for a living, knitting, cooking (unable to safely control a knife), and many household chores, including yard work (BTW, I love yard work especially mowing and mulching), I am ever so grateful that I can still (with enough pillows to provide support) hold a book and read it. While I also will download audiobooks from the library onto my iPod and listen to those while I manage other chores, I am resistant to iPads, Kindles, and the like. Heck, I have a computer I can either listen to or read eBooks on.  But nothing quite measures up to the look and the feel of a real, live "low-tech" book.  Hardback or paperback usually make no never mind to me.  I just the love the physical reality of a book in my hands. The most recent series of books I read are actually aimed at the teenager and young adul...

(even without children) 1). Get up with alarm at 5:30 am (hit knees to ask God to direct my day), 2). Get self ready for work, (place a load of laundry in the washer), 3). Go to the bathroom, (clean out the toilet, pick-up any towels and put up new ones), 4). Grab lunch from refrigerator, prepare a nutritious breakfast of yogurt or whole grain cereal, (pick-up previous night's mess, time permitting), 5). Drive to work, stop off at Starbucks or Cutter's Point for a decent cup of coffee, 6). Work a full-time work schedule with a half hour lunch break, 7). Clock-out of work, stop off at bank and/or post office for the office on the way home, 8). Make any number of side trips on the way home such as: nursing home to visit husband's mother (drop off payment once-per-month); grocery store if something needed to make dinner or for the weekly shopping; Sam's Club for monthly AA cake and/or stop off at Chase to deposit weekly AA monies; Reber Ranch to pick-up wild bird f...

Ambitious me. During this period of unemployment, I have been in anguish over lost and wasted time. I trend towards isolation out if a sense of responsibility and duty (to my husband and obligations). I want to do my part but I get into psychological trouble with this mode of thinking. To combat this trend, I have been stepping out to seek the company of real, live human beings. When I'm holed up at home, besides satisfying my obligation to continue to actively seek work, I've taken some online courses, worked on my photography and knitting, learned how to blog, and I've started working on my 'bucket list' of reading. My bucket list of reading consists of great literary works. Personally, I trend towards popular reads by Tom Clancy, Patricia Cornwell, Ann Rule, and the like. One day (quite out of the blue) I decided to attack the grand-daddy of my bucket list - War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Today I finished that read. I'd estimate it has taken me about...

Searching for meaningful work and trying to keep my sanity. It's so easy to fall into despair and if I'm truly honest, I've been there more times than I care to admit on this go round. Have you ever tried to get work that you are perfectly capable of doing, that you've proved yourself in but found that the ground rules have changed? That's where I'm at today and I hate it. What is keeping me relatively sane today? Professional help (in the form of marriage counseling), amateur help (a support group), and the distraction of my private pursuits. I've been downloading audiobooks from the public library and listening to them during my days at home, keeping up on housework as well as pursuing my passion...knitting. I knit as much as I can get away with. My current knit project is a men's cap in a waffle-like pattern (reminds me of a men's thermal top). I'm kind of bored with it but I haven't been motivated to attack the Aran Knit Scarf that...