If only I could be like this more often:
For attractive lips ,speak words of kindness...
For lovely eyes ,seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure ,share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair ,let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.
For poise ,walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone...
People,even more than things, have to be restored,
Renewed, revived,reclaimed,and redeemed;
Never throw out anyone.
Remember,if you ever need a helping hand,
You will find one at the end of each of your arms.
As you grow older,you will discover that you have two hands;
One for helping yourself, and the other for helping others.
~Audrey Hepburn
Yesterday I had a really bad day. No one in the world could have changed my mood. I brooded and raged and stomped around with a black rain cloud over my head all day and night. I hate when that happens to me when I long to only shine out goodness toward everyone. I am so *#@!#$&**+# moody.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Snow in SB!
This is the view from my hill last night as I was heading out to work...
Kind of dark, but there is a beautiful blanket of snow on the local mountains!
Kind of dark, but there is a beautiful blanket of snow on the local mountains!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
FLOODED!
This morning Erin, Etta and I had breakfast at Cajun Kitchen on De La Vina st. It started raining so hard it was sideways! Then came the hail. It looked like it was snowing! Almost the entire restaurant was up on their feet in shock at the weather. There was lightning and booming thunder. The street flooded completely, so much so that the laundromat across the street had it's doors flinging open and closed with the force of the waves from the street. You could not see the sidewalk, cars were in water up to their doors, not a single vehicle could drive through it, they closed the street down, and for a moment it got tense inside the restaurant, as we all thought we might very well be stranded there. There was this weird cohesion between everyone in there, instead of the way people normally go about their business ignoring everyone else, people were talking excitedly to one another and strangers were standing side by side at the window in awe.
I was ecstatic. I love weather. Being a Californian all my life it's always so exciting when it comes down like that. Thunder and lightning make me squeal with delight. It's so marvelous and we need the rain so much. It's beautiful. Besides, I love the way my roof sounds when it's raining, and I don't mind staying in all day as long as it's warm and I can read, paint or hang out with my kitties. The rain is like a mini-vacation. It always feels that way to me.
I was ecstatic. I love weather. Being a Californian all my life it's always so exciting when it comes down like that. Thunder and lightning make me squeal with delight. It's so marvelous and we need the rain so much. It's beautiful. Besides, I love the way my roof sounds when it's raining, and I don't mind staying in all day as long as it's warm and I can read, paint or hang out with my kitties. The rain is like a mini-vacation. It always feels that way to me.
Verrrrry Funny, Phil
An old friend of mine decided to submit an edit of the front page of my website. Here's his redefined drawing of Schroederville.com. HA HA HAAAAA!
Eleven Saints...
Last week I had the pleasure of seeing Jason Webley live at Muddy Waters. It was one of the most engaging shows I've been to in quite some time. He had audience participation, humor and wit, and the next minute you are on the verge of tears from his moving lyrics. Just terrific! If you ever get the chance to see him, do it! Here's an animated video of one of my favorite songs of his. Enjoy!
Click here for his myspace page
Click here for his myspace page
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Material things and reminders
All of my blog posts so far seem to do with my mom. I guess that's normal. I think about her daily. Hourly. I still cannot wrap my mind around the fact that she's gone. I'd love to write about the amazing show I went to last night, I'd love to tell you all about that, and I will... but instead my mind is on my mom and how much I miss her. I want to call her up. I want to tell her my latest gossip, that my mean boss got fired, that I got a cordless phone, that her cat is doing well, that I love her.
I so often long for quiet afternoons at home with no interruptions so I can just be here, present with only myself and my thoughts, as some way to realize this new reality, come to grips with it. All I seem to want to do lately is clean and organize my house, which is no small task. It soothes me somehow. Yeah, boring, I know, but that's what I'm craving these days, and I never seem to get it for long enough. There are things to be done, errands, grocery shopping, a room I have to rent. And work. Too much work. Can't I just stay HOME for a while?
Today I was going through old boxes of photos and as I looked at pictures of her she seems so vital, so alive and so funny. Her jokey expressions, sunny smile and her playful nature come through in all of the pictures. Those were happier days for us. The last few years weren't as good.
I keep finding little things of hers that came from her house after she died and they often seem like invaders, like they shouldn't be here. Today I found a bunch of padded hangers for the closet. I alternately love having her things and hate having them. On the one hand, I treasure her things, just knowing they belonged to her gives me some sort of connection and comfort, and the real deep down feeling that they belong with me, here. On the other hand, it's jarring to find them around my house. They serve as reminders that she is gone. I feel that they don't belong here and they should just be with her. This is part of my denial. 'What is THIS doing here? It should be at my mom's house' is a common thing my brain says to me all the time.
I think that's going to take a long long time to go away.
I so often long for quiet afternoons at home with no interruptions so I can just be here, present with only myself and my thoughts, as some way to realize this new reality, come to grips with it. All I seem to want to do lately is clean and organize my house, which is no small task. It soothes me somehow. Yeah, boring, I know, but that's what I'm craving these days, and I never seem to get it for long enough. There are things to be done, errands, grocery shopping, a room I have to rent. And work. Too much work. Can't I just stay HOME for a while?
Today I was going through old boxes of photos and as I looked at pictures of her she seems so vital, so alive and so funny. Her jokey expressions, sunny smile and her playful nature come through in all of the pictures. Those were happier days for us. The last few years weren't as good.
I keep finding little things of hers that came from her house after she died and they often seem like invaders, like they shouldn't be here. Today I found a bunch of padded hangers for the closet. I alternately love having her things and hate having them. On the one hand, I treasure her things, just knowing they belonged to her gives me some sort of connection and comfort, and the real deep down feeling that they belong with me, here. On the other hand, it's jarring to find them around my house. They serve as reminders that she is gone. I feel that they don't belong here and they should just be with her. This is part of my denial. 'What is THIS doing here? It should be at my mom's house' is a common thing my brain says to me all the time.
I think that's going to take a long long time to go away.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Everyone should see this...
HA HA HAAAAA! Makes me roll over laughing every time.
Quote of the Day:
Quote of the Day:
Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.
— Helen Keller
Friday, January 11, 2008
Quote of the Day
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated". - Mohandas Gandhi
I inherited my mom's cat when she died. She's a 10 year old pedigree Maine Coon Cat. She's gorgeous, but she isn't very friendly (...YET).
After over a month I am just now getting her to come out of my room and let me pet her a little. She is very high strung. I attribute that to the fact that my mom never had her fixed. I spayed her this week, and already her behavior seems to be changing. The vet found a large cyst on one of her ovaries, so it was good timing. Maybe the cyst was hurting her and making her surly. My cat, (her half sister) HATES her presence here and has peed all over the couch to mark her "territory". Boy does this suck! I can't even tell you. It cost me a fortune in cleaning and disinfecting products and dry-cleaning. I am on constant kitty watch now. Who knew that another cat could cause so much disruption in my happy home.
This is their dad, The Big Bopper was his name. He weighed a whopping 35 pounds!!! Biggest cat I have EVER seen. Look at the size of him compared to our breeder. His head was almost as big as hers! I was hoping that Kalia would get freakishly huge, but she never did. She only weighs 13 pounds. Still about twice as much as Janel's dog! HA HA HA!
If anyone is feeling generous and wants to donate in my mom's name to help save kitties, here is the link:
donate in loving memory of: MARY SCHROEDER
to: CLICK HERE ...to donate to ASAPcats
http://www.asapcats.org/donate.html
I inherited my mom's cat when she died. She's a 10 year old pedigree Maine Coon Cat. She's gorgeous, but she isn't very friendly (...YET).
After over a month I am just now getting her to come out of my room and let me pet her a little. She is very high strung. I attribute that to the fact that my mom never had her fixed. I spayed her this week, and already her behavior seems to be changing. The vet found a large cyst on one of her ovaries, so it was good timing. Maybe the cyst was hurting her and making her surly. My cat, (her half sister) HATES her presence here and has peed all over the couch to mark her "territory". Boy does this suck! I can't even tell you. It cost me a fortune in cleaning and disinfecting products and dry-cleaning. I am on constant kitty watch now. Who knew that another cat could cause so much disruption in my happy home.This is their dad, The Big Bopper was his name. He weighed a whopping 35 pounds!!! Biggest cat I have EVER seen. Look at the size of him compared to our breeder. His head was almost as big as hers! I was hoping that Kalia would get freakishly huge, but she never did. She only weighs 13 pounds. Still about twice as much as Janel's dog! HA HA HA!
If anyone is feeling generous and wants to donate in my mom's name to help save kitties, here is the link:
donate in loving memory of: MARY SCHROEDER
to: CLICK HERE ...to donate to ASAPcats
http://www.asapcats.org/donate.html
beef bouillon
This is an embarrassing yet candid story I wrote a few months ago when my mom was in the hospital. I have conflicting feelings about putting it up here in this blog for all to read...but here goes:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
written in Fall, 2007
One thing in my family that I always found abhorrent and had an innate shame of was their need to take things. My brother pilfered things everywhere he went, and not in the cool anarchist Cometbus survival kind of way, but in the way of a person disenfranchised from the world, who needed to take what they felt was theirs as a way to survive and get the most out of someone or something they feel has more than them. In the way that they feel the world owes them because they are poor, aching inside and sometimes sick in the head. They were never big things that would hurt anyone, but rather little things like silverware, medical supplies, too many napkins, condiments.
It always bugged me.
My mom could be the same way sometimes, but never as bad as my brother. Sometimes, in moments of clarity and epiphany, I would realize exactly why they felt that way and it would make complete sense to me, but that would usually soon evaporate, because I don't really feel that way. My particular response to bad life circumstances has been different from my mom and my brother. Not better, don't get me wrong, just different. I have had my own sorted ways of coping in troubled times.
As I write this, my mom is laying in the hospital with stage IV pancreatic cancer. She is dying, and my guilt about confessing these things in a public forum bites me.
She would hate me saying even a word of this. She is an extremely private person. She always holds her head up high in public no matter what she feels inside. I admire that in her. No matter what anyone says, she has an unbreakable spirit, and I can only hope that I possess a little of her spirit in me.
I feel pretty breakable sometimes.
In the hospital, the cafeteria is a dismal excuse for a feeding place. I can never find anything I want, and the hours are rigid. Sick people and their families are NOT on an 8-5 schedule, people! I don't always want lunch exactly between the hours of 11-2PM. Sometimes I need to eat at 3 or 4PM because I haven't eaten all day.
I found myself taking bouillon packets and shoving them in my pocket before getting to the checkout line. What was I thinking? What was the reasoning behind this? Was I getting back at the hospital for being so callously indifferent to our needs or was I rebelling the fact that our family lost so much? Even scarier, was I somehow regressing to that behavior in my family that I had such a distaste for? Was it a way for me to feel closer to them? Be a part of them? What was happening? The bouillon kind of stood for something, and I don't know what. I will never use it, and it is sitting on my desk, taunting me, forcing me to question myself as I write this.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
written in Fall, 2007
One thing in my family that I always found abhorrent and had an innate shame of was their need to take things. My brother pilfered things everywhere he went, and not in the cool anarchist Cometbus survival kind of way, but in the way of a person disenfranchised from the world, who needed to take what they felt was theirs as a way to survive and get the most out of someone or something they feel has more than them. In the way that they feel the world owes them because they are poor, aching inside and sometimes sick in the head. They were never big things that would hurt anyone, but rather little things like silverware, medical supplies, too many napkins, condiments.
It always bugged me.
My mom could be the same way sometimes, but never as bad as my brother. Sometimes, in moments of clarity and epiphany, I would realize exactly why they felt that way and it would make complete sense to me, but that would usually soon evaporate, because I don't really feel that way. My particular response to bad life circumstances has been different from my mom and my brother. Not better, don't get me wrong, just different. I have had my own sorted ways of coping in troubled times.
As I write this, my mom is laying in the hospital with stage IV pancreatic cancer. She is dying, and my guilt about confessing these things in a public forum bites me.
She would hate me saying even a word of this. She is an extremely private person. She always holds her head up high in public no matter what she feels inside. I admire that in her. No matter what anyone says, she has an unbreakable spirit, and I can only hope that I possess a little of her spirit in me.
I feel pretty breakable sometimes.
In the hospital, the cafeteria is a dismal excuse for a feeding place. I can never find anything I want, and the hours are rigid. Sick people and their families are NOT on an 8-5 schedule, people! I don't always want lunch exactly between the hours of 11-2PM. Sometimes I need to eat at 3 or 4PM because I haven't eaten all day.
I found myself taking bouillon packets and shoving them in my pocket before getting to the checkout line. What was I thinking? What was the reasoning behind this? Was I getting back at the hospital for being so callously indifferent to our needs or was I rebelling the fact that our family lost so much? Even scarier, was I somehow regressing to that behavior in my family that I had such a distaste for? Was it a way for me to feel closer to them? Be a part of them? What was happening? The bouillon kind of stood for something, and I don't know what. I will never use it, and it is sitting on my desk, taunting me, forcing me to question myself as I write this.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
"In your FACE!"
My prize for website of the day goes to: www.adamwest.com
Batman's website! Hee hee! I bet he'd be fun to have lunch with.
Not much to say today. I canceled my bereavement therapy at the last minute. I didn't want to talk about sadness today. I haven't cried for a few days. Came close at a tv commercial about a little boy with a terminal disease, but I'm feeling kind of numb. I don't know what stage of grief I am in right now. At work I was reminded of the events of the last few months when I walked into the walk in fridge and there was a strange loud buzzing. It reminded me of the hums and whirs of the machines in the hospital ICU. It sounded just like a life support machine and I was immediately transported back there. I spent so much time there on and off with my mom. I would be happy to never have to hear those sounds again. In 2007 I learned the ugly meaning of such seemingly innocent words and phrases like metastasis, stage IV, palliative, and preemptive decision. I'm so thankful she's not in pain anymore, but I miss her so much. My life is very different now.
It was a beautiful day. Really beautiful, with a big cloudy sky and a crisp coldness in the air. I didn't have to work, and had lunch with my favorite girls from the palace. I'm so sad to see Nicki and Leah go. I will miss them tremendously. We pigged out in style on French food. Pure Deliciousness. If you live in Santa Barbara and have time for a leisurely two hour lunch with the best creme brulee in town, then go to Pacific Crepes on Anacapa. Zowee! I am still full and it's almost midnight.
Other news: My old friend Brenda came through town this week. It was good to see her. We are still the same...
Batman's website! Hee hee! I bet he'd be fun to have lunch with.
Not much to say today. I canceled my bereavement therapy at the last minute. I didn't want to talk about sadness today. I haven't cried for a few days. Came close at a tv commercial about a little boy with a terminal disease, but I'm feeling kind of numb. I don't know what stage of grief I am in right now. At work I was reminded of the events of the last few months when I walked into the walk in fridge and there was a strange loud buzzing. It reminded me of the hums and whirs of the machines in the hospital ICU. It sounded just like a life support machine and I was immediately transported back there. I spent so much time there on and off with my mom. I would be happy to never have to hear those sounds again. In 2007 I learned the ugly meaning of such seemingly innocent words and phrases like metastasis, stage IV, palliative, and preemptive decision. I'm so thankful she's not in pain anymore, but I miss her so much. My life is very different now.
It was a beautiful day. Really beautiful, with a big cloudy sky and a crisp coldness in the air. I didn't have to work, and had lunch with my favorite girls from the palace. I'm so sad to see Nicki and Leah go. I will miss them tremendously. We pigged out in style on French food. Pure Deliciousness. If you live in Santa Barbara and have time for a leisurely two hour lunch with the best creme brulee in town, then go to Pacific Crepes on Anacapa. Zowee! I am still full and it's almost midnight.
Other news: My old friend Brenda came through town this week. It was good to see her. We are still the same...
Thursday, January 3, 2008
I'm here...
Greetings and Salutations!
Here it is. 2008. It's the new year, and in the spirit of the new, I'm going to start a new blog that is NOT on myspace... something a little more grown up, (maybe) where I can spout opinions, complain, retell, devise, make fun of, ask, figure out, postulate, rhyme, poke fun at, rivet, repel, offend, amuse, hold contests, divide and conquer. I'm going to have a list of fun links a MILE long for you to waste your valuable time on. I'll talk about the mundane and the preposterous. I'll publish it for the world to see. It'll be sad, happy, candid, funny, boring, inane, suggestive, mispelled and ridiculous. I'll put up pictures.
Wanna join me?
Suggestions?
Questions?
Insults?
Orders?
Here it is. 2008. It's the new year, and in the spirit of the new, I'm going to start a new blog that is NOT on myspace... something a little more grown up, (maybe) where I can spout opinions, complain, retell, devise, make fun of, ask, figure out, postulate, rhyme, poke fun at, rivet, repel, offend, amuse, hold contests, divide and conquer. I'm going to have a list of fun links a MILE long for you to waste your valuable time on. I'll talk about the mundane and the preposterous. I'll publish it for the world to see. It'll be sad, happy, candid, funny, boring, inane, suggestive, mispelled and ridiculous. I'll put up pictures.
Wanna join me?
Suggestions?
Questions?
Insults?
Orders?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
