Recent Posts

41

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Adventures in renovations... again

« Last post by lighter on June 29, 2025, 07:56:10 AM »

Day 697 cutting 6"x3"
glass
tile.🫩

Two days ago, there was much despair....mostly in my part.  Contractor less so.

Yesterday, we came close to finishing. At the end of the day, I cut tile for 2 niches/one with a shelf.  (After, I went to nearby movie theater for truffle Parmesan fries with garlic aoli and ketchup....no movie.  Just the frues.) Today I paint the flaked off paint tile edges, and select tile for balance of bathroom walls.  I can smell the barn.

Chances are I never consider glass tile again....well.  Maybe for a backsplash.  It's such slow cutting!!!!  And the touch up....and exact paint matching and waiting for it to dry😭

::happily running to admire it::.

If I didn't absolutely love it, I would have scraped off the first 2 feet, and done something else. I am not kidding😱

Ready to buy the toilet.

The faucet arrived.....sink's en route.

The exterior door, to outside shower, has 7/22 arrival date listed, but is likely to arrive sooner.

I'm excited about the vanity.  6 big drawers.  How nice will it be to never have to dig through another stuffed cabinet, in that bathroom, again?!?! Woo hoo!

Lighter

42

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Friendship Moments: good or bad

« Last post by lighter on June 29, 2025, 07:32:35 AM »

Acceptance is a deeply healing/freeing balm, IME.  Sometimes more, or less, difficult to make peace with.

I suspect I just made it over a difficult hump, myself.  Will see, soon enough.

Lighter

43

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Friendship Moments: good or bad

« Last post by Hopalong on June 28, 2025, 05:57:16 PM »

You're right, that's all so true. Thanks for the perpetual insight, Lighter.

She just wants a sounding board for the performance persona she's developed over many many years in order to cope. I get it. The eruptions are when, when challenged, her woundedness comes out. I don't need to fix it.

I just am not attaching as much to it any more.

hugs
Hops

44

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Mindfulness and codependence thread

« Last post by lighter on June 28, 2025, 02:50:58 PM »

I really like the new age relaxation stuff, Hops.  It makes me want to meditate, stretch and focus.

Lovely smells, for me, typically run to pine, peppermint and, yes, coffee/roasting chickens.

Lighter

45

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Friendship Moments: good or bad

« Last post by lighter on June 28, 2025, 02:46:22 PM »

 Hey, you can keep Poet for regular chats, but now you know.....
she doesn't do/can't do/won't do reciprocal relationships. Doesn't matter why, imo.

With realistic expectations in place.....speak to her as often as you like, or not at all.  Up to you, dear. 

I'm hopeful, new writer friend, leads to more writer friends, and fellowship.

Lighter

46

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Mindfulness and codependence thread

« Last post by Hopalong on June 28, 2025, 09:56:39 AM »

OOOOOOO. Niiiiice, Amber!

Now that you mention it, doesn't frying bacon sound a bit like slow tires on gravel? I forget. (I guess for me the wheels/gravel sound would be coming from some distance, through a window.)

Rabbit hole. Great-smelling, crunchy-sounding rabbit hole. It's so weird.

LOL
Hops

47

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Farm Journal - 2025

« Last post by sKePTiKal on June 28, 2025, 08:43:13 AM »

OH HEY...

I noticed Lighter's been watching Chateau Youtubes. I have followed the channel "Escape to Rural France" for ages. Dan is restoring the Chateau de Chaumont, with his friend Nick (expert arborist with many other skills) and Brian (seeming a jack of all trades; climbing expert). Anyway, Brian started a Vlog which - if one is looking for peaceful, funny sometimes, "day in the life" kind of humanity - is MOST refreshing. The other day he mentioned it would help him out if we shared the channel with friends.

This is the latest - and includes Chaumont and their puppies. Who love Brian to death.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4Ppjiz5-N0

48

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Mindfulness and codependence thread

« Last post by sKePTiKal on June 28, 2025, 07:35:18 AM »

It's smells for me, Hops. Fresh brewed coffee. Nag Champa incense. Damp, fresh, rich dirt. Chicken & dumplin's on the stove... frying bacon.

49

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Farm Journal - 2025

« Last post by sKePTiKal on June 28, 2025, 07:24:55 AM »

Well, you've had longer silent spells on the board recently. So I wondered. I was also thinking about my own and the why's & wherefores of them. So, comparing notes sort of. Wondering about this life stage and what I want to make of it (and IF that's even worth "designing" - LOL).

B brings a chaotic mess - which is sometimes quite joyful - into my house. He's seen my limits though - it's not so much OCD as the chaos causes anxiety for me and I MUST act to stop that. Our main living space isn't large - think tiny house or one-room cabin (even though there's a lot more house around that area) so clutter is an ongoing tidal ebb & flow. I can tolerate that within reason - and occasionally "triumph" temporarily. LOLOL. For me, maintaining a low ratio of mess in the main space IS self-care. Something I practice for my own sanity. For B, it means he can easily see the last place he put something down - instead of having to look in 6 different places. And then forgetting what he was looking for - when he finds something else that "disappeared".

LOLOLOL.

We tried the only local Chinese take-out place yesterday, out of experimentation. It's not bad - but I was hoping for a little more "hot" in my Szechuan. Next order, I'll add a note. So while we're way out in the boonies, within 15-20 mins we have the local butcher/grocery which makes super burgers & Italian subs, a combo Mex-Italian sit-down restaurant that does pizza & subs & dinners to go, and now the Chinese restaurant to pick from. There is a standard "American Chain Restaurant" type place... but I think they're pricy for what they deliver. Oh, and a couple old-time diners around various nearby towns. B needs his liver & onions every so often. I need a good pastrami rueben... LOL.

It's as quiet a life as we're allowed (by other people's problems) to enjoy. Simple, no drama. Well, except the healthcare battle endures... and it's all just entropic, piddly BS. His over-sized reaction to it, is starting to mellow out a little. The last major blow - was his T blaming Vets for faking/overplaying the PTSD symptoms to get more money from the gov't. That one still stings him. (B doesn't even claim PTSD... so I'm guessing T needed to blow off steam & thought B was a "safe" person to do it with. They've worked together 30 years. Probably needs to retire or at least an extended sabbatical.)

We have a small local hospital that can handle med-flights into the "city over the mountain" 's major trauma center. My step-D is the liason for that regional coordination between all of the trauma centers & ERs. And there's an associated clinic here. So not bad for rural medicine.

We've not been enjoying any time in the "city over the mountain". It's WAAAAAY too much NoVa in traffic & rudeness these days and something dysfunctional has happened to it's art & music scene. Hol only goes there to shop the ethnic groceries and visit a handful of friends these days too. She hits B'more only for dentist appts & will sometimes schedule friend visits... but that's less often these days. We can get everything we "need" right here. And oftentimes, it's better quality (yeah, we pay for it) - local, clean meats, fresh produce in season, all the staples required to live here... it's only rarely we even see "the dark side" of society. Our bank branch was robbed a year or so ago. There have been a few rare murders.

I guess one can argue that insulating oneself from "life these days" is anti-social and therefore a "bad thing". But I consider it self-preservation in that I'm not getting pushed, pulled, attention-grabbed sixteen ways to Sunday all the time. I paid my dues in that respect over the years, and now just want to live each day peacefully. Anytime I need a "dose" of what's going on in the rest of the world, there's the internet. And I walk away from it a LOT more now. Plenty of work that's more gratifying around here! Making "pretty".

50

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Mindfulness and codependence thread

« Last post by Hopalong on June 27, 2025, 05:19:35 PM »

In terms of mindfully calming or de-stressing oneself, I've made a ridiculous discovery.

ASMR? Hope I got the acronym right. Anyway, a year back-ish, watching videos (maybe it started with Downton, dunno) I found myself toe-curlingly pleased in a full-body way with the sound of...drumroll...

Tires slowly rolling over gravel.

Can't fathom why. But every time I hear a nice stretch of that sound I smile, relax and just feel whole-body peace and pleasure.

Hope that doesn't mean I'll develop an unrequited crush on someone's driveway.

Anybody into ASMR-ish stuff?

hugs
Hops