Dark day

Last night it froze hard. I spent half an hour out in the yard in my pajamas in the middle of the night trying to cover every branch, leaf and fruit on my citrus trees and salvias and frost-tender succulents, pricking my fingers on lemon thorns and narrowly escaping landing on my ass after slipping on some dog shit that wasn't supposed to be there (their official "bathroom area" is at the back of the yard, not the front!).

Luckily I had just enough extra blankets and towels to cover all of the "at risk" plants, and as of this morning everything looks fine. At some point I will need to move them all in under the porch, up next to the house.

So yeah. Covering my plants against frost is about the most exciting thing I've done in the last 24 hours. I will be very glad when this post-a-day thing is over. Not that I think my life isn't post-worthy! But I guess I am feeling a little sheepish ... that isn't exactly the right word ... but basically just kind of uncomfortable with the implied presumption I'm making, by posting all this stuff on the world wide web – meaning anyone in the WORLD with web access can, well, access it – that the mundane details of my everyday life are of interest to anyone but me and a small handful of kindhearted readers who for whatever reasons seem to care what I am doing with my life. It does seem embarrassingly self-indulgent and kind of infantile to keep spewing out all this information about myself, when nobody really asked to know it. I mean, why not just write it all down in a private journal?

But then, I suppose that's why I don't usually write every single day. Usually, I only write when I feel like I have something worthwhile to say, and when I feel more or less positive and happy. It's not exactly fake, because a lot of the time, I do feel that way. Today, though, not so much. Some stuff is going on right now that I can't write about, which is making me feel anxious and defeated and depressed. Part of it is just me, feeling stagnant and impotent and uninspired. I don't like it, but I know how to deal with it. The other part of it is not me, and that's the part that I worry about. Because it's not my job to tell other people what to do or how to live. I just have to make my preferences known, let them make their own decisions, and then decide for myself what I am going to do.

I know it's probably bad form to even bring it up if I'm not willing to talk about the details, but ... well ... oh well! I'm mentioning it anyway because sometimes I feel like all I ever write about here is how happy and beautiful and satisfying my life is – which much of it really is, don't get me wrong – without giving equal time to the sad, struggly, lonely and disappointed parts, of which there are also a few. Sometimes more than a few.

Basically, I guess I'm just having a mini-pre-midlife crisis. Or possibly I already am in midlife. In any case, right now I feel like my entire life is mired in some ... I don't know what ... I just feel restless and stuck. I need to shake things up somehow, but I don't have the energy. Looking at the calendar it occurs to me as well that I'm at the height (depth?) of my monthly hormonal mood-swing session. Which means, if 27 years of experience are anything to go by, that I oughtta be feeling a lot better in just a few short days.

In any case. Here I am. Only two more days of this daily posting and then I can go back to my usual routine. Although – maybe at a time like this it would be better to break with tradition and NOT go back to my rut! I will consider it.

In the meantime, the photo at the top is of the creek behind my house. Rozanne wanted to see it. So here it is. I did finally find the battery charger for the camera (it was plugged in behind the toaster, of course!) so I'll be posting more pictures of various things around town just as soon as I have a full battery to shoot them with.