Welcome to my blog Upstate Girl, (a.k.a Follow Your Bliss Part II), I am an independently published author. This blog is all about writing and the stuff that inspires me to write, the joys and obstacles that come along with the writer's life, and my fascination with the psychology of people and what makes them tick...the human condition, as is...and my love for words, playing with them and making sense of them...and I throw in a few photos from my acre of the world just to make things pretty...sometimes there are things I have no words for, only pictures will do.

*Copyright notice* All photos, writing, and artwork are mine (
© Laura J. Wellner), unless otherwise noted, please be a peach, if you'd like to use my work for a project or you just love it and must have it, message me and we'll work out the details...it's simple...JUST ASK, please.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

When I go shopping for a present to myself it's a treat...but this is weird...

Yes, weird.
I ordered a book through the Amazon Marketplace last week (Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje) and I received it yesterday like this (it was in a padded envelope just like this)...and being the good Registrar that I am (my day job at the art gallery/art collection where I work), I photographed how I received it...

At first...yes, I was alarmed (WTF?) and then I laughed (WTF!) How odd! How very very odd! Did someone get it as a present, opened it enough to see what it was, decided, they didn't want it and then sold it? A different twist on "as is"...it's a bit creepy (Asking myself WHY? Why did they send it like that?) I wrote a review for the seller...informed them of my amusement with the slightly creepy tattered wrapping paper...a lesser person would've totally freaked out. It's just weird...really weird...but then, I don't mind weird as long as it's harmless weird. I'm harmless weird every day, so...wtf, right?

Hmmmmm....

I bought new reading glasses to replace the good tortoise-shell ones that I lost two weeks ago...
A bit daring...orange and turquoise...love them! They're sturdy, so I think they'll survive "me".

And I treated myself to some new lace-up granny boots to replace the ones that I killed (tho' I continued to wear in spite of their leaky tendencies)...I wore them to work yesterday for the very first time...they are like a dream on my feet...I love them!

Treating oneself is healthy...I don't do it all the time...we went to the art store too and stocked up on paints and canvases so...we did our bit for the economy (and not on credit, even better.) Probably the last time I'll splurge for awhile.

I'm still not done with The Fractured Hues of White Light, I dipped into chapter 17 and made some small changes...thankfully, I'm on vacation this week, so I can linger through the manuscript all week if I want to and not try thinking about it after a long day at work when my brain is buzzing from fatigue and my body humming with aches...

My Fibromyalgia has been fluctuating with the changing weather, a lot of times it doesn't make sense...I've had good days and bad days rain or shine. I try to go with the flow, but lately I've been saying quietly to myself that I've got to be kidding if I think that I can continue with the "normal routine life" charade for much longer. I've got some thinkin' to do about my future, I call it "Life Management". For as long as I remember I've had chronic pain and fatigue, and for years was told it was all in my head, so I use my head to work on feeling better. I will not fill my body with a pharmaceutical band-aid...I'm not buying into that magic pill racket, anything that has side affects that are similar to how I'm already feeling can't be good. This week, I'm resting, recharging, writing and painting...staying positive, staying active...moving forward...and treating myself to presents...even someone else's unwanted stuff...

It's "time to go house" season, so Willy Big caught a mouse by the refrigerator last night (he puffed out that fluffy white bib with pride, he was so pleased with himself!) Tiggy-Pooh was jealous of his mouse breath. (Willy didn't eat it, he just played with it on the porch until he got tired of it being dead. I wouldn't let him back in until he dropped it.) That "present" I didn't take a picture of...yes, Willy Big, I'm talking about you...
The sunshine outside is begging me to pick my butt up from this comfy chair to go outside to "play"...the blue jay family is at the bird feeder enjoying peanuts, the chipmunks are hoovering sunflower seeds into their pouches and scurrying off to fill their winter larders...

4 comments:

Laura J. Wellner (author pseudonym Laura J. W. Ryan) said...

I just found the tortoise-shell glasses underneath a chair by the pool table...how they got there, I have no idea. Via kitty? I might've dropped them one night when I came home extra tired...that one night that I didn't put them away in their glasses case in my purse and had them dangling from my necklace...or possibly on my head and when I plucked my little straw hat off my head they went one way, and my hat the other...

I'm just happy that I found them!

Laura J. Wellner (author pseudonym Laura J. W. Ryan) said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Pat said...

Willy Big sounds like a real character. But I would have left him outside as well. It sounds like life is fitting together, just like it should. The boot fitting is really a dream. I seldom have shoes fit the first time off. By the time they feel really comfortable, they are embarassingly ugly.
And two pairs of glasses, you are rich!

Leslie Avon Miller said...

We have mice packing and moving in too. We are on it, as the three cats are not reliable - they are too well fed!