Assorted Long Update

July is dragging terribly but would probably be worse if Carey and I hadn't implemented Deadlines.
Procrastinating with blog updates also helps speed time up.

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A Course in Miracles
I'm still going through ACIM, mostly every day.
It is pretty amazing.
When i am done with the theory I'll start the workbook which spans 1 year.

As of right now I have 11 hours and 46 minutes remaining-- of 36 hours.

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Beach 1: two weeks ago I took Daya to the beach (Rockaway), on a Tuesday which was nice because it wasn't too crowded.  I wish people weren't allowed to play their stupid music and we had to move twice but the water was lovely.  I got a terrible sunburn, really bad, and it is mostly gone but I am still itchy.

I have gotten a long sleeve swimsuit top, should have done that a long time ago.

*****
Daya is bored and very lonely.
I don't know what to do about it, really, because I can't send her to camp this year.  To be honest, and as much as she would deny it, she would also be miserable at camp because she was last year aside from a few overnight trips.
Everything I suggest is flat-out rejected.
She's too young for the volunteering and community service places to take her without an adult.

All the dance people and school friends have vacations to go on, camp, and families to be with.

She was very burned out on camp last year and of course has forgotten all about that. By the last two weeks she was even tired of swimming and was wanting to stay home.

Daya is tutoring in the neighborhood twice a week, and she goes to dance but the studio really doesn't have much going on at all this summer.

Rob has suggested maybe finding a church and I'm open to it.
I have been researching a bit and I think I have to go Unitarian because they are very inter-faith friendly.

Daya needs more people in her life- adults and kids. It can't be just her and me- it's not good for either of us.

Rob said find kids who are exposed to hearing things like be kind to others and he has a good point. Daya is vehemently against going but she doesn't have any concept so I'm not taking her refusal seriously.  She rejects every single new thing I suggest anyhow. So I'm going to override her on this one.

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We painted Daya's room and it is a nice grey color instead of purple.

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Upstairs Neighbors
I spent $25 on a really thick padded moving blanket and brought it upstairs and asked nicely if my neighbors would put it under their speaker, which they were willing to do.  It worked. I'm not getting pounded by drums and bass now.  Last night my ceiling seemed a little bit shaky and rumbly even over the fan and air conditioning, so I wondered just how well my blanket was working.  Turns out, fantastically.

They are on the third floor and their speaker is back and down the hall- and I could hear their music in the second floor hallway in front of my apartment.  I walked upstairs, got halfway up and oh. my. gosh they were BLASTING- and I mean BLASTING AT FULL VOLUME some kind of terrible death metal. This was about 10pm Sunday evening.  I couldn't believe how incredibly loud it was, truly excessive- I'm shocked their other neighbors aren't complaining.

So the blanket works. Thank God.
That was absolutely horrible.

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Starro
My plant flowered... it has been on my desk at work for years...and it just flowered for the first time.  It is a huernia something-or-other.

I showed my boss, and he said it looks like the super-villain Starro from 1960... comic book stuff.

I think it is awesome to have a super-villain plant!
No one is particularly surprised I have a super-villain plant.

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My Desk at Work
I moved my desk again thanks to my manager who did me a great kindness and moved other people around.
Now I'm back at my old desk that I was moved from back in 2013.
It is a good location, with my team, and my old window.
So it is like coming home and I am very grateful and happy.

I was at this desk from 2009-2013.
When I was moving back in, I found an old drawing of Daya's from preschool!!!
It was still there!

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Beach 2: Last Saturday Rob picked me up and we went on another Rob Improv Adventure. We ended up at Jones Beach which was so amazing and lovely. Neither of us was prepared but it didn't matter, we stood in the water, got wet, and had a nice walk.






We saw baby seagulls... really teeny ones.
They are the dots next to the big seagull.
They were so cute, especially flying together in a little clump.

Rob is a very don't-plan-in-advance person, probably in balance to all the planning he has to do at work. So he doesn't like to be bogged down having to think about more stuff.  I, also, have too much to think about and I don't want extra stuff to think about.  Which is why I never ask where we are going when he picks me up.  Actually, I don't care.  I'm up for almost anything, and the things I wouldn't want to do are the things Rob also wouldn't want to do.  Because I like spending time with him the destination is always secondary.

Rob cooked dinner which is always wonderful because he has kitchen skillz.

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What I need, critically:
I need a break and a complete change of scenery.
I need a break from Daya and she needs a break from me.

We both need for her to be able to go somewhere for a week and I go somewhere else and we both reset and recalibrate. Decompress.

I am completely burned out and I can't seem to get to a reset-relaxation point anymore. At least I know why but there isn't a solution because I have nowhere to send Daya. It is the break and change of scenery that we both need, taking vacation days from work and staying home isn't going to do it.

4 Things

Thing 1
I'm still feeling better but it feels tenuous and fragile.
The noise from upstairs is a bad trigger, when it happens, and anticipating it,
I wish it wasn't and I don't know how to minimize how it affects me.

I got a really LOUD industrial floor fan, which Daya has named Fran.
I love Fran. Fran is awesome.

It all seems petty and silly and small and ridiculous until I search for solutions online and find so many other people who have the same intense reaction.

Thing 2
I have made a decision to not acknowledge Fathers Day.
The last time I saw my father was for a couple of hours four years ago.
We haven't had any contact since last October.
Daya also has no contact.  She stopped crying for him about it a year and a half ago and the last thing I need is to re-open that issue.  It was bad, very bad, for years.

It is obvious he has no interest whatsoever in any type of involvement in my life or Daya's, so I need to stop doing old habits and things which hurt me.  I have to let it go. I'm not angry, but I am sad. It is sad and anyone in my place would be sad about it because that is a normal human reaction.

For several years now I have been very seriously wondering if I will ever see him again.  As far as I know he is and has been in good health, and he lives the distance of a 2 hour flight away. I did tell him I would like to see him but all I got was a response that they are busy and have no plans to come up to the northeast.  I am not welcome to visit them. Daya went three years ago and they showed her a great time then never asked her back.

There is no relationship.  Everything about it from his end and mine is old and very outdated- nothing current because there has never been enough contact, no life overlap, and he isn't interested in building that. It is why the relationship failed. There is nothing of the present in it. So I'm done walking in old empty meaningless patterns.

I have come to the conclusion that I will probably not ever see him again though I would have chosen differently. One day I'll probably get a letter in the mail telling me he has passed on and I will not inherit anything. This is sad but I will let it be and let it go.

Thing 3
Daya is miserable because there is no dance for two weeks.
She is impatiently waiting for school to be over...June 29th I think is the last day.

We never got a pointe shoe email that her teacher said would be sent out right after recital. Daya's ballet teacher mentioned there is no reason Daya shouldn't be in pointe shoes, and she was going to talk to the prepointe teacher but we have heard nothing.  So Daya is dealing with failed expectations and extreme disappointment- some of them her own possibly of her own making and some were set by her teacher.  She just wants to know, she is a kid, she is excited, she has been working so very hard.

I told her to adjust her expectations to hear something around her birthday but Daya is a stubborn obsessive Scorpio (like me) and changing her mind is just hitting a big brick wall.

Thing 4
Today I am starting to go through A Course in Miracles.
It's something I have known about and been aware of for the last 20 years, and I studied it a little in seminary, but it never called to me.  Now it is.  Interestingly, I got both the physical copy and the audio copy for free, which I appreciate. So it is time I guess. I suspected one day it would be.