Neat as a pin upon the head where a thousand angels dance. Impossible concepts.
All my life, messy was my other middle name. The actual middle name implied the perfection planned for me.
Desk cleaning day in grade school had me in utter devastating humiliation.
In highschool was the locker cleanup day.
My bedroom was a disaster until the cat peed on my clothes. No longer did my mother have to scream at me. I never let my clothes drift to the floor. Hamper or closet or chest of drawers. The clothes solution stuck. But eek, the rest still shames me daily.
I finally get control of one aspect when ‘life’ happens and throws a wrench in schedule and neatness. And who left that tool out here to trip over?
Grief, then TV guy, messed up all my regulated plans for self improvement, just as I got ready to tighten the schedule for house improvement, so now the swinging the pendulum is working to get me on track.
Not for perfection but enjoying passions fully while aiming to stay healthy.
Neat may never happen. ADHD keeps life moving.
Adding yoga and meditation. At least I’ll feel more peaceful about it.
Your prompt for JusJoJan January 30th, 2026 is “cinnamon.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!
Today’s prompt is brought to us by Tessa K. Thank you, Tessa K.! Please be sure to visit Tessa K.’s blog to read her posts and say hello. And follow her while you’re there if you’re not already.
Cinnamon was the name of a fuzzy pet. I couldn’t remember what mammal he was. I read the book when I was 5th or 6th grade, during my horse book binge. I mentioned it to my friend Y today. She remembered a book about a horse. My intent was to make this a book review. But I couldn’t find the book anywhere. There were a lot of books about cinnamon and pets by that name but the book I pictured I couldn’t find. Maybe I didn’t do proper search words.
So I have to switch methods.
Cinnamon is a spice that has health benefits. Here’s a couple of ways I use it.
A stick of Ceylon in my ginger and probiotic tea. No need for sugar. The ginger and cinnamon taste so yummy together.
Sorry for the lack of imagination. But the tea was lovely.
Life feels like a labyrinth right now. So much pulling on a person. But finding my way through means there are things to do. Lately, I’ve been prioritizing my physical and mental health.
Pianoing, knitting and the other hobbies are for my mental. Stationary bike and treadmill, on meandering around the house are for the physical.
Prayers come in in my doings, in my journaling when I find myself staring into space.
I don’t know where the entrance or exit are. But taking each turn should keep the scenery changing.
I’ve been busy creating a fun character but not quite ready to share. I must admit to being surprised. But the artwork is still in my head not on paper. I was worried that I was only getting bad guys but I have an unfortunate main character emerging. Even not knowing the next few Inktober prompts are fitting right in. I’m in suspense hope you are, too.
Meanwhile, did I tell you my stationary bike has a friend! Treadmill has joined the living room as a sofa sitter.
Doesn’t need to be plugged in and I’m m still meeting my goal of 30 minutes 4 miles not much but way more than if I didn’t do it, right?
It doesn’t hide all the way under the sofa. There’s a bar in the way so I have to push it under just on the end. The handle doesn’t fold under so it becomes a sofa side rail. So far my husband and I have only managed 5 minutes. Old knees and hips need to go slowly and carefully.
End of the day and I have nothing to blog about. It was a diverticulitis day and all plans undid themselves. I did receive my new treadmill but it won’t fit under the couch as I planned. See what I mean? So bike and tread will stay out in the open, in the way. Maybe that’s a good thing? It’s in its box until tomorrow.
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “pad.” Use it as a noun, use it as a verb, use it any way you’d like. Have fun!
Right air mattresses, not my body!
But for the pad beneath my well padded body I could have slept so much better.
~~~~
A couple of years ago I bought my family enough air mattresses, tents, and sleeping bags that we could have gone camping a few times. But I seemed to be the only one trying. So I was glad my friend was brave and invited me on her camping adventures.
When my brother and I were kids, our parents took us on 3 weeks of camping every year. We didn’t realize then what a sacrifice it was for them. Dad never took a day off work saving up the time. Mom scraped every penny, and then her sacrificed her health as she packed and stored camp foods then directed the Tetris of car packing. All of that had her nervous tummy upset and dying between gas station restrooms.
Speaking of penny pinching… Mom never let us have much sugar. As much as she could be in the 50s and 60s she was health minded. So a way to control both money spent on junk food, she’d allow us to gather empty coke bottles to turn in at the general store near camp and with that money we could buy candy bars or chips
Anyway, we had air mattresses at first. Just those kinds you can paddle around the lake to float on. They held up to the fun, but invariably all the air was gone by morning cold and I’d be sleeping on rocks. My padding was not thick enough then, either.
So this was my second camping trip with my friend. The air mattresses and blowing up process didn’t coordinate properly for me, so I couldn’t close off the escape of air on time. So I little enjoyed the rocky sea of a half inflated mattress, falling off, or finding it impossible to get up to standing. Finally, I emptied it. I assumed flat on the ground would be better.
But with a Target 10 minutes away, we looked for other necessities. I found a mattress topper that could later be used by my husband on his home hospital bed to keep him from slipping when sitting up in the bed.
This proved the perfect pad. I slept well–except the new campers kept us awake until 3. Our previous camping neighbors were a family group far larger and were fun and minded the 10 pm quiet time rules.
Per Linda (even though her whole family has Covid! Dedication!): Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “walk.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!
Walk on By
…if you find my choice of entertainment boring, disgusting, or scary. But when the Internet is iffy like the last few days we pull out my son’s collection of The Walking Dead DVDs. He has almost all of them. We are at the Season 2 Episode 3.
Well, there’s one that should have walked a little more.
Let’s take Ms. Warwick’s let’s walk on by
Wish I had a place like this to walk. But walking with a dog makes every path more fun.
I’m still slowly coming around. I’m still doing little bits of everything. What I’m learning in my old age is how even little bits get the job done. What am I on some kind of race? Just with myself. I just need to be patient.
There are a couple rows I’ve added to these watermelon socks.
I’ve added several rows on this pair. I don’t know why I favor this pair over the watermelon but I’m nearly to the arch ribbing.
While we’re watching local news I use the stationary bike while working on Duolingo. It’s interesting how the exercise my legs helps my brain.
When I move to my Dabbling Den, Chris hops on the bike. He’s working very hard lately. He went from five minutes to 30 minutes for 5 miles (like I do). We are neck to neck in this gentle race.
I’m averaging about 45 minutes playing and learning improvisation. I try to do my vocal warmups before playing so that when I’m playing something fun I can sing along. These are some of my favs right now.
And Shiloh our black cat wants to make sure I include her song. That white and blue book? The journal I’ve been keeping up for piano and voice.
From around 10:30 Shiloh and Sammie gather in my Den. Shiloh will walk on the piano keys to let me know what I’m supposed to do. I’ve begun to call her ‘Mom’ as she gets insistent about my practice time. Sammie just sleeps in a little bed under my diamond painting table.
As you can see the sunset beach is nearly finished. Just a bit of sky. All the pinks are done. On to the blues.
This made me laugh. Milo is forever jumping and dancing about. He’s always making me laugh. And when he looks at me with his serious brown eyes, I can hear Morgan Freeman’s voice
Working on my series: Haven.
Doodler (zendoodle.com)
Music major: voice and piano
Mom of four great adults
Reiki II practitioner
I have been on disability/retired for 10 years now from depression, anxiety and fibromyalgia.
Books, games, music, and life — filtered through the mind of a writer, drummer, and philosopher who thinks too deeply about all of it. If it moves something in your chest, I'm interested.
Darswords 
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