This week's basement report, etc.

It’s been an uneventful weekend for the most part—and that’s not unwelcome! I slept a little more deeply, a little later, and felt some uncustomary low energy in between sleeps. Today, after spending some time on the basement clearing project, I flopped on the daybed with the dachsies and watched This Old House. It felt so wonderful not to be fighting it—to be relishing the moment instead of making myself feel guilty about vegging out when there is so much to do around here.

I have a pattern of doing that—needing to rest, but once doing it, feeling bad for not being in motion. So it is especially delicious when I can escape that. I hope this signals a trend of being kinder to myself, and wiser, too! The irony is that when you spend your R&R time whipping yourself for not accomplishing something, you don’t even achieve R&R—you’re just as busy as you would be if you were up and about doing something, only the busy-ness accomplishes nothing of value. No deep rest there and certainly nothing to show for all the work you put in being unsympathetic to yourself. So silly! At any rate, today I did not worry for a moment about all the stuff I “should” be doing, and just savored the feeling of snuggling up with my soft chenille throw with two pups to warm my legs.

Last night, two of the four girls came over, and that was fun—uncharacteristically, however, they were both in bed asleep by 10:30, so I had late night by myself as usual. Rick helped #2 daughter with her college search this morning and that was interesting. She has no idea what she wants to be when she grows up, very little idea of what college she’d like to go to, but is clear that she wants to focus on math and science, and be near the mountains. She’s big into rock climbing. And she’s very smart with excellent grades and can pretty much get in anywhere. So the world’s wide open for her. I’m wishing she’d go to the East Coast to broaden her horizons, and that does seem to hold some appeal for her, but going to the West Coast would also broaden her horizons. I just have an East-Coast prejudice since that’s where I grew up! Of course, most of all, I want her to go where her instincts guide her to. I’m just happy she has so many options—even if she’s a little overwhelmed by them all at the moment!

While I only got a little bit done in the basement, I went down there with the idea of only getting a little done, so that was just fine. No need to make it something to dread. I cleared out an old box that had some cool things in it, long forgotten, that had sat in water when the basement drain from the kitchen sink backed up and flooded the basement. In it were some small crystals and minerals and trinkets that could be washed, and a filmy silk prayer shawl from Tibet that could not. I had to release it since it had sat in the yucky water, smelled a little off, and wouldn’t have held up to the kind of washing it would have needed to get it clean. I asked for the prayer energy to leave it and shower me with blessing, and then I discarded it. I wasn’t too happy about having to do that, but I was assured internally that if any high frequency energy was left in it, it would be a blessing in the landfill, which surely could use it!