Weirdness Starts The Day

It's nothing really, just a time where I feel somewhat 'weirded out.' It makes me wonder sometimes if this is part of the process of getting older. I don't feel old physically, nor do I think I am old mentally ... I've discussed that somewhere before. Yet, this feeling I've had  so far today (2.5hrs) is something I've felt only in retirement. That might happen only because I am not so busy this time of day where I use to be getting ready for work or at work ... so that's understandable.

It's not a feeling of anxiousness nor paranoia, just strangeness.

I feel warm in my clothes yet the indoor thermometer tells me I shouldn't feel warm, just comfortable. The weather forecast tells me it's going to be another great day but I don't feel that way. Maybe it's a letdown after all the energy and thinking I did the past few days changing the design of the blog. I have nothing to do here. The dishes are done, house is clean, no urge to keep reading the Steve Jobs book. No urge to grocery shop while I need fruit and salmon. I've been hungry for days but for nothing that is in my kitchen.

I couldn't help but try to put this mental puzzle together while on the walk this morning. Was I feeling regret about buying a camera when I have a good one in my hand? No. Do I need to go on a mini-roadtrip, get out of the house more than just 25 miles away? No. Is the simple lifestyle routine getting to me? No.

It may have started within seconds of opening my eyes, and taping my Garmin to see the time. Stella and Heidi were both whining as they normally do when they are awake and ready to get another day started. My Garmin's bright white background, brighter than any nightlight was showing 5:03am ... I got up anyway. I was ready to get up. I wanted to get up with a feeling that I needed to do something. There was nothing I needed to do.

While the hounds inhaled their kibble for breakfast I was making coffee like every morning when I glanced at the clock and it says 6:39am. What ??? I've only been up 10 minutes at the most and it's 6:39am ... how did that happen? So I glance at the Garmin on my wrist and sure enough, it also says it's 6:39am. I misread the time seconds after opening my eyes. It wasn't even close to 5:03am when I glanced at the Garmin.

That is not where the weirdness came from.

That feeling started somewhere during my first cup of coffee. Different day same routine. Nothing needed to get done. The 'Reminder' program Apple gave me, shows nothing is a high priority. My mind is restless. Ah ha .... restless? It's like anything else when I design a blog, drive cross country, research my next car or truck trade, or plan a camping trip (only a few years ago) ... it's the normal excitement of 'the chase' and the big mental 'letdown' after it has been accomplished.

After the blog design is decided upon and finished ... now what? After that car or truck is bought and sitting in the driveway ... now what? After driving 1,800 miles sitting in the middle of nowhere with the most beautiful countryside around ... now what?

It's always the same. So maybe that is the weirdness I feel this morning.

My dad told me soon after his retirement, that he would feel anxious every morning unless he had planned things he needed to do that day. Just knowing he needed to mow the yard (large, acres) would be enough to take away that anxious feeling. Washing the cars? That did it also. Sitting around ... made him anxious. He had to be doing something.

You'll notice the deer decided to follow our return path sometime last night or early morning. Those hoof prints are fresh, within the previous couple of hours?

Normally I would have written about these feelings on my private blog just to log as reference, this weirdness. Still, I said last month that I would going to be more open, transparent on this blog. So here it is. Not a big announcement I'm sure but it is what it is I guess. It all stems from asking myself if this type of feeling is just me or is it something I should expect as normal as I get older.

Anyone out there over 66 years of age ... do you have feelings like this at times? Spaced out? Weird? A little lost?

There is more to this, I just remembered what else ... a feeling of being lost. No plans are nice in retirement, no schedules, but maybe they really are needed in this life of leisure. I do have some plans for this spring but nothing is firm yet and they are really dependent on someone else's health if they happen or not. I can still do it solo.

I also don't mind this simple lifestyle the hounds and I lead. We have for years. I'm content, no worries, no crisis that needs a fix. We just are, day after day. (I have just thought of something I can do today, doing two things in one trip and I'll add photos and blog about it later.)

Right now I feel distracted again, as usual. I have forgotten some things I wanted to write about the 'weird feeling' I've had this morning. In fact my mind is just blank about that right now.

For the first time in years, I have not had the urge to move west. It's January and that urge usually turns into obsessive searching of real estate in Arizona or New Mexico. Not this year. Of course the weather has been fantastic, around normal averages, where we have not dipped into the 20's too many days and have never been in the single digits this year. Maybe that urge to move doesn't happen until it's 20° or lower?

As I move through this post I have realized that all I need to get rid of this feeling is to DO SOMETHING !!!!

Get out of the house, take my camera with me, go for a drive out in the country in the local area ... country is all around me ... with gravel roads, very little traffic on some highways and many paved country roads to choose from that go in all directions.

So already, before finishing this post I have multiple ideas to choose from. Those options were not even a thought a few hours ago. It reminds me of the time now, when I would feel like this in the past, I would take my Z4 out for a drive of 50-60 miles. If the weather was good the top would be down if it was like today the heater would be on.

Those kind of trips decreased to almost nothing last summer for some strange reason. The spring or summer day would be beautiful and I didn't want to drive it. That is one of the reasons I sold it. All it did was sit here month after month, not being driven.

Based on the number of times I was driving it in 2018, I wasn't going to put more than 850 miles on it for the year. The times I did drive it I was beginning to feel that car would either put me in jail or kill me. Yes, speeding was a factor. Not a few miles over the limit ... but enough where they probably would have taken the keys away once they caught me.  :) It was hard not to drive the car the way it was designed to be driven.

I didn't like the color anyway. If I ever buy another, it will be the dark gray color, is it called "slate gray?" (I hate the way that looks with the question mark inside the quotation mark)

In the 'old days' of many years ago, I would have grabbed my tent, sleeping bag and some food ... then went camping locally out in the freezing weather for a few days. That always clears the mind. Sure I could do that now with the hounds but it's not fair to them to make them stay outside in cold weather, freezing weather just because I have a bug up my ass to go camping. That will only stay as a good memory.

What animal would be this tall to have Stella so interested????

No, I think what I have planned for this morning is going to be a good idea. An enjoyable idea. I'll take off within minutes of publishing this post. I'll post photos and a short blog later this afternoon or early tonight. I have an IU basketball game to watch at 7pm, so the post will take place in the late afternoon unless I schedule it for a later time.

Speaking of blog posts ... with the plan I set for this blog almost a month ago ... there will be occasional posts that is nothing but content. There will not be any photos while I ramble on those posts. I had one the other day and a few readers let me know they liked and wanted photos. Well in the story telling or rambling posts where I have to get something on paper and out of my mind ... photos aren't going to happen in those.

I also like the way the blog looks. I was able to figure out myself how to change the code that would change the colors of the fonts, the size of the fonts, different colors for links, post titles, etc. I did find out that I was wrong about the thumbnail size on the front page. Those small photos are 400x400 and will automatically adjust the height accordingly.

I could spend most of the day trying to figure out how to make them all 400x400 no matter what size they are when I upload them. Not today ... I want to get out of the house and away from this computer. The sun is out and it's not even 10am yet. That's a good thing.

My data leak is also mysterious. I spent weeks burning over a gig per day as I spent most of the day on the computer looking through WordPress themes, changing designs plus my normal internet surfing. Yesterday after seven straight hours I had only burned 358Mb of data.

That is extremely low for what I was doing. Almost half the amount I had last week after the same amount of time. What happened? Who or what was using my data? I looked through my Activity Monitor and found nothing to be soaking up data. Automatic updates were turned off years ago.

Well I hate to end this so abruptly but I have to get out of here ... like right now.

It's another good morning here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Mind Is Interesting

It looks like I missed the bus early this morning and did not have a blog published in the early morning hours for those that are early risers. There are reasons for that which I am going to discuss in this post. Let's just say the mind can play some strange games at times. I am really glad it doesn't do it all the time, just occasionally where the brain cells are scrambled and if you didn't know better you would think you are being "defragged" like a computer hard drive.

As you see, Stella and I took off on the morning walk earlier than the normal departure. We both couldn't wait any longer and it was barely daylight, darker than that photo.

I've been getting a lot of computer time these past few days getting the blog just the way I like it. Some kind of OCD kicks in with design, fonts, photo placement etc. It was late last night, I was finished with all of that stuff finally and needed to find something to schedule to post early this morning. The thing was my brain went into overdrive and some sights were not pretty. It showed up in a flash, grabbed me and took off !!!!

I am always curious just how many people think like this late at night or in the darkness of early mornings. That's when my mind really opens up and takes me on a ride that is too long to detail here. Yet I will tell you last night it covered all range of emotions, from calmness, sadness, wonderment, anger, regret, positive, fears, and of course my analysis through the whole journey that lasted hours.

The first thoughts were deep and somewhat dark. Then, I thought how can you write any of those thoughts to be read publicly with Christmas only a week away. Of course that then led me down the path of analyzing my feelings for the holidays and how much they had changed over the years. I remembered in detail from great family Christmases growing up over 50 years ago. In detail.

Then I remembered how much they changed over the years with divorces, death, busy schedules and at times traveling. Once again the extremes showed remembering a few years fitting in 4 different Christmas meals within Christmas Eve and Christmas ... 3 of them in one day. The extreme .... having Chinese food and binge watching a stack of movies pulled from the shelf, or nothing at all ... alone.

With all the photos I have looked through the past few days rebuilding the pages at the top of Winston and Sadie, every one of those photos brought back all good memories until their last one. Should I have waited longer for Winston to see if a miracle could happen and he would recover before euthanizing him? Or did I read his signals right when he turned down food and groaned every so slightly each time he tried to move into the laying position.

Was I wrong not to leave Sadie in the field to pass naturally, not know how long it would take? Or was it best picking up a 90 pound bloodhound, then struggling to carry her to the car 80' away so we could get to a vet 12 miles away ... and hope for a miracle? Some times those two questions become unbearable to get through. I know, think positive, blah blah blah ... bullshit.

Maybe all of this analyzing the past, having all kinds of memories of hounds, family or old friends was activated by the photos of past hounds, old VW buses, and locations started this madness. I rebuilt the Favorite Photos page at the top early last night, due to bad formatting during the transfer. There are some photos you've never seen and good ones.

Or was it the movie I watched that was so good I actually forgot where I was and what day it was, let alone the time. It reminded me of divorce, other lost relationships for one reason or another. Why can't I get out of the past?

Isn't it interesting how the brain can throw out details in blinding speed, yet some mornings I forget to have my second cup of coffee? I can't seem to get out of the past no matter how hard I try, or how many books I read, or the number of friends I talk to. I mean at times it is so bad, in my opinion, I wonder if other people do it this much or do I need some medical relief?

The more I think the more I remember conversations with words that should not have been said along with those that should have been said. I remember names of co-workers from 30 years ago but can't remember the names of two out of three neighbors after they told me face to face. In fact I have no clue what their names might even be. Yet I can remember all three names of my Drill Instructors in Marines Boot Camp in February 1972. (there is a story I HAVE to blog about LOL)

During all of this mindless barnstorming, mentally I go through a whole range of emotions. From exuberant to darkness. My hounds are my best source of keeping sane. With just a nudge from Stella's nose wanting something or the wagging tail of Heidi jumping up to stand on my lap .... all returns to good. Just like that the mind disappears with all of those thoughts like they never happened. It vanishes.

With a combination of the brain road trip, and being tired, I was having a hard time not only deciding what to write but also finding anything to write about. I looked through my three posts on one subject each in my draft folder and deleted all three of them after reading them.

I opened my photo file and glanced through different folders, each named for a specific event, dog name, or 'other'. I know that Apple will do that automatically in similar ways but never as good as I have them filed and sorted. :)

Those photos also brought back a short high-speed trip through the memory highway. Sometimes I wondered "what happened to you?" By the time I glanced at a lot of folders of photos, I still did not know what to write for the early morning post I spoke of only yesterday.

I was tired. I went to bed.

No worries ... really. All is good here. I've done enough self-analysis over the years to know for sure it's not any kind of depression, weather related, or feelings about the holidays, death of parents, death of my favorite hounds, living solo, retirement, nothing financial, friends or lack of .... No, it's just how the brain operates and sometimes it gets a little weird.

I was going to lighten this photo but decided to leave it dark. It was the closest I could come to the real sky.

During those millions of thoughts I did think of blogging, along with social media, past and present. RVsue had a pretty good explanation "Excuses For Being An Inconsistent Blogger" yesterday. The word 'obligation' showed up again in my head. As a blogger I find that no matter how many times I am just "writing for me" (I'm not) I still feel the obligation not to let the readers down.

I compare it to the early days of school where you are taught at a young age that it is not good to let down your parents, teachers, or friends of your parents by not living up to THEIR expectations. The desire to 'please' is inside all of us. Some of us are ruined by those expectations. Not blogging ... in life

I knew I was heading to bed lying about having a post ready to read for you before you poured your first cup coffee. Lying?? Hard to say that because at the same time I had said in the past week that I would blog when I felt like it. So which is it?

If you don't think the mind plays games with a blogger, sign up for an account on WordPress or Blogger and build your own blog ... then watch that mind of yours start playing head games with you on that inner dashboard of yours. That tiny voice of making you feel guilty because photos are slightly blurred, or not enough of them or maybe none at all.

Otherwise why would ZippyPinHead lead off his latest blog post with "Too tired to post pics tonight" ???? Now don't go ape shit on me for pointing to his blog, it's nothing personal just an example. Besides I know that 'Zippy' is not as mentally screwed up as I am ... he's normal.

If we all blog to 'write for ourselves', then why do we not only analyze our blogs, their traffic numbers, wonder where the readers go and never come back, or even explain ourselves in a public blog for the world to see? Over time of reading a lot of other blogs those thoughts bounce out of blogger's minds and end up on their post, intentional or not.

My friend Ara is moving in a different direction on his blog since he had to put his beloved Spirit down. Just like when Winston was gone, this blog changed. My mind changed with it. It took a while to get back into the swing of things, yet the blog took a different direction with Winston gone. Just as it has with Sadie, no longer here.

Ara writes so much better than I do. He is hitting some interesting questions in his last post "So Where Do You Live. NM "and I can see by the comments made that some readers missed his point entirely .... zipped right over their heads without a clue. Maybe I am the one without a clue because just by that title I can see his state abbreviation. That content heads down a different highway of mind games. I loved that post and have read it multiple times.

I was asked the other day how a blog could be downloaded and printed out or saved to a CD for future readings. She had a great question. Something along the lines of where will her blog be 20-25 years from now when she is older, not on a computer, but wants to go back and read of her journeys and see photos of her dogs. I replied I did not know about the 20-25 years and didn't know of a way to do what she wanted with her blog.

Still I told her a pretty strange story on the future of blogs 25 years from now, IF not sooner. Virtual reality is an amazing thing ... so are those wombots.

I tried a few years ago of downloading my blog and saving it to a CD and then to a Word Document. Formatting is the problem, html code is a problem. I don't know of any way to transfer a blog just the way it looks now to a DVD to enjoy later.

Blogs are great for recording history about our lives. I can go back and see on this exact day, or close to it, one or seven years ago to confirm I had those same thoughts I started this post with. I know that one year it will snow a ton where another in the middle of December it was in the mid-50s.

I can find what my mind has forgotten, at least until IT DECIDES to send me on a high-speed road trip on the highway to craziness. A blog is like life .... a wide range of emotions. It lives and breathes or dies just like life. The only hard part is not finding just the right subject to blog about or the right photo to post .... the hardest part is how much of those thoughts do you make public. How much do readers really need to know?

It's hard to do.

Stella will get her big chance today to show me the separation anxiety almost two weeks ago was just a passing thought in her mind or a stranger at the door, maybe it was a deer looking in the window at her. I am out of a lot of food that I need, so a trip to the grocery story is planned. Big chance for her but I will revert to my Plans B&C for backup. (baby gate and tight cord between door knobs to keep her from opening the door)

They say dogs are not as smart as people but they are pretty damn smart and in some ways more than us. They have their routines and know down to the minute when they get their grain free bacon flavored (keto???) dog bones. Heidi knows exactly when I should be giving her the dental chew.

The hounds keep me in reality, keep me sane, make me laugh daily, and make me have out loud conversations. They remind me that I am okay and really normal like everyone else.

Well I have to go. I am feeling a couple of posts today though. The sunshine is too nice not to take photos and blog about it later tonight.

Maybe all of my 'mental volleyball' last night was caused by trading yesterdays' coffee with sugar to black coffee ... and liking it. I had two more cups of BLACK coffee this morning ... OR it might be that my car has not moved nor started in 12 days. It was my choice or lack thereof, it runs perfectly.

More thinking here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana ... I just felt a tap on my shoulder with that tiny voice in my head laughing its ass off !!!!  Ha Ha (I think???)