random sleep schedule...

 

so i am again awake at 3:30 am.  it just happens like that sometimes. i've worked night shift for decades at this point. before i worked full time overnight i worked part of the week overnight and part of the week like 6p-2am as a vet tech in the Emergency. 

i was always a night owl who hated waking up for school. worse was they had me in church class every day before high school.  the class was from 6:30am -7:15 i think. every day....

it is funny that Christians bitch about kids getting indoctrinated...i was constantly at one church event or another.  that is indoctrination. 

took years to deconstruct as they call it from my high demand religion.  i don't think you ever totally deconstruct.  i left pretty early compared to many and i still had a lot to deconstruct.  i always think of those who stayed in longer, went over and over to temple stuff. served missions.  had kids, indoctrinated their kids. you get so deep in it just takes so much more courage to walk away. the path out has got to be so much more stressful. maybe some of it is not as bad because people kept going but were deconstructing as they went. 

many say they are nuanced.  which i guess is a way of saying they still attend church but are more liberal on the social issues.  to me it's one and the same.  difficult to call yourself liberal on social issues while supporting a church that is so not liberal on social issues. a church with misogyny and racism and polygamy weeded into it's history and doctrine. 

raising kids in there and risking them getting indoctrinated only makes you stay longer and longer and longer. you can't see them get married, you can't see your grandkids get married.  have to stay for this and that. it's a trap.  most religions are. most never leave the religion they are raised in.  people often do not move from area they were raise.  they stay in jobs they hate, relationships that are terrible.  comfort. change is scary. 

it was one of the many things that made me realize it couldn't be the true church.  a true, one and only true, church would have wider appeal.  what sort of god/system is so exclusive that we are all sent here to fail.  that is a god of vengeance and hatred and spite.  which i guess it seems more and more is the god that the evangelicals worship. 

these are fall from matanuska.  always a favorite spot. 

there has been snow to shovel this week.  today there was snow and a driveway obstruction as the road crew came through and they left a huge berm in my driveway.  they are usually really good at not blocking your driveway but not today. so digging out was needed. those are heavy chunks of snow. a little tweak in the back as i was doing this.  so a slow moving day really. i did get the dogs out finally. 

we just hit the dog park. yesterday we did a nice loop at North Bivouac.  the Monday walk seems to be fizzling out early.  better than the covid years so some things are a bit more normal. it may never really recover.  people found other things to do on Mondays. 

my days off have come and gone too quickly. just today and then i head back on thursday again.  

watched a netflix the other day about a 16 year old that sailed solo around the world.  pretty impressive and she had some huge storms/waves to contend with.  her boat capsized once and then righted itself after a bit. pretty amazing what people are capable of.  

huge earthquake in the Turkey/Syria region.  the death toll will just keep rising as many are trapped/dead under the rubble of the many buildings that collapsed.  

years of corrupt governments, slack codes/regulations made for weak structures. it was a 7.8, with aftershocks as big as 7.1.  the aftershocks are the worst and i'm sure they are getting so many.  each time more can collapse. they are rescuing some. they call out akbar allah.  which i think is like god is great with each rescue. 

the agnostic/atheist in me always finds this part of these tragedies kind of silly.  a loving God it seems would have prevented so much loss from a quake, not saved a few lives and taken thousands. it is always odd to me how god gets credit for these rare rescues but never blamed for the thousands lost. 

i think more and more i believe less and less.  it seems more ridiculous and manipulative, this god stuff. there is more proof of a lack of a god than proof of any god that is involved. unless this god just creates then runs off to create another planet. leaving us to fend for ourselves. 

are these the things that keep me up at night.  no, not really. it's just the weird sleep schedule catches up with me some weeks and i don't really flip back. i try to sleep between like 1 am and 9-10 am. if i haven't fallen asleep by 2 am i start to think if i should take something to help me drift off. 

watched/listened to a bit of the state of the union address. it was actually pretty entertaining. Biden, at one point, played the gop members. got them to support not trashing the medicare/medicaid/social security. it was so funny to watch him destroy them.  they were heckling him.  the lunatics in that party.  they still have one guy who completely made up his whole life story. he's still there.  there are also several who requested pardons because of their involvement in the insurrection...they are still there and hold positions of power 

it's crazy.  we have more and more crazy conspiracy crack addicts in positions of power. i have no idea what is coming for our nation.  we will have to have some sort of major encounter/event before we get righted again.  for now the gop focus on one crazy thing after another and cause chaos and confusion. their followers are so limited in where they will trust information that they are easily taken down a path of total bull and swear by it.  will die swearing by it. 

some pics of Tusker sneaking in.  love the reds in these.

fall turns to winter

these are from last May. you can see that Sunny is now in the family. 

he snuggled with me on the couch for a bit tonight.  he really is a great little snuggler.  he loves to be brushed.  so we do a lot of that. 

one of them chewed through the seat belt cord. they are staying in the back seat for now anyway.  will ponder options.  would like to not have the risk of them just hopping out the back if i get rear ended.  it's all a bit of a trial and error i guess. they are jumping in the side door more easily now.  

this guy went flying past us on the trail this spring day.  beautiful.  

there are a few drop offs on this trail.  i am more anxious about things that could possibly harm the dogs. seems worse the older i get and the more experiences i have on these trails. you remember where you have seen bears or moose or just felt uneasy on the trail.

there have been times when i have scary dreams where i wake up trying to save a dog.  years of dog ownership i guess. years of experiences rumbling around in my head as i sleep. 

it's funny as well, when you are falling asleep some times you jump because you get this feeling you are falling.  i think most people get that.  i have an added twist and my arm twitches, using the chuck it to toss a tennis ball for the dogs. 

signs of life begin to emerge.  things change so quickly around here.  now we have snow all the time but the light changes.  the amount of it. i do love the drama of this place. 

never was a fan of heat.  that was just how i always was.  even here. i sleep with a fan on all year. i like to be bundled up warm but with fresh cool air blowing on me. 

the yard this summer will take ages to thaw no doubt. i will probably only have to mow in July and August. it will be a good 6+ weeks of mud. it always goes faster than you guess it will. the long days of sunlight melt the snow. 

the Blossom quilt below. it rotates with the Tusker quilt now. 

i can feel the tiredness coming over me.  no big plans for tomorrow besides walking the dogs.  may do the octopus lecture. the class schedule at REI is still empty so not sure when or if they will restart having events there again.  

my back is feeling better so the rest probably helped.  will need to tackle the rest of that berm tomorrow. being single means nobody else is going to volunteer to do the work. i should focus again on finding someone to retile the upstairs bathroom and then i can order doors after that gets done. that is the plan. 

tonight i started to stitch together some of the masks i'd collected from the pandemic.  don't need them and it seems like a therapeutic thing to do.  will make them into a little patchwork quilt for the cats i think.  not sure. don't need them. 

so another new project to add to the mix. 

well, i shall attempt sleep again here in a few minutes.

i have benadryl on board, which i rarely take. i think that is why it works when i do use it. i've heard it's a bad drug to take on any sort of regular basis. 

well, have a good day.  if the apocalypse happens before i wake, see you on the other side. like most people out there, according to most religions....we will see you in hell. the satanists, by the way are getting more work.  they are opening religious schools and suing the states that have outlawed abortions i think. the evangelicals want to ban all sorts of books and curriculum as they fear their kids will be indoctrinated.  in the end,with all the control they want over their kids, they will just end up with rebellious atheists no doubt. 

thankful for A. the big quake not happening here.  many positive thoughts headed towards those poor people and animals trapped under those buildings.  what a slow, horrible death. one photo of a man holding the hand of his dead child.  won't leave.  it's all just so awful. B. being healthy enough to be independent despite some set backs from time to time. C. the peace of snowfalling