Raige Creations

Wow I haven't blogged since December. Sorry folks. I am still getting used to the whirlwind that work is. It is non-stop from the moment I walk in until I force myself to leave as close to 5pm as I can. Yes, it is difficult to get out of there at 5, after skipping lunch and working straight through. It is so busy, so many different things happening, so exhausting. After December, which was full of vacation days and holidays, I have had to adjust to full work weeks with full staff in office. Mostly this adjustment has been dozing off shortly after dinner, if we actually have dinner..... Yes, some nights we don't have dinner. Just snack. I had carrots and dip one night for dinner. I found we had lots of carrots and hardly ever ate them, so carrots and dip for dinner. Which is a nice lead in to the state of our refrigerator. Let me just say we could not take the smell any longer. Finding the smell was the tough part. Long story short, a full cleaning of the fridge was necessary. T...

  Thanks Pinterest We now have got three walks in over the past five days. We took a long break, but hopefully this is the start of a regular thing. And today, I realized how much I missed it. Every time we get back to walking, we wonder why we stopped. It is really such a simple thing, going for a walk in Nature. Why do we find so many excuses not to do it?  Even they days you get rained on are wonderful - the other day, in fact, we were soaked. Even the grey and cloudy days are beautiful.  Even a grey day is beautiful I knew things were starting to feel better when I wanted to take a picture. Sure, that is not the best photo. It was cloudy, it was the 'wrong' time of day, it was a rough and not brilliant sea. We hadn't seen much that was particularly interesting. But still, the waves look cool, the breeze was refreshing, and the grey is a bit soothing. I realized I wasn't feeling nature, until then. Figuring I may as well take as shot, seeing it through the lens (so t...

Sometimes, when so much pain and sadness and frustration is dumped on us, we withdraw. We just can't take it all at once. So we step back, and go to our little safe spaces. We avoid what is causing us pain, sadness, frustration. We stay far away, slowly letting little bits in as we feel we can handle it. Source Me? My little safe space has me lost on bee butts. Totally. On Pinterest , once you start looking at them, they appear in your feed like reproducing bunnies. They are everywhere. And they are so cute. I am not just guessing that withdrawing is a normal reaction, I just know it is. I don't have any fancy study to prove it. My statement is developed from complete personal and anecdotal evidence. I feel it, I see it, I hear people telling me what they feel, or see how they cope. Also, it is all over the internet, especially since this COVID-19 pandemic urged us all to stay home, or we could get sick and die, or someone you know could. And then one violent natur...

I shouldn't feel lazy, right? I shouldn't give myself a hard time for my unproductive behavior. I keep telling myself this, but we are our own worst critics, aren't we? We all are going through strange times. Our lives have abruptly changed. There is stress, worry, anxiety, and rules. Harsh rules. I am not allowed out and about from 7pm to 5am every day. Only from 5 am to 7 pm can we venture out. And even then there are further restrictions. Sundays I am not allowed to leave my yard at all. I am allowed to leave my house to exercise for 90 minutes daily during the hours mentioned above - except Sundays. I am allowed to go to the grocery store, gas station, or liquor store { yes they are essential apparently } only on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays. They split the alphabet and the first half can go those days, the 2nd half can go the other day, you have to show your ID to get in the store. I will be arrested or fined if I break any of these rules. I am working...

I was in the kitchen the other day, cooking something I can't remember, when I noticed this little guy spying on me. Who can it be, knocking at my window? Like he was trying to figure out a way to get in, he stayed there for quite a while. As often happens, 80's songs pop in my head in certain situations, and this was no exception . Now, I like lizards. It wasn't that I didn't want him to come in really, it was just that he was there, peeking in at me rather suspiciously. Almost creepy..... I feed the lizards out back, but the ones out front are not as friendly. They run off quckly and do not let us get very close. But I do enjoy seeing them just the same. However, I can't say we say the same thing about human visitors. In fact, hubby hates having visitors. Several times last week he uttered;  "I just want to be left the *&$% alone!"   (edited to not expose you to his use of colorful language that he uses quite regularly). He does no...

This song is included on one of my playlists for my run/walks - or Wogging (a term I just heard this past weekend at a 5k that I signed up to run, but ended up doing the walk with a jog in the middle mile. I love that term!) My oldest son made me a playlist just for Wogging , in his smart-assy way included songs with the words walk or run in them, but this one actually has a great beat for walking. The song also reminds me that taking a walk, run, or exercising in any way, really does wonders. It makes you exert energy, which lowers stress. It takes your mind off all those stressful things that have been bothering you - or else it helps you work through issues that you have been struggling with.  If you are oustide exercising, it helps to remind you how awesome nature is - either the views, the rain, the hot, the cold, the earth and plants - awesome in positive and negative ways, all keeping you humble to its power.  After you are done with your walk, run, Wogging, ...

I commented to hubby this morning, "there is nothing better than having coffee with you, out here, on a Sunday morning". "Bee Happy" photo courtesy of Raige Creations. I totally felt that, right then, in the moment. I was truly enjoying my slightly sweetened and slightly creamy coffee, after a very good 3.1 mile run (I went past our place to get over the 3 mile mark....yes I was that runner today), and just relishing the moment (even tho hubby was trying to talk politics....my least favorite subject). I feel I should add - this was all before 8am! I just realized at that moment, I was thankful for the slow Sunday we were enjoying. You might say, "SLOW? you call getting up before 6am and running 3 miles slow?" And to that I say, "YES!!" I could get out of bed at my leisure, not because I HAD to at that moment. I got to go for that run, and witness a most beautiful sunrise, and watch an older gentleman line-fishing off shore in the fo...

source: Thoughts of Raige Some days, the days when I wake up less than chipper, when I haven't yet found my positive thinking and hope or a good day, I am thankful for the views from my kitchen. Out past the tree line, there is a mountain I can see most days. There are lots of trees and nature is evident all around us. It almost feels like we are out in the country, away from noise and developments and crowding.  But in reality, a main road is on the other side of the house, we can hear traffic. We are down the street from several housing developments, and we hear dogs barking day and night. Our closest neighbor is pretty close actually.  We are within walking distance to Main St, a small village street with restaurants and shops and even a local mechanic's garage.  Though we still have plans for our dream house, our perfect place, the means to do only what we love, this is good enough for now. For this is all we can do right now. We can only dream of a better...

As we sat comfortably in our living room on Wednesday night, watching Cloud Atlas (which I have been wanting to see for some time), we had a criminal in our garage. Hubby went out for a smoke, came back in and asked why the garbage can was between the cars, with the lid off. Huh? I said "I put a bag in it earlier today, with the lid on, and certainly not between the cars!" He said the dog was sniffing by the door just as he was going out, so we assumed that he just missed the culprit. Tracks showed that it could very well be a bear.  Fairly Large Footprints photo: Thoughts of Raige This morning, we investigated further.  We followed a trail of egg shells,  Egg Shells in the Driveway photo:  Thoughts of Raige onion tops and napkins,  Onion and Egg Shells photo:  Thoughts of Raige More onion photo:  Thoughts of Raige and the tissue box right in the middle of the driveway. Tissue Box The criminal went off to the left, near...

This great reminder helped me get out of bed yesterday. A wonderful quote from my hubby, knowing I was grumpy and overwhelmed with life, as has been the Modus Operandi these days.  I was having a difficult time finding the motivation to get up and start yet another day of stress, worry, uncertainty, and  chores. Who wants to get out of bed for that? But he wisely reminded me we have a goal, we have something to look forward to. And we are one day closer to getting there. Some days, he knows just the right thing to say.

One benefit of a new walking path. It has been a long several months without my walking or running. I got bogged down with stress, and found getting out to do my morning runs, or even just walks, to be completely stressful. That isn't what they started out as, and not at all what they should be, so I stopped. Completely stopped. Running and walking was stressing me out, the totally wrong way to go about it, so I stopped. I knew that doing things that were causing more stress, rather than helping, meant it was time for a change.  It makes sense and seems logical, but in reality it is quite difficult to make such a sudden change when it is something that started off so good, so right, and then over time turns into not so good, and so not right. It happens slowly, yet the change we need must happen immediately. Another benefit of the new path. After some time off, and still feeling the stresses of the rest of my life, I decided one day, after a days work, to go out in th...

It is not for everyone....watching the sunset. It is bit cliche, romantic types revel in the ease of this tool. It is boring to some, not worth the effort to get to a great vantage point.   And normally, it is not on my list of 'must-do's. (I have seen more than my fair share of beautiful sunsets when we lived in the Caribbean, yes with my love too.) But when my daughter's friend was visiting us from our old hometown, after days and days of rain and not being able to do too much, and worried she wouldn't get to enjoy the nature and beauty of the area (an important part of being here in my humble opinion) , we decided to head up to Craggy Gardens to catch the sunset. We couldn't convince the boys to join us. I was doing it for the girls, and hoping to get a little enjoyment for myself. That is my attitude going into it. But once we were there, something happened. I could not avoid the feeling once there that I was so incredibly lucky to have this in my ba...