So last week my new landlady/friend said "I've done something naughty Mel. I saw something online I think you'll love so I've ordered it as a little housewarming gift".

OK, wow, and awesome, she didn't tell me what it was so I was excited about waiting for a surprise in the mail. Anyway the other day I was in town and saw these Himalayan rock salt lamps on sale so I bought her one, I love them, they are meant to deionise the air etc which we hippy-types enjoy and I bought it as a little "thank-you" gift. She loved it.

Anyway today the gift she had ordered for me arrived.

Yep, a Himalayan rock salt lamp LOL, mine is an elephant since she must have figured out I have a thing for elephants. Aside from the fact that I love it, we really are 2 peas from the same pod. Or great minds think alike

Things took some better turns for me over the weekend anyway.

Daughter spent the night at her group sleepover, she had fun and I slept really well. Saturday was hot so we went for a lazy swim in the river, it turned stormy and we went home to make our own fish n chips, being in a new house it actually felt a bit like a summer holiday. I felt happy, for the first time in ages. Daughter and our new housemate get along very, very well. The 2 of them sit in the lounge quietly reading or drawing or daughter helping her learn how to work her ipad or whatever and seem really comfortable with each other. It's nice. I work in my room, go out and join them periodically but they seem to be quite comfortable together each on their own couches, Daughter curled up with the little dog on her lap. It's nice. Landlady says she's very happy to have people in the lounge and if she wants solitude she will go to her room. On Saturday night I went out to see what daughter was up to and she'd fallen asleep, and been covered with a blanket, and I was told to let her sleep and enjoy having my bed to myself again. So I got the space I was craving so badly, it was fantastic. She's such a gem. I've been trying to be a bit of a cleaning machine, you know, making myself useful. I think she's happy about that.

Sunday was another lazy day, we all read, spent a bit of time on the beach, just what the doctor ordered. 

Oh and after the cat tore his way out of the window, of course cat lady started calling me first thing in the morning because for whatever reason he went straight to her house. (I do NOT understand why he goes there, but we suspect her yard is full of catnip as the cat behaves REALLY strangely when he is there, lol, all of the neighbourhood cats congregate in her yard, we wonder if they go there to hang out and get stoned LOL). Anyway she was actually calm and pleasant, I told her I'm not in a situation where I can keep  him locked up, she should chase him away if she doesn't like him being near her house and that if he is out I will go to her house and check for him in the evening and take him home. She accepted this, showed me where she keeps a cat-carrier in her shed in case I need to use it and informed me she is quite ill and wont be able to keep up her cat-rescuing anymore anyway and that she's glad my cat has an owner who cares for him and that she "doesn't want any more trouble". She did look very frail. Anyway will she throw another crazy tantrum in a few days? Who knows, I felt quite detached and was polite but didn't get too enthusiastic, the old me would have been full of sympathy and trying to make friends and "put the past behind us" but I didn't, I know better than that now. My radar really is repairing itself. Anyway kitty has been free to come and go from my window now for days and he hangs out in the garden outside and comes back in by himself! So that's really going surprisingly well, a big crisis that seems to  have resolved itself at last. He spent most of this afternoon sleeping in the sun in a bed of nasturtiums, it was a nice sight, he seems like a happy kitty at last.

A came by today, we were due to go and do a few final cleaning touches at the old house. Well they are requesting we dust and remove spiders (we did all that thoroughly already) and it's been 2 weeks now so of course there are more spiders and dust, it's a bit absurd. They also want the lawns re-mowed, well of course they have grown again too...so we can't just keep going back over and over whenever the house is dusty or the lawns get long for the rest of our days, BUT they could have charged us for some other things like there are some stains on the carpet that were our fault, and a few other things like he has made a mess of the garden and burnt out sections of the lawn so really an afternoons work was a fair end to the deal even if it was work we had already done. Of course he didn't see it that way and Oh Good Grief, the complaining, well you can imagine, "they"  are trying to screw us over, maybe we should do THIS as payback or THIS or THIS, oh it's so wearying, I have no patience for that sort of thinking anymore. But aside from that he was pleasant, he asked if I will consider living with him again and I said no, not ever, that I care for him and always will but I don't ever want to live under the same roof as him again. He seemed to accept it finally. I mentioned that my mother had gone away and didn't want me to go and get my things, and that I'm glad I'm not living there and he said "As much as it sucks for me, I'm glad to see you happy and away from people that pick on you, especially me, I think you should stay where you are until you are ready to find a place alone, it suits you, I know I'm a selfish ass but it really is nice to see you happy and not taking S*** from anyone anymore". So that was nice, it felt genuine, and then as I was driving him to the bus-stop he said "I wish I had some money, I'd buy some beers and we could go sit on the beach and drink them, it'd be so nice". Yes, in another universe, where he was a different person and I was a different person maybe sitting on the beach drinking a case of beer together would be nice. But probably not even then. It reminded me of a conversation we had a couple of months ago when I was telling him that I don't want to be around him when he drinks, at all, and he was almost pleading with me, "But one day we will be able to go out together to the pub or to parties and drinking together won't we?"...he misses having me as a drinking buddy I guess, maybe in his mind if we could go back to those days everything would be fine again. He seems to think eventually we will "sort things out" and then we can go back to drinking and partying and fighting and that will be great. It makes me feel sad for him, and glad for myself because it was never nice, it was a dreadful mess and I felt horribly sick most of the time when we binged together, to him those were "the good old days" I guess, to me they are an awful nightmare I can barely imagine myself even being in.

But anyway. It's not for me to try to work out what he thinks. I was actually nervous about telling him no, there's no chance we will get a house together again because i expected him to pitch a fit but I said it and he didn't have a meltdown, he accepted it and agreed with me which was unexpected. I'm getting better at saying no and meaning it, I think my "NO" used to be translated as "Yes, if you bully me and argue with me and guilt me enough, I will give in and say yes". But now I know my no means no, and other people seem to be hearing it properly too. Which means i have to consider it carefully before i say it, it's a powerful word now, if I say it I have to mean it. That must sound demented!But I never used to put a lot of thought into what i said because I didn't think anyone was listening to me anyway... now my words feel like they have power, or weight, so i need to think responsibly about them. 

Anyway, as I said, better days have come around for ME already.

And, house-mate landlady friend person and I have been discussing a lot of little business ideas (for selling at markets) and the ideas are really coming together, which is FUN and also, I think potentially lucrative. I think we would be each doing our own individual things and keeping them financially separate but motivating each other and sourcing materials etc together so really quite sensible and exactly the way I like to make money...in fun, creative ways. I'm quite excited about it.

Things are, in so many ways, coming together exactly the way I would have asked for. Balance is important, not letting the sad things overwhelm me, not getting too worked up and excited over the good things...

It's not CAL but I've been reading some about being in the moment and about how unhappiness comes from trying to create a state of "permanence" and it makes so much sense, for example my room isn't pretty, it has boys football stuff on the walls and boxes everywhere, once I would have been trying to make it into a perfect home somehow and looking for ways to make it our forever home but it doesn't need to be, this is a stopping place and there is a lot to enjoy about life right now even if we don't have a long-term home, that used to be SO important to me but I don't feel worried or desperate to get the future under control right now, once day at a time is just perfect at the moment...maybe that was the lesson I needed to learn, who knows. I just know I'm in a good place right now and tomorrow will take care of itself as long as I remember my program, keep doing the next right things and be grateful for what I have. Which is a lot, really.

Thanks for reading