Category: Home

12 January 2022 Why?

by saymber, posted in Bipolar life, Home, Mental Health, Nature, Spirituality and Religion, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging

Yesterday when I was streaming on Twitch I got to talking about there being a reason for everything. Even if at the time it doesn’t make sense. So many times seemingly senseless things have happened and the first question was “WHY?!!” Then you look at the whole picture and oftentimes you get an “aha!” moment.

When I was spending a lot of time in my backyard in Texas I learned so much from the trees, flowers and insects….from simple blades of grass and dried leaves. I can remember sitting on the bandstand we had and pointing at a blade of grass or dandelion and just thinking to God “what do you want to do with that?” Something would always happen. The wind would blow. Sometimes an insect would show up. I felt like God was showing me that every single “piece” was accounted for. There was a plan for even a humble blade of grass. This got me thinking about the entirety of existence…..countless pieces of this existence all having a purpose. The intelligence I felt of God was everywhere and in everything. I was shown battles even in the seemingly gentle plant kingdom. There would be a prickly weed gradually surrounded by the “softer” plants. Kind of like a neighborhood ganging up together against a bully! All of this going on in my little backyard. I miss my nature friends. I feel like in the moments I had there was a glimpse into the why of things.

Even those things we perceive as having no purpose do indeed have one…..I asked!

Some may say it was just a coincidence what I experienced but it happened over and over again- no coincidence. I miss those moments of feeling so plugged into God….into existence. Every place that I’ve lived I have found an outside “church.” I miss Alvarado but have faith that I’m where I am right now for a reason and a new natural place of worship will present itself. The “why” of my being here will reveal itself.

8 January 2022 Up Early

by saymber, posted in animals, Art and Poetry, Bipolar life, drawing, dreams, Health, Home, Mental Health, photography, Spirituality and Religion, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging
Sunrise this morning

Hello to you. How are you? I got up early this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. It feels like I didn’t sleep but I known I did! I can remember a dream I kept floating in and out of that had a tribal theme….David Bowie even peeped in. I am still not over this darn cold and this morning I was fretting about my Aunt. She’s scheduled to have knee surgery on the 11th and I’m nervous about it.

Link trying to figure me out this morning

This morning I talked to God and was like “We are going to need the big guns today!” There are days that are like that. Days that you know a power greater than yourself is needed. You just have to ask and be prepared for what unfolds next.

“All I ask of you is to lead me to the next door. It’s not about being rich or being poor. Don’t let me waste my time here in worry and strife. Help me Lord make the most of this life”

4 January 2022 Going Around

by saymber, posted in Art and Poetry, Bipolar life, drawing, Health, Home, Mental Health, Spirituality and Religion, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging

Hello to you. How are you? I’m on the tail end of the cold I caught. Sleep and vitamin c and some Alka-Seltzer stuff have helped me kick this thing. Found out this morning my uncle caught a cold too. They are hoping it’s just a cold. That’s what you have to hope in this age of super viruses! My cousins husband and daughter tested positive for Covid recently..starting to wonder if this shit isn’t in our water!!!!

We got some more snow overnight but it’s wet because it’s warmer. I am glad I don’t have to worry about going out in this mess until Friday. I’ve been finding out for the second winter that this town doesn’t do snow removal. For a place that experiences winter you would think it would be a priority but apparently it’s not. So the roads are slick now.

I must have been thinking about Wes. In one of his Facebook posts he said looking at one of his scans was like seeing galaxies inside his body

To you reader I hope that you are well and you have something to be grateful for even if it’s a tiny thing …..just one thing. Even if it’s just that you opened your eyes today. From experience if you ask for God to help you – they will. Vocalize – talk to God like you would talk to a good friend. The results might surprise you. Today is going to be a better day. Don’t give up!

https://twitch.tv/jwygant

1 January 2022 Cold and Colors

by saymber, posted in Art and Poetry, drawing, Home, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging
Exploring color and shapes with my markers

Hello to you and happy new year. My year is starting out with a case of the snuffles. I must have picked it up at the grocery store as that’s the only place I’ve been for the past couple of days. It’s a beautiful sunny day here but really cold – only 15 degrees! For the next few days it’s going to be bitter cold here. It’s on days like this that I miss living in the south!

Reaching out for more color

I’ve been exploring with my color markers this morning . I’ve never been real confident with color but I’d like to change that – just takes practice! Kind of like what’s been happening with my shirts. I’m exploring color and shapes. Some of what comes forth is childish and basic but that’s ok. It’s a journey I’m on. I definitely have a unique style!

Not sure what I will be doing today besides trying to get well. Thank goodness I have Link to keep me company!

30 December 2021 Snow Angels

by saymber, posted in Art and Poetry, Bipolar life, drawing, Home, Nature, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging
It’s kind of hard to see it but it’s supposed to be a snow Angel! Boy is it harder to get down and get back up !

Hello to you. How has your day been? Today for me was mostly about rearranging snow. We sure got a lot of it. I decided to play a bit and made a snow Angel lol.

Your never too old to play in the snow!

“Who is my family? Who are my friends? Who knows where the road begins….where it ends. This life makes wanderers…..explorers of us all. Starting and returning to a shape very small…curved hand in mouth to a suckling ball.”

30 December 2021 Snow

by saymber, posted in Art and Poetry, Food, Home, Leading Life by Example, Money, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging

Check out 30 December 2021 Snow https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1247967777 – just a little video to share the heavy snowfall with you!

Good morning to you from snowy Idaho! How are you? I’m doing pretty good. I decided to unbury my car and go get groceries before we get so much snow I can’t get out. I’m so grateful to the people who work at our local Ridleys grocery store. If it gets much worse I hope they’ll let them close early but after talking to one of the gals who lives here in town, she said it’s unlikely they will close. These folks are some of the unsung hero’s in our world. I pray they will all be safe getting to and from work. Anyhew I am grateful. In awhile I need to go out and rearrange some of the snow that’s fallen! It’s accumulating fast!

Last night I had a nice stream on Twitch. A couple followers visited and that’s always fun. One is from London and the other France. We just talked about random stuff. It’s nice to have company in the evening. The only thing that is kind of annoying is the delay in the chat sometimes. They enjoyed getting to see the snow!

My friend contacted me about getting together tonight and we decided to cancel. With the roads like they are and all the snowfall we decided it was just better to wait til the weather was better.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to paint another shirt yet or not. I will say it’s been fun taking some old plain tshirts and breathing new life into them with art!

26 December 2021 Feelings

by saymber, posted in Art and Poetry, Bipolar life, Food, history, Home, Leading Life by Example, Mental Health, Money, Music, Politics and Government, Social media, technology, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging

Check out 26 December 2021 Sunday chat https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1244211250

Hello it’s me again. It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m feeling lonesome so I thought I would write to you again….hope you don’t mind.

Something happened with me and my Twitch channel and I feel really bad about it. I had a rant and it wasn’t subtle and I ended up hurting the feelings of someone I love and care about very much. I felt so bad that I had to delete the video. It was not the place to express what I expressed in such a brutal manner. If you knew the person I’m referring to, you would agree. They are the last person on earth that you would want to hurt! We have cleared the air but I still feel horrible about it! Ugh!! I feel like such a shit!

The subject matter at the core of this debacle is how I feel about “stuff.” Living in this tiny home means there is little space for extra things. Anything added to the limited surface space I have can look like clutter if there is too much of it. I prefer to receive gifts that are going to be used up and gone like soaps, lotions and food things. I didn’t buy gifts for anyone this year. Instead I bought bags of food for the local food pantry in my families honor.

I am not sure if the livestream lifestyle is my friend. Part of me wonders if it’s best left to content creators like musicians, magicians and artists. The reason I started using Twitch was to try and reach out and make a connection. There have been a couple sessions where I have had communication with people like I’m looking for but it’s rare. If you aren’t playing instruments, singing, playing video games or doing some sort of something people just don’t tune in. Something tells me not to give up just yet though. I have 12 followers and that’s pretty good for a channel like mine!

I have a couple more shirts I can paint just not sure if I want to do that today. It goes so fast! Some people when they are drawing and or painting they take their time. It doesn’t go that way with me. As soon as I decide to do it, whatever comes forth is the finished product. It’s like I have this notebook I have been drawing in and it’s almost full. Then I will have to get another one and have to find a place for the one I finished. The “stuff” monster rears it’s ugly head again – even in my art! May be that’s why people use food as their area of craft. Make a beautiful cake and it gets eaten – the byproduct goes into the toilets. You don’t have to feel guilty about it ending up in a landfill.

Every something that is tangible ends up somewhere. Thankfully this blog is just digital text but it still takes up space in a server and a server is a tangible thing. I have a friend who’s job it is to manage large servers…..even digital things…words…..taking up space in our tangible world! The other thing is it doesn’t really belong to me once I publish it. I should be saving my posts on an external hard drive but I don’t after what happened to the last one.

May be all of this explains why I’m still keeping and using towels that are nearly 30 years old. I use things until they fall apart. My first husband taught me about buying high quality stuff so you don’t have to replace it so often. Unfortunately we live in a world of products designed with planned obsolescence in mind. Some of the towels I received as gifts in years past are not holding up nearly as well as the older ones.

It’s hard for me to live in a material world at times. There are tubs of stuff that I have that I don’t know if I’ll ever get the courage to go through. I had hoped the gals I hired to organize my stuff would help me cull but they didn’t. They just put it in tubs and stacked it neatly – now it’s harder to get into. I need a disinterested party that specializes in what I have going on to come in and help me cull. I mean what do you do with boxes that once held your beloved pets ashes?! What do I do with Knick knacks that I have no cabinets to display them in?! If I set stuff out it has to be dusted. I don’t want to dust! Years and years of journals and drawing books….nobody is going to want my shit when I’m gone and that’s the harsh truth of this modern world. Everything has become so cheap that things that really should matter have little to no value.

The story of stuff goes back a long ways. I can remember when my first husband and I lived in an apartment in Fliessem Germany. All our stuff fit until Helga the landlady asked us to move out so her son and his new wife could live there. We ended up moving to a place up the street but it was smaller than the place we were living. I got overwhelmed. There is a picture of me sitting where we had to stack everything and I had been crying. There just wasn’t enough room. The house in Alvarado was the first time there was enough room for everything but I still had a problem with stuff. I liked Christmas gift exchanges with my parents the best. You told them what you wanted and that’s exactly what you got. It was always good quality stuff that we were going to use.

The story of stuff really opened my eyes to what our material world is doing to us and this planet: https://youtu.be/9GorqroigqM – after seeing it and seeing what The Ocean Cleanup project is encountering out in our oceans I really started to think about how I live. Like I said earlier everything we make and use has a life of its own. You can’t get something for nothing and it’s important to be responsible consumers.

26 December 2021 Sunday

by saymber, posted in animals, Art and Poetry, Bipolar life, Health, Home, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging

Hello. How are you doing as you visit me here? I hope you are well. I’m enjoying a room full of sunshine and some coffee. It’s really quiet this morning.

Yesterday my aunt and uncle came over about 10 am so they could leave their dog Smokey with Link. It was going to be a long day and they didn’t want him to be alone that long. Then I followed them over to my cousins and his wife’s for brunch. They have a real nice home! So welcoming! The food was wonderful as always and we got to have a nice visit. There was some snow coming down but it was too warm to stick which was good! I left a little while after we ate as they were going to see The Kingsmen. I was invited but didn’t want to go. So I went home and had a couple sweet dogs to keep me company! They really had to pee lol!

There are no plans for today. I am thinking about my aunt this morning. It’s looking like she’s going to have knee surgery on the 13th of next month. She’s nervous about it and so am I but it’s getting hard for her to be as active as she’s used to being. My aunt and many of the older people in my life, like my parents, have such youthful spirits! They want to go and do things but their bodies hold them back. There is always one body part or another that fails them. I wish getting older didn’t have to include sickness, pain and loss of body function!

“Twilight of my youth within me turning, flesh and bones around me burning. I long for limber days in the sun, but the calendar pages turn and those days are done. So hush little child buried deep…..I can still carry you….go back to sleep.”

I should get off of here and take Link for a walk while I have the motivation to do it. Get some direct sunshine! I hope this finds you well!

24 December 2021 Sunshine !

by saymber, posted in Bipolar life, Home, Mental Health, Music, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging
So happy to see this glowing orb of warmth and light

Hello to you. How are you? We have sunshine this morning and I’m so grateful to see it! I’ve got coffee and my sweet boy beside me….load of laundry going. I will be honest it was hard getting up this morning. As I get older I’m starting to understand my parents better. They didn’t like to sit still too long. If you sit still too long it’s hard to get moving again! Stuff hurts!

It’s Christmas Eve and I am not sure how I feel about it. Everything feels so surreal. It’s really my second Christmas in Idaho! No matter how tight I have been holding on, time has been moving forward. There is no comfort for what I am feeling….only more time and distance from where all these wounds began. There are times I wish I could get on with life with less of the feelings but then I wouldn’t be me anymore! Ugh!!

It will be nice to have this evening with my Aunt and Uncle and go to a candle light service here in town. Then tomorrow we are having brunch at my cousins. I am blessed to have family!

I hope you are doing ok today wherever and however you are spending it. If your not ok I hope you have a support system to help you make it through!

I’m live on Twitch – Watch me at https://twitch.tv/jwygant

Good music: Check out Merry Jamzmas! | !spotify !youtube !bandcamp !twitter !merch https://www.twitch.tv/astravert

20 December 2021 Family Party

by saymber, posted in Bipolar life, Food, history, Home, Mental Health, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging

Hello to you in your where and when. How are you? I am waking up slowly! Had to blast some Heilung this morning! I’m so grateful for the speaker from my friend. It syncs up with my phone so I can pull up my You tube play list and hear my tunes!

Well yesterday was really nice. We had the family Christmas party over at my Aunt and Uncles house. There were about 20 of us!! It’s a family tradition to get together. My Uncle, who lives in California, catered the meats and some Mac-n-cheese. I got to taste the jalapeño jelly we made earlier in the year and boy does it taste good with cream cheese on ritz crackers! We had a new baby in the mix ! Baby Cove. She is my cousin Heidi’s granddaughter. Very good baby who didn’t seem to mind being passed around and loved on. There were a lot of pictures taken. It was nice to have lots of grandchildren and great grandchildren together. I left before the gift exchange….it was starting to get dark and I have to worry about turning into a pumpkin!

My Auntie and me. It’s been one year now since I moved to Idaho!

The plan for Christmas Eve is Aunt and Uncle are going to pick me up and we are going to church together. We have gone to church before but never on Christmas Eve. It’s a very symbolic thing for us to do as my Mom died on Christmas Eve back in 1968. Auntie and I have never gone to a holiday service together so it will be special! A celebration of life!

I’m still trying to figure out, after all these years, what the holidays mean to me. I don’t know where my place is if that makes sense. I had a little family and we were starting to establish our own traditions and now it’s just Link and I. He had to stay home yesterday because there were too many people. I have trouble with gifts – giving and receiving them. That’s why I have been buying the bags of food at the grocery store for the food bank. I’m surrounded again by people who like to do the gift bit and I don’t quite fit in. I get overwhelmed by “stuff.” Since I live in a tiny house, anything extra can seem like clutter and it drives me nuts! Hopefully over time my family will begin to understand me.

I’m live on Twitch – Watch me at https://twitch.tv/jwygant