Yesterday Was The Final Straw

Yesterday the stupid landscaper tore out my morning glories.

I was (am) devastated on a level I can't put into words.

Since it happened, I can't go out the front door because I can't see the areas where they aren't anymore.  I'm going to have to use the garage door on the other side of the house to avoid the area of carnage where the decimation happened.

Today it feels like I'm...mourning? A feeling of profound sadness. Does that sound dramatic? Extreme? Ridiculous?

Maybe so.  But it was me who planted them last year and this year it felt like they came back for me.

Because they knew I loved them.  My babies.

And they got ripped out by idiots who call themselves landscapers but don't know the difference between a weed and a flower vine and it feels so...violent.

After a literal lifetime of being traumatized, I seriously don't need one more thing to traumatize me.

The kicker?  I didn't want the landscapers to come but I didn't put up enough of a fight.

And look what happened.

So I melted down last night and finally said I have had enough.

I do not want to live in a house that requires the services of a landscaper.

I do not want to live in a house where the lawn company comes regularly to fertilize.

I do not want to live in a house with a sophisticated, complicated irrigation system.

For years I have given in to things that I never, ever wanted and boy oh boy has it cost me.

I don't want a McMansion life.

I don't want to be defined by - God forbid - the quality of my lawn.

I am not this shallow, this one-dimensional.  I've just been playing the part for too long.

Well now it's time to put the brakes on that.

To get real again, to return to my roots (no pun intended).

I live on a cul-de-sac, for God's sake.  I have the dream suburban life only it's actually a nightmare.

I love this house but I hate where it is, I hate the upkeep of a fancy property that no one is ever outside enjoying anyway.  In a neighborhood where everyone keeps to themselves.  What is the point of all this?

I want simple again.  

I want to grow my morning glories and live in a house on a humble property where no one will ever touch them except me.

And you can mark my words that I will make sure that happens.  I owe it to myself. 

I have to be in control of my own happiness again.

Life With Reverse-SAD + Bach Remedies

A wonderfully cloudy day yesterday with rain and non-severe storms last night.

I was calm, happy - felt that heavy, burdensome weight of summer lift off of me. Stood at the front door for a long time just watching the heavy rain fall.

Woke up to bright sunshine and 0% chance of clouds or rain today and my mood has plummeted.

The weight is back.

This is ife with Reverse (Summer) Seasonal Affective Disorder (R-SAD).

bleh.

There's not a lot of options for me (personally) to deal with having R-SAD.  I do not take medications (such as anti-depressants) because 

1. I hate medications, and

2. Nearly all medications cause abnormal side effects for me, above and beyond what the medication's side effects pamphlets might indicate. I am just not cut out for pharmaceuticals*.  Not that long ago I sprung $$ for genetic testing to see what meds might and might not work for me and some that were on the list as good meds were the ones that had caused tremendous problems for me in the past.  C'est la vie, right?

I have always been very interested in holistic options for well-being and one, in particular, has served me through the many traumas I've been dealt:  Bach Rescue Remedy, a combination of flower essences that calm the mind, body and spirit naturally and safely.

If you are unfamiliar with the Bach line of flower essence products, you can read about them here.

There are individual Bach remedies that address many different issues someone might be dealing with - here is a quick reference guide to the 38 remedies and the particular characteristic or emotional state they can help:  Bach Remedy Quick Reference Guide

Additionally, Rose Todd, a Bach Remedy expert, has an amazingly helpful website and she's very responsive to messages and questions you might have.  She wrote a post for people like me who suffer with summer:  Too Hot To Handle

*I used to be okay with medications of any kind but that all changed when I suffered a double pneumothorax (lung collapse) in 2009. My brain was likely affected (hypoxia) as a result of going days with reduced oxygen (left lung was 100% collapsed, right lung was 75+% collapsed.  I had about two hours left to live by the time I got to the hospital.)  

Smell Loss Can Be As Devastating As Parkinson's and Stroke

It's been 17 years of complete smell loss and only tasting sweet/salty/bitter/sour/umami (I can no longer taste flavors).

But that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to smell loss (anosmia). Most don't realize the far-reaching effects of not being able to smell or taste the world you live in.

This article explain why it is, in fact, devastating. Every single day.

Smell Loss Can Be As Devastating As Parkinson's and Stroke (by University of East Anglia)

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-loss-devastating-parkinson.html

                                                   this would smell like nothing to me

image via Unsplash

Making Videos

For quite a long time now, I have been making videos of various things - mostly revolving around my photo art.

Along the way I have found that I absolutely love every thing involved with putting together a video.  I'm already in love with my cameras so it's a thrill the use them to record some interesting, fun, or even mundane thing - doesn't matter, I just like filming stuff.

Then there's the video software, which keeps my brain energized and entertained as I learn my way around how to put together a video.  I'm quite sure, by the way, that I will never 'master' the software - there's just too much to know, but that's okay because I don't think I like anything more than I like teaching myself things.  I've been self-taught my whole life - it's my life force.

Of course once you put together a video you have to do something with it and that's where YouTube comes in.  This is actually the most tricky part of the whole process.  Tricky, to me, because - and this might be scandolous to some - I kind of really don't care about likes and subscribers, etc.

via GIPHY

For me, no, it isn't the goal.
Don't get me wrong - it's not that I don't want likes and subscribers, it's that I can't get wrapped up in how many I have.  I did that over the years with Facebook and Instagram for my artwork pages when I was really active making photo art and it was a distraction that took away from making the actual art.  I got in my own head about "I only got  X number of likes"...that kind of thing.  

Now it's like, Hello World, here is the thing I created...and that's it.
I'm making the thing because I love making the thing.  Worrying about the stats - how many, how much, can I get monetized, etc - would just be another of the things I would consider to be the antithesis to my creativity. 

The videos I've made and will be making are far from perfect and I have a very long way to go before I actually can say I remotely know what I'm doing, but who cares?  I'm just over here looking forward to and having a great time making videos about whatever I want...and that is the only thing that really ever matters.

 

(this is not actually me)

My most recent video:

 

My YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/@wistfulgypsy

 

Turns Out You Can't Take The Girl Out Of New Jersey Afterall

Have you ever found yourself in a really nice neighborhood with really nice houses and as you look around you ask yourself sardonically, yes, but are they actually completely happy?

I've been here in lower Delaware for just over two years now and I live in a really nice cul-de-sac neighborhood and I have a house and property that I never imagined I would ever have and if you ride by my house and ask the above question -yes, but are they actually completely happy? - the answer I would give would be a resounding...

Now, my admission of being not thoroughly happy will bring great joy to my detractors and those who otherwise wish me ill will or who may or may not have had a curse cast upon me.  Nothing I can do about that except hope that they find a way to not mess with their karma by wishing bad things for another human.  Also, if anyone knows of a qualified curse-removing gypsy-type I'd appreciate the referral.

Anyway, it seems to me that admitting one's unhappiness would be an excellent first step in turning that around.  

So here we are.

***

In the past I have written and spoken about not being able to bloom where I am planted.  This has been a theme in my life since I moved away from the New Jersey shore which is one of the only places that has ever felt like home to me.  I was born and raised in Elizabeth, NJ, which is another of the places that still feel like home.  Since then I have lived in many different places but it's those two places that will always be home to me. 

The big common denominator is that the places I've been the happiest are in New Jersey.

New Jersey, land that I love.

I have a level of homesickness for New Jersey that I never anticipated. As a current Delaware resident I am a square peg in a round hole.

Delaware has its good points but New Jersey it is not.  Delaware natives in the two lower counties*, most of whom would like it very much if we transplants returned to where we came from anyway, detest when we say that.  (They also, oddly, get really mad if you say you moved here because of the lower property taxes, which are one of the aforementioned good points about Delaware, by the way.) 
I'm not going to turn this into a list of what Delaware lacks vs. New Jersey but I will say that if you come from a place (cough cough New Jersey cough) where culture and variety and vibrance and activities play a big role, then maybe don't move to lower Delaware.  If you are longing for a quiet country life, don't care if there's nothing to do after 7pm, love the idea of lower property tax and no sales tax, then pack up and move to Delaware.  Just know that some of the natives down here won't be very happy about your arrival.  Do not expect the Welcome Wagon to roll down the street and stop at your door.
Maybe you'll get lucky - I've heard of a few people who have moved into warm and inviting neighborhoods, but that has not been my experience or that of countless others.

***

But back to my unhappiness...

Throwback Thursday: Road To Nowhere

Creative people are often asked about their inspiration or their muse or whatever it is that kicks their imagination and motivation into high gear. Some have really complicated rituals while others turn to music to put them into their prolific state of mind. There are even a few people that recommend sticking to a routine which I do not get at all since I see routine as the antithesis to creativity.

As an artist who uses photographs as the basis of my artwork, when I need to get my blood flowing I get in the car with my cameras and sometimes a person or two that I love and my dogs and I hit the road. Drives to nowhere are always the goal, and always on country back roads. Nothing soothes my soul and clears my head more than indulging the wanderlust and need for simplicity that is imbedded in my personal genetic makeup. Farms and barns, cows and horses, corn fields, roadside stands, and a sky full of puffy white clouds. There is not much that can be better than all of that. My artwork revolves mostly around these kinds of bucolic scenes although I do add a whimsical twist to them in order to really get people’s attention. We are all so inundated visually and otherwise nowadays that sometimes you have to go left of center to make people see.

When I am out on one of my drives I have to pull over countless times to let someone pass so that they no longer tailgate me. They ride up on me not because I am going too slow but because they are going too fast. Although I am maintaining the speed limit, I am in the way of them racing at breakneck speed to get to where they are going in record time.
I am in the way of them racing to speed through their life, seemingly oblivious to the risks they are taking, the most important being the risk of missing out on the very quality of their own lives.
I want people to slow down. That is one of the reasons why I enhance my landscape artwork so that it has a manipulated, wonky element to it. It makes people pause; they linger long enough to really see what they are looking at.
I want them to pay attention to the beauty that is everywhere that they are not seeing as they lose their senses of wonder and awe to the myriad of distractions that everyone is consumed with and buried under nowadays.
I cannot imagine that it is worth any of these risks, particularly the risk of not seeing all there is to see every single day of our lives. Remember staring at clouds until they turned into recognizable shapes? When is the last time you did that?

These days everyone is preoccupied as they rush from one place to another. They are talking, texting, checking in, status updating, tweeting, Instagramming, picking up, dropping off, shopping, etc. All of that distraction is coming at a very high cost and that cost has nothing to do with the ridiculous amounts of money spent on gadgetry. I read recently that mobile data revenues in the U.S. market were $90 billion for 2013. That is a whole lot of distraction.

When is the last time you got in the car to go for a drive to nowhere? How about taking a walk in the countryside just to listen to how quiet it is there? Do your kids know how great it is to dip their toes into a stream or to laugh while watching the antics of a bunch of farm animals?

Le petit bonheur is a French term that translates to the small happiness. It means to take pleasure in and appreciate the little things. It means that if you see a lady with a camera pulled off to the side of the road, instead of speeding past her, think about slowing down to see what she is taking pictures of.

You might wind up being very pleasantly surprised.

Sharon O’Brien Huey
June 2014

May Calendar

Latibulate

A Small Catch-Up

Refreshingly spring-like outside the past few days.  

Wonderful breathable degrees.  

Oh, how I am dreading the encroaching summertime!  

This week there will be a couple of days near 90°. 

It's way too soon for that kind of heat - April should not be that hot.  
And there's absolutely no rain forecast in the forseeable future.  Where are the April showers?

I hope it isn't a preview of an extreme heat summertime.
With impending long heat- and sun-filled days, my mood is likely going to plummet.

Because of the nightmare stressful winter we had, I forgot all about needing to have my hair trimmed (as you can see from the left picture below).

Confession: I haven't had a professional haircut in years.  

I used to go to someone for many years and she knew not to ever take off too much or I would beat her up.

She seriously knew that one inch meant one actual inch, not how many hair stylists think one inch equals four inches ("but your hair needed that much off!").  

I trusted my girl completely which was rare and wonderful. Sadly, she got sick and retired and that was that for me and haircuts.  I have very long, one length hair so, in truth, there's no real need for "real" haircuts at a salon.  
Instead I go outside to the deck or, as I did yesterday, to the garage (because it was windy out which makes cutting long hair very difficult when one is outside).
There, my very talented husband trims my hair to perfection.

Here's the proof (don't judge the left pic; it's been a traumatic few months):

We've been talking about taking quick trips here and there. I'm a serious homebody but I'm aware that I have to step out of my comfort zone + I miss going new places.
But there are a couple of problems (of course).

For one, hotels skeeve me. Massive phobia of bedbugs and other bugs. Sleeping in beds that countless others have slept in.  You get the drift.
I am, however, aware that zillions of other people stay in hotels and so I'm mentally working on getting over my fears and ick.
The second problem is the bigger hurdle to a life filled with adventures that require a hotel stay:

we would have to take Luna with us because we don't have anyone to watch her currently and we don't board her or trust her with strangers like dog sitters. 

 
Traveling with her is really not a big deal, although it would hinder activities like being able to dine in restaurants, swim in pools, shop together in stores. 
Traveling with Luna means that we would need to secure a pet friendly hotel which isn't a real problem because there are many pet friendly hotels (even though they charge crazy pet fees).  

The giant problem - or conundrum - is that I am allergic to dogs that are not deemed hypoallergenic*. 
The last time we booked a pet friendly hotel was a few months back. Kevin had just had his car accident, Sherb was home alone and dealing with him being in ICU, and a massive snowstorm was about to hit.  We didn't want her to be alone with all of that going on so we booked a hotel room near her apartment in NJ.  Within 15 minutes of being in the room I started to not be able to breathe very well, my eyes went crazy with tearing and that sandpaper feeling, and my voice went completely raspy.  It was obvious that I couldn't stay there so I wound up on Sherb's couch and JP wound up staying in the hotel.  
You can see the problem here.  We have to book pet-friendly hotel rooms because we're traveling with a dog but I will run the risk of having an allergic/asthmatic reaction to the room and not being able to stay in it.  

I guess we'll just stick with day trips.

*I am aware that no dog is truly hypoallergenic and that dogs with that label are just less likely to cause problems for allergy sufferers. You do not have to come at me to tell me this.

Makes No Scents

Earlier today I spent some time shopping online for a particular expensive fragrant candle that used to be a favorite of mine.  I had forgotten all about this brand and when I remembered it I jumped online to look for it.

Shopping for expensive candles this morning was kind of an odd behavior that I really can't explain considering that I lost my sense of smell (anosmia) in 2009 and can't smell a single thing.  It's almost like I forget that I can't smell...and it's always quite the shock to the system when the realization hits that I will never smell anything ever again.

Seventeen years later and it seems that I still haven't accepted that.

Needless to say, I didn't buy any of the expensive candles this morning.  I exited the candle website and then cried a little bit in that weird grief way that happens whenever I remember I can't smell anything anymore.  Which happens frequently.  Like, every single day.

I'll still buy candles, though, because I love them...but I'll have to stick with buying the cheap ones or the ones that are on clearance.  😐

Loss of smell has changed my life in more ways that I can express; it's kind of like going from a full color life to one that is black and white.

Please do not take your ability to smell for granted.

What My March 2026 Looked Like

I'm Not Sure What Happened But Here We Are

The last time I wrote anything of substance here (or elsewhere) was November.

Truth is that November was the last time I did much of anything that involved creativity.

I think I went into a seasonal depression of the winter kind once October ended even though my seasonal depression is diagnosed as the summer kind.  Strange for me as I usually enjoy winter but this one was brutal in more ways than one. Bitter cold with none of those sporadic mild days that give a reprieve - just the kind of relentless cold that settles into your bones and stays there.

And then the most terrible thing: my daughter's fiancé got into a horrible car accident in January that left him broken up, in ICU, several surgeries and an extended stay in the physical rehabilitation facility that he's still in which has been a very extended endurance test for him as he heals. All the while watching Sherb maneuver his doctors, insurance, and every other thing that got thrown at her was heart-wrenching. Life as they knew it might not return in the way they were used to but they're getting through it.

As for me, it's hard to go off and be whimsical and creative with the level of stress that came with all that going on.  But we've rounded the corner, healing is happening, and it's time to exhale and get back to living. 

One of my greatest passions involves anything having to do with a camera - picture and video taking.
Taking photos of old houses and barns was, afterall, the basis of my photo art for Land O' Make Believe.
I also love making videos and back in the day when I was really active with my photo art business, I