There is nothing like a dog that want's it's tummy tickled, and wants to play to start a good day! She plays and rolls over until I go and tickle the tummy, then she lies there on her back like peanut, with her rat fangs in a smile where her top lip drops back. I like to think it's a smile. In fact she purrs like a cat as well, so I sometimes imagine she has some cat in her too. Ferel cat!
The thing is with manic depression, something truly kicks off a 'low' or 'high'. It's normal to swing from feeling dreadful to mildly elated when you are stable. When you are used to dealing with it, (and take a medication that really does suit you), it is possible to live in a fairly good zone for long periods of time.
Good health management, regular sleeping routine, not too much alcohol, not too many other stimulants and definitely don't take any drugs other than something prescribed. The key is to know your limits. I sometimes find I have poured myself a glass of wine, and I simply don't want it. Provided I haven't touched it I just tip it back in the bottle! (too mean to throw it away, I can always use it for cooking). Well the smoking is another matter.... and I am not going to beat myself up over it. It works for me. The Depacote I take stands more chance of wrecking my liver first!
I can't take responsibility for the work other people do, only the work of my own hands.
It's a nice sunny day. I can go and dig some more topsoil out of my veg patch that I am trying to restore. We have had a lot of rain the last two days, so the garden has brightened up. I worked out with some help in a previous post how to pollinate my Butternut Squash plants, and It will be interesting to see if it works.
The cucumbers I have in that area have the same problem, so I decided to try the same method with them. It's a bit more fiddly, so to make it easier I use a pair of pointy end tweezers to hold the tiny little male pollen part of the flower.
I can't see the point of growing all these plants from seed, nurturing them, watering them, making sure they don't have bugs, seeing them all come into fabulous flowers, and then.... nothing! The female flowers are evidently not getting pollinated. I do have a couple of Borage plants close to these big squash plants, but the bees just don't seem to come.
I do have fabulous cucumbers in my greenhouse and the tomatoes are ripening, must take some photos... Now on my 'Mad Gardening Blog', actually my watering system is a good way to deal with the financial money system too.
I don't have many clothes that fit, I have lost two dress sizes since the builders have been on this project, so I need to decide what I can alter, what to give to the charity shop, and get ready to design and make my winter wardrobe! I want to feel nice in what I wear, not as though I am a child waiting to grow into hand me downs. Anyway I make great clothes, and I like the finishing part, so they look like couture.
I fancy having a go at making hats and gloves as well one day.... Actually, I will make some hats and gloves for myself for winter, nice project. I was thinking about those lovely milliners creations with al the fancy friff on them. I fancy a friffy hat. I have a great hat I bought in a market in Norway. It's the Arctic Racoon fur Arctic hat, but mine has a peak, so the fur doesn't end up in my eyes, and it looks more stylish. It costalot, but I am so delighted with it, and when it gets cold again am really looking forward to wearing it.
I want to make some new clothes for my Husband's Aunty, she is 93 and just over 4 foot!, she has some serious fitting problems. I tried to buy an adjustable dressmakers dummy at the auction last week, it was all broken but I thought I could mend it. It would have been ideal for working on for her. Anyway my final bid was £65, and I pulled out. As the bids were going up in £5, this would mean I had to be prepared to pay £75 plus the £3 auction fee, and when you are buying at auction you have to decide how much you are prepared to go to. I was not prepared to pay more than £70 for a broken Dummy!
I have got lot's of problems loading this blog!
Anyway It occured to me, (with my algorithmic brain), that if the price of oil/gas was actually set at £70 per barrel for the next 5 years, it would sort out everybody's problems very quickly. If the system actually works and stabilises everything, then it is truly worth using that stability to create a long term solution. I have to take my medicine, the world can take theirs to get better!
I realise that i think it's the Saudis, who want at least £75 per barrel to keep their economy floating, but we all have to make some cutbacks. If they truly wanted to be part of a global initiative to get everyone back into solvency, and help, they could scale down their investment into arms and weaponry!
As a planet we must conserve our natural planetary resources, so this is just a short term solution. If power production can be decentralised, and local power made locally for each group of people, using anaerobic fuel and power generation, and turn this whole neglected badly conceived free market economy around to make it something we are proud of as humanity, I think we would have something to polish our nails over. I like the idea of more fertilizer for everybody, we all need some new topsoil!
So I guess if Governments don't want to set the price of oil, it's up to buyers! How about no one is prepared to buy oil at more than £70 a barrel including the buyers fees! Then everybody will want to start investing in alternative solutions to make some money!
And if no-one is prepared to sell oil at less than £68 per barrel that should fix us up nicely. Eh.. how much do the stock markets get for commission? If it's too much, then set the buying and selling price, and let them accept that all they are going to get is the difference! No problem having .01% of the sale! Let them eat cake! That will reduce the tax burden on the end user as well, as described in a previous post. I would like to see a fair tax set on oil as well for the next 5 years.
Decentralising power production is the answer I am sure. If each home can generate more power than it uses, and 'sell' it back to the grid, on an arbitrated bill, there would still be enough power for the grid. Besides I am sure that Hydrogen fuel cell must be nearly ready! So long as I can retro-fit my Mazda MX5, I will be happy to save up for one! Then I can plug it into the mains when I am not using it, and 'feed the grid'!
I hope this lot loads, alI keep getting is my internet connection dropping, and an OOOPS! from Weebly. Up and running again...
Back to my Mazda MX5! I truly like the idea of having it running on a Hydrogen fuel cell, however it must have all the current sound effects of a petrol engine, my engine is so sweet. And it would need a govenor on it. I don't want it taking off and going into orbit! Fully manual, no 'extras', too many car crashes now you can't put your car into a skid to get out of the sh.t.
I don't want it to perform any differently than it does now... perfectly! To think she is over 21 years old, and has the heart of Secretariat. Thankyou Japanese Car makers, you do a wonderful job, and I love my Mazda, she is beautiful. I decided to call her 'Speedwell', on her 21st Birthday.
I am not into naming things but she deserved a name. She is the Mazda Blue, which is such a perfect colour. One day I will be able to get her re-laquered. She sits outside all the time, and has no rust either.
Well I am off to the garden! Sort your own problems out, I have enough of my own right now!
It has got a bit hot out there, but the job is coming on well and I watched the best bit of news I have seen in months on RT. Just in case anyone wants to know I watch 'Russia Today' on 513 which I think is a fantastic news channel and the France 24 on 514, because they have amazing interviews with such well educated news readers, and interviewees. You never get this level of news on English or American TV.
Anyway, that Russia have offered to give back the deposit for those weapons is just wonderful. Just give them their money back, then they can invest in their infrastructure, Russia is sitting on a lot of oil, and other natural deposits they haven't found yet. I loved the interview with the craftsman knifemaker and his family, and watching the beautiful wedding. As the craftsman says, the artisan trades are a counries 'face'. So beautiful. What craftsmanship!
Besides I doubt the weapons are in production yet, so no-one really loses. That Russia only makes those weapons for export means they have something better anyway! So why would anyone want to buy them? Don't bother getting into a legal battle over it, just use the money for something that builds your economy, and solves problems, not makes them!
I watched the first part of the 3 part documentary on Russian Art last night, I was enthralled. Such history, and to see Rublev's Icons even on TV I was pouring off the edge of my chair. I expected to go back and watch it again and found Himself had already deleted it, as he wanted to record cricket. I was horrified! I hope there is a repeat of part one.
Anyway back to the thing about creating power from the 'other end' of the grid. The problem everyone will immediately say is that there would be no tax revenue for governments... well that's not true. Don't forget all civil servants are public employees, what if the public don't need to employ so many in centralised government!
If Jersey can balance it's books and not have any borrowing for a population of under 100k in a 48 sq mile island, I can't see why all local governments could learn to copy us. Our system is not perfect but it seems to work very well. To de-centralise, means less wastage. In France our area is called a commune, it covers about 5000 homes. A combination of both types of management would work very well, and each have their own representitive to state government. We don't have 'party politics' each member has to stand on their own 'planque'! Then the 'senior minister', and 'foreign minister' is elected by the states members.
I don't really know how well having such a huge euro-government actually works, I am sure it costs an absolute fortune using the system we have at the moment. The idea of creating the euro was so that businesses could trade in the same currency, avoiding the fluctuations in currency exchange throughout trading eurozone. It has been a disaster economically to have Joe public having their national currency market pan-european. The poorer countries have got poorer, and richer countries got richer, how did that happen?
It would make sense to keep the Euro as a seperate 'trading' currency, rather like Latin is a root language but not used as a national language. That is just 'electric money' after all. Then put everyone's actual currency back to their normal 'old money'. And use 'old money' for the stock trading. It obviously worked fine before the eurozone. America would do well to create the same system, and just use the dollar/euro link for trade transactions. Then create 'currency for each state, and de-centralize. You Americans can't survive... We just might without you! Risk is a great game isn't it!
That way, at least someone who has a high value currency can go on holiday where the currency is worth 'less' and spend some holiday bucks... and what a stupid idea for the Germans to tax their own people for owning holiday homes abroad, that was the start of everyones troubles that had been investing in Spain. Stupid, all we want to do is go to Spain and Portugal, and Greece, and definately Turkey on holiday and get a good deal! The weather is nice, the people are wonderful, the food is great, and they all have some fabulous places to go visit!