So Many Subjects, So Little Time!

I write.  I have a series of novels, romance historical fiction, Women of the Drifting Anchor Ranch.  I write two blogs, this one which in my typical random manner covers topics as broad as "Act, Don't REact," which is a commentary about a positive approach to living,  responses to articles that I read in various and sundry publications, recipes (I really, truly, do not like cooking but since others in the Blogosphere DO like to cook I share things that I have learned over the last 57 years of living), "Third prize winner for my peanut butter cookies in the county fair (I was 13 at the time and could not have been more pleased if it was an Academy Award), my speech would have been as follows,  "I wish to thank my parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents, my over 70 first cousins, my nephews and nieces (64 of them counting spouses, and I will list them by name, and or character traits) what the red light is blinking already?  Too bad, I will continue to speak until someone drags me from the podium. 

I have had many people ask me, "How do you come up with so many ideas to write about?"  I'm always surprised by this question.  Do these people live on the same planet that I do?  I need to live to be 1,000 to even touch on all the interesting things in the world...and I still would not be done!

The subjects that interest me the most, of course, will receive the majority of my time.  I do have priorities about the things that I wish to study and then write about.  My list is as follows, faith, family, friends, methods to make life more about thriving than merely hanging on day to day by my fingertips,  western United States history during the 1800's, music, (I bleed musical notes...really), television, and health, which in my world includes so many sub-topics that that one topic could use all my time and effort to write about.
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So, there is my priority list.  My priorities do change on a day to day need to be flexible order. For example today I should write about the pressing need I have to wash the dishes (we are all out of clean spoons).  I DESPISE, LOATHE, HATE, ABHOR, and every other descriptive word that is negative washing dishes.  Yes, I have a dishwasher.  However it is old, and if I truly wish to have dishes come out of the machine clean I must wash them, and then wash them again in the dishwasher.  It would NOT be worth the effort, but I have a damaged immune system and every way that I can keep from sharing germs I must.

There is a logical reason for my extreme dislike of this task...I am so sensitive and allergic that washing the dishes, with or without soap causes the skin on my hands to split. Please do not suggest using gloves...the gloves make the condition worse.  I have neuropathy in my hands (nerve damage) and so after my skin splits my hands throb painfully with each heart beat.  Knowing this does it seem logical for me to wash the dishes?  I DID use paper plates for a long time.  I HATED it.  I recycle, and do my best to refrain from creating more waste in my lifetime than is absolutely necessary.

I also need to catch up on laundry.  There are three of us in our family, all females, and I often wonder how it is possible for us to wear so many clothes.  We all love fashion, and our enormous wardrobes reflect that love.  I am the volunteer laundress.  I actually enjoy doing the laundry...except for the putting clean things away.  So, our family room often looks like the back room of a dry cleaning shop and we often just look through the piles of clean but not put away clothing on the table in the family room without actually putting anything away.

Now...what is the purpose of my spouting, and venting?  It IS for me like the action of releasing steam from a pressure cooker.  I do not know those delightful folks in China and or Poland who read my blog.  I wish that they would comment on my posts so that I might see if there is a commonality to life in general in different countries.  Maybe they (male or female) also despise, loathe, hate, washing their dishes.

One of my many cousins told me once that she LOVED washing the dishes.  She explained that when she was a small child they had no running water in their home.  She had to walk about a 1/4 of a mile to obtain water for household chores from a river.  She would then haul the incredibly heavy water filled buckets home.  Once the water was home it had to be heated on the wood burning stove.  (Just getting the stove going was another huge job.  It involved finding kindling, to start a fire, then splitting logs to make wood small enough to fit in the fire portion of the stove).  Once the water was heated it was poured into a large sink like pan just for this purpose.  Then soap flakes were added, and by hand the dishes for 8 people were washed, three times a day, every single day!  She adored being able to simply turn on a tap and have hot water run into her sink.  She looked out the window as she washed and thought of pleasant thoughts about her family as the chore was completed.

Thank you, each and every one of you who read my blogs.  That interest in what I have to say blesses me with feelings of affirmation.  Even if you disagree with the things that I post, it's gratifying to know that what I say may interest someone else.

OK...tangent completed, pressure cooker venting ended...and I'm so grateful to live in a country of free speech.  It's such a huge blessing to be able to write a blog about this, that, and the other thing, knowing that I am safe in my communication.  Mission accomplished...blog post ended....rats...time to wash the dishes!