Brenda Nolen

Well, not quite building fences. Today I have been on the hunt to figure out how to repair/rebuild the fence surrounding our property. I thought it would be a relatively easy (though labor intensive) solution. Of course, with just about everything in this house, I was incorrect on my assessment.

The fence was built by the last tenants and while it is beautiful, there were issues in the construction of it. After spending the afternoon Googling … I mean researching, I think the two issues we have to tackle are warping of the wood and fence post spacing. I also discovered that our “normal” is not everyone else’s “normal” (the way fences are built is not standard).

That pretty much describes life, doesn’t it? You may think the problem is this but it turns out the problem stems from that and that but lead to this. It is so frustrating! You think it will be a quick, easy solution but you end up having to tear down the whole thing and rebuild it with proper materials and learn new techniques in order to accomplish your goals.

That is where I am at right now. I thought beginning this challenge would be a piece of cake. I told myself, “No problem! It will be easy! The hardest part will be drinking my water.” Well, I was so wrong! It turns out the hardest part is writing every day. I thought I had a nice stack of “rant material” (all the things I rant about to my husband after he gets home from work) stored away in my brain, just waiting to be shared. I guess I don’t. Perhaps those little rants just weren’t important enough to remain in my brain because I have been sitting here for the last three hours trying to figure out what to write about (and deleting three other attempts).

I really am amazed. Does this mean that the majority of the things I talk about (or think about) during the day are not important? Does this mean I should be more conscious of where my head is at instead of letting run loose like a toddler who ate a whole bag of candy? I have done the “that’s not important, so stop thinking about it” thing before and I was one miserable, cranky bitch. I wasn’t depressed: I was perpetually angry. It was awful. So, I will never become that person again but what should I do right now to enable me to have something to say every day that has some meaning behind it? I haven’t a clue.

I think I will make sure I keep a notebook handy and just write random things down that pop in my head throughout the day. I know I have plenty of things to say about our government but I really do not want that here on my blog. I have always wanted this blog to be a bit deeper than me describing the idiocy of our state and local government (as I said, I live in California, so I have plenty of material to work with).