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Love and hugs to you @Exoplanet 
Tobes gets prickles in his feet too but that used to be mostly when we visited my sister. Now she has moved he doesn't get them anymore because her new enclosed yard doesn't have any prickles in it. That is the upside of the new place but I miss having her so close.
Hi dear @Exoplanet, smiles again on reading your post. 
Hi @eth, I've been thinking about you, about the wonderful developments in your approach to life since having success with the NDIS. All power to that energy in you.
Hi @Zoe7, the mention of prickles by you and Exo reminds me of when I was very little, maybe 3 or 4, living on the land still. I used to run around all over the place around the homestead in little bare feet. I remember prickles!
Surprise, surprise, it's after midnight here. Just after 1am. I've been trying to sleep in the night but am having trouble falling asleep more than previously, often when I try to sleep at night.
In general, my mind is going too fast. When I try to sleep I find my thoughts moving from one short cluster of thought, to something often completely tangential. This, in a stream. I think it may be going on in more of a background way all the time. Perhaps that's why I'm so wanting to sleep a lot, which I am doing, and also why I'm sitting in my armchair a lot of the times I am awake, alternating between distracting myself on my mobile phone and with occasional TV. Then when that's annoying me, more sleep.
Tomorrow I'm going to start reducing my anti-depressant dose. Even though I perceive my behaviours to be depressive at this time, I think the hyped up state of my nervous system is paralysing me, and I suspect it may be that my anti-depressant dose is too high. Psychiatrist long ago gave me permission to just my meds without discussing it with him. So tomorrow morning I start.
I haven't been on the forum for a number of days, maybe as much as a week, though I think a bit less. One of the banal things that's keeping me from being here, is that I've set up my PC so that I stand when I'm using it. So after writing one long post here (you know I like to rave, hehe), I usually need to sit down again, and then I think I've already spent enough time here. Sometimes it's taken me two days to write a post. That's kind of crazy. Why do I do it? It's something obsessive in me, I think.
You and I are almost exactly opposite with what we like in housing, Exo! I often think about how I am glad that I can hear a little village when in my courtyard, between all the outdoor spaces on that side of our flats, and the balconies of the other block of flats fairly close across the long back fence. Sound echoes a bit in this long narrow space between us. It reassures me to have people around, though I do not seek to know my neighbours more than a smile and Hi if we pass on our way in or out.
I think it's because I grew up in small flats from aged 5 to about 15, straight after we moved to Melbourne from the country. The first place we stayed for maybe three years, was a bedsitter. Mum and I and sometimes Dad would all be living together in one big bedroom/loungeroom. So from early adulthood, I've done pretty much the same due to also struggling hard with so little money until 2010 and the disability pension. It's become like home to me to live in cosy flats with the sound of people around, though I have also fantasised at times about living very remotely, like you. I understand the feeling of safety you may find in it. Each of us has our own way of finding our haven.
Big hugs for your sorrow, my friend.
Happy that you and puppies are having a good time together, with funny things like struggling to give the little one a clipping. Maybe not that fun at the time, but kind of smiley when done. The little rascal.
If it's any consolation, I haven't been going to the beach either. Hope I can find more energy for it soon.
I would definitely like long-life milk way above powdered. I love milk a lot!
Yum to your dampers. I really wish I could taste some of that. 
Hooray for your fence!!! Great that you are walking around the property. I really need some more exercise. At least I am doing cat stretches and some physiotherapy-type ordinary stretches some days, often a number of times. This is partly pain control as well. I am feeling my aging.
Did I already say I need to sit down after writing this while standing for a while? So I shall say buenas noches. I am feeling more positive right now, writing this to you and @eth and @Zoe7.
Love and hugs to you all, and anyone reading that may welcome love and hugs.
Loved reading your post @Mazarita and I can imagine standing up to write that I would need to sit down too. Like you I am up late but not expecting much sleep tonight. I am recovering from a bad night last night but trying to keep busy to help with those unwanted thoughts and feelings. Cleaning up, watching tv, napping when I can and finishing off my painting have been all I have done today but it has helped me not get too down. I hope you get some sleep tonight and reducing your ADs helps going forward. Goodnight Maz
Nightie night again, @Zoe7 @eth @Exoplanet Back here now to post a photo, which I meant to do earlier. This is from a walk I took a few days ago...
Gidday Mazy @Mazarita @Zoe7 @greenpea @eth @Sophia1 @Shaz51
Ah the prickles, they're actually a sign of better weather here! They only grow out the front of my house, where it gets shade . . . from the house & that seems to keep the moisture levels in
the soil up a bit. I'm still tackling the mowing & the grass still isn't growing back, so I guess the prickles will dry out fairly quickly & get harder & spikier! I need to fix the mower a bit & I'm afraid my motorvation levels just aren't at mower fixing heights. I also need to get on the roof & re-do the solar panels, I disconnected a junction connection because the controller panel was flicking, carrying on . . . not functioning properly. I need to hook them together in a way that there's just 2 wires coming out of them, a positive & a negitive - not the 8 that they had! But that requires motorvation levels even higher than mowing! Need will raise my levels eventually, luckily the little system I made is compensating for the days the main system needs to recouperate after 1 single use; but less sunlight during winter will mean more generator use & I'll get sick of that. But I'm determined to finish mowing the yard before I deal with the panels on the roof! I'm struggling with the basics, I didn't do the dishes yesterday & I've been trying really hard to get back into the routine of doing them everyday, merely because it's so much easier; bed making is really hit & miss even though the fact is I like getting into a made bed, as does my Staffy! Then there's the bloody broom!, all I've managed is the lounge area. The wash basket is full, I need to do the washing, that way I'll bring in the washing off the line that's been there since the last time I washed . . . some weeks ago!
I've been noticing problems with my sleep pattern, like you Mazy it's like surprise, surprise I would have kept taking the anti-depressants, despite myself, I do think they help. I can say to myself I've 'let go' of my daughter, but I know that will never happen. It's like my Universe is imploding, everything is being sucked into a giant black hole in the middle of it & I'm left floating in the vaccum of space. I hope you get your dose right There's no way I could stand up & write my little raves, just the thought of it's painful 🙂 I don't take days to write them, but often it's hours 😉
They say opposites attract & when it comes to housing we're definitly opposite 🙂 I do occasionally hear noises as there are neighbours around where I live, often it's the beat of music & very rarely it's even voices - it totally freaks me out, my heart beats faster, I feel like I shrink & I find I won't go out of my house - out here that's pretty stupid, but I can't help it. I'm
having dramas at a distance with my nasty neighbour. I noticed red tape being put on my fence & also a mowed strip on the outside of my fence line on that side. I left a note on that side of my fence, explaining the fence was erected inside my property boundary as I figured they were intending to erect a fence of there own, using my side as part of it & I wasn't about
to allow that! I had my $10 000 fence erected so that my Staffy wouldn't go onto that property, because of how he & I were treated by those property owners . . . no way would I have them bludge off of any part of it!!! I received a note on the same fence that mentioned they wanted to see a surveyed peg in that corer - the only corner that didn't have one. The fence contractor
used my house & land plans & the 3 existing survey pegs to calculate where to place the fence. I trust them as they have been fencing for many, many years, being a local farmer that
have lived in this area all their life. So I've been furiously sending emails & learning a little. I've discovered fence disputes aren't the juristiction of regional council, they fall under the juristiction of the Civil and Administrative Tribunal, that my fence is not a dividing one, that refers to a fence erected on the dividing boundary & therefore belongs to both property owners, mine is entirely on my property & as such is entirely my property! I've been in contact with the fence contractor, who happens to be working with a land surveyor at the moment, if just one peg can be done & I can afford it, by that I mean if it's in the hundreds not thousands - I'll get the peg. Though I am tempted to leave yet another note, the last one I left I've had no response to, I ask them if they remembered me, reminding them that they had chained up my dog, far too tightly around the neck, treated me unpleasantly & insisted I exit thier property via a different road to what they had referred to as thier address {their property goes through 2 roads} & informed them that I had contacted the regional council, a land surveyor & my fence contrator. I would like to leave another, telling them of what I've learnt & asking them for their details so they can pay for at least half {personally I think seeing as they're the ones that want to see this peg, they should pay 3/4 of the fee of getting that peg!} But I'll wait a while & see whether they respond to the last note 
Well this has turned into quite the rave, it's good to get it out. It is this neighbour that's frazzled my brain, in a way I'm grateful, somewhere to channel all the negitivity.
Lots of love to you & all that need or want it
Oh dear @Exoplanet Neighbour disputes are extremely difficult but it seems you are well within your own boundary with the fence. Them wanting a peg in the corner seems petty but if it stops any further difficulties maybe worth the effort. I tend to agree with you though - if they want/need it then the majority of that fee should be from them - I know that is not the way it works but any added expense on your behalf is not want you need. I hope it all works out in your favour Hon
