I have become painfully aware that I am falling down on the job.  All of you good people ‘Liked’ this page on Facebook in support of me, and because just maybe, I might have something interesting to say.  For all the lovely support, what have I done?  Lately, I’ve done buptkiss.

     Of the Nine Noble Virtues, in the last week, I have failed:  Courage, Industriousness, Self Reliance and Perseverance.

1)  Courage:  My last blog went very well, and it got reposted to places I don’t even know.  As I see it, of course it did!  Kjell Braaten is a very interesting person.  He’s done more in his life to follow his dreams than I have imagined doing to follow my dreams.  I found myself fearing that my following blogs would see people leaving because I couldn’t write a blog good enough to hold the collective attention of you good people.  It’s that very fear that has kept me from becoming a serious writer, from writing my first book.  Even worse, what if my first book were good?  Would I be able to write a second book as good as the first?  The fears of a fool!  For only a fool doesn’t write the first book for fear of the second not measuring up to the success of the first written book!

It’s the same with this blog.  Either I write the damn thing or I don’t, but not writing it because of fear?  That’s failure for no reason.  It doesn’t even qualify as an excuse.  Courage:  FAIL

2)  Industriousness:  I’ve made no secret of being seriously Bipolar.  The doctors, who are supposed to know what they’re doing, have tacked on a few more “complications” to the medical condition, but all they know to do is throw pills at it and have me “talk” to a therapist.  That’d be all well and good if the pills didn’t have the lovely side effect of erasing bits and blocks from my memory and make me anything from loopy to asleep between doses.  Plus, even with insurance, I can’t afford to talk to a therapist, so who do I have to talk to?  ME!  From what I understand, people talking to themselves isn’t a such a good sign of having all oars in the water.  Duh.  I already know I not only don’t have all my oars in the water, but I’m short a few of them, too.

What does this have to do with Industriousness?  A whole lot.  If you’re sleeping, you can’t possibly be accomplishing much.  If you begin dwelling on it, you wind up curled in a ball contemplating what you’re supposed to be doing, but you just can’t seem to harness the energy to get out of bed, not even to write the blog you committed yourself to.  Which is completely daft because your laptop is three inches from the top of your head as it’s at the head of your bed for ease of access!  From your position, you can also see the clay for making runes (none made), the wood for making runes (a few blanks cut and sanded), and one of the four sets of wood carving knives for carving Mjölnir and other decorative things regarding Ásatrú (nothing carved).  Yeah.  I’ve been really busy collecting things for projects which never get started,  I’m not exactly what you’d call a self-starter or one who likes to do things alone.

Sure, I do have the goats and the chickens, and I do work with them.  However, they don’t take up nearly enough of my day to be and excuse or “reason” for not doing all of the other things I’m set up to do but don’t. Industriousness:  FAIL

3)  Self Reliance:  I have also made it no secret that I have a very small income which comes solely from the ever-growing cluster f*ck of bureaucracy known as our government.  It’s an income which can be held hostage by the whims of one person who does not know nor care about me or my real needs.  That’s not right.  Yes.  I do have physical disabilities.  Yes.  I do have chemical imbalances.  However…I know deeply inside that if I weren’t failing on Courage and Industriousness I’d have more funds at my disposal.  I assure you, those funds would be strictly mine for the use of furthering my family’s ability to succeed in these difficult times.

I mentioned earlier that I have goats and chickens.  Next year, the girls will be bred.  I’ve had some people tell me they can be bred now, as they are old enough,  I know that, but I want to make sure my two girls are truly fully mature.  Their mammas threw twins and triplets the first time out.  They were healthy afterwards, and despite the tiny size of the triplets, they all thrived.  I will have the same good health for my Reese and Maya.  Next year will mean lots of milk and home-made cheese, but that’s next year.  I’m talking about this year.  I’m talking about NOW.

As for my chickens…I didn’t plan that so well.  I have a hodge podge variety of birds with the small ones out numbering the big ones.  I tried to help out a friend who’d ordered a large number of Blue Silky Bantams through the mail.  I took ten of the fluffy things I affectionately call The Mob.  Unfortunately, of the ten bitties, I got six males.  They are: Draven, Not Draven, Wish You Were Draven, Surprise, Awshit and Areyoukiddingme?  In the next few days, I’ll be posting laminated banners for selling the eggs my girls lay.  I’ll also be putting up posters to sell a few of my roos.  I’m sure they’ed taste good, but I can’t eat anything I’ve named.  That’s why every single one of the broiler chickens I will be buying with the egg money will be called ‘Dinner’.  In the mean time, Self Reliance: FAIL

4)  Perseverance:  I’m rather thinking that most of the above demonstrates how well I’ve done with Perseverance.  I’m looking around me at the closet explosion I really did mean to take care of months ago.  There are the tools I meant to put up, too.  You know, the tools I meant to use.  I see the books my Mother has bought me because I don’t have the money to buy them myself, and I’m also looking at the two NetFlix movies I need to send back.  NetFlix…a Luxury expense in the midst of my Needs.  However, the worst thing is indicated by the lack of pictures of me on my FB profile…my weight.  I cannot tell you how many times I’ve started a diet and stopped.  I wonder how many of you can relate to this one.  I need to exercise more, but I need to lose weight first because of my past injuries.  Now that’s what’s called a “Catch 22”.  You need to do the other first, but you can’t do the other unless you do the former first.  I’ve finally decided to talk to my doctor about medical intervention.  So much for Self Reliance there, huh?  I’ve got to do something though.  I have one helluva high pain thresh hold, but extra movement, much less anything that could be deemed exercise, does me in with muscle spasms that leave me unable to stand up straight.  They’re so bad other people can see the large lumps of the spasms through my clothing.  One doctor suggested an epidural pain block.  If that’ll really help, sign me up! But in the mean time, for Perseverance:  FAIL

      I must admit that writing a blog based on my failures in living the Nines has felt weird, but it’s been as honest as I can make it.  We talk about that (living by the NNV) a lot in the different threads.  Some people claim to live by the Nines, but their lives are a mess.  Others claim to live by the Nines, but the things they say in the threads show they have an odd idea of what the Nines are.  Some claim to live by the Nines, yet they say one thing in one thread and something else in another.  I know that other folks have different names for each aspect of the NNV, but when you read the definition of what each of their NNV’s are, they all are still basically the core values of the next person’s NNV’s, and the previous person’s NNV’s, too.  It’s a shame to fight over them.

      The point of my writing this may not be clear.  Yes.  It’s about my failures, but it’s also about the fact that all of us fail at one time or another.  Sometimes we fail at one of the NNV’s, and sometimes we fail at a few of them.  The point is recognizing the ones at which we’re failing, and doing something about it.  I’m still a little vague in my own mind for plans to overcome what I perceive as my biggest failures, but for others I’ve got long range plans.  Monday I’ll be talking to my doctor about one plan that will have to last my lifetime.  Wow.  That will certainly be a test of my Perseverance, quite possibly of my Courage, too.  In the mean time, I need to get off of my dead as to live Industriousness and Self Reliance the way I should be.  The only thing stopping me is me. 

What’s stopping you?

Update:
Last night, something got my precious roo, Draven.  He was the first of my six roos to mature, and he’s the one I laughed at (and I must admit I coached) during his first attempts to crow.  Whatever got him didn’t do it without a fight.  We figure it got him because he’d have been the one to challenge the intruder, protecting the others.  It was either a large raccoon or possibly a bobcat.  Whatever it was, it was big enough to carry him away cleanly.  I heard something in the tree over my head last night when I went out to close the coop.  I thought it was tree rats, but it might have been what got Draven.  Anyway, I hope whatever took him was a mamma in need of feeding her babes.  Of course, I blame myself for not going outside sooner.  From now on, nothing will distract/delay me from that chore.  It also means from now on, I must go outside armed.  Anything big enough to carry him off cleanly is big enough to challenge me.  I’ve no desire to tangle with a possibly rabid raccoon and have it get away to challenge any of our dogs, cats or children living nearby.