Something exciting

Have you ever had news you wanted to share but couldn't because you didn't want to jinx it or tell people who shouldn't know?  I am currently keeping such news to myself!  It is difficult to keep locked up!  

This is one reason I have stayed firmly in radio silence, as they say.  When I sit down to write and begin writing, things just come pouring out of my brain...I type as fast as I can, which is actually much faster than the only pencil and paper I used to use...I then have to delete most of what I had just written to avoid giving anything away.  

BOO!

I will either have something to share in 2-3 weeks or I will have nothing to share and will have found numerous other tid bits to write about!  

Today is Sunday.  Sunday is a day of rest here.  And I mean full-on rest!  Very little gets done...we chat, we watch TV, we do a load of laundry or two...but mostly we spend a great deal of time fading in and out of consciousness.  It's a tough gig...staying awake on a Sunday.  

Last Sunday we had date day.  We went to a movie and then stopped at the local casino to lose some money before eating a fine meal and then coming home.  

This Sunday is better.  I made a pot of beef and barley soup yesterday so we have dinner for tonight; I did some laundry yesterday so I don't have laundry to do today; I did payroll so I am done with business.  All in all, I would say an excellent Sunday!

Cross your fingers for a good upcoming week.  

Later...

Something good

I have some really good things in my life right now.  I have children and grandchildren who love me.  I have a husband who loves and respects me.  I have a dog who cannot wait for me to finish this post and go play with her.  I have friends, dinner is ready, I'm writing today...the smoke is clearing, the sun is shining, I am (mostly) breathing...  

Something good is some things good.  Some things great, actually.  

The list is much longer but then I would be talking about things like the ice cream in the freezer and my decent blood sugars.  I will focus on one good thing for today.  

I got an email from one of the places I sent my resume to.  My resume does not even remotely imply I am qualified for the posted job but I wanted to get it out there.  See what is out there and if I can gain some interest.  The answer is clearly yes!  

I don't know if there is suddenly a job with my skill-set or if the hiring manager actually thinks I may be qualified or wants to talk to me about something in the future, should there be an opening someday but whichever it is, I got noticed!  I know I have a job but I am not entirely happy with it at this point.  I have been at my job for years but feel it has changed to the point of being unrecognizable as the job I was doing...the job I wanted.

So, I am going to talk to this person and see what happens.  I am expecting nothing specifically but every chance to interview is good.  

Somebody thought I look good on paper.  

That's pretty exciting!

Later...

To my sister....

Baby Sister,

What a fun and exhausting three days we spent together preparing for your beautiful daughter's wedding reception.  While things were certainly not perfect, they were interesting and often fun, making the whole thing worthwhile...although I would not want to have to work that hard again in my life!

I know you were both sad and thrilled that your daughter is now married...sad because she is leaving and thrilled because she is leaving...but mostly content that she is happy.  The love you have for her and the love she very clearly has for you was not unnoticed.  

We can get together more now, have some sister adventures.  I know how your heart is feeling a little empty now but I have done this three times.  Watched as my children, one by one, moved on to make their own lives with the people they love.  Build their own families and homes.  I know it is difficult but it really turns to pride soon enough.  Pride in them for the choices they are making and pride in them for the people they are...because of us.  

You have a beautiful daughter of whom you raised virtually alone...Yes, you had some small amount of help along the way but that girl is your creation.  She is a wonderful, thoughtful, giving person because she has you as an example.  She will ALWAYS make you important because you ALWAYS made her important.  You are the real love of each others' lives.  Others will come into your hearts but you will never be replaced.  

I love you, Sister.  I love you and I love my niece.  I am proud of the woman she is and the woman who made her.  

Thank you for sharing her day with me.  It means the world.  

Later...

True love is alive

I went to my eldest son's home over the weekend to celebrate with him, his lovely fiancee and my grandson...and the many, many people that are their friends and extended family...their engagement.  They threw a super fun barbecue and the people streamed into their very small home and thankfully larger back yard...all to celebrate the love between these two excellent human beings.  

I love my son and his fiancee.  I love that you can feel the love and respect they have for each other and every one of the friends who came to celebrate.  I have talked about love and family before but this is different.  This is fascinating.  I have raised a human being who is respectful and generous, wonderful and kind.  I have actually raised three such humans...I have the truest of true love for them.  They are my heart.  

I have been, for the majority of my life, difficult to love and certainly difficult to like.  I have the most impermeable of walls built around me for most everyone.  My children, my grandchildren, my sisters and nieces, my selected family and friends...they all have easy access across the big wall.  Everyone else...not so much.

As my children have grown to adulthood and introduced their new families (their husband/wife/fiancee and the families that come with them) to my side of the wall, I have sadly not lowered my defenses as much as I should have.  Not as much as they would have liked.  I am a hard person.  Cold-hearted a bit.

I am careful.

I have allowed the wrong people on my side of the wall in the past...just lowered that wall and let them come in and pillage.  It took years to get over the damage...like a ravaged field after the locusts have feasted.  Every error in judgement has raised the wall higher still.  I don't like this about me but it has served me well.  

But, yesterday, as I watched these wonderful people celebrating my son and his fiancee, it occurred to me that perhaps my walls are high but I didn't teach my children to build them.  My excellent, loving, generous, intelligent children love much and are loved.  They respect and are respected.  They didn't go down the path of their hardened mother but rather used the love and respect they were raised with to build friendships and families of their own.  Friends and families who have, by and large, accepted this old, hard, cold soul for the person her children see.  

Wow.

True love is alive in the hearts and souls of people I had a hand in making...and in everyone who touches their lives.  

I think my cold heart has thawed quite a bit in the past few years.  Thanks to my children...and their children...and their friends and selected families.  My cold heart is warmer indeed.

Later...

Eenie, Meenie, Mine, Mine Mine!!

Today I learned that everyone, even the most sincere and honest people, can be selfish.  It's an ugly thing in the hands of some people, and pitiful in the hands of others.  Being selfish can be embarrassing once the person sees themselves and it's those people that are easily forgiven for their selfishness.  

The self-entitled selfish people, well, they are a different story entirely.  

I am a sharer.  I learned it as a small child, like most well mannered individuals.  Share your toys.  Share your snack.  Share your knowledge.  Share the credit.  Yes, I am a sharer from way back.  What I haven't learned yet is, when sharing, you give a little and keep a little.  Sharing gives you the chance to determine the amount of whatever it is you are willing to share.  Sharing only the smallest amount, however, can make you actually look selfish.  Like you are sharing to make yourself look good but you really aren't willing to give much up.

Especially the credit.

I tend to share the greater amount.  Cut the sandwich in half, I give the large half.  Three cookies...I give two and keep one.  Letting the share-ee choose the toys they want first.  You get it.  When it comes to the credit...I tend to give it all.  

Credit where credit is due is something people say, not something I live by...I work like a dog for days on a huge project for the entire enterprise, leaving my own work to flounder in the background, and give every ounce of credit to the person who asked me to create it.  For the most part, I am happy about doing the project for this person who I like.  But then my selfish side rears it's ugly head...I receive no credit at all for hours and hours of work unless and until something goes wrong with it.  Then I hear "Suzanne did it!"...of course I did.  I don't hear anyone saying "Suzanne did it!" when they are handing out pats on the back or a bonus!  

See?  Selfish.  

I selfishly want to get some small amount of recognition when the job is well received, not just when it is criticized.  I want the pat on the back.  I want the "Suzanne did it?  Excellent work!"  

But, when I am asked to do another big project...even to the detriment of getting the rest of my own projects done...Even while having to explain why my own projects are no further when last I was asked...I will do it.  I will do it well and give the asker the credit.  I will seethe because I didn't let anyone know I did the work and someone else took all the credit?  

Did they?

Did they take all the credit or did I freely give it away?  

Excellent question...

Later... 

A-one and a-two and a-three...

Most days I try to have a well orchestrated, finely balanced, well scheduled day.  I like having a goal.  Making a plan.  Do I realize a plan is not always possible?  I do!  In fact, I am so well-versed in planning and scheduling that I allow for changes in the plan which, barring total fiasco, will still allow a goal to be met.  A plan to be executed.  Today, my orchestrated dance-of-the-many-tasks did not go well.  

I had trouble tickets to resolve, a presentation to polish, about 30 emails to read and answer and an additional 20 emails to just read.  I had some small, daily tasks to clean up...then I noticed the daily part of the equation had clearly been abandoned some 4-5 weeks ago.  I needed to finish 3 big projects (all in differing states of completion) test an application upgrade (which I have barely even looked at in 4 days) and write some workflows for four effected departments...alas, most of this will be waiting for me, in the exact same state as it was today, when I go to work in the morning.    Yikes!

So, while my projects are still incomplete, I didn't get any testing done, and there are still two tickets I couldn't complete, I still feel I accomplished something.  

Today I learned to let it go.  Just for the day perhaps...Let the anxiety of not following my schedule go.  Let the stress from my still incomplete projects go.  Let the drama go.  Just let it all go.  

Tomorrow is another day.  Another long, stressful, anxiety-inducing day...which I will get through and then let it go.  

If you know me at all you know I am just saying that with absolutely no intention of believing I can let it go.  Oh, I will try-I will put forth an incredible effort but...letting it go...not really my thing.  

But, tomorrow will cue up a whole new dance style and I am getting ready to boogie!  

Later...

The bell curve is practically flat

As my daily quest for knowledge continues, so does my total lack of tolerance to stupidity.  We live in a world where stupidity is tolerated but also where knowledge is at your fingertips...this being so, I have my low threshold for the inane for the simple fact that it should not be possible to be this idiotic!  It's those people (you know who you are) who make no effort that are the cause of my frustration.

Worse yet however, and by a mile, is laziness.  I have a streak of it myself.  Everyone does but everyone doesn't practice laziness like they are attempting to make the US Olympic Laziness Team.  Most of us are selective in our laziness.  Sundays, the middle of a bad week so vacuuming is out, that kind of thing.  But I know people for whom laziness is the norm broken up by small bits of achievement...very small bits.  And largely incomplete accomplishments...like a demi-triumph.  

It's a rarity to come across someone who excels at both but I have managed to find such a person.  I feel like I am witness to a great phenomenon...A new world wonder!  

Why is it these people seem to have no clue?   

I feel like at home it's easier to find some lazy time.  I don't know how to pull off full-on absurd but I admit I have taken a whack at it a time or two.  But at work, the place they pay you money to be both productive and bright, you should in fact make every effort to be at least one of those things daily.

But alas, no.  

If you really think about it, there could be found a brilliant argument for pulling it off everyday.  It's hard accomplishing nothing while convincing most everyone there is no real hope for a rise in the bell curve.  I mean, they are pretty creative at spending entire days for entire weeks of entire months making themselves look busy...maybe they are really the intelligent ones....

Something to think about.

Later...

Just another stagnant Sunday

I enjoy Sunday.  Sunday my husband doesn't work.  Sunday, we lay around like the people of leisure we would like to become.  Sunday is marathons of Snapped, House Hunters and Law and Order.  When our programs are on during the regular programming season, we will take the opportunity on Sunday to catch up.  I cook and we eat.  I make popcorn and we eat.  I cut veggie trays and we eat.  We nap because we spent the last two hours eating.

Wow.  I just admitted to laying around, watching TV and eating for an entire day every week.  A day dedicated to this.  My favorite day of the week.

To be completely honest, Sunday is also for laundry...not a lot of laundry but certainly enough to get me into the next week.  Through the week I will do another load or two, as necessary, but Sunday is my 2-load minimum day.

Sunday is also family phone call day.  I usually talk to my mother and my older sister.  I talk to my kids most Sundays.  We get a "muster" call from my mother-in-law, too, which is usually very long and very informative.  We hear all about the comings and going in her small, tight-knit neighborhood.  

But mostly on Sunday we talk to each other.  Really talk.  We talk every day but on Sunday we talk about our 5-year plan and things we want or need to do around the house.  We talk about our wills and we talk about what we would do if one of us goes first...he hates this part of Sunday.  He has a really tough time thinking I will go first.  We talk about anything and everything...except work.  Sunday we give ourselves a break and DO NOT talk about work.  It's like a mini-break...a vacation.  

Lily, the dog, loves Sundays, too.  She knows we will both be home with her all day long.  She is fairly spoiled day-to-day and I am sure thinks that Sundays are just so we can both take turns petting her and taking her outside; talking to her and kissing her little face.  Did I mention she's spoiled?

So now it is the end of my Sunday.  My husband is reading AND watching a marathon of Snapped and I am writing.  I haven't been writing every day as I had hoped but I am still writing!  Good for me!  I love being proud of myself.

Later...

Another day, another stressful situation

I have always been a little high strung, wound a little too tight.  I think for the most part I manage this situation.  No medication.  No big freak outs.  Just being me.  Don't get me wrong, being me has not always made me popular.  I think the being me is often being blunt, sarcastic and not super warm and fuzzy.  Perhaps even a little cold.  A hard ass.  It's me and it's how I make me work.

So, have had to really put on the full me this week, just to get by.  The mounds of work are quickly becoming mountains; insurmountable mountains.  It is creating anxiety.  It is creating stress. 

I hate that.

I tend to function well while being pretty tightly wound,  I have a pretty firm control of my day....I usually have a pretty firm control of my day.  But this week has grabbed and mangled my last nerve.  One more day, baby.  One more day!

I need to decompress...I have more work tomorrow than my 8 hour day will allow but if anyone can do it, I can do it or it can't be done at all.

Pray for me! 

Later...

A chat with my sister

First, let me say that my sister hates the phone.  Knowing this, I have called her every day for the past 3 or 4 weeks, telling her it is her daily phone call.  She said "you can call me every day if you want to" but I knew she didn't mean she would answer every day.  And so she hasn't.  While I have called her every day, I only speak to her 2-3 times a week. 

Today I called, a call she did not answer....but at around 7:30 tonight, she called me.  We talked about my new grandbaby, due in February.  We talked about my nieces bridal shower this past weekend.  We talked about the upcoming wedding and how she might be able to have some sister time this weekend...

We love to laugh together.

Before I knew it we had moved on and began talking like Stuart from MAD TV, which we used to watch together.  We would laugh so hard I would end up coughing and wheezing and she would be shaking...no sound emitting from her.  Now that's laughing.

I hope we can have these  conversations forever.

Later...

Another Sunday Evening

As the anxiety of another week grows I am finding it difficult to find something to write about.  Life happens all day, every day, yet I struggle to find something even remotely interesting to write about.  Since I promised myself I would keep it up, I write.  Nearly every day.  Some days writing just isn't in the cards.  But I can't let days pass...perhaps just one day.  Missing a day here and there can't hurt.  

So here I am.  Sitting in my office thinking...writing, deleting, writing again, listening to the Go-Go's Talk Show and dancing in my chair a little.  The dog is pacing outside the door and my neighbor is mowing his lawn.  When I look around the room I see a wedding picture of my husband and my children and another of the six actors I directed in Five Women Wearing the Same Dress at the local community theatre.  

And it hits me.

I can find enumerable things to complain about, things that most people would just blow off like nothing, because they are nothing.  I can cry over pitiful things I find upsetting but which are actually just flashes of a moment, but once I start crying it's hard to stop it.  

Or

I can snap out of it and really see the great things around me.  Sure, my job is a horror show right now but I have a dog who wants to see me so badly she will pace outside the room I am in, laying down for brief rests then pacing again.  Sure, my health is terrible in this awful humidity and heat but I am married to the best guy ever-the guy who sees me struggle to breathe and swell up from edema and steroids yet tells me I am beautiful and strong.  I have raised wonderful people I am proud of and who are raising their own children now, of whom I am equally proud.  

So today I learned that I am rich beyond my wildest dreams.  I didn't win the lottery.  A rich relative didn't leave me a fortune.  I am rich because I have the love of the best people in the world (and one very loyal chihuahua).  I am not sure I actually just learned this today but rather re-learned it.  

The real learning experience today?  I learned I couldn't have written a better love story than the one I get to live every day.  Thank you God!

Later...