LISSertations

My New Love - Scrivener

2011-12-30T09:14:00.001-06:00

Sometime in November I stumbled about Scrivener. I'd heard about it before but never really checked it out. So I downloaded the free trial and did the tutorial - by the way I REALLY recommend doing the tutorial, it will blow your mind. On facebook I saw a friend talking about Scrivener and asked her about it. She loved it. So after a tiny bit of waffling a went for it. I also discovered a nanowrimo tie in discount that hadn't expired that i took advantage of. No, I did not do nanowrimo this year (completing it would have yielded and even bigger discount at the time) but i did get a % off.

Scrivener, compared to other software coughcoughwordcoughcough is relatively cheap. And for the tools you receive in return well worth the expense. Or at least for me it was. The biggest selling point for me with Scrivener was the corkboard. That's right folks, an electronic corkboard that as a novel writer in the midst of a restructure that is taking me forever, creates index cards on a bulletin board. I can type in a sentence or two about the chapter or scene enclosed, color code the card as to the content (chapter or scene for instance). I tend to get lost in time during my work so I can put what day/time of day it is. This is a huge help - and this week I identified a point where I had an entire day jump ahead that with the cut of a sentence or two I could eliminate a missing day.

I can also create a list of places. Lists of people. I can import photos. And since I tend to 'cast' my characters I love that ability. I can create groupings of characters which helps me keep track of who is realted to whom.

Scrivener also has Screenwriting templates/tools and nonfiction templates/tools. So if you're looking for a way to give your writing a kick in the seat of the pants (or maybe yourself a kick in the seat of the pants) give Scrivener a try. And before you ask if it will work on a Mac - yes but I'm not sure it has all the bells and whistles that the pc version has.

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

Happy Writing (and revising)

Resolutions

2011-12-28T12:02:00.000-06:00

So as the end of the year approaches - And i realize that egads I can't remember the last time I made a blog entry perhaps it time to a) make a blog entry and b) set some goals for myself for 2012.

First let's look back on my 2011. The year found me back at my writing, albeit in spurts. It also found me covering another plant's cost accounting position, complete with travel four times, to Aiken, SC from April to early October. This unexpected busuiness (it's the day career and I need it to pay the bills and feed my writing addiction) diverted my attention (and plans to have the restructred draft of my WIP, Unraveled, completed this year. I went to the PSWA Conference in Las Vegas in July (Vegas was hot, but arriving back at KC to 100 degree temperatures plus humidity had me wanting to get back on the plane for Vegas) and had such a blast that I joined the organization and already have plans to go to the 2012 conference. Sadly - 2011 also brought the deaths of two family members, My Aunt Gloria and my cousin Frankie due to cancers in both cases. I've also spent a lot of time this year working on my dehoarding/purging project I've been working on since I had to pack to move to Columbia, MO in March 2010. October brought physical inventory. November and December brought the headache of setting 2012 standard costs. Again - diversions from writing. We had a lot of snow last winter - inlcuding one ill timed blizzard that dumped two feet of snow on Columbia smack in the middle of January month end close. I was forced to work from home on a clunker, loaner, laptop for two days. I have since been declared 'important' enough to have earned a permanent laptop to prevent such emergencies in the future. I saw my sister, Marci, a 'record' three times this year: February for my Aunt's funeral - a trip that brought with it an accident due to inclement weather (it was more or less raining/snowing slush and freezing), June for a family reunion on SE Kansas, and again in November for Thanksgiving. It was a long year but it wasn't the worst year I've ever had. OH! and in August in rejoined Weight Watchers and have as of Monday, December 26 lost 45.8 lbs. This puts me roughly halfway back to my lifetime status (and not having to pay for WW meetins or etools). I also found myself first helping then teaching one Sunday a month at my church in Children's Minsitries, had input into changing the curriculum we were/are now using (one that we had used for over 5 years where I lived/went to church before), and became and offical Bright Lights instructor working with girls age 9 to 13 or 14 on Wednesday nights.

On to thinking ahead about 2012 and my goals for the years.

First I have to wade my through 2011 year end close and our auditors.

Next Bright Lights starts backup on January 18 running through either late March or early April.

We have a costing Kaizen event in February (happily - it is here) to talk over issues that came up with standard setting and processes that need to be fixed so we don't have to go through the same issues again in 2012.

I have secured a ticket via my previous church to see Beth Moore live in Kansas City

I have also made reservations, paid conference fees and airline reservations to go to the 2012 PSWA Conference in July.

We have a family reunion scheduled (I think) in late June (giving me ample motivation to stay on track with Weight Watchers)

Things I need to work on this year/areas of improvement:

Need to establish a set writing schedule so I can slog my way through aforementioned restructure. I stumbled upon Scrivener late last year, love it and am now using it instead of Word.

Need to get on the exercise bandwagon again. My sechedule as well as various aches/pains late in the year have me off what I was doing. No excuses, I'm rethinking some things and have strategies/plans - and a newly purchased Zumba kit so I can Zumba at home withouth having to be reliant on getting out of the office and back to Columbia (I have a 30 minute drive each way). And the spring/summer/fall will bring walking outside (sorry folks, treadmill walking and my heel spur don't get along).

Bible reading/study/memorization/prayer journaling - years ago when I first started teaching children's minsitry God laid on my heart that I can't expect 'my kids' to do something, If I'm not - so I need to get right in that department.

Finishing up the dehoarding/purge process - specifically bookshelf purging, filing photos in albums and carting stuff off (i've got a pile waiting for removal - I've just got to move it).

Shopping for a futon or daybed (leaning toward daybed) for my spare room. Who knows, maybe my mother will actually come for a visit if I have a place to put her.

Staying on track with Weight Watchers. It may take all of 2012 (or longer) to get to that goal (when I lost 104 lbs circa 2005 it took roughly 18 months to get there - so I am expecting a similar timeline with the roughly 90 lb weight loss (beginning on 8/22/11 to lifetime status weight)).

Should be a full/packed year. And i'm looking forward to it.

Yes, You have to stop for the flashing lights & sirens

2011-09-14T08:10:00.001-05:00

I seem to be on a peeves bent right now.

So this morning, almost to work flashing lights and sirens approach. I see them coming a mile or so down the road. I slow down so I can pull over like I'm supposed to. The car behind me seems confused. YES! You have to stop and pull over for the safety/law enforcement vehicle approaching you. It passes, down the road I go then an ambulance comes over the bridge that crosses the dual set of railroad tracks. Again, slow down, pull over stop. Our first round of this seems to have reminded my follower of 'the rules' (see yesterday's blog for that).

Back in mid-April I made a business trip to South Carolina to cross train with a departing cost accountant at another plant. Due to the Master (golf) tournament, hotels in Aiken where our plant is located were booked the week I was there. I wound up in a hotel close to Columbia, SC and had to drive 50-60 minutes each way. Well one day on my way back to the hotel I faced road construction and we were down to one lane. Then lights, sirens, lights sirens lights sirens. Anddddddddddddddddddd a whole bunch of people more worried about not losing their place in line because we only had one line than letting safety/law enforcement down the highway. I did the right thing, pulled over and let them pass. People seemed confused by this. Why in my right mind would I pull over? Why? Ummmm - because you are supposed to. Because it is the law. And because you might be saving the life of someone on the destination end by setting aside your selfish nature for a couple of minutes. You will get to where you are going. You might be late. You might, as I did in South Carolina, even be faced with losing your precious place in line as dozens of cars speed past you. But, it is the right thing.

About ten years ago I did part of a citizen''s police acadamey (didn't complete due to job change and other complications) but i did get to do a ride along. I have been in a police car, lights and sirens going as we sped full blast east on 95th street in Lenexa, KS. Through traffic. The officer told me he hated going with lights and sirens because people froze, paniced and didn't know what to do and it was a lot of trouble. I got to witness that first hand from the passenger seat of his car. People stopped in the middle of the road blocking the path. People still going down the road. Honestly folks, you don't know why they are going, you don't know where they are going. They are there for our protection. If you can't remember what you are supposed to do, consult the driver's handbook for your state. It's probably online even. So PULL OVER, give them a path. Let them get to where they are going so they can protect us and keep us safe, and maybe save our lives.

So be warned, if your following me, and those lights and sirens approach, I'll be pulling over.

--

Milisa Henderson

http://www.milisahenderson.com/

The Rules

2011-09-13T12:57:00.001-05:00

The Rules

I give. I don't understand. It's probably me. It usually is. But why am I constantly seeing folks breaking rules? Stupid rules. Little rules. Yeah yeah go ahead and call me petty. I'm used to it.

Point in case. One of my upstairs neighbors decided to park his shiney, red, Ducati motorcyle under the overhang right outside my apartment door. There's a rule about this somewhere in the lease. He then proceeds for days to work on said motorcyle under the overhang - also against the lease rules as I recall. Motorcycle is now (finally) fixed and parked appropriately as of yesterday. Grease stains left behind on the cement (freshly painted a month or so back). I suppose it hasn't occurred to my neighbor to oh say clean up said grease. (I know, I know, he broke rules to fix the darn thing there of course he's not going to clean up the grease - and besides the grease isnt' outside HIS apartment door).

The road I live on is under construction. This is brought such joy to my life. Joy to the extent that I have given up washing my car until said construction is done due to the amount of dirt/dust in the air. I can wash the car and by evening you can't tell it. Now due to this construction the entrance next to my building is periodically blocked off. This morning I watched someone drive around said barrier. Sorry but I value my car too much to do something idiodic like that. I drove the long way through the complex and noticed numerous signs posted in the complex so that people trying to use the blocked entrance had a chance to turn around. Obviously this didn't apply to someone and around they went. Fine, make your own traffic rules - it's your car not mine.

Anyway - I don't get it. Maybe I'm just a black and white kind of girl (of course I am - I'm an accountant. I LIVE black and white, I quote black and white. is send non-conforming stuff back to folks).

--

Milisa Henderson

http://www.milisahenderson.com/

Giving

2011-09-07T09:26:00.001-05:00

Giving

I have a co-worker who has just gone through a horrible situation. While at work and her son at school, their house was broken into and virtually everything taken. And I mean EVERYTHING. Cleaned Out everything. They're in total shock.

Well last weekend I bought two new pair of shoes and a much needed larger, new handbag (yes larger, I carry half my life with me it seems and I can't break the habit). I spent enought that I earned a certificate for $10 in Kohls Dollars back. Yesterday I was prompted to give it to her. She was stunned this morning. I told her she needed it more than I do. I also gave her the weight watcher bar freebie they gave me at the weight watchers meeting last night. It has coconut in it and I don't like it. Small thing but to do something small for someone in need - both physical and emotional felt good.

Some days it is the little things. Some times it is the ittle things. And it puts me in the right mindframe to be go teach my first session of Bright Lights (a program of spiritual discipleship for girls age 9-14) tonight.

I have another friend in need and my heart breaks for her. We are too far away in distance for me to do anything. Due to her circumstances I have lost electronic contact with her. All I can do is pray and know that God is watching over her.

At a writer's conference I went to this summer, someone said not to put 'religion' on your blog in relationship to promoting your writing. I can't. It is who I am. I cannot be who I am, and be who God wants me to be and write the material God wants me to write without talking about Faith and God. I understand not all will agree with my perspective. However I don't believe in isolating myself as a Christian. As Christians we cannot carry out the 'great commission' of spreading the good news to all nations (by the way panta ta ethnos - as I recall - which means ethnic groups and not nations as we think of it) if we are hiding in a hole waiting for the return of Christ. Actually I believe that Christ will not return until all nations (see definition earlier) have had the chance to hear the word in their own language. While we're getting closer to that, we've got a way to go. So in the meantime expect a mixture of things on my faith, God, life and writing here.

--

Milisa Henderson

http://www.milisahenderson.com/

Electronic Decluttering

2011-08-19T14:52:00.000-05:00

Electronic Decluttering

Probably I can blame Yahoo and it's new! improved! email (that works slower on my work computer despite promises that it faster - go figure) that rearranged things and had me on a hunt yesterday. But I found myself doing a bit of electronic housecleaning.

What do I mean by electronic housecleaning? Well - have YOU taken a good hard look at your email account(s) lately. How much outdated, useless, no longer needed crap do you have loitering about?   Mine was bad. I have emails associated with at least three (if not more, I'm only going to state that when left unchecked and unbalanced I can be something of a rabble rouser) message board blow ups (about reality TV of all things!). I caught myself reading some of this stuff yesterday and found myself shamed at my behavior and regretting too many burnt bridges and decimated friendships. Unfortunately at that time I didn't understand, to borrow a phrase from friend and one of my writing instructors, Juliet Kincaid, "life is too short."

For those wondering - no, I didn't delete those emails, I moved them and kept them as a reminder to myself of how much personal damage I am capable with using mere words on a screen.

I deleted all sorts of stuff, rearranged and then went to my Gmail account. I still have work to do there.   Thanks to the labeling (and sub/sub/sub labeling) system there I can file things into small units, I can set a filter to auto flag and such. While useful, at times I find the achieve button has been a bit overused and I have kept stuff that really I need to analyze what I've got and if it needs to be kept.

The same probably needs to be done on my external hard drive I use for file storage as well. Who knows how old that stuff is.

I will admit at least electronic clutter doesn't take up a lot of physical space. But it does use a lot of virtual space so it needs just as much attention as other clutter. Besides, you don't know what you might find. A reminder of past issues (like above), or reminder of past writing efforts you have put out there (also found, related to two or three message boards). It gave me a bit of a mental lift to see feedback on things I'd written circa 2003 to 2005 or so.

it was also a reminder that I had lost opportunity in not creating a brand in my name because at that time I was doing these op /ed pieces, reviews and summaries using board user names.   Today, I know better and would/will use my own name since that is the brand I want to build to support my mystery/suspense writing. And that is a lesson I'll put out there for folks who might be reading and interested in writing. yes it is easy to fall under the spell of message board user names for privacy sake, to use creative/cutesy names on Twitter or Facebook, but remember you are building a brand, you are building name recognition and contacts either in the industry or potential book buyers/readers in the future. So don't hide your light under a bushel like I did.

Now pardon me - I've got files to sort and delete.

Hunger Games and other YA Lit I find myself reading

2011-08-18T11:38:00.001-05:00

So I just raced through the audio version of the second book, Catching Fire , in Suzanne Collins Hunger Games trilogy. I have the third book, Mockingjay, on hold with my library system and am anxiously waiting the email telling me I can download it via Overdrive onto my phone.   I kept seeing Hunger Games around and ignored it. I'd heard little about it. On a business trip to South Carolina back in May or June I saw a kid toting a copy. Then when I recently downloaded the Android app for Overdrive onto my phone and began 'shopping' for audio books to check out and 'read' on my 30 minute (or longer) commute to/from work I spotted the book and put it on reserve.

I am hooked on this series. Hooked the same way I was when I read the first Harry Potter book.   Likewise I'm also invested in a series by Ally Carter who writes the Gallagher Girl series about a school for girls that trains them to be spies. I have read all four books in this series: I'd Tell You I'd Love You but Then I'd Have to Kill You; Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy; Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover; and Only The Good Spy Young.

What is it about these books that have a 47 year old aspiring mystery author and cost accountant who is single without children eager to read these novels? Sometimes I think it is that part of me that I have discussed elsewhere in this blog that never grew up. The part of me I call '7th grade self' The girl who had a box of Trixie Belden books handed to her by her Aunt Francis that had belonged to her older Texan cousins. (and yes I had one of the books open and read it on the trip back to NE Kansas as I recall).

Or maybe it is that as an author who not only reads but is learning to study novels I find things that are lacking in my own work but is done so well in these works that I must read them. I have been told that I write amazing dialogue (thank you to those folks). And I have put a lot of work into improving characterization (thank you Ronald D Moore - creator and show runner of my beloved re-imagined Battlestar Galactica TV series - if you haven't watched this series with full episode commentary you are missing some excellent coaching/lessons in writing). But the area I have always struggled with is description. Or perhaps as is it is put in the world of scifi and fantasy - universe building.

What both of these series as well as JK Rowlings Harry Potter books do is build a unique, creative environment that you can see, taste, touch and smell. They are rich worlds and I feel the character's emotions as well. And through that rich world, and the deep characters I find fiction I cannot put down.

It helps that these are often short reads that I can zip through and study in a short period of time. I find that the YA format, at least for studying purposes, is short enough and simple enough that I can also study placement of things like clues, red herrings and suspects. Or in the case of the Hunger Games Trilogy I can study and think about how the suspense and tension is built.

I also suspect that when I make choices from adult fiction I'm in a zone of reading for pleasure (not that I'm not reading the books above for pleasure) and don't want to break into reading with the editor sitting on my shoulder. She annoys the heck out of me and it takes longer to read books and she hates everything.

Back to Book Dissection!

2011-08-17T20:12:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday I hauled my tush out of bed on Saturday morning and made a two hour trek west to the Cedar-Roe Library of the Johnson County Library system in Roeland Park KS for the Border Crimes Book Dissection group. I've missed this group. Yes, two hours (one way) is a bit of a trip to talk about books but it was worth it.

Frankly I think my writing has missed the awareness I receive from these exercises. The book we discussed was Agatha Christie's The Body in the Library (using Carolyn Hart's How to Write Killer Fiction (a book I own, have read and got a lot out of as a writer). We didn't get very far in the book so more next time - and more motivation for me to haul myself to the meeting.

I find that if I were to pick one of the Border Crimes meetings, it would be the Book Dissection. It just so happens that it fits best with my schedule as well.

This week at work brings the internal auditors. So far so good, but they've really only been here two days.

My business cards came! Not for work but for my writing. Wish I had received them before Book Dissection but can look forward to handing them out at the next one.

NEED to get back into my novel. Seriously. I finally hit the midpoint. I wish I could say hey the rest is downhill. It's not. I have a lot of work to do as far as moving from third person to first person. Work to do in shifting scenes from one point of view to another - IF it will work in Amanda's POV. I've already experienced a scene where I thought I could make that shift and it didn't flow so I had to cut and replace with other stuff. Which means I'll have to fill in the things I can't rework. Not to mention actually getting to the end. Then I need to go back through track the clues, red herrings, see if I need to place more, run it through some readers to see if I project whodunit too early and on and on. And at the pace I'm going I'll be retired by the time I get it done.

The Schedule

2011-08-06T12:16:00.000-05:00

As a cost accountant - meaning someone who works with how much it costs the company to manufacture a product, variances from standard cost, and other such oddities I’m not going to begin to bore the mathphobic with - I am about to enter ‘the busy season.’ Most people I encounter think that as an accountant my busy season is January - April 15 because they associate accounting of any sort with tax. We have someone for that and I’m happy to let him do the tax work. I’ve had my past encounters with tax, and no thank you. It’s enough to do my own.

So the busy season for me? Things start to ramp up in August with the beginning of the budget process. I’ve been told I’ll be handling more of that this year than last when i was still in learning curve mode. I’m excited about that. Go ahead, call me sick and twisted, I can take it. Internal Audit is paying us a two week visit. We have our controller from Wuhu China coming in from August 22 through September 2. I need to spend some time training her on the system we use to calculate E&O (excess and obsolete inventory -this is a giant pain in the neck thanks to the system we use).

It if very likely I’ll end up at our Aiken, SC plant to do August month end. The cost position is open there. I considered taking it but decided it wasn’t a good fit for me. In the mean time I’m wearing two hats and sometimes can’t tell you if I’m Jake or Milisa. They have yet to hire a replacement. I’m hoping/praying that they’ll get someone hired so I can train them for August close - otherwise things are going to get messy. Even if I don't go there for this closing, at some point the replacement will need trained.

We have a visit from Internal (different group than the August visit) and External Auditors the week of September 12. The following week is Hard Close review prep. This year our hard close is August 31. This is for interim audit purposes. the results of this close and all balance sheet account reconciliations are reviewed the week of September 26. Then we go into September month end and the following week we have physical inventories from October 13-15.

After that my boss and I amp up for the process of setting 2012 standard costs beginning with the pulling of last price paid for raw materials after physical inventories are done and conducting multiple review and roll up processes literally through almost the end of the year. I’m the type that will continue reviewing accuracy until I am cut off. Then of course we have year end, another visit from the external auditors in January and it will be mid-January before the whole thing is over.

You can also add to my schedule the fact that I’m back to teaching Sunday School on third Sunday’s - something I’m excited to get back to. Which means I’ll be hesitant to leave town on those weeks. I enjoy my Sunday School time. I get as much out of teaching as I put into it. The best part is, it uses a different part of my brain. Something I definitely need during the busy season.

Come to think of it - writing uses a different part of my brain. Meaning I need to write MORE rather than less during my work related business since it seems to help me de-stress and unwind from the accounting world. Interesting observation. Some years I would try to do Nanowrimo. I did last year but found it took me so far out of the novel I’m working on (Unraveled) that I had a difficult time going back. So this year I’m thinking NanoLISSmo - Liss spends 30 days with an intense focus on the present WIP (work in procoss - both a writing and accounting term.

So if I’m hibernating, cranky, unavailable, etc it might be because it’s the busy season or maybe I’m lost in the world of Wakarusa County. As for the holidays, I find that I look forward to the holiday season not for the holiday itself but because they offer a respite from work.

Getting the Details Right

2011-07-25T09:46:00.000-05:00

I'm working on the mid-point of my novel. Actually, I'm working on the mid-point of my novel that was, at one point, at the beginning of the novel but once I followed Timothy Hallinen's advice on what to do if you are stuck (visit his website, I believe it is still on there) and based on the guidance of a couple of folks in my critique group (Larry & Warren) I moved the scene to the mid-point (where it really belongs), thus giving my novel the sturdy middle 'tent pole' it really really needed.

The scene involves something horrible at a train crossing that my protagonist witnesses. Well betwen the time I started this scene and now I have not only moved the scene to a different place in the novel, I relocated myself and my cat, Spooky, from NE Kansas to Mid-Missouri. Unemployment bites and sometimes you have to yank up those stakes and move - which is what I did. So for the last year and 4 months I have walked across a set of train tracks twice a day, 5 days a week and noticed something that would make a nice detail in this scene. It is only a detail, but to me it makes the scene more real, more filled out and shows that perhaps I take the time to get things right.

The detail was a metal box/house with a Department of Transportation (DOT) phone number and DOT number for the location. But what is it? what do I call it. And then my mind reminds me that I know someone who has a husband who works for a railroad. Bingo. I contact her on facebook and ask the question. She got back to me with an answer last night.

Sometimes it is not about how to find the details and information on the internet or in a book. Sometimes you can use those folks you know in real life (or on the net) to ask questions of the weird. My late step-father once answered the question for me "what are those things at the airport that they use to move the baggage carts around with?" Answer - Tuggs. How did he, a forklift driver at a warehouse in Lawrence, Kansas know that? They used them at the distrubiton center he worked at. Seriously, you just never know.

And for my "beta reader" (that would be the person who reads stuff for a logic/emotion/have i gone off the deep end check before moving too far down the road) - I'll make another pass through and add ' more red.'

PSWA Conference 2011

2011-07-23T09:40:00.000-05:00

I took a chance this year and decided to go to a conference I have heard about on blogs but not gone to before. It is the Public Safety Writer's Association (PSWA) conference. They hold this conference in Las Vegas. It is a small, one track conference. This year's topics had Michael Black speaking on character, Christopher Scott Wyatt speaking on screenwriting (and the word counts associated with novels, big screen movies, and small screen movies as well as where the money is). I heard police officers speak from real experience, we viewed a video of a horrific fire in England as an example of how fast a fire can spread. I made contacts I wouldn't have made otherwise from people in firefighting, law enforcement, the military and those of us writing about it and a couple of small press publishers.

The cost of this conference is very reasonable. And since it was held at The Orleans (off the strip) the rates were excellent (seriously the rates for my recent business travel exceeds the rates we had for this conference. If you are looking for a fun conference where you will make contacts and learn a lot I urge you to give this one a try next year. I'm already planning on making the trek to Vegas next year.

I've also become a PSWA member. Some of the benefits is access to their listserve where you can ask questions of those 'in the know' or those who might know someone who knows someone who... It also gives you the ability to enter their annual writing conference (many many categories for this) and submit a manuscript for a read through.

http://www.policewriter.com/Conference/conference.htm
Photos of this year's conference at the above link (where you can also learn more about their conference and the organization).

Jury Duty - 2009

2009-11-30T18:23:00.000-06:00

So I'm on jury duty (until Friday) - meaning I have to call in Monday's and Fridays to find out if my group has been summoned. Well, I was summoned this morning.

Attempted Murder Case.
Defendant accused of attempting to kill his ex-wife - they were in a serious custody issue. Their 15 year old son has separate juvenile charges against him. Also charged, but receiving immunity for testimony is their then 12 year old daughter.

Needless to say since I'm talking about this in a blog, I wasn't selected. To be honest the mere description of the case made me cringe. I missed news of this since I went through a long period where I ignored almost all news.

The reason I'm out is because they asked if anyone knew violent/serious crime victims, victims of sexual abuse, sexual assault, or abuse at home. I do. The list is longer than I really cared ever to think about, at least until I had to sit there in the jury panel and examine it. A friend of my sister's was murdered during a robbery at her part time job in KCMO. A girl my sister and I went ot junior hihg with (between my sister and I grade-wise) disappeared, is assumed dead/murdered and one of the suspected victims of John E. Robinson - oh by the way I lived in the same neighborhood he did when I was a teenager.

I know someone who was molested by a family member as a child. I know more people than I care to think about who either suffered abuse by a spouse, parent or witnessed it. I myself have suffered verbal abuse.

I thought about a friend I had between the age of 10 and 12 who lived down the street. She was a couple of years older. Not liked by a lot of people. Her mother didn't spank her children - she beat them - shoes and hairbrushes and the most vivid in my mind - and yes in front of other children.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't sit on that jury with those memories, with that knowledge and give the defendant a fair trial. I admitted that and was dismissed.

I've checked on details of the case since returning home from jury duty. The details of this case are chilling. It's dredged up a lot of memories -and that's just from the short period of time I was in jury selection before being dismissed for cause.

/http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2009/nov/30/jury-selected-trial-lawrence-man-accused-trying-ki/

Tales of the Unemployed #2

2009-11-05T11:04:00.000-06:00

Took the car in for service, noticed yesterday that the heat gauge was a far to the right (meaning overheated - only it didn't act like it and no service engine light, no check oil light, no check radiator/coolant light). And it freaked me out - cuz hey this is me we're talking about and well everything freaks me out - it's where I go. I'm working on it but I am a born worry wort. Turns out to just be a sensor. Of course sensor is going to cost over $300 to replace because naturally they can't just replace the sensor they have to replace other stuff with it. I opted to go with a bad sensor for now. State of mind, much calmer. Praise God it was only a sensor and not something crucial and expensive. I've sworn for a couple of years now that God is the one keeping that car going - still do.

Nice week weather wise so far. Blue sky. sunshine. After weeks of mostly grey stuff it's a welcome sight. And praise God that I get to enjoy it instead of being trapped in an office. Forecast for tomorrow - 76 degrees! In NOVEMBER! Of course that reminds me that circa 1976 when I was in the 6th grade when the weather was like that I got stung by something. Bee? Wasp? Probably a wasp - it had crawled inside my short shirt sleeve, I shifted my arm walking from one class to another (yes outside) and it stung me. Bit of an allergic reaction - big ole swollen red/pink spot under my right arm.

Called the outplacement folks again this morning. Got voice mail, left a message.

Recruiter called me yesterday from elsewhere about a senior cost accoutant in New York - hour and a half outside of Erie, 2 hours from Buffalo. My resume is on the way there - yay! I keep applying to things online from other states. One company asked me for a word document version of my resume because their online application process garbled the stuff on my resume (note to companies - online copy/paste functions for resumes seriously bite - if ya'll would all put an upload function on those I'd be a much happier camper and not have to send these things again). I'm going to consider the fact that they actually asked for a copy of my resume means maybe, possbily they're interested. Position is in Alabama and I realized later yesterday afternoon that I know the company name from my previous position and that they deal in/make forklifts (and I did some lease accounting).

I'm getting much more comfortable selling myself in interviews based on my babbling on and on in an interview with a local recruiter yesterday. Good sign. On my way home I asked God who in the world that person was (not the person who interviewed me but the person who babbled on about herself and how awesome she is). At some point along the way have I turned into a more outgoing person? And can I credit my work in children's ministry over the last 5 years for bringing me out of my shell?

Need to get back to working in the spare bedroom. Mostly sorting and stuff. How did I let it get this bad? Bad me bad me.

Beth Moore Esther study tonight. Next to the last meeting. Wow that went fast. Great study. I learned a lot. So much in the book of Esther and she does a wonderful job of bringing it out and showing it to you. I'm always a bit lost when these studies end.

I meant to take my severance package paperwork with me to Lawrence this morning so I could stop by my bank to have my signature notorized so I could send it back. Forgot it. I hate that. I told myself last night that I needed to put it in my back so I wouldn't forget. Did I? No. I know when I tell myself to do these things or I'll forget that I'm going to forget. Really I know better. Oh well, onto the todo list for tomorrow (or when my mother finally gets the call that her car is ready and I take her in to pick it up).

Tales of the Unemployed

2009-11-04T09:13:00.000-06:00

based on career builder.com local market is slooooooooooooooooow. still applying via monster for out of town positions. we're headed into a traditionally slow season in recruiting (aka the holidays). still upbeat. could be because i'm enjoying not waking up to an alarm and loafing around the house.

i've gotten a bit of work done on the dreaded spare bedroom. some stuff is in the living room as I needed room to move things about. wild woman saw it yesterday but was impressed with how much I've gotten done. And that's with me working in spurts -it's a back requirement ya know. I'm not going to mess with it today as I've got a 1pm meeting with a recruiter in the city and I don't want to get all sweaty and gross beforehand. My bins are all in place and stacked. Now I've got piles of stuff that need sorted. That could mean days of stuff strewn across my living room. But, it needs to be done.

I've also got errands to run. Mom is still without a car so I'm errand girl this week. She needs leaf bags so after my recruiter appointment I'll stop by to pick those up for her. And I need to drop something in the mail - unemployment related re severance pay, and need to drop a book I finished at the library (great book - Gone Tomorrow - by Lee Child).

I haven't gotten much writing done. I was trying something different. Not sure it's working so methinks I'll go back to where I was before.

Lifegroup tonight. Beth Moore Study tomorrow. Border Crimes Monthly meeting on Saturday Morning (someone from the Johnson County Sheriff's Department is speaking on jurisdictions - can you say RESEARCH!) And sometime in there hopefully Mom gets a call from collision repair folks saying her car's ready.

Last employed day...

2009-10-30T10:59:00.000-05:00

Here I am - at work, last day. They're taking me out to lunch to 'celebrate' my accomplishments. I'm letting them. Really I don't like attention, hype and houpla.

To make things even more strange, it is the last workday before Halloween. and my employer has a tradition of office trick or treating complete with people in coustumes. I did not dress up (me? please I never dress up). I did not bring candy (one more thing to tote home today).

I'm sort of looking forward to getting done with today and getting it over with. I've carted most of my stuff home already. Yesterday afternoon I went over my duties with the boss. I have my paperwork from HR and only need to turn in the amex card (for travel) and corporate ID at the end of the day.

I don't know where God is taking me, or what all I'm going to learn from this (other than to TRUST IN THE LORD). I do have plans. Stuff I've been procrastinating on. Things like deculttering the spare bedroom (you so don't want to know). And sorting through the piles of books - hauling some of them to Half Price books for sale. And I'll have time to write. And, oh yes, find a job etc etc.

Question to ponder - will Halloween now become an anniversary sort of date for me? One that marks a change in my life?

Let the weirdness begin

2009-10-29T09:55:00.000-05:00

this week has been weird already. Okay the last 6 months or so have been stressful, chaotic, and well weird. Who am I kidding the last year plus has been way stressful. It's likely that I'm off the chart on the whole life event stressers list.

They announced on a limited basis that tomorrow is my last day. They're taking me to lunch. Let the questions begin. That's why I wanted them to wait. I hate answering the questions. I hate the attention.

Am I nervous? yes. Am I afraid? yes. Do I know what's gonna happen? Nope. But I have God. And I trust God. And I know while it may be painful, God is going to take care of me. This is all a faith journey. I know I will come out of this experience, come through this experience a changed person. Changed for the good as God tests me and purifies me. My faith will be strengthened from this. I can already see in how I'm handling this situation vs similar situations in the past that I have grown in my faith, grown as a child of God and have a much more mature faith.

long time

2009-10-23T14:20:00.002-05:00

no blog.

but here I am.

thanks to a 'conversation' going on in email for guppies (I think it's guppies - could be sisters in crime main list though) about female protagonisits and such I've hit on something related to my novel...

my orginal victim is the wrong sex! it's a guy not a girl. totally changes the dynamic and i can (finally) see the murder going down (victime is found 20 years later).

between that - a point of view change - and the addition of flashbacks in the form of third person pov's other than my protagonist's first person pov - I think I'm excited to get back at my project!

so the question rattling in my head today

2008-09-04T08:38:00.002-05:00

not on the title- yeah i got tired of numbering. lol

in 2000 i was a huge mccain fan. totally loved him. i'm not feeling him like that this time. but something occurred to me last night. what i loved about mccain was his true rebel nature. his passion and at times anger, his fire. and his record of late and how he's protraying himself this time around is a more tame image, at least by comparison. but since he didn't make it out of the primaries last time and did this time, could it be that he had to shift his image to get elected? could it be that lurking behind the mask is that guy with passion and fire that i so loved eight years ago?

how does that thought effect my vote? i'm not sure. am i going to vote for who i think the real guy is? or am i voting for the image. and I sort of have to analyze that on both sides.

sarah palin's speech last night was awesome. granted someone wrote most of that for her. but there are the words, and then there is the delivery. both were great. did it sell me? not entirely because there is rhetoric vs record and I don't want to fall for the rhetoric when I need to be looking at the record.

Election Thoughts - Part 5

2008-09-03T10:51:00.002-05:00

RNC last night did little for me as far as differentiating McCain from Bush. It's an issue for me.

I want to like Sarah Palin- it is not happening. I've tried. Honest. Over the weekend with the rumors and bashing that went on, the negativity had a reverse effect on me and drove me a bit more to the right. What can I say, it's the rebellious side of me. But now that things are settling down and real information is coming out on her record, I'm struggling.

I love Joe Lieberman. I knew it wouldn't happen.

It's the economy stupid - at least for me. It's the growing federal deficit. It is the things we need to do at home to shore up our own country but instead we are frittering away in someone else's yard taking care of them while our own proverbial house goes to seed.

Things not on my list of concerns in this race:
abortion - yes really it isn't on my list. state issue for me. President only influences the Supreme Court and no judge that would actually get confirmed is going to overturn Roe v Wade thirty some years after the fact.

health care reform - mainly cuz I see it as lip service to try to get votes on both sides when the reality is this needs to come from Congress and the Senate and since we have gridlock in both places it ain't happening. And being a bean counter type nobody can make the superficial math work for me.

Tax cuts - are you kidding me??? crimeny hello we're running a huge debt and borrowing money from other countries. And we're talking tax cuts? sheesh - again it's a bean counter thing were bad math just screams at me.

Observation - dear drudge - what is with your obsession about pictures of Sarah Palin's feet in high heels? Get over it and stop showing that your a closet chauvinist.

Election Thoughts - Part 4

2008-08-30T15:45:00.000-05:00

rosie is blogging sporadically. not back to her ask ro. this was in a new blog entry entitled labor day.

obama did not even vet
r nations most qualified woman
johnnie mac chose one
a beauty queen - no less

things that make u go hmmmmmmm

Election Thoughts - Part 3

2008-08-30T11:36:00.000-05:00

fyi - my stylist was excited about mccain's vp pick.

actually i think wild woman might be a bit excited about mccain's vp pick.

to be honest - i think I'M excited about mccain's vp pick - but i'm more excited about his vp pick than I am about mccain will watch the RNC closely - mccain's speech and palin's in particular. and will be watching things like upcoming debates - especially the only VP debate closely. translation liss is going to be hard and heavy on politics until Nov 4.

delaying the rnc a day or two and perhaps cutting down to just mccain/palin is a wise choice in light of a potential disaster. It shows discretion and taste. I do agree that a lot of money is tossed away on these conventions when it's mostly a dog and pony show when the candidate is already chosen. It's not like the old days when there were backroom deals being cut and the floor votes meant something. The fact that the major networks only show one hour of the convention speaks for itself in that regard.

for me I'm leaning but still undecided. I'm in a post dnc high or something. we'll see how I feel next week. Mccain needs to do more to differentiate himself from the current administration for him to win me. The issue for me was brought up in obama's speech - do I want 4 more years of what we've had in the last 8 and I have to say a resounding NO. It's more than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's the economy, it's the deficit (when they're talking tax cuts and for the life of me bean counter liss so doesn't understand how you can cut taxes when we're borrowing from the chinese to finance two wars. It's the craptastic no child left behind act (and no teacher I no thinks that's a great thing, they waste valuable time they should be spent educating prepping kids and giving tests to make the district numbers look pretty so the district doesn't end up on the bad school list).

Election Thoughts - part 2

2008-08-29T13:04:00.000-05:00

momentarily pleasantly surprised by mccain's choice.

then I wiki'd and other details came out.

back to where I was.

ya know the uber conservative christians will just flat out never vote democrat so I don't understand the pandering. And that's one of the reasons why I left the republicans and became unaffiliated. There's just as big a group of christians (that is growing) that votes differently, thinks differently and the only issue isn't abortion. We think differently about the war. and neither party 'gets' us. I feel alienated as a voter, as a citizen.

I was a college student in 84 and again in 88. the republicans were a hell no. the democrats eh that's where I went but I knew even then they weren't going anywhere. in 92 my mother and sister got excited about Clinton. I said ehh, but GHWB was a hell no. yeah yeah I voted Clinton that time. my choice yeah I'm a nutjob I liked Gerry Brown. sue me. Heck I was also a Gary Hart fan. again, sue me. In 96 refused to vote, provisional ballot cuz i'd just moved or no cuz both candidates were hell no's. Mccain was my choice in 2000 but he went down in flames and I went with bush. I was a newly returned to the fold christian and deep down looking back i was making decisons politically that I thought I was supposed to make, letting religion point the way. (emphasis on the word religion there by the way). 2004 brought my war protest vote of Kerry - I did the math: I live in Kansas, no way no how would KS go to Kerry, I threw my vote to him knowing it didn't matter.

and that is where this ramble is going. the electoral collage. I know it's in the constitution. I know how it works (hey I got an A in government class in high school ya know). But I feel living in a red state that when I lean to the left in the presidential elections like my vote is being thrown away and doesn't matter. And it's frustrating. And I'm tired of it.

sigh.

Election Thoughts - part 1

2008-08-28T22:16:00.000-05:00

okay from obama's acceptance speech.

things that stood out to me.

8 is enough. dear cod I almost heard people my age in the crowd giggling over that. I loved it. yes i immediately remembered the tv show.

10 years to no more dependence on foreign oil - obama's men to the moon. When I see Obama I'm reminded of Jack & Bobby Kennedy. That line brought back the memory.

John McCain doesn't get it. ---- no he doesn't nor does he know how many houses he owns.

absentee father - dang but I relate to him on that front.

I loved the imagry they set for him. the white house behind him feel - the blue round rug under him with the gold circle reminding you of the oval office.

there was stuff in his speech about how hard American's work. The you're on your own lines. loved them. I'm single. I have no kids. it's how I feel sometimes.

the lines about common ground - the we may not agree on this but we should be able to agree that lines. I loved them. It reflects how I feel about virtually all of those issues.

okay bring it mccain. you've got next week. so bring it.

2008-05-19T13:41:00.001-05:00

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89922777

Speaking of Mothers

2008-05-14T07:14:00.002-05:00

So last night I popped across the street to talk to my mom. This is something I do if not every day then at least a few times a week unless I've picked up a bug (because I don't want to expose my ailing stepfather to crud unnecessarily). I started doing this because about 9 months ago my stepfather contracted pneumonia and wound up in the hospital - for a month. I live across the street. At no point did my mother ever tell me he was sick. She couldn't get him out of bed on her own, she didn't call me to come over to help. Gave me no indication he was sick at all until I came home from work on the Tuesday after Labor Day to a note on my door. Since then I physically stop in to make sure things are okay and that Mom isn't hiding things from me. She means well, but we seem to be drifting into that phase of parenting ones parents.

So last night I stop by. We chat. She asks me if I want the Bugtussle News. I say I'll get it later. She asks me if I want something from the Lawrence Paper. I say no. She gets up, goes to the kitchen, I tell her I don't want it. She digs in the stack of papers. I tell her I don't want it. She finds the section of the paper it's from. I tell her I don't want it. She starts to bring the section to me. I tell her I don't want it. Seriously - I gotta wonder what language I was speaking in because what part of 'I don't want it' do we NOT understand here. I can find whatever it is online at the newpaper's website, read it and not have to dispose/recycle the leftover paper cluttering my house.

Then there is the ongoing saga of my mother cleaning neighbor's yards. Now while on the surface I ask myself - routinely - if I am being petty and selfish, when I really think about the issue and her behavior I gotta ask if there's something more going on. The lot next to my mother is vacant. As in the trailer that had been there was hauled off (long story short - the place was repossessed and the resident vacated. Resident was something of a hoarder.). Crap out the kazoo was left behind. It made my mother bats. On this I didn't blame her. After what seemed like forever the deck was (finally) hauled off. A literal dump truck load of crap was hauled off. A shed was left behind (guess what! more crap!). My mother and the neighbor on the other side of the lot cleaned up the leaves and such. One of the other neighbors began poking around in the (locked) shed. Yes I said locked. They took the lock off. The former evicted neighbor drove by, saw them - called the police (seriously, I can't make the shit up) because they were getting in her stuff. Police basically told her to get lost. My mother and the neighbors continue their cleanup. bags and bags of stuff get stuffed into various trashcans (including mine - more on that to come). One neighbor hauls numerous tires off to the city (he works for the city) for disposal. Drama over. right? wrong?

My mother. In apparent need for something to do. Moves on to what she considers to be the vacant place next door to me. The place is a mess. HOWEVER, the trailer is still there. Now, seriously, my deep wish is that someone would walk past an open window and toss a match in. The place is that bad. There's one big issue with this. The people who lived there (or whatever - don't take me there) still have stuff there. My mother begins raking leaves and such. While this is a WAY overdue activity, she's drifting into territory that bugs me here. The empty lot was empty. I had no issues with that mess being cleaned up. This lot is still occupied and she's over there messing around. Heck, I ran a group of kids off a couple of weeks ago because they were messing around over there. So last week my mother does this whole bit of distributing trash bags from the lawn cleanup next door - her trash can, the trash can there - and my trash can. SIGH. No really - I had to tell my mother to WAIT until I had my own trash in the can and then tell her when I was done putting my own garbage in so she could cram my slovenly neighbors yard waste in my trash.

Now the whole can thing is an issue in our town because stuff has to go into the big blue cans for pick up. Yard waste is to go in the environmentally friendly bag yard waste bags. Did my mother uses these? Of course not. If she had, she could have plopped them on the curb and the trash guys would have hauled them off. Instead she's running around shoving bags of leaves in everyone's can. I THOUGHT we were done with this. Nope. Mom can't control herself. She went over this week and did MORE cleanup. She comments to me that some stuff that was over there (tires, an axle (yes really)) were gone. Ummmm ya think maybe because the place isn't entirely vacant? Now, did my mother consult with the park manager before she did this next door? No. I digress. Last night. After the 'I don't want it' newspaper incident I head home commenting that I need to do trash duty. She says to me, Oh I've got one more bag to put in your can. GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I fled back across the street. I did trash duty. And I hate trash duty but the bane of being single is that you get trash duty whether you like it or not. I haul the big blue can to the curb. My mother sees me. Yells across the street - are you done? GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

In this case, seriously, it would have been better to just leave me in the dark. Put the crap in my can and not let me know. Was it that urgent? Could ONE bag of leaves that had been on the ground for SIX AND A HALF YEARS! waited one more freaking week? I had a minor meltdown in the shower shortly after. I screamed get a hobby (to myself). I know, I know, she means well but crimeny.

So what do I see later in the evening. People next door. They were moving more stuff out fo the place. In this case doors (don't ask me, pre-hung doors, that were obviously intended to be put somewhere) and some small cabinets. Yeah. vacant my ass. I have a mental note to tell my mother, the next time she bemoans the fact that my crazy aunt visits people in nursing homes that at least she isn't wandering the neighborhood cleaning people's yards and distributing yard waste into people's trashcans for pickup.

Mother's Day Binge?

2008-05-12T09:46:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was mother's day. This is one of those days I'm not fond of. Oh sure I love my mother and I'm very close to her. But, at the age of 44 it is apparent to me that nobody will ever call me Mom. Which makes the day difficult. On some levels it just serves as a reminder that I'm different. And while it is okay to be different, it still hurts. It brings back the kid who felt like she was from Mars or something and never fit in. Most of the time I'm happy with the decision I've made to not have kids, to be single but every so often there is that reminder that just gets me.

I thought I was dealing with yesterday's annual reminder fine. But today, as I reflect back on yesterday and the fact that (hard to confess this but here goes) I sat and ate peanut butter from the jar with a spoon - essentially until the jar was empty, I have to admit that I think yesterday had an impact on me I wasn't acknowledging and that the hurt crept out in food. And when I don't deal with the emotions, when I try to ignore them, they creep out in the food patterns. It's a pattern/habit that goes back to when I was thirteen or so and it is that foothold that remains in my life. When the going gets tough, liss eats.

So here I am. I acknowledge it. I understand it. Not happy with myself but beating up of self is not going to accomplish anything.

Adding to my frustration yesterday, I think is the fact that what I wanted for lunch was a Panera Asian Chicken Salad. But when I drove by Panera after church the line was, in all seriousness, out the door. I just didn't have it in me to wait in a long line for a chicken salad while watching happy happy families celebrating mom. Maybe if I'd made myself stand in line to get the salad I wanted, I wouldn't have binged on peanut butter.

Meanwhile, peanut butter is back on the red light food list and won't be brought into the house. My own fault for allowing myself to buy peanut butter at all.

Women's Study

2008-04-23T07:07:00.004-05:00

Last night I went to women's study. I almost blew it off. I didn't and went. On some levels, I sorta wish I had blown it off. Next week is the last week of this study and due to things at work I'll be out of town for the Tuesday night study. I haven't decided yet if I'll go to the Thursday night session next week instead or not. I'll decide next Thursday once I see how tired I am from traveling Tuesday/Wednesday and how insane Monday is.

I digress on the point of this blog entry - which in a way is a tad ironic.

So the video portion of the study featured a woman who drifted away from God and had an abortion and kept it secret for years and then finally told someone and is healing from all the hurt she had for all those years. Now can we start with what the heck was the person who wrote this study thinking putting a hot button topic like that in a Christian Women's Study? But there it was. And there was a discussion question about what you would have said if this woman came to you. How you would have reacted. Had I been leading this discussion I either would have skipped over that question due to the subject matter, being sensitive of various opinions on the subject (as it turned out one of the women there had an abortion in the past).

This group has frustrated me from the word go at the seeming need to answer every question in the study. Which would be fine, but these people get lost in the trees of every question. We spent over 15 minutes on this question. Frankly, I disengaged mentally from the conversation because it quickly degenerated into the details of this woman's story. I could have shared my perspective on what it feels like to bottle up and keep secrets from people - any secret - not stuff like abortion. How it eats at you. But I didn't because I just don't handle debates and debate-like vehemence in conversations well. It is not my nature. I shrink when things start to get like that. And shrink is exactly what I did when I disengaged.

The next study that rolls around, I'll switch back to the Thursday night group. I so appreciate the pair of women who facilitate that group and their ability to be sensitive to the nature of some questions; their ability to keep on track time wise; and their ability to refocus conversations. I like the Thursday night facilitator as a friend, but I was so reminded of why I drifted (okay fled) the Sunday night group she and I were both a part of. Unending, unfocused discussions make me batty. Even when I enjoy the company.

They did finally get off the details of the question. I think one of the issues of this group is that one woman is a seeker and isn't quite there yet where God is concerned. So the group keeps getting lost in answering those questions and issues that come up with her. I'm trying to be patient in this, but deep down I just don't feel like I got very much out of this study.

LIVE!

2008-04-18T00:54:00.003-05:00

So tonight (at least as I start this blog entry) I went to the Bon Jovi/Daughrty concert at the Sprint Center.

I had the pleasure of driving from Bugtussle to Downtown KC, MO in the rain. ICK! Now due to previous employment and living in Midtown KC for a couple of years I do know my way around downtown. However looking for parking, downtown, when an event is going on at The Sprint Center while it is raining is a royal pain. I found parking, actually I found CLOSE parking. It was pricey but I paid it because being in rain and traffic was a combination that held potential for me freaking out (especially if/when it got dark) so I parked and dashed across the street (I told you I was close) to center. I'd tell you what street I parked on but I refuse to reveal it because apparently the big line to get into the building was on the opposite side. Once I got in I saw a sea of people out the windows on the 'front' side of the building standing in the rain- most under umbrellas but I'd seen enough people on the street minus umbrellas to know that wasn't the case for everyone. (and who goes to something like this knowing they'll have to hike from a parking lot without an umbrella?)

First stop once I was in the building was the women's bathroom. Plenty of stalls - and I lucked out that someone revealed that there were more 'in back' - meaning further back in that restroom. woot! (yes at times I am that easy to please).

Second stop - a trip up the really long escalator. Like 3 or 4 floors long escalator. Under normal circumstances, escalators don't bother me, but then normal escalators are one floor long. And if they are going to bother me, down is when it normally happens. Not this time, halfway up the thing (when you are basically stuck on the thing for better or worse) mild anxiety set in. Yes I made it, but needless to say I took the stairs going down and in the future will haul self up the stairs or use the elevator.

I found my seat, one criticism of The Sprint Center though is that it is a bit difficult to tell which section you're in - at least in the nosebleeds - once you leave the concourse. My seat was indeed up high, but it overlooked the stage and with modern technology they put stuff on giant screens anyway so unless I was willing to pay highway robbery prices the seat was okay.

Speaking of paying, how is this for a sneaky way to make money - on one of the big ad signs in the arena between Daugherty and Bon Jovi was a bit to choose the encore song by sending a text message. You had three choices. Well if you wanted to pay the 1.99 for the text message. And you can buy a Bon Jovi wallpaper for your phone, again for the low low price of $1.99. On the plus side of 'sales' at the arena, Chris Daugherty said that the acoustic version of one of his songs he did for American Idol Cares is on itunes for $.99 and the proceeds go to charity. Guess which of those I"m most likely to actually take?

Now, to the concert itself. Daugherty was amazing. They used the intro to Motley Crue's 'Home Sweet Home' as an intro to their song 'Home." The band is as good in person as on their CD. I loved every moment they were on stage.

Then of course the break between acts when they haul the opening act's equipment off stage and prep for the main attraction. Bon Jovi's stage was a black, shiny thing. And the roadies spent a great deal of time swiffering microscopic dust from the stage prior to Bon Jovi actually performing. I will say I was impressed with the short time it took to switch over.

The Bon Jovi took stage. I'll preface this by saying that while I like their latest album, I don't love their latest album. And it's not that I hate country, I don't. This album has songs on it I like and some that I don't. Naturally the opening song was a don't. Now as the band performs I notice that they have a violin player. a girl violin player. In a halter top and tight jeans. She sings. I took a dislike to her. Don't ask me why, I just wasn't thrilled with her there. Second I notice an extra guitar player. NO, I'm not talking about the hired gun bassist that they've had since they fired the original guy. This is an extra guitar player entirely. At times Richie was playing, Jon was playing and extraguy was playing? My question (and things like this distract me, it's a mental shiny object) is who the heck was extraguy covering for? Jon or Richie? And okay so maybe you can convince me that extraguy was needed for the country stuff they've done. But on the old stuff? Wait? all those years ago when I saw Bon Jovi perform were they stashing an extra guitar player backstage someplace like some of those 'other' bands stashed keyboard players (coughcoughyeahyoupoisoncoughcough)?

Among the mental shiny objects. Jon had on obvious contouring makeup. On stage. Sweating contouring makeup. Ya got me. Not glam 80's boys in makeup, contouring make your cheekbones stand out make up. weird. Oh and his hair line is starting to recede. Richie, please do something with that hair other than stick a 20+ year old hat on it. Please. yes Jon has receding hair and David Bryan looks like a poodle but your hair is just egads. I saw a dude on the floor playing air guitar in the aisle. The bimbo bins! I had a heads up on this part because a local radio station that I don't listen to was having a contest to be one of the people in there (i was told a woman shaved her head for this). or you could text (yeah wonder if there was a fee associated with THAT) certain words to a number for a chance. Anyway this 'be on stage with Bon Jovi' bit was what amounted to a pen on either side of the stage. (Mostly) women jumped around and took cell phone video of the band. I've dubbed them the bimbo bins.

Gripe: WTF was with the Richard Simmons Sweating to the Oldies songs? Specifically Shout and Gimme Good Loving? You don't play One Wild Night. You don't play Bounce. You don't play other stuff. (okay you did play Faith, I'll give you that). But you'll paly hits from Richard Simmons aerobic videos? bleh. Add this to the country stuff that I'm not wild about and you've reduced me to lukewarm. Seriously, I was happier during Daugherty.

Speaking of Daugherty, Chris came on stage to sing Young Guns with Jon. It was awesome. And Speaking of Faith, Jon left the stage and Richie sang that one while Jon took a break. This leads me to mental shiny objects again. because during Faith I notice the security people on the floor with a rope and moving around. And as I had begun to suspect, Jon pops up midway back in the arena to do a song or two. Richie took a break during this part. I found the security stuff distracting but then a gnat can distract me under the right circumstances.

The place was packed. My neighbors on one side were drinking. 4 girls. all standing. the one next to me kept bumping me. Seriously toward the end of the show I was waiting to get smacked in the face or elbowed in the nose (she was standing, I was sitting - a true sign you're getting old, you go to concerts and you SIT - this from someone who has done concerts while standing on chairs before. ). I considered accidentally on purpose knocking her over. I took the high road - this time. And this reminds me, the sprint center has cup holders. Not on the arm of the chairs like at the movie theater but on the floor at the back of the seats in front of you. Meaning they're trip hazards. And meaning that the chick next to me drinking beer kept bending over (putting her posterior in my face repeatedly) to get her beer. gads.

Overall I had a good time. Well except the drive home and that downer was the blinding rain in the dark and had everything to do with mother nature and nothing to do with the actual concert. I'm home now, I don't have to work tomorrow because I'm burning a PTO day and I get to sleep in.

Old Spice

2008-04-17T09:47:00.002-05:00

So the other night there I was laying in bed doing the usual multi-task of computer, tv, and book reading (yes really) when an ad for Old Spice Red Zone poppped onto my tv screen. No biggie, just another ad, right? Nope.

You see Old Spice is a scent associated with my stepfather. and the mere appearance of an ad on my tv brought back all sorts of memories - and a scent memory of the aroma of my stepfather reeking of the stuff. My sister and I could smell him coming. We could smell him long after my mother and he left. Thankfully he only put the stuff on if they were 'going out' or the mental flashback and Old Spice related PTSD could have been much much worse.

At that point in our rather rocky history I was in college, living at home and communiting to nearby KU. And I spent most of my senior year of high school and my entire college years fighting with my stepfather. Normally over petty stuff. Two stubborn people who didn't understand each other. He didn't understand the need to go to college. And how could he - he didn't go to high school, dropped out, went to work. And I didn't understand how a father figure in my life could dare to possibly show his love for me through discipline. That was my mother's job, even before my parent's divorce when I was 10.

All said and done, 7 years of hell between the marriage and my moving out after college. They've been married 26 years. I've learned to accept how he is. I think maybe he understand why I needed to go to college and that I wasn't loafing during those years but making it so that I actually had a future, that I would have options. He still gets on my nerves. But due to his health issues over the past years, I've grown to appreciate the times when he gives me a hard time because he doesn't do that when he's sick. I've grown to realize that he kids literally everybody and gives everybody a hard time and that it isn't a personal attack on me.

Of course none of this means I like Old Spice. I don't. I can't stand it. But Old Spice (and Pall Mall cigarettes with the blue haze that invaded the house during the early years of my parent's marriage) is the aroma of at least part of my memory.

Nehemiah 6:3

2008-02-21T07:12:00.004-06:00

So yesterday here I was at my desk at the office attempting to work and doing my usual multitasking of work while listening to podcasts. One of the selections I had going was Northpointe Church in Atlanta's message from Andy Stanley. It was the 4th part of his Discovering God's Will series which can be found here: http://www.northpoint.org/podcasts

In the sermon he talks about vision - the vision for your life, how vision comes from burdens. Wow that's a concept. Not one that necessarily makes me happy but hey it's a concept to think about next time I feel weighed down by life.

Anyway he talks about Nehemiah 6:3 in this sermon. "... I am doing a great work and cannot come down..." (NASB)

I now have this verse on a post it facing me on my cube. Hi, I tend to be rather ADD. I need to find several places at home to put that verse. This really needs to become a life verse for me. I've gotten so far away from where I once visioned I wanted to be. I'm talking about my writing. I got away from it. I'm getting back but I really need to sit down and do some thinking and praying and meditating on it. Ask God to give me vision on this. I need to say No (ie I am doing a great work and cannot come down) to the things that take me away and distract from that vision from doing the plan God has for me.

As I type this the thought patterns in my addled brain lead me to - Am I happy with my job/career? Answer is an ehhhhhhhhhhh, yeah it's okay but to be brutally honest I don't have a passion to come to work. It's a living. It provides for me. I don't hate it. but ya know just ehhhhhhhhhh.

That leads me to - so why stay in this career? ummm because I'm a week shy of 44 years old, a single and don't want to go back to school - don't want to kill myself working and changing direction via education and such. And let's be honest I don't want to take a pay cut. Besides, the passion I want to pursue is writing and I know the facts about supporting oneself as a fiction author. It's gonna be a long while before that happens so I may as well stay put.

But that leads me back to Neh 6:3 - How the heck AM I spending my free time away from the office? Why am I not pursing this passion. Yeah, one reason is because for a few years now it just didn't flow. Seriously - nothing, period. Don't ask me why although my guess is a combination of medication for depression (not gonna stop taking it - I can be sane and able to function in society with medication or I can be a miserable bitch on wheels making everyone around me miserable without it). I think it's taken time for my brain to rewire. Another reason is that I've had a bit too much drama going on in my life for a few years. It has left me drained. Ive been tired - mentally and emotionally just tired. I'm tired of drama, tired of upheaval. It's getting old. And it's helped shut off the creativity. But perhaps if things get quiet - and if I keep asking for vision and drive and hang on to that verse - I am doing a great work and cannot come down - that perhaps I can get back to the passion I feel when writing and actually begin executing.

Something Has Changed

2008-02-13T08:10:00.002-06:00

I don't know how it has happened, but it has. For the first time since Big Brother 1, I have no desire to watch it. None. I tivo'd it last night. I could care less if I watch it. No desire for the live feeds. No desire for Big Brother After Dark on Sho2. I'm not going to spend time figuring out how this happened, or why this happened. I'm just going to go with it. I consider this a change for the positive for myself. FYI - that no judgments against my plethora of friends who are BB addicts - I love you all, I wish you a great time. But I just can't bring myself to watch it.

Maybe it's the Beth Moore study on Daniel I finished last night. The first half of the study, which we did before Christmas, was on living a life of integrity while living in Babylon. The second half was on prophecies in Daniel related to the end times. It was an awesome study but I think it's changed me. Granted, that's the idea here. But after having done this intensive study, I can't bring myself to continue the way I was.

There is also a writing connection here. You see when I trace back to when I started getting derailed from my obsessive writing habits, I honestly think one (of many many factors) was Big Brother. While BB is only, until now, a summer time only show, it is responsible for getting me out of the insulated world on AOL and into the 'real' internet. And while that's been a great thing, at times it keeps me from my writing. And when BB is on in particular I get all wrapped up in this.

And right now, I'm just not feeling it. I'm starting to get plugged back into my writing. I went to the organization meeting for a new Sisters In Crime Chapter in KC and saw some people I hadn't seen in a long time and it excited me. It excited me far more than the idea of BB did. There is a chance at getting plugged into a critique group once things get going. And I need that. I so need that.

Shiloh

2007-12-04T11:28:00.000-06:00

So yesterday this: http://popsugar.com/853773 was all over the gossip pages. Lots of ooooh how creepy sort of stuff. And indeed it is a wee bit creepy. But when I took a close look at the closeup I noticed something interesting. It wasn't the license plate. It was the holder. Go back, take a look. Did you see it?

for those saying Liss, you've lost your mind (again!) it reads "You Matter to God" and underneath Saddleback.

For those not in the know, Saddleback is a huge church in Southern California pastored by one Rick Warren. Rick Warren is the author of megabestseller The Purpose Driven Life. http://www.saddleback.com/flash/default.htm#

Why is this notable and important to me? Well, Hollywood is notoriously anti christian. It is today's babylon (and yes I prefer babylon to the sodom and gammorah reference often used). And here is someone who is apparently christian. No he doesn't have it engraved on his forehead, but there it is. Most people likely never noticed this in this picture. I did.

checking dictionary.com I found this:

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Shiloh

generally understood as denoting the Messiah, "the peaceful one," as the word signifies (Gen. 49:10). The Vulgate Version translates the word, "he who is to be sent," in allusion to the Messiah; the Revised Version, margin, "till he come to Shiloh;" and the LXX., "until that which is his shall come to Shiloh." It is most simple and natural to render the expression, as in the Authorized Version, "till Shiloh come," interpreting it as a proper name (comp. Isa. 9:6). Shiloh, a place of rest, a city of Ephraim, "on the north side of Bethel," from which it is distant 10 miles (Judg. 21:19); the modern Seilun (the Arabic for Shiloh), a "mass of shapeless ruins." Here the tabernacle was set up after the Conquest (Josh. 18:1-10), where it remained during all the period of the judges till the ark fell into the hands of the Philistines. "No spot in Central Palestine could be more secluded than this early sanctuary, nothing more featureless than the landscape around; so featureless, indeed, the landscape and so secluded the spot that from the time of St. Jerome till its re-discovery by Dr. Robinson in 1838 the very site was forgotten and unknown." It is referred to by Jeremiah (7:12, 14; 26:4-9) five hundred years after its destruction.
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary

So maybe, just maybe the license plate isn't talking about his niece at all, maybe he's talking about the messiah. something to contemplate.

WGA Strike

2007-11-30T10:43:00.000-06:00

http://andpuff.livejournal.com/137817.html
tanya huff's blog

Writing and Music

2007-11-30T09:44:00.000-06:00

Okay so I've been neglecting my blog - again. But here I am.

Music feeds my writing muse - sometimes, oftentimes, although lately that hasn't brought much of anything inspiration wise. But then I think over the last few months I've been so overwhelmed by stuff and busy that the muse hasn't had the chance to get a toe in to even attempt to inspire. I wrote my first novel - unpublished (and if it were to be published, I'd scrap the whole shebang and write it all over again rather than doing another rewrite) to the soundtrack of the movie Speed (soundtrack as in movie score, not soundtrack as in cheesy pop songs).

And today, here I am at work, listening to movie scores on my ipod. Stuff I recently reloaded onto said ipod. We'll see where this goes.

I've been thinking about my second novel - also unpublished, and it needs work because I'm not sending it out to anyone until I like it and right now I don't. It's been through so many iterations that I think, like the first novel, it may need to be scrapped in favor of starting all over again. Hey at least this writing I know who the killer is. Now, to figure out what songs go with that novel since for me it seems that certain music feeds certain writing projects.

The Witching Hour

2007-11-26T08:16:00.000-06:00

3 am. I call it the witching hour. I know I know most folks thing the witching hour is midnight. Not for me. It is 3 am. Has been for a long time. It's been a while since I've done the witching hour. But this morning, for reasons unknown to my conscious mind I woke up at 3 am or so. wide awake. Had trouble going back to sleep. Naturally I did go back to sleep but about the time I did - the alarm went off.

I've had episodes when I've woken at my assigned witching hour for a few days in a row, then later found out someone in the family had health issues. As a result, I'll of course wonder who that I know is having health issues, and naturally my mind goes across the street to my parents house. Yeah, I'll be stopping by tonight to find out how everyone is since they've recently proved to me that although I live across the street, they don't necessarily tell me when they're having health problems. If the witching hour phenomenon continues, I'll have to call my sister to find out about her - i can imagine that convo - hey how ya doing, be honest cuz I'm waking up at 3 am and I'm trying to figure out who that i'm connected to is having health issues?

Anna Karenina

2007-11-21T10:00:00.000-06:00

So I started Anna Karenina last night - yes the Oprah version, but that was less about Oprah and more about hearing a bit on NPR weeks ago where they interviewed the translators - a husband wife team - his first language is English, her first language is Russian - about the new version of War & Peace that came out. they fascinated me so when I heard they had done the Oprah version of AK I decided to read it.

I didn't get very far into the book but I did read the intro. And yes, I'm one of 'those' people who reads forewords and intros and such that I suppose a lot of folks skip. But then hey I read James Michener's Centennial when I was a junior in high school at the suggestion of a history teacher I had (and I was the only one in class that actually took the suggestion, and no I didn't skip the geological/anthropological history of the country when I read it either - neener). I digress - wait, this is my blog - I'm allowed to digress!

By the way one of my big regrets from high school is that we moved right before the start of my senior year and I missed out on having Mr Kearney (the aforementioned history teacher) for government. Mr K was awesome. I had him for 2 different quarter history classes: Civil War & Reconstruction; and Winning The West. WTW is the one where he suggested we read Centennial. Mr K called historian Fredrick Jackson Turner, Freddy Jack. He had a pair of coyote skulls on his wall named Fred & Ethyl, and a Buffalo Skull with a civil war cap. He showed up slides of stuff related to Little Big Horn and pointed out that although everyone said a particular shirt was worn by Sherman at that battle it couldn't have been since there were no bullet or arrow holes in it. Mr K was the bomb, I wish there were more teachers like him in this world.

Anyway back to AK. I read the foreword and there was this whole bit in there about Russian authors and how many/most of them never considered themselves novelists and didn't consider their work novels. And it got me to thinking about my dilemma with the idea that I have and the trouble divorcing it from real life and the whole borderline autobiographical tone. Or other things I'm interesting in writing and how it sorta reflects certain eras or could be more or less a chronicle of a particular time. And how I don't want to write about spectacular people (used to, I've grown past that) but ordinary people. And I could just relate to what was being explained. So maybe I just need to think a bit more Russian and just write the bloody things instead of over analyzing things to the point where I can't write. Hey, it's a thought!

So Thanksgiving

2007-11-20T07:56:00.000-06:00

dinner all the way across the street at my mom's. Morning of rearranging the living room furniture and cleaning. Oh and I found out last night that my aunt will be there. Oy. Mental preparation begins now. Of course I may use, I'm cleaning house as an excuse to retreat back across the street once dinner is over.

It will all depend on how I feel Thursday. If I'm off, not feeling well - even mentally not feeling well, it will be a struggle. Some days I can do aunt D. other days I cannot. we'll see. happily - no travel is required on Thursday which should help things a bit. Unlike, say, being trapped in a car with her for hours.

Friday I take the car BACK to the mechanic to find out why it is STILL dripping antifreeze. They replaced the water pump (not cheap) and it still drips. I've had to put antifreeze in twice since I got it back a week ago. Frustrating. And yes, I'm pulling me, I'm camping there until they fix it. I have a couple of giant books and my ipod. Add a couple of healthy snacks and some water and I'm set.

I'm back on weight watchers as of yesterday. Will go to meeting tomorrow night. No, I'm not insane going back right before the holidays. It is time. And someone I go to church with was looking for a weight watchers buddy so I took the hint and went back. Bottom line, I'll feel better physically if I do this. And starting now means I can put a stop to holiday weight gain.

At work, the auditors are finally gone! Okay gone until January when they will return. But in the meantime we get a break from that. Madness for me should return in mid to late December as I prep for the usual year end stuff like changing standards and such.

I found an interesting piece online yesterday about the origins of Christmas - and seriously, it makes me feel better about my decision to not decorate, exchange gifts etc. http://www.americanpresbyterianchurch.org/pagan_holydays_ii.htm

Thanksgiving/Weekend Plans

2007-11-14T08:26:00.000-06:00

Yeah, so I've been a bit silent here for the last week or so. Here I am to rectify that. Last weekend I cleaned the dreaded junk room. Things are back where they belong. I've got sorting and such to do (translation I need to get rid of some of it) but I can get in the room again. I got rid of: 1 exercise ball that leaks air; 1 christmas angel light that does not function - I lack the patience to figure out which light on it is burnt out and replace the bugger - and I'm going green where christmas is concerned so said light is not really needed; and 1 large back of assorted trash. it felt good. i may be christian, but i honeslty feel that there is 'something' about the whole phenomenon of chi and feng shui so it really does make me feel better to have that room cleaned up. like I said, more work to do but it is progress - and something i can see.

either this weekend or next (you know the long 4 day one) I need to hit the living room and do the annual rearrange for winter. I live in a mobile home. an older one. and having certain things - like the sofa - on outside walls in cold weather is just not a good thing. so it's time to move the sofa to an inside wall. I have a bit of my mother in me. My mother rearranges the furniture A LOT. I remember in the post divorce years when it was just my mother, my sister and I - my mother would decide to rearrange the living room and my sister and I were put to work. My mother has 2 pieces of furniture that to this day remain bears to move. Back in the day she hadn't wised up to move them to places were she wouldn't move them a lot. So my sister and I would get one side of the cedar chest or the sewing machine and my mother would get on the other and we'd inch our way around/across the room. You'd think that would cure me of doing this to myself. It did not. Sometimes the room just must be changed.

Actually the above sounds like a good thing to do Thanksgiving morning. I can turn on the parade - which to be honest I normally don't watch. I've spent decades traveling on Thanksgiving morning to various relatives houses for traditional family gatherings. Travel on that morning means that while the parade is actually on, you are in a car. I've seen many many a tail end of the parade. Or sometimes the very beginning, but typically, no parade at all. I'm rambling. Work beckons.

Impatient with Myself

2007-11-08T07:29:00.000-06:00

I just read this in a devotional email from Turning Point - Dr David Jeremiah. It's the little tidbit after the story. The story was nice, the tidbit I'm quoting below was a bit of a mirror for me.

Impatience can occur when expectations are not met. No one is perfect, and wanting that from someone is frustrating and unproductive. Choose to love people for who they are, as they are. That's how God loves us, and He asks us to do the same for others.

What hit me about this, is I am very very impatient - with MYSELF. I set high expectations of myself then get impatient and frustrated and angry with myself when I do not meet those expectations. And yes, I beat myself up for not being perfect, for making mistakes. It's something I'm working on. And if I apply the quote above to my situation, where the impatience is with myself rather than with others, although yes that can be an issue as well, then I have to choose to love ME as God loves me.

Frightening Stats

2007-11-07T12:20:00.000-06:00

sometimes you don't realize how fortunate we are until you see something like this: http://fitsugar.com/753909

http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2007/10/25/patients%20per%20doctor.jpg

oh and those decimal points indicate thousands like the comma normally does.

Wallowing In it = Self Absorption

2007-11-05T07:29:00.001-06:00

So I'm doing a Beth Moore study at church - Daniel. We're in the first half of the study on being women of integrity. Week 3, Daniel 3. day 2 hit me big time. I've spent so much of my life counting myself as a failure, counting up my failures, trying to measure myself against others and not meeting those measures, trying to measure against my own too high standards and never ever measuring up. And beth talked in the week 3 day 2 section about how when we do that, when we live in that low self esteem pit that we are being selfish and self absorbed and just as bad as someone who is vain and self absorbed in other ways that we typically think of as bad. And it was an eye opener. I saw myself so different. I saw how truly self obsessed I've been for decades.

Of course now the question is how do I move myself out of that pit, out of that self-obsessed mindset. And when I reflect and meditate and talk to God about that lesson, I can see how damaging living that way has been to me. And I see how it is holding me back from experiencing life. So God, help me, because I don't want to live like this anymore.

And I was going to post this yesterday but I had a horrible day at work where I freaked out and got hit with a bunch of audit questions that made me feel like I'm stupid and not capable of doing my job. So it was sort of like God was testing me after getting this lesson. Like he wanted to see if I could mentally move myself away from the I'm stupid mentality and to somewhere else. Sort of I did but it took most of the day. And it required me going to my boss and having the auditor go to my boss. Thanks to him, I think I can see that it is not me that is stupid, it is the auditors asking the impossible. And it was poor pass off on the lease crap that blew up yesterday. And I've gotten the lease files much more centralized and organized that they were. And I took on a freaking disaster earlier this year and it's not like they got better information last year and I've learned something from what they were asking and I've got some direction on leases (finally) after flying blind on it for months. And dang, did I just have to type all of that out here right now to make it really click in my head? I guess so.

Under Pressure

2007-11-03T20:46:00.000-05:00

Back in July I was raring to go with Nanowrimo. July, August, even into September the ideas were flowing. Then September and October as November neared ideas changed. But I was still excited and wanting to write. So here it is November and the fiction ideas are zippo. It isn't flowing. And I'm kicking myself for not going with the muse when it was ready to write months ago. But I kept saying wait wait, I want to save it for November.

Is it because I put pressure on myself to write at a specfic time? Is it because it's been long enough since I've written that the muscle has atrophied? Or is it that the area of interest of writing for me has shifted from make believe worlds to more memoirish and blog oriented. Because over the last couple of days while I have struggled with the fiction writing, I've missed my blog.

Something to ponder. I'm not going to force it. Either it will come with the fiction writing or it won't. And maybe, just maybe it is gone because my need to create a safe fictional universe for me to 'live' in has dissipated a bit. Maybe it is because I'm trying to live life more than I did when writing was the end all be all of my life, when I virtually isolated myself in a warped sort of agoraphobiaish type existence.

Enter The Holidays

2007-10-31T09:23:00.001-05:00

So, today it begins - the holidays. Three months of them. I'm trying a positive attitude. Normally I go into a funk for 3 or 4 months and walk around bitching and sulking. While I did not dress up this year for Halloween, I did bring candy for office trick or treating. YES, my work has office trick or treating, people are allowed to dress up, there's a costume contest. It gets you out of your pen and around the office. You get to see where other folks work - and in the case of the last year around here have moved to and a couple of remodeled/newly created areas.

I'm removing food restrictions from myself until New Year's. I have this suspicion that part of my funk and mania/anxiety during the holidays is related to my running around paranoid and freaking over food. So I'm lifting the restriction. We'll see how it goes. That means I'll actually let myself have candy today. Heck, it might mean I'll bake in the next month or two.

I decided to not exchange gifts for Christmas this year. I've considered this in the past, but never followed through. I am this year. The whole gift thing is just another source of stress. I hate crowded stores. I hate trying to figure out what to get for people. It makes me insane. It drains me. I expect nothing from anyone. I'll buy myself a few things instead with the money I'd spend on gifts. I want to enjoy the season and the reason for it.

The Holidays are one of those times of the year when I start feeling alone. When I really start feeling the lack of a significant other and children. So I'm going to experiment with doing some things that I enjoy. Maybe go see a play (like A Christmas Carol at Missouri Repertory Theater) or something. Drive around and see lights - although personally I'm going green and not doing lights. I did decide not to decorate my house - stress reduction issue - and my junk room is a disaster, which is where the decorations on. Rather than decorating, I might just clean that room up. I haven't been to The Country Club Plaza in years during the holidays - I used to live near it and saw it all the time for those few years. But maybe it's time to go down and walk around there. Heck, maybe I'll even take pictures and post them.

okay hard to write more right now because I keep getting interrupted by trick or treaters here.

Me and Politics

2007-10-30T09:44:00.000-05:00

So in addition to everything else about me that seems to be waffling and changing, my political views have gone through a shift. This, however, isn't a new shift. This is a shift back to the way I used to be, the way I used to think. I used to be liberal/democrat. Sometime during the 90's during the Clinton Administration I grew disgusted during Monicagate and drifted away from the party ultimately turning republican. But lately, I'm disgusted with them as well. And as I examine myself and who I am and put all about me under a microscope of sorts I found myself itchy politically.

So a few weeks ago I headed to the county courthouse and filled out paperwork to officially declare myself an unaffiliated voter. I will say that in my state, this does limit my ability to vote in primaries since you have to declare to vote. But that's okay with me. I like the freedom. The freedom to not feel tied to some agenda by a party - not that I was ever forced to vote a straight ticket or anything. It was a small move but for me it was significant, it meant something and I felt this need to do it.

I think for those years I drifted conservative I was mixing more conservative views of religion with conservative politics. I may be more conservative where my faith is concerned and with how I conduct myself but as someone who doesn't fit societies mold (or church's mold for that matter) I often feel the political system overlooks people like me. And yes, I recognize that in many many facets of life I'm feeling overlooked.

So here's my views in a nutshell (potential pun intended)

I'm personally pro-life but don't feel that I should impose my view legally on others. I feel that there are ways to go about reducing the rate of abortion than legislating it. I am, however, against partial birth abortions (because someone described what they do in that procedure and it's just wrong).
I'm against capital punishment. And I know people will say but you're a Christian and the bible says an eye for an eye. To which I will respond in advance the bible also says in that same passage to cut off the hand of a thief as I recall, something practiced in certain parts of the world and we cry out against it in horror.
I'm pro-gay-unions. I picked those words specifically, because I know that the word marriage gets a lot of people all upset.
I'm against the war - typically I'm against most if not all wars. I support our troops to do the job handed to them.
I'm against no child left behind and think it has our education system frozen.
I'm overall of the belief that the federal government has it's fingers in too much crap and they need to let go and give control of many many many many things back to the states.
I'm against anything that causes our national debt to rise forcing us to borrow yet more money from the Chinese.
I believe that the health care system in this country needs reform but I'm in serious doubt about the government running it. They can't balance a budget but they want to administer my health care? I don't think so.

So there's the quick view of the nutshell. There's more, but that should give you an idea of where I stand. And just as a warning, I'm not wild about debating issues so I'll probably not engage if you decide to comment to try to convince me of another point of view. I'll listen/read but the debate part of things always feels like being involved in an argument to me and I hate arguments. I was once accused by a friend of being afraid people won't like me. Which to an extent is true but it goes beyond that. I don't like being being angry/upset around me period because it upsets my own emotional balance - which is why I don't like arguments.

Another Sunday - Another Sermon

2007-10-29T08:43:00.000-05:00

Ah the home edition, family oriented sermon series. Yeah, it was another dead one for me. Somehow it just didn't click with me since the sermon was filled with family should be FUN, blah blah blah spelling out FAMILY! gads. One more sermon in this stinking series, followed by a family oriented special sunday that nobody will give details on but we aren't doing children's ministries so kids go to church with their family. So 2 weeks of clinkers. I can do this. I can make it through this sermon series that makes me week after week feel like utter shit, like I don't belong, like there is something wrong with me because I am single in my 40's sexless and familyless. If I weren't tied into children's ministries as a small group leader as heavily as I am this could be enough to drive me from this church. I pray this heavy handed family stuff ends soon because if it doesn't I'll have to start evaluating my commitment to this church and consider attending elsewhere at the end of the school year.

Knee pain is in force today. I have no idea what I did to cause it to reappear. I've been sleeping like hell lately, I keep waking up in the middle of the night. my mood is off, I'm angry angry angry - at what I have no idea. My computer gave me fits last night, I had a screaming fit. I scare myself when I get like that. I hate when I get like that. And yet, I am like that. And I'm here at work today trying to figure out if I took the advil I set on my desk or not. And I'm trying to work up enough whatever to care about doing something today - something besides sitting here blogging on the corporate dime.

My muse has ADD (still) and has switched ideas on my (again) for nanowrmo. This idea is an old one dating back - hmmmmm 10 years or so. We'll see where my mind is come Thursday when I begin this trek. I think the previous ideas are just so close to who I am and my current trying to figure out who I am that it's not time to go there. again, we'll see.

STOP!

2007-10-23T07:08:00.000-05:00

to sign the petition
http://www.nukefree.org/

The NPR story I heard on the way to work this morning that had me searching for the above youtube. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15546014

Monday Monday

2007-10-22T14:51:00.000-05:00

Having trouble focusing today. I blame knee pain. Yes, it still hurts. It started raining overnight and this morning. Gray and damp right now with maybe more rain later. We'll see if I still have the pain tomorrow. Tylenol and Advil are doing nothing for this. May end up going to doctor (ugh) to have it looked at.

I am so mentally blah at work right now. Don't suggest a career change please, I'm 43 and don't want to go back to school to start a new career. I need to find the motivation to get my writing going again - or something.

I've got a whole bunch of who am I/what am I sort of babblings I could do, but I'm not sure I want to put them out there just yet. There are things I'm sort of still wrapping my mind around of late. And even if I admit them to myself and admit them to 'strangers' on the internet, could I ever admit them to various family members. My mother will still love me no matter what, but I've got one aunt who I swear will try to have a revival meeting on my front porch. (dang now there's fuel for my nanowrimo novel for this year). Of course considering that this is the same aunt that has been the subject of some of those stupid things posts I've made (and some that I could make but haven't ----- yet, do I really really give a rip what she thinks?)

And we're heading into the dark months. I have a med check tonight, one of those twice a year with the psychiatrist things. So we're in the time of year where I have to keep a check on my mood/emotions etc.

Sunday Musings

2007-10-21T12:57:00.000-05:00

So I switched it up at church like I thought about earlier in the week. Went to first service but skipped most of the singing/praying etc. Going to take a few weeks to narrow down what time the sermon starts. And I did not loathe the sermon this week. Yes, he's still on home improvement but the sermon was on anger. Being as I have this obnoxious tendency to be a somewhat angry person I found it something I needed to hear. He talked about identifying the source of your anger, anger not being a sin, and finding an appropriate outlet/release for your anger.

Bought two Monet calendars at Half Price Books after church. One for home, one for work.

My right knee is aching today. It's been acting weird for a couple of days now. I don't remember doing anything to it. It's popped a few times in the last day or so. Each time it pops it hurts like heck. I sorta suspect based on the gray sky that we've got weather moving in. That seems to be the recent trend with me and odd aches. For the last year or more it's been my lower back that acts up when fronts move through. Lately, I've had knee aches and wrist aches that pop up out of the blue. Weird, very weird. Time to pop some tylenol and take a nap or something.

Color Continued

2007-10-20T11:40:00.000-05:00

I've started small on the color change front. After 6 years of looking at the same bland beige sheer curtains in my living room that I loathe, I splurged and bought 2 sets (2 pair each - about $10 each - so ya know huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge splurge there) of sage green sheers to hange in the living room. I like the change, I put them up this morning. It did make a difference. Part of me wants to burn the old ones.

Can I just say that for decorating I HATE beige? Call it too much time living in apartments where everything is beige and you don't have the ability to change it. Beige walls, beige blinds, beige carpets (or taupe which is just about as bad). My current kitchen floor was hideously installed and guess what - it is beige. I hate it. same flooring is in my spare bedroom (aka the junk room). The install in there is even worse. It is on my long term agenda to replace the flooring. It will NOT be a shade of beige.

Also on my loathe list for decorating is what I'm gonna call trailer paneling. Guess where I live, guess what my walls are? I've got ideas and things I want to do. My body often will not cooperate with plans of these natures. Between my bad back and my screwed up sinuses it's just hard to get around to. I would like to start small on this front. Something like taking off the bathroom cabinet doors and drawers, moving them outside and refinishing them. The drawers and doors do not match. They cabinet door shade in the kitchen I can live with, in the bathroom it is too dark - and like I said does not match the drawers there. So I'd like to paint them. The bathroom is currently half white(ish) half brown wood paneled crap. I'm thinking a pale yellow for the bathroom. Light but happy. And a small enough project that maybe I could tackle it. I'm thinking spring when my sinuses don't act up as much and when I could open the house up to rid myself of the paint fumes my head hates so much.

Adding to the bathroom project I'd like to hang a full length mirror on the door which would first off let me see my whole body and secondly let me see the back of my head in the regular bathroom mirror. I also have a magnifying mirror I'd like to get hung - but if I'm thinking about painting, I'll wait until I paint then hang it. And I need to move towel racks to more sane locations (like ya know next to the bathroom sink!). And when I do the painting thing, I need to find someone to cut something that will cover the open spot (you know where the fakey drawer thing usually is) on the front of the bathroom vainity - it's missing, has been missing since I moved in.

For now I think I'll leave my bedroom in shades of blue, purple and pink. But I do need to do something about the closet doors I took off. Let's not go into the closet doors. Okay actually lets. They were (gads) metal but had fakey paneled (brown) stuff on them. They liked to get stuck or come off their runners and were side sliding. I hated them, so I took them off and their in the shed. If I replace them I'd like to get folding closet doors so I have better access to the contents of the closets. And I have a monster dark brown dresser. Now this dresser was fine when I was an apartment dweller and living in that sea of beige. In this place, it's too dark and too big and too much brown. I also have an antique (inherited) smaller dresser that has been relegated to the spare (junk) bedroom. It was the one my mother and her sisters used when they were kids. I love it but it needs to come out of the spare junk room (my mother stuck it there when my aunt delivered it). There's no room for it in my bedroom with the giant dresser alredy there (and the bookshelves hanging on the wall - and please don't tell me to rid myself of the bookshelves as they are brimming full! and I need MORE). So either I need to switch the dressers. Or I need to take the giant one out, refinish it in a lighter color (of course the antique is dark as well). Since I can't make up my mind, the whole thing is on the proverbial back burner until something sparks me.

enough babble for now.

Stupid Things People Have Done to Me - Part 4

2007-10-18T11:47:00.001-05:00

Hah! bet you thought I was done with this series! I'm not. To quote the song - we've only just begun...

Let's talk about my weight, body image and other related issues that I've dealt with since junior high. Where do I start on this one.

So when we lived in Gardner, I played a lot outside with the neighbors. I rode my bike, played kickball, hide and seek, and other ways of expending calories. Then we moved. And I started my trek on the hermit path. I was an outsider and didn't fit in and the playing stopped. And I started putting on weight. We went back to visit our old neighborhood. One of the boys my sister and I used to play with commented on my weight gain. I was in the 8th grade. His older brother tried to shut him up. Traumatic much? yeah. And yes he was a kid, but when you are 13 and trying to deal with yet another upheaval in your life it's just a bit much.

Home Ec class. Kim K. Dang I have hate feelings towards her to this day for what i'm about to post. But I need to put it out there and get it out my head. I was a bit of a teacher's pet no matter what class I was in. What can I say, I loved school. Only in junior high - 8th grade, new city, new school you aren't supposed to like school, that's not the cool thing to do. Like I was EVER destined for coolness - hah! anyway. She came up to me, patted my stomach and asked when the baby was due. I was horrified. Now let me add that Kim K was not some thin, trim, tiny thing. nope, she had to weigh as much if not more than I did. It was 8th or 9th grade. I wore a size 13. The incident labeled me, in my mind, fat. Logically I can tell you I wasn't. Back then? yeah I belonged in therapy or counseling but barring being a problem child I'd never get the attention I needed and how can anyone who is a teacher's pet and desiring desperately to fit in and appear normal ever act out to cry for help in that kind of way?

Then there's the incident my mother told me about. I don't remember this. I find my non-memory of it interesting and I have to wonder if I'm blocking it out intentionally. who knows. I was, according to my mother, 15 or so and getting an annual physical for school. My mother asked the doctor if I was too heavy. I have little doubt this occurred in front of me or if my mother had for even a millisecond thought about what it might do to me psychologically by saying it in front of me. While the doctor told my mother I was fine, I can just imagine how my mind processed this since I was already in the body dysmorphic disorder zone - my mother thinks I'm fat. Heck that's what my adult mind thought when my mother told me about it. I hold no anger toward my mother over this incident. She lacked the verbiage to be able to tell the doctor - my daughter is eating way too much and has gained a lot of weight rabidly and while she may be fine she is indeed not fine - do something.

Then there are any number of people - friends and family - who have used me and my largesse as a measure tool. She's way bigger than you. She's not as big as you. Knock that crap off people! That one, actually I did years and years ago make people stop doing to me.

Done yet? not quite. there was the incident one Thanksgiving. I walked in and my grandmother stated, quite loudly, my god you must weigh 203 lbs. Which oh by the way was exactly what I weighed but it's not like I wanted in stated in front my mother's entire family. My mother said my grandmother later felt bad. That irritates me almost as much as what she said to begin with because she never told ME directly she was sorry she'd done that.

And finally there are the years of quips from my stepfather. In his case I think this is tied to how he was treated growing up. It's not an excuse and it doesn't make the digs and the words hurt any less. He's stopped doing it so much, mainly because I've told my mother to tell him to knock it off. No - I'm not capable even as an adult of saying it to him directly because I don't want to have a face to face, nose to nose confrontation with him like I did when I was in college. we'll save that incident for some other time when maybe i'll be up to dealing with it.

Pagan Chrisitanity & Yellow

2007-10-17T11:48:00.000-05:00

I just started reading Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola. A friend recommended it. Only partway through the first chapter. Interesting so far. Based on what I read, I hereby absolve myself of any feeling guilty for popping into service to hear the sermon only. For one thing, we're getting into cold and flu season. And as much as I love my 'brothers' at this time of year I don't really wanna be shaking hands with them. (that reminds me, note to self, hand sanitizer for small group - also where do we hide the tissue supply at church). And I have an ipod filled with music, a lot of it christian music. I can worship and praise GOD through music any time. I don't need to do it on sunday morning for show. And I sing songs and praise God in children's ministry every week anyway! And if I'm not feeling the topic of the sermon, that's okay and hmmmm i might even slip out the back (what can I say, if I sit in the right spots, I can easily slip out doors on either side of our sanctuary). I think this means I'm about to change services again. Back to first service. I hereby remove from myself feeling responsible for ushering duty just because a few people in a small group that I used to be in wanted to do it and signed the whole group up. I remove from myself feeling responsible for sitting with same people when maybe I want to sit in the back or the opposite side of the sanctuary or change services. I'm tired of running around checking boxes to be a good little girl on sunday because I think the point of worship is getting lost in the mix somewhere.

I'm also reading Rosie O'Donnell's Celebrity Detox. I love Ro. I love her blog. I loved her show when it was on. I didn't watch The View when she was on it. I still don't watch the view. there's something about that show in general that just irritates me - ro, no ro, elizabeth, star, no star blah blah doesn't seem to matter, I can see women bickering and yapping about stuff almost anywhere. She talked about yellow and how at the end of her own show she had lost her yellow and needed it back.

It's got me thinking about my own color preferences (yeah I know she's not talking about her favorite color but a feeling/energy thing but bear with me). when I was a kid, it was green. We moved across the street from a duplex to a house when I was 12. The maintenance guy repainting let my sister and I pick what colors he was going to paint what would be our bedrooms. I choose pastel green (I will say the selections were highly limited). I had a pastel green bedspread with flowered curtains. I've read that green symbolizes growth. Later in life my favorite color would shift to blue. I've got lots of blue in my house now. My comforter now is blue. I don't know what blue means but I'm often drawn to it because it soothes me but right now I'm wondering if it might bring me 'down' a bit. I don't wear blue a lot, unless we're talking navy or more teal/turquoise blues because of my warm skin tone. I do wear a lot of green. I wonder if maybe I need to shift my color preferences. I've been drawn back to green a lot more lately (outside of clothing choices). Over the last couple of seasons I've been drawn to colors in the orange scheme of things. it goes well with my skin tone, I feel a bit more energized when I wear it. So I'm wondering if maybe it's time to rethink my decorating color scheme. Not sure where I'll start. My small sofa has a slip cover on it (it's a keeping the cats off of the rough fabric of the sofa with their claws thing - and it keeps down the fur), maybe i'll start looking for a new one. I've had the current dark blue with big ole roses slip cover for 6 years. Might just be time for a new one.

The Back Road

2007-10-16T13:18:00.000-05:00

I've got two possible routes to work. The first is K10, 4 lane divided highway sometimes called around here the kansas autobahn. the posted speed limit is 70, people go much much faster than that. The other is a two lane county road (paved). I call it the back road. The speed is 45. My big traffic woe is wayward suicidal deer. Well for several months now my preferred back road has been closed due to a bridge replacement. This has forced me onto K10 and I've been a very unhappy camper. I'm high-strung and anxiety prone and when you make me drive to work with those people, well it upsets my precious emotional balance and can make for a crabby person.

Yesterday I was thrilled to realize that the back road was OPEN. Didn't discover this until I was on K10 with the speed demons on the way to work. But going home? yup - I went the back road. Took the back road this morning. it's amazing how something as simple as the route home that is slower can make you just a bit happier, a bit calmer, a bit more relaxed.

I should go to curves tonight. I'm not going to. I've got errands to run, and I'll get a flu shot before I leave work which will make me arm sore. So I'm bypassing curves. again - it will settle me a bit.

And I've deleted stuff off of tivo - stuff off of season passes. I've asked myself, what is more important, a sense of satisfaction or drivel to numb my mind and divert my attention. I started reading Rosie O'Donnell's Celebrity Detox last night. She talked about feeling depleted when she left her own show (years before doing the view). That was the word I've been looking for. I've said I was tired so so so SO many times. Or fatigued. But it isn't physical tired. It's not always a need for sleep. Nope, it is that word depleted that I've felt lately. So instead of 'rest' I think what I need is a way to refill myself, to recharge, to find those things that energize me. Perhaps find those things that feed and connect my right creative brain to keep me from feeling so dead and drained and on edge. I even closed the laptop last night and left in the living room long before I would have last week. Part of that was driven by a sore wrist, but it did seem to help a tiny bit on the recharge front. It'll be interesting to see if nanowrimo depletes me or energizes me next month.

2007-10-16T12:01:00.000-05:00

quick post to share this fun blog

http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/

the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks

Off Balance - again

2007-10-15T07:18:00.000-05:00

You'd think a weekend would fix this issue. uhhh nope. I'm still cranky. My wrist hurts, my little finger aches. and I'm cranky. It's only monday. Of course it could be that I needed to come back to work to get uncranky. How pathetic.

i've decided that my entire weekend left me off balance. saturday all i did for the most part was sleep. it threw off my diet. it threw off my weekend. don't ask me why I was so tired but I was. I'm not ill. it was however rainy and stormy but i don't think that was the only reason.

yesterday i tried to get back on track with the diet and by the time I got out of church I fell on my face. I was hungry and had errands to run after church. i know better than to let myself go hungry. it is not pretty. i'm a bitch on wheels (literally considering i was in my car), so i ate off my diet plan. naturally i beat self up for this. a whole i'm stupid for not planning better mantra. then i had to go back to town for the first night of the beth moore study. now, my eating pattern is off from saturday, it's off because it's sunday, it's off because i have to go back to church for this study on an off night annnnnnnnnnnnd we've got desert at this study. okay so back on track today but yup - beating self up for being weak, for being off track. yeah - if anyone knows where the switch in my brain is for this - tell me. please.

as a rule i've learned not to schedule things for sunday nights. i had a small group for church on that night - tried it a few times. it doesn't work. the host of this small group takes my rejection of returning to group both personally and at times in a passive-agressive manner. she can get over it. i'm not spending more time in church related stuff on sundays. i love GOD but dang people i have to go to work on monday and need quiet time sunday evening to center myself or my week is just screwed up. next week beth moore is back to thursday night where it belongs- where i signed up. maybe next week I can get back in balance - or something.

and when i got to work this morning, what do I find. gads it seems half the IT dept is here. They were doing work on a system harmonization project over the weekend. it scares me when they are all here this early. that and it means it'll be noisy and yup - it upsets my balance. i've given up from the moment i got in on trying to be accessible (translation - listening to my ipod through speakers rather than through headphones) cuz I just know that if I don't block out as much as possible with the headphones i'm gonna go insane before noon.

Fear and Sleep

2007-10-14T14:41:00.000-05:00

nope they aren't related. Yesterday I didn't wake up until 10:30 or so. Okay actaully I woke up because my alarm went off - goes off every day due to auto reset. I turned it off went back to sleep. Woke up, dark, went back to sleep. Storms moved through yesterday morning, rain, dark. So I slept. You'd think that if I'd slept until past 10 am i'd be slept out. Nope, was up for a while, went back to bed slept mornin in the afternoon after finishing (started friday night- short book, great read) I'm Sorry About My Neck by Nora Ephron.

Today, sermon was on Fear. Pastor is still on the home improvement thing. Pastor was trying to be funny. People laughed. Not me. I was irriated and wanted him to get to the point and enough with the stereotypical husband/wife it goes back to Gensis and Adam and Eve humor. I hate being in church while feeling all prickly like I was today. For me it was blah blah blah fear blah blah blah this is what we do because we're afraid, blah blah blah fear and relationships. Personally, he didn't cover the half of it. He didn't really cover how to stop acting like an ass because you're afraid. It just felt like lipservice or something. I think I"ll be glad when all this home improvement husband/wife/family oriented sermons are done and he moves on to another topic. Yet again as a single person with no kids I feel left out. Yeah yeah I can apply to my other relationships but the mere title of the series just rubs it in.

Beth Moore study starts tonight. Daniel. Next week it moves to Thursday night. Looking forward to the study. I love her stuff, she makes me dig deep into myself. I've heard good things about this one from women at other churches. It'll be a lot of homework but it's normally worth it. That will be a change in my schedule but hey I honestly need to watch LESS tv anyway. Besides November is only a few weeks away and I'll be trying to do 50k words in 30 days so yup, tv needs to be cut. when that's all over maybe i'll get back to reading more. Sometimes I miss reading and getting lost somewhere else rather than watching something mindless on the tube.

right ring and pinkie finger hurt today. right wrist some too. prolly nerves in my wrist. lovely something else to worry about. Like I need the added burden in the worry department? crimeny just shut my mind off okay. one issue, where the heck is the off switch? if you know, tell me bcause I've been looking for decades and have yet to locate the sucker.

Upsetting My Balance

2007-10-12T08:51:00.000-05:00

There's this cube at work next to me on the same side of my block of cubes. When I first moved downstairs in May 2006 someone was there. Then he shifted further down to be closer to the rest of his work group, leaving the cube next door empty. It remained that way until December 06 when a temp moved into it. The temp was here to cover someone out on maternity leave. Why they didn't have her in that girl's cube is beyond me. But she was my neighbor. I liked her, she was funny. Then she left when the maternity chick returned. And it sat empty until a couple of months ago when an IT guy moved in. One week or so later he left the company and the cube went empty again in late August. For some strange reason 3 plastic trash bags of what I think were stuffed animals moved in. Don't ask me because I didn't ask and really really didn't want to know for fear I'd become their keeper. I found it rather creepy. Earlier this week another IT guy moved in, yesterday he moved the rest of his stuff and chair downstairs and today he's there.

Now slowly over the course of several months I have been surrounded with IT people. They are loud. They use speaker phones and have cell phones all which go off constantly. They deal with utter morons and a system that is fussy. They're also funny. Unless I'm having one of those days where the noise gets on my nerves I enjoy them.

But the new guy moving in has upset my balance. There are new sounds to get used to. I swear he was crunching rocks earlier. I think it was cereal. Naturally my mind was silently screaming - is this gonna be an everyday thing? that could be a problem ya know.

The guy on the other side of the wall's cell phone is set to the X files music. (this is not neighbor guy). I've also got meetings going on sporadically in the Operations VP's office across and down just a bit from mine. so it's been off and on loud loud loud.

thankfully it is Friday. I keep telling myself I should come in and work this weekend. But, I think I'm gonna say screw it and get some stuff done at home instead.

editing to add - dear lord the neighbor guy is coughing - barking like a seal. Someone keep the sick folks away from me. French-Canadian programmer is blowing nose. Earlier when I was pulling CEP copies one of the receivables girls has a cold or something - keep the sick folks away!

the writer

2007-10-10T07:17:00.000-05:00

this happens to me every time I try nano. seriously. two years ago what I was going to work on shifted. last year when I crashed and burned before even starting - stuff shifted. this year i thought i'll do the organizing early i'll get it plotted and planned and when Nov 1 hits bam I can write. hah. the muse is the muse and guess what. it's shifted. again. i'm not gonna plot or plan. i do however have to reup the check out of the audio tape with Rosie O'Donnell reading find me because she, her voice, her words is what is triggering some of this. it won't be mystery as i thought. nope it is mainstream perhaps literary perhaps chick lit not gonna worry about it though. gonna try free form and just let the words come out much as i have been on my blog - which may be an impetus into this whole shift in what i'm writing. who the heck knows other than i feel this need - this deep need to get back to IT - IT being the writing and the writer.

you see 7thgradeself found the little house series right after the big D and the move and she got lost, somewhat literally inside the little house series over and over and then finding other books - books about people. in 6th grade it was biographies about historical women. forget the men didn't care about them. it was about girls, Abigail Adams, Narcissa Whitman, Dorthea Dix, Jane Addams, Betsey Ross, and on and on and on. by 7th grade it was anything in the library and I became a library geek - no really. I was in the library club during 7th hour (long story but the junior high i was in was way south of town and had 7 hours, 7th hour being the time for study hall or clubs and such since it was impossible for kids of that age to get to/from the school without parental aid or a bus) and I did missions that taught me about things and reference materials in the library.

i digress. that part of me, that kid. she wanted to write. like Laura Ingalls wilder. the dream persisted until later in junior high or high school when i started to struggle in English class. when it stopped being reading and spelling and grammar separately and became one class and i just didn't get it and i started struggling and how can a kid who loves reading as much as i did struggle in English class? how could i be a writer when i was struggling to get C's in English class at school and when any essay i wrote was covered in red marking mistakes (but oh by the way not telling me how to fix said mistakes) with that C, sometimes with a minus on the top? I can answer that today, it is because in order to get some of what they were trying to teach me in literature classes, i had to learn to write fiction. Once, at the age of 30, i started taking creative writing and studying the art of fiction writing i started getting all those elements i didn't understand in junior high and high school. And my teachers may have marked the mistakes, but they didn't cover how to fix things. And there was the self-parenting - gee imagine asking for help with my writing. yeah that didn't happen. besides i was too busy crying (literally - no seriously at times nightly meltdowns) over math homework (yeah and I do WHAT for a living??? for those who may be reading and don't know - I'm an accountant - yup I do math all day - go figure) to worry about an english composition grade. besides by then I had stuffed the dream into a closet and forgotten about it.

So I learned to write. at 30. but then in my mid to late 30's I had some meltdowns. functional ones. ones that in one case could have gotten me fired since it happened at work. I sent myself to EAP (employee assistance program) before they ordered me to it (my momma didn't raise dummies, I knew that if I got sent there was a certain level of oversight and reporting back to my employer that wouldn't happen if I sent myself - ahhhhh gotta know the in's and outs of privacy laws). And I was in therapy and she sent me to a 'real' doctor who I still see and he put me on antidepressants and once i got on them and things stabilized and i started feeling like i was above the waterline like i could breathe emotionally and mentally i realized that for so so so long, like age 13 or 14 at least but maybe age 10 or 11 even I had been depressed. and that it wasn't so called situational. So i continued the meds but the meds and the sanity the clarity that came with it in time seemed to have cut off the creative part of my head. and i had to make that choice, creative and insane; or sane and able to earn a living. and i chose to earn a living. i sacrificed the dream.

but maybe it wasn't the meds. maybe it was just me needed a long time to relearn to connect to that part of my head while still being sane. and maybe it was that for so long i've been caught in all sorts of stupid drama, one after another after another that it has taken my focus away from the writing and the characters. but things have been calmer - a relative term give recently real life events but calmer anyway and the voices are back and I think, i think i just need to go with it, to just let it flow and worry less about content and form and more about just getting the words out (looks up at how far the writing has gone one this blog entry and thinks - okaaaaaaaaaay so prolly i'm learning that, i'm getting there, yay!).

more later, the day job beckons.

QUIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET

2007-10-09T11:06:00.000-05:00

a bit o musing about yesterday - in the office
experimenting with form here
want it to come out as i think it not according to rulz

sunday
pounding head
carb withdrawal
make it stop
won't give up
must go on
cuz fat fat fat
fat = bad & not comfortable - puffy - ick

monday
no head hurt just tired
initial quiet
then bam
that voice heard at his normal conversation level
heard across pod farm
down short hall
to his office
heard again just as loud
further north
down hall
next to bathrooms and coffee pot
loud voice is accompanied now by her
voice like a fog horn
roughened by decades of smoking
loud loud every monday same thing
make them shut up already

IT geeks surround me
help desk calls all day
constant blah blah blah only not comforting like on charlie brown but loud and grating
one voice with french candian accent smart but loud loud
out of town programmer in office
wife and kids stop in for a visit in pm
loud loud with little voices and crimeny entire IT dept out here
trying to work in a cocktail party
cell phones go off, some russian sort of music i like, amusing but dang does it have to blast me out of chair again and again and again and if its so important y is phone on desk without owner

go to bathroom late in afternoon
what IS that smell
no not that smell come on is bathroom
no the other one
burning. burning? yup burning.
coffee pots
know that smell
empty pots
turn them off cursing idiots who can't smell can't see helpless
yo momma don't work here
but i do so off it goes
but i'll be danged if i'm soaking your pots for you
screw it

time to go home.
finally
peace in my car
alone
i'd say quiet but i've got an audio book going but it more soothing than the raw office where I just wanna scream some days, just stand there and scream for quiet.

What is a Family For?

2007-10-08T10:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's sermon in my pastor's 'home improvement' series was entitled, What is a Family For? I had many thoughts drifting, pinging, flying through my head during the sermon. I doubt that most of them were what the pastor would have expected. Instead of thinking about healing relationships I was asking questions about my past. Not, that my thoughts were necessarily bad, wrong, or off the driven path for me, especially given my recent self-battles and blogging pattern.

Pastor B said that: A Family Is a Shelter from Storms. Of course my thought on that one (rather immediately) was, unless your family IS the center of the storm. Mine was and wasn't. The storms were initated by moving, by divorce, by singleparenthood, by financial woes, by remarriage, by my own slide into depression and compulsive eating and a parent who knew something was off or wrong but couldn't get the doctor to clue in or put it into the right words or consider therapy for her kid. And because I was told (see an early blog on this subject) not to bother my mother with my problems, I didn't feel like my family was supposed to be a shelter from the storm.

Pastor's list of storms we face was two items long: change & failure. Change? one word. seems simple. not simple. huge. huge when you're six and move because your dad gets a whim. huger still when you're ten and your parents divorce and you move to a new town and struggle with life turned inside out and upside down and rarely see your father. And Pastor labels that as just 'change'?? right. Huge again when you are thirteen and again move, new town, new school, more loss, more trying to fit in and being an outsider and retreating more into your shell. and again, just change? pffffffffffft. Change again when you are seventeen and your mother remarries and you are again uprooted two weeks before the start of your senior year of high school and thrust into yet another new town, new school, must struggle to fit in and by this time are so bloody tired from the effort that you no longer care if they like you or not and yet still want to fit in and belong. And this is JUST change??? HAH. okay just HAH! This is not 'change.' this is not merely a storm. This is something that so stunted my emotionally and psychological growth that I'll probably struggle with issues for the rest of my life, struggle with attachment issues, struggle with not having roots, or friends that date back to early childhood.

there was more to the sermon. more good things, but that is where my mind got stuck. This is what brought forth the adult in me who can be angry for what the child me, the teen me, the young adult me went through.

I've got more things rattling in my head from this weekend. things related to a book on tape I have going in the car that profoundly effected me, but I need to sort through my thoughts. Actually the problem with the book on tape is that I listen in the car where it's rather difficult to write and drive. So I may listen to it again, at home, where I can stop the tape and type out where my mind goes as I listen to the author read.

The Sea of Mediocraty

2007-10-08T10:07:00.000-05:00

It hit me today, probably not for the first time, that I'm sailing a ship through a sea of mediocrity. Not that of others, but my own. Today the thought pinged out of my brain when I realized that I'd missed a deadline for something due to corporate hq back in late September. The the list came. I'm a mediocre accountant. I'm was a mediocre - on my best day - clarinet player. I write but I don't submit my work because I'm afraid of that same mediocrity. I got mediocre grades in college, hindered likely by finances and living at home with my mother and stepfather and sister and the wars that went on there. I didn't make stellar grades in high school, but they were better than college.

Am I destined for life in mediocrity? Is there something I excel at above that of others? Where in my life did I end up on ramp to the mediocrity highway. And why are there days, especially where work is concerned that I don't really give a dang?

Superhero?

2007-10-05T13:29:00.001-05:00

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman		75%
Spider-Man		70%
Hulk		65%
Batman		50%
Robin		45%
Supergirl		45%
Catwoman		40%
Green Lantern		40%
The Flash		40%
Wonder Woman		35%
Iron Man		30%

You are mild-mannered, good,
strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...

Confessions of a TV Addict

2007-10-04T10:02:00.001-05:00

Yes, I am a tv addict. Despite my love of books and of writing sadly the tv seems to rule my life. I have a tivo so I don't miss shows, or so I can watch one and record another.

But you know what. I'm bored. Last night I found myself bored with my usual criminal minds. Part of that was a distaste for the crime of the week. Likewise while watching Law & Order SVU, due to the subject matter of their crime of the week I found myself changing the channel. I just couldn't do it. In the case of Criminal Minds I toggled between it and Private Practice which failed to keep my interest long enough to watch a full episode last night and bored me last week.

Tonight, Survivor is on and I find myself wanting to just leave the TV off. Yes, I know Ugly Betty is on but I haven't seen last week's yet so I kind of want to save it. Right now, I'm just very blah about a lot of things. And for whatever reason listening to music and reading a book feels less stressful than the new tv season.

Then there are the new series. However I found myself burned more than a few times in the last year by series that are zapped quickly before given a chance to develop an audience. Thus, I developed the 6 episode rule. If a series I think I might be interested in, is around for 6 episodes (translating roughly to the first couple of weeks of November) then I'll take the time to catch up with the beginning of the season online and begin watching. Why? because I'm done getting caught up in a series that gets canned. I'm tired of roaming the tv listings trying to figure out where a show might have been moved to. So I'm just done getting invested in something new that might go poof. Network executives can blame themselves.

Who knows, maybe this is a change in my personality exhibiting itself. Maybe this is my minds way of trying to reduce stress and anxiety. Maybe it's just too much 'noise' for me right now. There's a lot going on in my life and I keep finding myself on edge, bitchy, snapish, moody and overall needing space. The walls are closing in and I can't stand it. So I think I'm just gonna listen to that part of me that says it can't handle another night of the boob tube for a little while.

The Grouch is In

2007-10-02T19:47:00.000-05:00

So over the last few days, I've been so grouchy! To the point where I can't stand myself. It's not like I haven't felt this way before. And no, it isn't PMS - yet. It's just this funk. A funk where every little thing bugs me.

I hate feeling this way. I don't like myself when I'm this way. And I have no idea how to pull myself out of it. Right now I'm kind of wondering if it isn't me internalizing a bunch of anxiety or something and then having it work its way out in the form of being bitchy and grouchy.

Or maybe it's not reading my bible as much as I was for a while. Or praying as much as I had been. Of course I've had these moods, these periods while 'in the word' and following a prayer routine, so it maybe that isn't it either and I'm just over thinking it. But I wanted to get into the habit of writing daily again so here it is, me babbling about something to establish a habit.

The last couple of days have been 'pain days' with quite a bit of pain in all sorts of joints, but especially in my back - on the right side. It's always the right side. I finally got desperate enough to pop a few ibuprofen this afternoon. I try to stay with Tylenol because I bruise easily on anti-inflammatories but there comes a point where the pain is just bad enough - and I'm walking around in full on grouch mode that I'll give in.

Stupid Things People Have Done to me - Part 3

2007-10-01T14:53:00.001-05:00

Between my 4th and 5th grade school years, my parents divorced; my mother, sister and I moved to a new town; and my aunt bought me a clarinet. Now funny, I don't remember begging for a clarinet. Nope. What I remember begging for was a piano/piano lessons. My mother went so far as to price pianos. But then things went lousy with my father and divorce etc etc. Why my aunt decided that I HAD to have a clarinet is beyond me. But I had one. So off I went to my new school and into band class I went, only to discover that I was way behind the rest of the kids.

Looking back I can tell you that the reason I was behind is because everybody else in band had selected an instrument (the right instrument for them) at the end of the school year before. My sister, two years younger than I am, went through this process. They had taken summer music class. My sister went through this process. So there I was months behind everyone else trying to learn to read music.

I stuck with the clarinet through elementary school, junior and senior high school. It was far from a passion. I was a mediocre player on a good day. And I never expressed my wish to be out from under it even to myself because it was as close to the piano as I was gonna get growing up. I appreciate the knowledge of music it gave me. And Had I expressed my desire to discontinue playing, I would never have out of guilt. Guilt over someone buying me a clarinet and going to that expense and my not fulfilling their wishes and whathaveyou. Sad to say that I am here and now publicly acknowledging my people pleasing tendencies.

Why do parents do these things to kids? Why do they not research things? I can think of all sorts of things I could have been doing in school rather than taking band class. I could have gone into vocal music - a choice I was forced to make in 8th grade when we changed school districts and towns yet again. I could have taken art classes - something that never worked into my schedule. Why do they not give kids an out, tell them if you don't like this or it doesn't work out, it's okay to say no more.

Stupid Things People Have Done to Me - Part 2

2007-09-29T10:48:00.000-05:00

Success!! Thank you GOD for Kohls. They had exactly what I wanted! Lee Plain Front Casuals, stretch and they were on sale for $29.99. I bought 4 pair - Khaki, Navy, Grey patterned and brown/black patterned. I even managed to talk myself into the dressing room without a nervous breakdown.

It takes so little to make me happy. Next goal is shirts but I'm watching sale racks for that. We're still in that between weather stage of sometimes summer and sometimes fallish. And no matter what I wear I end up warm for part of the day and cool for part of the day thanks to an air conditioning vent above my cube.

Seriously, clothes shopping can cause all sorts of bad memories and parts of me I'd like to leave in the past to emerge. Likely Messymissy and 7thgradeself were fighting with each other way back in my teen years. 7thgradeself knew how she wanted to dress. Messymissy is depressed and has self-esteem issues.

And some of this is tied to the period of time where I was made fun of, as mentioned yesterday, and not talking about it. I so needed help back then. As in therapy type of help. Of course this was the 70's and nobody knew about half of this stuff like they do now. I can still remember reading articles in Teen and Seventeen magazines as a teenager and identifying very much with articles on girls with anorexia and bulimia but thinking, but I don't starve myself - I eat too much, and yes I binge eat but I don't throw up or use laxatives.

My mother knew something was wrong and brought it up to the doctor once during a physical - but I don't remember the incident. She was concerned because I was gaining weight. The doctor blew it off and said I was fine. Deep down my mother KNEW something wasn't right but didn't know how to express it. I don't think it ever occurred to her that her daughter was suffering from the early stages of depression. Or that her daughter was a compulsive eater. Or that what her daughter needed was not a medical doctor but a therapist to talk to. Course this also ties in to being told not to bother my mother with things.

Stupid Things People Have Done to Me - part 1

2007-09-28T07:30:00.000-05:00

this is gonna be an ongoing topic I think. Mainly because there is MUCH under this category in my life. A big whopping heap of crap that people have dumped on my in childhood. VC blogged about abuse today. Well my contribution to that is gonna be a discussion on greasy hair.

HUH? Have you lost your mind? That has no tie to abuse whatsoever you idiot!? Yeah I know you're thinking it.

However it does. You see I have oily hair and oily skin. Always have. And when I hit 7th grade or so the hormones and oil went into hyper-drive. My mother grew up in a generation where they bated once a week. She still washes her hair about once a week. And in my childhood that was the frequency of hair washing. Which is fine - UNLESS one has oily hair. So there I was moping about with a grease pit on my head, and seemingly everyone at school made fun of me for it. During the summer between 7th and 8th grade we moved to a new town and a new school district but the oily hair followed. And stayed until the quarter in gym class at the new school where we had to do swimming. And the daily exposure to chlorine and water started stripping the oil from my hair. And a few people complimented me on the fact that my hair was clean and shiny. Which prompted me to start showering and washing my hair daily.

I don't think I told my mother until much later in life that I'd been made fun of for that in those years. This was after the infamous 5th/6th grade turtlelips name calling (we won't go into that right now) where I abruptly found out that a teacher had told the entire class in the 6th grade that they weren't to call me that anymore. I always suspected my mother of talking to my teacher. My mother denies this today. I don't believe her. I think she's conveniently forgotten what really happened.

Also at this time I had well-meaning relatives screw with my mind. My parents divorced when I was 10. My mother went to work. My grandmother and one of my aunts laid this whole guilt trip on me long about 7th grade or so about not bothering my mother with things because she worked so hard. Which led me into self-parenting. As an adult I have a hard time with what they did and there are moments when it takes a great deal of self-control not to come unglued on my aunt (my grandmother passed away about 12 years ago) and to just scream "how could you DO that to a CHILD? You're a TEACHER and you did that to me and do you know how much you screwed with me mentally by doing that?" But I"m a good-girl, a people pleaser, so I keep my mouth shut.

So my advice, if you deal with kids NEVER tell them not to take an issue to their parents. That is a parent's role. Be careful how you word things like that because you have no idea how a child is going to interpret that. This is an issue I'm still trying to work past. There is still a part of me that doesn't want to be a burden, that says 'no no, it's okay I can handle it.' and the truth is, I can't. And I often need help but because of that voice from my past saying not to bother because they work too hard I have a difficult time asking.

White Trash Dillons

2007-09-27T17:29:00.000-05:00

Dillons is a grocery store chain. I worked for Dillons when I was in college. When I was in college there were 3 stores in town. The store on the east side of Lawrence is where I worked and used to be the biggest one in town. The smaller stores were replaced with bigger stores making the one on Mass street the small store. The east side of Lawrence is poorer than the west side of town. I mentally refer to this store as the white trash dillons. I normally don't go there but due to the time of day (I was exiting walgreens during rush hour, meaning I wasn't in the mood to do anything but turn right which ended up sending me east after going a few blocks north) I wound up there.

After being nearly mowed down by a running kid and some lady with a cart, after having to detour through the produce section because the line for self check was so long it cut off access to the rest of the store in the front, I observed the following:

A pair of girls one wearing low rise jeans that created the dreaded muffin top. A spaghetti strap t-shirt and an orange bra showing. Her friend wore white satin sweat pants and patterned bikini underwear. Obviously this child's mother never taught her the only white or nude underwear under white dress/skirt/pants rule. Sweat pants were trimmed in green. I mention this because she had on a gray spaghetti strap t-shirt and a purple bra.

It was show your bra day at white trash dillons because I also saw an obese woman wearing a pink spaghetti strap t-shirt with stretched out straps and a black bra.

To top this off the checker at the next register from me had a hickey on her neck.

I should go there more often. It's a trip.

Head Games

2007-09-27T10:50:00.000-05:00

So there's this reconciliation I've been doing for over 4 effing years. It takes me 15 minutes to do. BUT it is freight related. So I've shoved it off on someone else. but he doesn't want to do it. And is trying to shove it off on someone else - me - who is too smart at this point to do what she normally would and say "oh that's okay I'll just keep doing it then" (fuck that shit) or my former boss over in the reporting group.

frankly, if former boss wants it that bad she should do it herself of let go of the issue and ignore the fact that it isn't turned it. she doesn't have recos on other accounts so why should this small account be any different? actually I can answer that - it's control. She can't control me anymore and it makes her bats at times. She can't demand that I do things anymore and it makes her bats so I get this passive aggressive bullshit that goes on.

so I forwarded the mess to my boss with a you know K makes an excellent point yada yada email.

It may be a small thing but for me it's a huge thing. It's about not falling for people's games and their mind tricks. It's about not being the stupid people pleaser I've been for sooooooo long.

Tired

2007-09-27T09:08:00.000-05:00

I don't know if it's that I'm tired or that I'm fatigued. But I'm tired of being worn out all the time. Partly I can blame weed allergy season. Which, by the way, doesn't go away until we get a hard freeze. Lovely.

Partly I can blame my recent weight gain because I'm toting around more of me. Which I hate and that puts me into the self-flagellation mode. Which puts me into the whole depression cycle. And I"m not down but I"m not up either. And I'm tired of it. I'm in a rut and don't know who to break out. Of course it's also budget season, quarter end and the auditors are headed in to visit us in Mid-October. One of my aunts had the audacity to ask me if there was a 'good' weekend in October for her to schedule a family gathering. I told her I couldn't tell her. Besides I'm only going to it if one of my cousins, who lives in the area, is also going because last year I got stuck being the only one in my generation there and I hated it.

Speaking indirectly of older people I went to curves last night and wanted to pound my head against the wall because a pair of older ladies were having a conversation. They couldn't hear each other because both were mumbling and there was other activity going on so they kept having to repeat what they'd said and say HUH? Whadidyasay?? It was like trying to have a conversation with my mother. And I love my mother but the woman needs her hearing checked and my guess is needs a hearing aid but keeps procrastinating on getting it done (and I wonder where my sister gets it from). And really, I'd rather not go to Curves for my workout to be reminded of this sort of stuff.

All I Really Want is a Pair of Pants

2007-09-26T13:15:00.001-05:00

I need to go shopping. I've sorta been shopping. I hate what I see. I want a pair of Khaki's (or 2 or 3) but can I find what I'm looking for in the usual places in a plus size. noooooooooooooooo. For that matter can I find what I'm looking for in a 'normal' length? Of course not because seemingly the entire universe is obsessed with capri length pants. I'm gonna say it - I HATE CAPRI'S. Always have. I've got a couple pair of gauchos but none on the capri front. My personal thought is that they make most women look HUGE. So I refuse to wear them and yet the store buyers keep trying to ram them down my throat.

This means I likely must go into deep debt and forage far from my comfort zone into (gads) a department store or (double gads) the mall to find what I'm looking for.

And let's not get started on the need for fall shoes and shopping for them. And can anyone explain to me why I never have the right shoes and have to keep buying more. My personal theory is that this is all a conspiracy to keep me in poverty.

The Ongoing Battle Between Messymissy and 7thgradeself

2007-09-14T15:12:00.000-05:00

I've been posting about this on a private board and since I'm back to posting on my blog, I think it's time to record it here as well. It's my own little Sybil/3 Faces of Eve sort of battle. Except I can tell you that they are not separate people they are all difference facets of me. Notice, no where in here do I actually make the claim that I am actually SANE.

8/22/07
I don't know what part of me I've unearthed recently but I suspect it's 8th - early college years me. The childhood me. I have no idea if this is good or bad. I'm gonna blame watching a whole bunch of America's Next Top Models recently on MTV. Prolly I should write/blog about this but I'm not gonna go into it now. I used to be very girly. VERY girly, well except when I was being boy crazy - specifically about Tracey Howell but that's another story.

anyway when I decided to cut expenses recently I got rid of my waxing, and professionaly hair coloring. I did my own color recently (and did a good job thank you very much), got it trimmed by a stylest. Which leaves my waxing issue. Now the plethora of chin hairs and such I can get. I hate it but I can get. Resorted to chemical remover for lip hair issue earlier this week. Which triggers - Lordy liss do something with that mess you call eyebrows.

yes folks - I am hairy. and I hate being hairy. and if left alone I get a unibrow and unibrow in my case tends to also drift towards being part of my hairline. Hate it hate it. It took me two nights and remembering guidelines I learned decades ago in Teen magazine but I tweezed my eyebrows an they look decent. Actually I think they look mighty magnificent considering I typically don't bother tweezing and only started waxing them into shape a few years ago on a whim. It was always too much work. And I've always hated spending time on my hair (actually that still holds and it's due to curl not holding and such with my hair - why bother and it fries my hair and the ends break an it's just a bad idea). So this whole old me thing has awkaend. And she sort of scares me. Minaly because anything from my past that awakens like this makes me paranoid about what else it is going to awaken. And can I awaken this part of me without the nerosis and compulsions and freakouts and madness that accompanyied that particular age coming with it. AFter all we are talking about a part of me that active when I was a teenager and hyperemotional and first becoming depressed and developing the whole compulsive eating thing. So it sort of scares me.

Anyway, tonight I did my toenails (something else I cut back on expense wise) because the polish from last week was starting to chip. And I did pore strips ( and why didn't they have those things when I was a teenager???????? - hi i'm liss and I have incredibly oily skin and hair, always have, always will I suspect). and I did all of this while having my cordless headphones on listening to bb on quad cam.

8/22/07 a bit later in the day
This is definitely the persona I refer to as '7th grade self' I have awakened. Adult me is a slop. '7th grade self' is a neatnik. I'm gonna drive myself bats because '7th grade self' wants to clean the house from top to bottom and adult me is tired and lazy.

also later on 8/22/07
By the way I call her 7th grade me, because my mother once asked me (as an adult, my house at the time was utterly trashed) 'What ever happened to the girl who back in the 7th grade had the immaculate bedroom?' I responded by telling her that girl was dead. She's not dead, I just had her locked in a closet somewhere.

And yeah I'm taking the cleaning stuff slowly. Last night after I posted up there I cleaned the bathroom sink counter (i've got two counters, the sink and a long counter with built in drawers under it. Both collect junk and have been disorganized messes.

I've got books bagged up that really really need to go to the car and in to Lawrence to Half Price Books to be sold.

And I figure if I start gathering stuff now, I'll have a nice pile in october for the semi-annual church clothing (and other stuff) exchange.

I can only stand the clutter and messiness for so long then 7th grade self comes out and takes over and forces a clean up. I have a fear of turning into my Aunt Millie. Aunt Millie had half a house she couldn't use because she had stuff filling it. I learned the other day watching the Tyra Banks show that that is a form of OCD by the way (the can't get rid of stuff, must hold on to it).

8/23/07
So tonight I picked up the living room. 7thgradeself wanted to vacuum. Messymissy said excuse me BB is about to come on and I'm tired so NO. That'll be a project for this weekend.

The girliest I got was to shave above the knee for the first time in I can't tell you how long. Managed to nick a bleeder vein on the outside of my left ankle. One of those spots I'm always hitting. Which brought back memories of the first time I shaved my legs - guess what age? Yup- 7th grade. Mom's razor. I don't think she knew until after the fact. Bathroom of 123 Beech in Gardner (which is how I know it was 7th grade. WE lived there for one year).

7th grade self is planning on housecleaning this weekend. Messymissy is grumbling but resigned to the effort.

8/24/07
7th grade self made messymissy pick things up in the bedroom before bed last night. She is a compulsive pickeruper. I saw something that belonged in another room while reading from my bed last night - she made me return it to the kitchen where it belonged. It was actually amusing in a sick, twisted way.

She wants to hit the pile of junk/clutter that has collected at my front door/kitchen area after work tonight.

Interestinly, even though I don't believe in fung shui I did feel a whole different energy or something in my house last night just from the decluttering, cleaning and picking up I've done in the last two days.

messymissy hates when 7thgradeself is right about things.

And I have a collection of personalities
Messymissy (utter slob, wants to live in a dump, I swear)
7thgradeself
Elsie (seriously at times I channel my grandmother, which frightens me so I've named that persona after her)
TheBitch (who I'd love to be rid of but she refuses to leave)

8/27/07
well, due to my Saturday night/Sunday morning back spasms, 7th grade self was pushed to the background a bit. I needed to laze around and not doing anything (well except Sunday afternoon laundry) to allow my back to heal.

This morning? yeah the bitch was in residence on the way to work. I blame a combination of Monday and yesterday's pain for her appearance. The Bitch wanted to tell the world to fuck off and go back home this morning.

8/28/07

So Thebitch and Messymissy were trying to take over during the last couple of days using pain as a way in. 7thgradeself came back last night and made me do the dishes even though I didn't want to. She made me pick up my socks after I worked out at curves. She wanted me to power clean the bathroom but I had to draw the line because that involves huffing cleaning fumes and bending over and my back is still tender from Saturday night/sunday morning's back spasm.

8/31/07
So 7thgradeself has forced me to start making my bed every morning. Typically I start out on these endeavors and fall off the wagon on the weekends, we'll see if it continues.

She wants to keep the longer hair

She has me wearing lipstick/gloss (yes I have, and last week it was eye makeup)

she wants to go shopping (I have NO money and a car leaking coolant - she's gonna have to bite me on that one for a while)

And WHY, WHY I ask, does every face cleanser I own have salicylic acid in it????? Yes I need oil control on this face of mine, but that stuff is too harsh on my skin (dries it out too much and makes me skin flaky).

9/4/07
7thgradeself has helped me realize that a bit of gel on my hair when I pull it back into a ponytail keeps the pullaways and flyaways at bay. (with the help of a couple of combs for the bangs). She amazes me at how smart she is vs what a I can be with stuff sometimes. Which leads me to think that messymissy started appearing sometime in 7th/8th grade since that was when I had uber greasy hair and got made fun of. Crazy. But hey, she has convinced me to keep the hair longer rather than whack it off in frustration.

She also had me watching the ANTM marathon's on MTV this weekend. She is obsessed with that show now. And Has me noticing makeup on people everywhere - tv, magazines, real life.

Oh and the bedmaking continued over the weekend - cats jumping on the bed while I tried to make it and everything (it's like a sport in my house, let's see how much we can make her work to pull the sheet/blanket/comforter up. )

Current face product selection purchased at walmart over the weekend. Witch hazel (I remember now why I hate it - it's the smell. I think that is hideous but I'm using it), Olay face something or other in a white tube for sensative skin - notice I stayed away from the oily skin stuff, Olay regenerist eye gel, and Olay Night Reginerist face cream - oil free and citrus elements in it. We won't talk about the amount of time I spent reading boxes and labels Friday evening at Walmart. (and yes I'm leaning more than a tad in the olay direction - olay is produced by P&G - as is Noxema and Cover Girl (& Secret, Always, Pantene, Infusiom...) and I still own P&G stock and have retirement funds with P&G stock. )

9/12/07
7thgradeself is irked at the state of my house again however my body is giving me fits (back flare) so 7thgradeself has to just deal.

I've decided that 7thgradeself likes R&B - she has me listening to stuff on the radio I never listen to. MessyMissy is a hair metal/classic rock junkie, thebitch likes flat out angry metal, and Elsie is fond of classical and showtunes.

7thgradeself is winning the battle where hair and makeup are concerned. This week's conquest is in the curling iron department. Yup, every morning since Sunday. While the actual curl doesn't hold. the added body resulting from the curl is helping give me a bit of volume. I'll take it. She wants hot rollers now. Give her an inch...

Security Blanket

2007-09-14T10:14:00.000-05:00

You can blame VC for this post.

Yup, I had a blankie has a child. And like Linus it went evvvvvvvvvvvvvvverywhere with me. That and my doll Posey (still have Posey she is bald on top since I carried her around by her hair all the time). And my thumb poked in my mouth. Freud would have a field day with all of that. I'm neurotic and obviously I came out of the womb this way. Go figure.

I remember throwing the blanket in the trash when I was four or five years old. My mother rescued it and still has it in her monster cedar chest. There's not a lot left to it, stringy bits of blanket.

The thumb. Let's not go there. I'm not ready to delve that deep into it just yet on a forum like this. Even mentioning it is kinda scary and making myself highly vulnerable in ways that I haven't in the past. It's one of those deep secrets I don't talk about. Because while the blanket got tossed, the thumb stuck around for a very very long time. And I often suspect that my struggles with compulsive eating are tied to my oral fixation on the thumb. In fact at times I wonder if I would have been better off smoking. Oh wait, that's right I have a sucky respiratory system. Sheesh, now that I think about it, is 43 too old to return to thumb sucking?

Hello Weekend

2007-09-14T07:33:00.000-05:00

Really, I 'should' go to work this weekend. I've got a bunch of stuff to scan into our document management system that I prefer to do on Saturdays when I can hog the copier (copier = copier, printer, fax, scanner to email, scanner to network/document management) but the weather is finally cooler and it's supposed to be cool and damp and in my definition perfect for lazing around the house (after getting weekly household chores done), reading and catching up on a bunch of stuff I have on my tivo.

Next weekend is a bit crazy because 9/23 is my church's fall kickoff and I'll be at church from 8 something to at least 2 pm. That's one worship service, 2 services for teaching 5th grade girls, an hour of volunteer time at the potty toss and grabbing a bite to eat. Looking forward to it, but it's gonna wear me out being around people all day.

Mysterious Ways

2007-06-18T12:11:00.000-05:00

So for months and months- perhaps a year or more I've felt torn between my church and another church. I've prayed for God to show me which direction he wanted me to go in. He's answered. The other church stopped Saturday services. I can still listen to their teachings via the net but since I remain committed to my original church, well, I feel like God has definitely pointed the direction he wants me in.

I'm happy with this. I think I've known for a while now. In large part due to my growing leadership roles within children's ministries at LFMC. Now it's just a matter of plugging in to the right small group. Which likely means a meeting sometime in the future (likely after VBS) with Pastor Larry to discuss what I'm looking for in a small group and my 'needs' as far as desiring deeper bible study and such.

Thunder

2007-06-08T09:08:00.000-05:00

Yesterday as I left work and walked across the parking lot to the far end of the lot where I park, we had storms moving in. And there were loud rolls of thunder. And I remembered Grandma Brueny and Aunt Francis telling me as a child that it was angels rearranging God's furniture or Angels Bowling.

sigh.

I miss them. Grandma Brueny went to heaven in 95. Aunt Francis in 2000 or so.

sigh

I had one of those "I can't wait until I go to heaven and get to see them" moments. The world being utterly insane right now doesn't help that sensation one iota. So come quickly Lord.

Gummie Bears

2007-06-01T15:10:00.000-05:00

So someone at a website I frequent joked in a shout box about decorating with gummy bears. And I was taken back mentally to 1983 or 84. I was in college at the time, and working part time in a motel as a maid. One particularly bad weekend the motel was full, not unusual in a college town in the fall. It had rained and was muddy out. Our motel was filled with ultimate Frisbee people. To be blunt, the place was trashed.

I was helping a friend of mine in a room and opened the curtains to find red gummy bears stuck to the window. Someone had licked the back and stuck them there. I chuckle at the memory but at the time I was grateful we'd opened the curtain. I'd hate to have a guest check in to find that in their room. My friend had also had a close encounter with a gummy fish stuck in a similar fashion to one of the hotel room doors.

My treat that weekend was the room that had to be put on hold. The entire bathroom counter was filled with beer bottle caps. Someone had been sick all over the room. Beer bottles and cans were all over the room. I can't begin to describe the aroma of vomit and beer and make myself nauseous at the thought.

I've been wrting

2007-05-31T07:50:00.001-05:00

meaning not just on here. There's a link to the left titled "LOSTERTATION" (by the way that's a combination of LOST and the word Disertation) to an article I wrote for a website. Click it, read (if you wish).

It's been a while since I've done a piece like that. It felt good. Need to get my writing muscles back into shape.

Bad Timing

2007-05-30T07:49:00.001-05:00

So yesterday my 75 year old mother did her usual warm weather, clear day routine - she walked to curves in the morning in our small town, she worked out and she walked home. Except she didn't make it home because on her return trip while walking she tripped, fell and fractured both wrists.

Do I have time right now to mom sit? Of course not. Why? Well it's month end and I've got Month end prep and Month end begins on Friday. We find out this afternoon is she needs surgery on her wrists. I'm half excepting it to be a yes and figure that said surgery will be in the middle of closing.

I knew this day was coming. The day that I was going to have to start taking care of someone who has cared for me for 43 years. I'm willing to take on that load. Fortunately my stepfather is there. But he has health issues of his own. Let's just say that right now, I'm spending a lot of timing talking to God.

This woldn't be the first instance of family crisis at a bad time. In June 1995 my 90 year old grandmother passed away. The timing? It was in the middle of year end close. I had an inventory audit to do the day after she passed. Where was I that day? At work. Trust me, Grandma Brueny would have understood.

Last year (2006) my Aunt Millie passed. Timing? At the tail end of year end close (January - right after the first of the year - different employer, different year ends). Yes, I took a day off in the middle of year end chaos and attended her funeral.

When Aunt Francis passed it was just after year end. That was several years ago. I didn't attend the funeral in Texas, I regret that. I did get to see her about a month before she passed. She had cancer, we knew it was a matter of time.

My sister fell while mowing the lawn a few years ago and broke her ankle. My mother went to care for her for a couple of weeks. She didn't want to go alone. My sister naturally did this at the end of the month meaning I couldn't go along with Mom so she didn't have to drive from Kansas to Georgia alone. One of my aunts went with her.

A few months ago my stepfather had chest pains and ended up in the hospital. I was loaded down at work in a period that required travel for a week or so at a shot and while not month end I couldn't get away from the office to be there for support.

Matthew 11:28 is a verse I'm relying on at the moment - come all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Decoration Day

2007-05-28T11:01:00.000-05:00

Growing up the calendar may have marked this weekend Memorial Day but my grandmother always called it Decoration Day. It is likely that I spent most if not all Memorial Day weekends at my grandmothers until she sold her house and moved in with one of my aunts when I was in the 7th grade.

There were many trips to the cemetery in Parsons, KS to visit first my grandfather's grave and later my Uncle Paul's and later still my Uncle John's. I was taught cemetery etiquette. You know, such things as 'don't walk on people's graves.'

Such chidings from my childhood carry with me to today. I still cannot walk through a cemetery without being conscious of what side of the tombstone the body is one and being careful not to walk over someone's grave. This mentality makes attending funerals a bit on the difficult side since inevitability you end up walking or standing on someone's grave.

I haven't been down to Parsons in a while. Actually, the last time I was there was to attend my Aunt Millie's funeral in January of 2006. And yes, I recall having no choice but to step on a grave or two to get to my aunt's graveside.

I've been as an adult with my Aunt Dorothy and Mother to decorate graves during the month of May. I've also gone with my mother and stepfather to decorate the graves of his family in south-west Missouri around Clinton. As they've aged, attending to the graves has moved from Memorial Day weekend to earlier (or later) in the month to avoid the crowds and traffic of the holiday weekend.

As I child my sister and I played. As an adult I've been taught the things to look for on a grave. Is the headstone settling funny? Have the graves been harmed by careless mowers? And of course changing out the flowers for new ones. I've helped do such things as clean a mud wasp's nest from the carved name on my grandparent's grave. And in a tiny cometary in Missouri while with my mother and stepfather wanted to cry when I saw the headstones of a family of 4 all with the same date. A family not from that area, killed in a traffic accident.

As a single person I sometimes wonder if when I pass anyone is going to be there to tend my grave? Will anyone be there to care for it after I'm gone.

Big Brother

2007-05-20T19:14:00.000-05:00

So for those people online who've known me for a while, this one might comes as a bit of a shock.

I'm seriously contemplating going live-feed free this summer. It's something I'm feeling led to do. It's a faith thing. It's an obedience thing. It's God telling me to free myself of all sorts of crap in my life hindering my journey. The verse I got in a class Saturday night was

Hebrews 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. (NIV)

And I can imagine what I can accomplish this summer without the addiction of Big Brother sucking my brain every waking moment. I've got writing I'd like to do, and reading. And I know this is going to be difficult since most of my online friends are Big Brother watchers. But I just feel like this is something I NEED to do.

Graduation Weekend

2007-05-19T13:59:00.000-05:00

No no, I'm not graduating from anything. But you see, Lawrence has two high schools and two universities. And it is graduation weekend. My small town has high school graduation tonight. I have errands to run this weekend. Normally I'd have gone to Lawrence to do those this morning. I remembered graduation weekend last night. Aside from going to church tomorrow morning, I'm not going to Lawrence until all the out of towners head back home.

So, errand running will be done in the opposite direction. Yes folks, I'm about to head to 'the city' (aka Johnson county) to do my errands and such. Sad that I'd rather fight the throngs in the city rather than go to Lawrence with a city full of folks who don't know where they're going, but that's what its' gonna be.

Honeysuckle

2007-05-18T07:02:00.000-05:00

My favorite flower is honeysuckle. And the honeysuckle that I've spent a few years has bloomed for the season. With the wonderful weather we've had this week that has allowed me to keep the windows open I get to inhale the heavenly aroma of my favorite flower. When I left for work this morning, I took a deep breathe before getting into the car.

New Blog

2007-05-17T11:27:00.000-05:00

we'll see how this works. No idea if I'll be consistent or not. But hey it's worth a try.

Yeah I know, I know huge post here but it's going to have to do for now.