Me-Me-Me-Meme

Cathy tagged me to do a meme. I am supposed to tell seven things about myself, just seven things. This one does not say anything about telling little known stuff! I'm going to go with this stream of consciousness style and see where it leads. . .

1) I am a curious person who wonders about sometimes oddball things. Tonight as I walking with the dog and waiting for him to do his business, I wonder what the criteria is that makes the perfect spot to do his business. He scopes out two or three spots before he actually makes a choice and does any thing.

2) I have wondered for probably ten years, and have asked lots of people close to my age, about a cartoon I watched when I was young that had a donkey with a big sombrero as one of the characters. At the end of the show, there was a stage coach with a trunk on the back of it and the donkey would pop out of the trunk and say "'saw right". That is all I could remember of the show. A couple of weeks ago, I had dinner with a couple of old friends and I asked them about this as we sat on the porch of Cracker Barrel rocking and visiting. They through a few names out but none of them seemed right. One of them emailed me later and told me who it was. I even found a video of the closing on YouTube.

Here is the link if you care to watch it. For some reason I can't get the video embedded in the post. 3) I always loved watching the wheels on the stage coach adjust to the mountain curves on the ending credits to Quick Draw McGraw.

4) I have lived in the South and was raised on the smell of strong coffee brewing in the mornings. I love that smell but I only started drinking coffee in the last three weeks. The "gateway drug" that started it was those Mocha Java Chillers with an extra shot of Espresso from Sonic. I decided I could not keep on drinking those things and live a long life so I had to break my habit and now I drink real coffee!

5) I'm having trouble coming up with three more things. . .

6) I recently got a brand new washer and dryer from Fisher-Paykel. The dryer is a top load dryer. It has been so weird getting used to it. Plus it is a little deep and if something small gets left in it, I can't reach to the bottom of the dryer to get it. Other than that, I like it a lot. At the same time I was getting my set, Ayekah was also looking for a washer and dryer. She ended up getting the same brand, but not the same model. Hers has a computer screen that says "Your clothes have finished drying. Have a nice day."

7) That reminds me, I really don't like it when people tell me "have a good one". Have a good what? I know, I know, it is just something to say, and it may or may not be a sincere thought. Come to think of it, I also don't like it when people tell me to "have a blessed day". Does that make me a curmudgeon? I just don't like people telling me what kind of day to have!

8) I thought of something else, a bonus, but I forgot what it was. Oh well, y'all have a good and blessed one, ya hear?

(Feel free to play along and let me know so I can go see what I don't know about some of y'all.)

Here's How the First Week Went Down

My first week working for the state government, and the first time I did anything remotely resembling work was Friday (but don't tell anybody!). From what I understand, I will make up for it when the fall semester begins. I am told students will be lined up out the door to see me. I guess that means I will be the first line of defense for the professors??

Anyway, thus far, I love the new job. I did do a few necessary things during the week that qualify as work, I suppose--attended new hire orientation, received my ID (with a terrible picture!), bought a parking pass, learned about the insurance choices I have to make, and the retirement choices that are made for me (we don't participate in social security, we have a state retirement plan), got a key to the "magic kingdom"--the building and the office (but I still need to get my key to the more important "magic kingdom"--the faculty and staff washroom!), and got my email account set up so now it seems I will be good to go.

I cleaned out a cabinet to store office supplies on Friday and got to take home a few things to use for artsy-fartsy projects that were going to be tossed in the dumpster. I'll have to wait for inspiration to hit to see how I am going to use those things.

I also found out that after two years, I can attend classes for a fantastic discount price and I can even take one class and attend during my work day as long as I stay in a few lunch hours to make up the time. I am so excited about that and plan to take advantage of it just as soon as I possibly can! Maybe by the time I retire, I will have a degree! I think it is so great to have the opportunity to attend classes and learn more. I've always regretted that I did not have a better idea of what I wanted to do when I was younger, that I was not committed to getting higher education. Now I have the opportunity to try again. Tonight I am grateful, again, for second chances.

What Has Been Going On With Me?

Well, I'll tell ya...Tres Finis (or something like that!). It was a long time coming, but I finally spent my last day in the land where they know not what number goes with which month and needed to make reminders on my desk pad...

I was also inspired to clean out my artsy-fartsy room, my studio, my sanctuary, my eldest daughter's room, which had slowly become a junk room. It was in a little bit of an orderly state until this member of the family arrived unannounced and uninvited. She is a curious sort and I am banning her from my room from here on out (and if youngest daughter does not pay more attention to the litter box, I will be banning her--the cat, not the youngest daughter--from the house. Hubby already has two women at the office who will take her).

I have my magic wand from Mindy handy so that I can use it when needed. I will post better pics of the room eventually. All I have right now is my phone camera.

When I left my job Friday, Mama Boss (there were three bosses, Mama Boss, Papa Boss, and Son Boss) had put a moon pie in my purse. I learned from her (among other things, some of them not so pleasant) how delicious moon pies are when heated up in the microwave for about twenty seconds. However, if you watch the marshmallow filling jiggle as you bring it to the table, you might not want to eat very many of them, because you will have in your mind the image of your own body parts jiggling like marshmallow filling!

When I arrived home from my last day of work, there was a box on my doorstep with a little pot in it. What a fitting tribute to the end of my career at the paint and body shop! Thanks Cynthia, for the pot!

It feels good to look at this pot and know that I was finally able to "turn the knob" and make a choice to do what I needed to do for my own sanity.

The complete quote is "If it is dark, it really doesn't help to know that light is on the other side of the door. It is a blessed relief if just one person opens the door a crack for you. Turn the knob."

I just love that quote. Cynthia wrote in a prayer journal at her church. It says so much about hope and light. Sometimes that is all a person needs is just a little crack in the door to help them know they can move from their darkness toward hope and light.

And last, but not least, here is a small thing I did in my journal using one of my calendar doodles. I knew I had this but I did not find it until I did all my cleaning.

Sadly, there are a few other things I have not found yet. One is my "Bird by Bird" book by Anne Lamott. Hopefully it will turn up soon. I try to make good use of the library and keep the number of books I own to a minimum but if this book does not turn up, I will buy a replacement copy. The other thing I can't find is a group of old photos someone sent me as extra stuff in a swap several years back. There was one photo in there that reminded me of myself. I know I stuck those photos somewhere, but so far I have not found them.

This reminds me of another story I could tell of something (trivial) being lost (in my memory) and then being found, but since this seems to be a long post, I think I will save that for another day.

I am woefully behind on my blog reading and hope to catch up this weekend. Seems all my favorite bloggers have had lots to say!

(My apologies for the quality of the photos. My good camera is not here at the moment and these are all phone camera photos.)

The Beginning of the End

Today I gave my two weeks notice. I feel like a heavy burden has been lifted off my shoulders. I feel badly about disappointing them and causing them the trouble of having to find and train someone else, but it was time for me to "get out of Dodge". In the end, they will be all right, and so will I.

If you have some extra time, click on the link to "Postcards From Yo Mama" in my second blog list on my sidebar. Some of those posts are hilarious (and altogether believable)!

I'm trying a new comment feature from Blogger Draft. Please let me know if it is a problem for any of you who comment.

I came across this quote in yet another blog I read faithfully but never comment on. I will have to add it to my links.

"My basic philosophy is one of being well-prepared and exercising the greatest caution but believing that if I have an accident on the trail and end up being food for the vultures, it's better than a nursing home. Rest in peace." --Ralph Ramey

The guy is 79 years old and has written two books on hiking. I'm seeing his quote as a great metaphor for approaching change in life. In the next two weeks, I figure I will be "gnawed on" by the "vultures" at my old job but I also know that I am getting myself off that trail before the gnawing becomes fatal! I've made my choice and I am as well-prepared as I can be to deal with the consequences. That is about the best I can do. And if I start feeling too "gnawed on" then, by golly, I can pick up my backpack and move on down the trail!

I may have put this one up here before, but it seems especially appropriate for a new beginning...

Time for a Change

I've spent the better part of the last three years learning to decipher this handwriting, and to understand the terminology behind it, but it is time to move on. It has been time to move on. I just tend to be cautious and slow to act. But when I've had enough, I've had enough and several months ago it became apparent to me that there were some things about my job that were not going to change and I knew it was time for me to leave. I was not entirely sure where I wanted to go or how it would all work out.


I started looking around and went on several interviews for civil service jobs with the state. One thing we all know is that it takes patience to deal with anything the government has its hands in. I'm not trying to be ugly, it's the truth. We all know it! About a month ago I went on an interview at the local university and was told she wanted me for the position. Great excitement ensued, for about three hours. And then she called saying there was a state-wide hiring freeze. She still wanted me but she could not officially offer the job until the freeze was lifted and she did not know when that would be. So I've had to bide my time and wait for a little while and that is never any fun for me, especially when I have no idea how long I have to wait!

To go ahead and get the story told, let me say that she called this week saying she had the okay to fill the position and she still wanted me if I had not found something else. Now it looks like sometime in the next three weeks or so, I will be taking on an administrative assistant's position in the psychology department of the local university. I am very excited about this news and looking forward to the change in environment.

I'm nervous about giving my notice at my present job but I think I will write about that another day.

Penni's Bookish Meme Challenge

Penni, of "Martha, Martha" fame posted an easy meme challenge on her blog this morning. She did not know I happened to have three old books nearby that were snagged (for artsy-fartsy purposes) from the resale shop my sister manages.

Anyway, I'm supposed to go to page 123 and read the fifth sentence on the page and post it here. Here is my odd little snippet:

"Sundry other speeches were made by men of less ability, but developing kindred sentiments and the same anti-republican principles."

From Danger in the Dark, by Isaac Kelso (pub. 1912)

"Just Trust the Lord"

(the essay/memory I mentioned earlier that was going to be a Memorial Day post and morphed into something else entirely--perhaps I've been thinking too much lately.)

I never knew my Uncle Wilson. He died in World War II and was buried in France.

The young man who was a friend of Uncle Wilson’s and was with him when he died is still living and has been a part of our family history for many years now. His name is Raymond.

Raymond came to visit my great grandparents after the death of their son. One of the things my great grandfather asked was whether Uncle Wilson had a nice funeral service. Many years later, Raymond told my mother that was the hardest thing he had ever done, to lie and tell that “old man” his son had had a nice funeral service. Conditions were primitive and times were hard. He said they probably just tossed the body into a gravesite and went on. Went on to deal with the living, I would assume.

What luxury for the innocent and naïve, who are not even aware of the luxury, to believe the protective lies of wartime burial stories. I’m not saying the lie was wrong, my great grandparents were tender people who needed the sensitivity. My great grandparents were also people of faith.

I’m told my great grandmother spent much time after the death of her son sitting silently and wringing her hands. She eventually suffered a nervous breakdown. There were subsequent problems and time spent in mental hospitals and even a few rounds of electric shock therapy. I was protected from this knowledge as a child growing up.

I did not hear it so much from my great grandmother as I did from my great grandfather, but there was always the general admonition to trust the Lord in all things. Once he told me that when I was dating a fine Christian young man, to “just trust the Lord and seek His will”. I was a bit insulted at the time. I thought I was already doing exactly that, and I expected that things would go well with me as a result. Things did not go well with me on that account; the young man broke up with me and the rejection forever altered the way I saw myself, or maybe it just brought out into the open the secret way I had always seen myself. I don’t really know the answer to that question and it does not really matter. The rejection and not getting my way in the matter, those things hurt.

Fast forward several years and witness the circumstances of my life the past few years as I have spent time worrying over a son with addiction problems. Those things hurt too. I am extremely grateful for the progress my son has made, extremely grateful. There were many times I sat in the darkness and practiced the equivalent meditative wringing of my hands. Those words, “just trust the Lord” would often ring through my ears while I knew my son was out there, somewhere in the darkness of addiction, and I did not know whether he would come home alive, or whether I would be called with news that he had harmed someone while driving under the influence. I did learn to trust, most of the time, but it was a long hard process, and it is never completely learned once and for all.

What I truly learned, from experience--and not from my Sunday school teachers, or my great grandfather’s words, which also echo down to me now from my mother’s mouth--What I truly learned is how I want to react to God at the moment when I am not getting my way from Him or life, when things look totally hopeless. I am not always sure exactly what “just trust the Lord” looks like in my life, but I am sure that I want to trust, no matter how dark things might look.

So one thing I know for sure is that I do not want or need to be told to “just trust the Lord” when it looks like the darkness is going to overcome me. That part of the equation I have already decided and committed to.

It is a hard question, but now I wonder, in her time of maddening grief over her lost son, did my great grandfather whisper to her to just trust the Lord in all these things? Is that not the hard side of faith, to be told to just trust the Lord when it looks and feels as if all your hope is gone?

I think that we as people of faith must be very careful with how we use our words, and how we comfort others in their darkness, because sometimes, in the darkest of nights, being reminded to “just trust the Lord” is a searing, red-hot poker applied to an already seething wound. In those times, maybe the Lord does not need for us to state His case to His hurting child. In those times, maybe the kindest thing we can do is to sit silently with the hurting person. Maybe we can attempt to hold the wringing hands so they won’t feel so alone and helpless. But maybe, just maybe, in those times, the words “just trust the Lord” are words that are best left unsaid.