Well, I don’t know if this is actually better, but at least it’s more proactive than not doing anything.
Sent this email out tonight to about a dozen folks. We’ll see.
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RE: Extreme Makeover: Garage Edition
OK friends, I find this a bit harder to do than it should be, but I need to ask for some help.
Last summer a shelf holding lumber and doors and boxes in my garage broke and fell. It is time to not only fix that issue but to clean out the junk that has accumulated in my garage for the past nine (9!!!!) years. I need the space to store a clawfoot bathtub and a motorcycle. (And yes, there’s a story there. Are you surprised?)
The problem is that while I’m able to lift a 4×8 3/4-inch piece of plywood onto its edge, I’m too short and too lacking in upper body strength to do much beyond that. And that’s only part of the problem in there. (oy!)
Anyway.
I’m just wondering if you could spare a bit of your Saturday this weekend to lend your muscles (and power tools, if you have them!) to a good cause. It’s probably going to rain anyway.
I’m going to get started around 8:30 a.m. and will knock off to grill supper around 4:30. I’ll have food and beverages available throughout the day. Come when you can and leave when you have to. Many hands make light work and if there’s lot of help I don’t think it will take more than a couple of hours including trips to Home Depot for supplies not previously anticipated.
I’m planning on heading over to the Thorpe building around 6:30 to hear a friend’s band play for Art-a-whirl and who ever wants to can join me. (But be warned: it ain’t baroque)
Hope your program years are all wrapping up nicely. Peace,
So, I feel better for asking. Not that it will be an easy day, no matter what.
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A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
May 15th, 2008 | Category: friends, my crazy life, self-care | Leave a comment
I had lunch with Sr. N today. When she asked how I was doing I was honest.
Me: I’m stressed. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do this for two years, and I wonder at whether it’s worth it if I have to be in a hospital for exhaustion for six months at the end.
Her: You don’t have to do this for two years. You’re ready. The committee meets in July and November. Pray about it and let us know. Maybe you start looking for a call at the end of the year.
She was very sympathetic about not missing the last few years with the boys. “The church is really good at taking us from our families.” was one of the things she said.
I can’t tell you the weight that lifted off my shoulders at the end of this conversation. Even though there’s a lot of time left, the end of the tunnel is so much closer.
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A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
May 14th, 2008 | Category: balance, my crazy life, work | Comments (2)
There’s too much on my plate to even make sense of it. I’m handling things well, as long as I keep my event horizon to about 4 hours. When I don’t, I get the overwhelmies with a side of bone-crushing loneliness. Just saying.
I’m looking for big strong friends with power tools to come over to the house on Saturday and help me clean out the garage. That shelf that fell last summer still hasn’t been fixed and the all the lumber, doors and boxed stuff is still stacked in the back of the garage. And by “stacked” I mean gathered loosely into a pile leaving barely enough room in a two car garage for one car. If I park carefully. And there’s not too much recycling.
Because even though I have learned to do a lot of stuff by myself in the last four years I still can’t pick-up a 4×8 piece of 3/4 inch plywood by myself. Nor can I use a circular saw to make shelves. I might be able to use a drill and bolts to put it up but I’ll never be able to lift all the stuff up there.
Of course, that’s only one of about 50 projects around the house that are reaching critical stage. I’m getting fed up with the half-painted rooms from unfinished projects dating from before the separation. Not a single window screen on the main floor is intact. And I’ve discovered that sparrows have nested in my bedroom window frame somehow.
In the old days, if there had been big projects like the garage or painting, the four or five families from church that we hung out with would come over and help. Like an old fashioned barn raising we put second stories on houses, painted, tiled, re-roofed and razed and raised garages. There was almost like a library of power tools and people who knew how to use them and would help out for an hour or a day (given enough notice.)
I lost those friends in the divorce and now, four years later, I feel like a loser because I haven’t re-established that portion of my support circle.
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A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
May 13th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized, house | Comments (5)
17 years ago, Mother’s Day was on Sunday.
17 years ago, local TV programming included the movies “Mary Poppins”, and “Mr. Mom”
17 years ago, I didn’t sleep much at all the night before
17 years ago, I didn’t get to eat all day
17 years ago, all the hard work and inconveniences paid off BIG time.
DS1 made his debute and I became a mom.
And after everyone left, he and I started to get acquainted.
And so it continues to this day. I’m so glad he’s my boy.
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A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
May 12th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (5)
DS2 did a marvelous job this morning when he made his public statement of faith during his confirmation.
After the service we stayed for the coffee-hour reception and then came back to the house for dinner. We had beef roast, fresh horseradish (courtesy of my first CSA box), broccoli, mashed potatoes and gravy. I forgot to make th cake, but I’ll make it this evening for tomorrow.
My mom and sister came for dinner. Z&A came over as well. DS1’s girlfriend was unable to make it, so we were only seven.
Z&A stayed and chatted for a while. It was nice to catch up.
My favorite line from the afternoon: My mom telling Z that she watches Fox News because “at least they don’t spin everything.”
Oy.
I hope all the mom’s out there had a wonderful day and were able to spend time with the ones they love.
p.s. Woman with No Regrets has been tagged to pick next week’s scavenger hunt word.
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A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
May 11th, 2008 | Category: family | Comments (2)
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A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
May 10th, 2008 | Category: kids, photos | Comments (5)
Frustration abounded today. Lots of little reasons that have just been going on and on. In and of themselves probably not any one of them is a big deal. All together and added up over the last several days (maybe a week) and I spent most of my time with my trainer trying not to cry.
- My shoulder is hurting today. A lot. I’ve tried to take it easy and use the ibuprofen and keep looking for the stupid ice bag. But today I could barely put on my jacket, much less open doors or carry a bag. And let’s not talk about trying to get in or out of an exercise bra with a punky rotator cuff.
- People are coming over tonight and my house when I left it this morning was a garbage pit. When I came home, I realized the boys had put me off long enough that they were unavailable to help. DS1 is in St. Cloud tonight for a baseball tournament and DS2 had another baseball game from 5:30-8:00…so he didn’t even come home from school.
- My work computer kept getting blue screens. So finally tech support agreed to wipe it and reinstall everything. If only. Yesterday, I discovered I couldn’t join the conference call webinar because they hadn’t reloaded the webex meeting manager. Nor could I get onto Outlook email because they hadn’t done something else. And they’d put my email archive on the X drive, so I had to recreate one on the C: drive before I could even open the program…all so it wouldn’t connect and I had to use the web-based version anyway. And that’s just the stuff that I had to deal with today on it.
- I have two projects due next week and still haven’t been given the raw data.
- DS1’s b-day is Monday. Found out from DS2 that he wants an iPod. He wouldn’t tell me himself. When I emailed X to see if he’d go halfsies, he was all like “oh, yeah. he really wants one of those. has for a while.” Why don’t my kids tell me that stuff? All I get is “I dunno.”
- I’m working my butt off to take care of everybody around me and I’d really really really like to feel like someone would once in a while, for like maybe an hour, take care of me.
- Trainer Lady asked what I was doing for mother’s day and I said “confirming DS2, having my mom and sister over for dinner, having DS1’s birthday too.” “Are you going to get to do something for yourself?” “probably not. See it doesn’t really pay. When taking time (or money) out to do something for myself just adds work to my plate later because I have to work twice as hard to catch up with all the stuff that didn’t get done while I was off “taking care of myself.” It’s a trap.
- Certain people who said the weren’t ignoring me actually seem to be ignoring me since I haven’t heard from them all week. And I know I could call, but at what point do you switch from being proactive assertive and healthy to hanger-on, stalker and annoying? and And AND I hate feeling like I have to be passive and wait for someone to call me in these types of situations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- I haven’t had a hug (and by hug I mean grown-up hugging) given to me in three and a half months.
So I’m telling all this to KA, who I called to give hell to because she wasn’t showing up to this dinner tonight and it was going to me and all the newbies. And no one to debrief with afterwards. And at the end of the litany of woe, I made some crack about the pity party being over now because I hate feeling like a victim-y whiner (keep it down over there! I spew forth this crap here because there’s nowhere else to purge it.)
Anway, she said, “sometimes it’s justified. Sounds like you have a lot of crap going on right now.”
It’s kinda weird, this being heard thing. I’ll have to try it again, soon.
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A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
May 9th, 2008 | Category: my crazy life | Comments (2)
I know. It’s Wednesday. But Evil-e reminded me (nicely, really) that Churlita tagged me for the word for this Saturday. Apparently SOME people actually plan these things out and work on them before Saturday morning. Who knew?
I haven’t caught up with everyone yet, so I was a little flustered when I came home from having a glass of wine with MC (owner of my local coffee emporium and community goddess extraordinaire) so I’m going to try to pick a word I’m pretty sure hasn’t been used in the last few weeks.
Just so you know, Evil-e is probably going to HATE the word. But Renee will just have to help him with it. 
In honor of Spring finally showing up in the Twin Cities, the word is PINK.
Ok. Drum me out of the Scavenger hunt if you must. But the word is PINK for this Saturday. PINK, you hear me??! Not yellow daffodils or red tulips or even purple azeleas. Although I’d have lots to add for that kind of a hunt. But PINK.
I don’t know why. It just is.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch….
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A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
May 7th, 2008 | Category: photo, photos | Comments (5)
I got a lot done today. But of course, not everything. And in fact, I’m not done with my day. But I know it won’t all get done. That’s just not the way of this world. As an old friend used to say “Your to-do list will be finished when you’re dead.”
Sort of a way of thinking of “job security” I guess, even when the to-do’s aren’t associated with paying work.
One notable thing: today was one of those days where I worked from home in the morning and then took an early lunch in order to attend the staff meeting at church. And again, when I returned to the corporate job, at least two people made a comment about how “chipper” or “refreshed” or “good” I looked. As if I actually have a different way of walking and carrying myself after time at the “other” job.
It always catches me off guard in order to have this independent confirmation that the internship work feeds my soul and the corporate work, no matter how good I am at it, or how lucrative it is, weighs me down spiritually.
So. there you go.
On the brighter side, I’m not getting ignored.
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A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
May 6th, 2008 | Category: balance, my crazy life | Comments (4)
Morning. It’s not my favorite time of day. In fact, if given the chance to set my own schedule, I wouldn’t need to be anywhere until about 10 because I feel like the best sleep is between 5-8 am.
But I work and live in a world that doesn’t see it my way.
I’m up even earlier than I want to be this morning because I realized that I need to get my stuff together and get an expense report submitted or I’m going to loose several hundred dollars. When I don’t do expense reports regularly they become cumbersome and a chore. Of course, I hear that from people who have to file them every week too. Ah well. Human beings are peculiar, I guess.
I’d like to remind myself in a few weeks that the pity-party phase seems to have at least a small hormonal component. That doesn’t mean the root cause is false, only that it may be magnified during certain times. Re-read the section of Christain Northrup’s book and see if it’s not true. Somehow I need to deal with the root cause(s) because the pity-party is not only unpleasant, it engenders a round of self-loathing based on victim-y I-wanna-be-taken-care-of whining that is equally unpleasant as the original whining.
Admittedly, acknowledging those things doesn’t make them go away. Nor does it necessarily make it easier to weather the storm/phase when it happens.
I also want to admit to myself that the exercising really is making me feel better. So, do yourself a favor and keep dragging yourself down to the gym. Keep trying. And remember: Progress not perfection.
So, I’m waiting for the dryer and I’ll go do a cardio session before work today. Then the first thing I’ll do is an expense report and mail it off to the community’s office in Chicago.
Good grief, it’s early!
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A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
May 5th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (3)
