Tale of a Shooting Star…

I’m just having one of those days where I have no motivation to do anything meaningful at work. I have this feeling like I’m putting off working on a big project, but I don’t actually think that I have anything big and important that I’m supposed to be working on. And maybe that’s the problem. I’ve been so swamped for so long that now that I’m on the other side and can breathe a little bit, I feel lost in the world. I’m so used to being lost in a sea of tasks and projects to be prioritized and now I don’t feel like I have anything.

Don’t worry, a remedy is in sight. It’s all part of this darned job transition that I’ve been struggling with for over a year. I think I’m finally through the woods, but now the clearing isn’t quite ready for my arrival? A co-worker will be in tomorrow who is supposed to have a lot of things for me to do, so I’m hoping he pulls through for me. In the meantime, I should go back through my old lists and see what hasn’t been getting done for a long time in the wake of everything else I’ve had to do.

Or I could go home (which I did) and have a few quiet moments to myself before we have to take Phoebe to the veterinarian. No worries, it’s just her annual checkup. And some sort of shot. Which might be nice because she’ll be feeling subdued tonight, but that could also be bad because she’s been super clingy the past few nights. We’ve been trying to get her to stay off of the couch or at least away from us while we’re eating. The past two nights she’s been refusing to do so, though last night wasn’t as bad as the night before when she laid her head in my lap and just looked at me like I was such a mean mommy. Needless to say, my resolve to push her away melted. I’m such a softy. 🙂

Every time I look out the window, it seems that the snow has taken on a different consistency. Right now, the flakes are big and fluffy again. They’ve been hyping this storm for days, but the truth is that no one has a clue how much snow is coming. Hopefully, this time they can report the right amounts that are on the ground. The storm before last had one of the area meteorologists reporting live on the news that there was going to be able 1/2 inch of snow total when I could clearly look out my window and see more than 4 times that much already on the ground. 😛 I mean, come on, how much does it take to a least take a peek out of a window before you go live and make yourself look like a fool?

Anyway, I’m so distracted that I can’t seem to focus on much of anything today. Little tasks are great because I can actually concentrate for just long enough to finish them and then I’m stuck again. There aren’t many people here, of course. And I don’t want to go looking for work because I’m afraid that once I kick back into high gear, I’ll find 101 things that need my attention. And I’d rather not load my plate with 100 more things just because I can’t focus long enough to figure out what I need to do right now.

But, hey, I’ve gotten enough done that I don’t feel like a total waste of space. Just a little bit of one. And I haven’t sunk to the level of playing games at work. I just keep looking out the window to see if the snow is sticking to the roadways yet so I have an excuse to go home early. At least I could read a leadership book from home and feel like I was actually accomplishing something. I just knew I should have brought that book with me today! The funny thing is that is exactly why my dad said he sent the book to me instead of waiting until they come down in a couple of weeks. He included a note about reading on a snowy day… how prophetic. Maybe I’ll still go home a little early and spend some time in the reading room, watching the snow fall and reading Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”

I get up and go to work, I come home and do more work. What a vicious cycle we humans find ourselves in sometimes. 🙂

As long as I can manage to get enough sleep and keep the headaches to a dull roar, I’ll be okay. It’s nice to have some web work again, but the graphics design is hard on my eyes and on my wrists. Plus, I’ve been chained to my computer since dinner and I’m hungry again now! It’s the nearly midnight munchies.

I actually had a productive last night, too, just not in any work arena. Came home with a headache, so we ate dinner then I took a bit of a nap. When I woke up, I did some stitching on the Heirloom Memories sampler. Then I plugged in DDR and exercised for over an hour. Whew! It’s not funny how much of a sweat you can work up – really amazing! Then, to cool down, I sat and plugged away some more at Heirloom Memories.

All in all, I’m doing pretty well. But I have a headache right now (the new kind, but I won’t get into that right now) and I’m hungry, so… hasta la vista!

Happy Monday!

Haha… it started off with a bang for us. I was getting my shower and the drain started to back up. It was at my ankles when I got out. So, I put on
gloves, got out a plastic garbage bag and the modified hanger for getting hair out of the drain, had Terry unscrew the drain cover and … nothing. There was nothing there to clean!

So, Terry tried plunging it. Nope. Nothing. But the plunging had forced stuff up into the bathtub, so we now knew that the clog must be pretty far down (probably on the other side of the P-trap). More plunging gets us nowhere. We now have standing water with buildup from the pipes laying in it. Yuck!

Next try, Liquid Plumber gel clog remover. Supposed to work in 15 minutes. Hah! 🙂 Terry went into the other bathroom to take a shower, but had fits there, as well, because we had added a little sprayer head with hose to be able to give Phoebe a bath on Saturday and the fitting wasn’t tight, so it was leaking, but he couldn’t get it apart easily so he had to go into the basement for a pipe wrench. How ironic is that? Not fitting tightly enough to keep it from leaking, but not fitting loosely enough for him to unscrew it with his bare hands. Needless to say, Terry was quite grumpy by this point.

Then, we’re both back in our bathroom drying our hair and finishing getting ready when all of a sudden we hear this “gloop” sound and all the drains magically clear (and the vaccuum sucked the water out of the toilet *laugh*). So, I guess that drain opener gel is some pretty good stuff. Then I was able to clean the yuckiness out of the shower and bathtub and we’re back to normal. What a way to kick off the week, though! Whew!

[begin tirade]

… and are apparently too stupid to realize that their comments aren’t being posted on my site. I’ve been getting lone attempts every once in a while, but those people seem to understand that they won’t get posted, so they stop after the first one. This one, however, is persistent. Over 2 dozen attempts in the past 24 hours. My comment moderation queue is getting backed up.

After doing some digging, I found that the particular site they’re spamming for is causing problems for other blog owners, as well. In case any spammers happen to be watching, let me just tell the world that I HATE SPAM! I’m responsible for eliminating it for an entire corporation (and am fortunate enough to get very little to my work address) and I get hundreds a day at my personal address. I have to live and breathe this crap and I’m sick of it. The nasty stuff turns my stomach just looking at the subject lines and the rest is a total waste of my previous bandwidth! And, come on, when you think about it, spamming someone’s blog via comments is just dumb. Yeah, I understand that it’s an attempt to get higher rankings on the search engines in hopes of driving more traffic to your website, but seriously, is it worth the potential for fines and/or jail time? You’re skirting the boundaries of legality and impeding people’s right to freely express themselves and for what? The chance of getting bumped up a couple of spots in the rankings before you get shut down again? I hope it pays well because one’s integrity is worth a lot.

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This is an excerpt taken from the latest Nordic Needle sales letter that arrived this morning. A reader wrote in with some thoughts about getting older. The best was the story she told about her daughter:

My youngest, Elise, gave me a precious gift when I was 40 and she was 3. As you know, “threes” dearly love to comb hair so I let her do mine one morning. Elise stopped combing and remarked “Oh, Mom. You have such beautiful hair.” My nearly black hair was beginning to gray a bit and I felt it was looking a bit “mousey”. Surprised, I asked “Really?! Why do you say that?!” She answered, “It has bits of silver in it and it sparkles when you turn your head.” Seeing myself through the eyes of someone who sincerely loves me as I am gave me a renewed appreciation for the phrase “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” That rare moment of insight was one of the golden threads in the tapestry of my life.

There’s nothing better than the simple truth as seen through the eyes of a child.